Bad Blood // This Side of Paradise
Jul. 23rd, 2005 10:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsRemy hands along the information to the person Alison was to meet, completing a task more important - and personal - than he could ever have imagined.
Mirror, Mirror - Part II
The Village, New York
Remy left the bar, seething. Whoever the Professor was using as his drop, he knew a hell of a lot more than a fucking courier should. Remy made a mental note to see if Jake could ferret out a couple of Xavier's New York contacts that they didn't know of. How the hell this guy knew about the Black Court's little DNA sampling espionage ring was the first question, and the second was how would he know how close Remy was to finding the information.
The only positive thing was that he'd confirmed Remy's suspicions; Wisdom did order the kidnapping, and someone inside the Hellfire Club had sent Meggan back as a double message. First, that Wisdom wasn't going to get what he wanted, and second, if he tried, he'd have to get it from the people best able to hurt him for doing it.
What was in that package that was so important for it to be delivered today. What does Xavier have running? The whole thing stunk, and Remy glowered as he melded into the sidewalk traffic. First he had to get back to the mansion and tell Xavier the job was done. Then get Betsy and Jake moving on the spy ring. The last thing Shaw or any of the Hellfire Club should have is unlimited access to the databases of the CDC or Johns Hopkins' mutant testing facilities.
And once that was sorted, he and Xavier were going to have a little chat.
~*~
Haroun arrives. Jean is the one to greet him, a duty any doctor knows well enough. There is precious little comfort she can offer him, though she does her best before resuming her own, weary vigil. Haroun then goes to find Nathan, who is trying as best he can to keep one specific pattern as coherent as he possibly can.
This Side of Paradise
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.25pm
It wasn't that the sense of hurry and rush and must-get-it-done-now had lessened in anyway, it was just that there wasn't anything left that Jean could do. She'd given the hospital staff all she could in the way of knowledge and assistance, and now things were infuriatingly out of her hands. Not that Jean blamed them - hospital rules were not to be breached, you just couldn't afford to have people running about pell mell doing whatever they thought was best, and besides, there was an upper limit to the number of people you could get into an ward before they started getting in each others' way.
Finding Dr. Rosenberg had been a godsend, though, for a number of reasons. For one, Jean had the utmost faith in his abilities, both as a doctor and as the head of the ER, and for another, he knew about her powers and, once they had decided to skip the shocked "You're alive!" conversation in favor of keeping Alison that way, he'd let her info dump what he needed directly into his mind, saving precious minutes, and was not protesting when she occasionally rode his thoughts to track their patient's progress.
Which, on the whole, was not looking terribly positive. Jean's mind was at least half submerged in Dr. Rosenberg's at the moment, but that didn't keep her from sensing the extremely agitated presence zeroing in on her.
That agitated mental presence was like a Force of Nature, and it was Not Happy. Anything that would not get out of his way was simply gone through, or at best around. "What HAPPENED?" he snapped to a small cadre of doctors standing outside one of the operating theater. Bemused expressions greeted him, one of the physicians glancing at his cohorts curiously.
#Haroun, over here,# Jean sent towards him, hoping to cut him off before he badgered the interns out of their wits. The doctors in question were young interns who would normally have been inside, learning their profession, but who had been kicked out of their normal routine and the operating theater once their seniors had gotten a look at Al's wounds. They didn't know anything, and were already confused and frustrated enough. Besides, they couldn't help him. "How much did you hear?" she asked, once she had his attention.
"I was at a concert festival with a couple of the kids," he said. "All I know is that something happened and Alison's in surgery now. Why here? What is going on here?" he demanded.
Oh boy... Jean briefly contemplated trying to cut his control over his vocal cords when she told him, but it was a hopeless thought on several levels. #She was abducted by Sabertooth. Nate and Charles found her and we had to retrieve her, fast. She was in need of more medical care than the school can provide, so we brought her here.# There really wasn't any way to make things not sound as bad as they were, and Haroun wouldn't have taken well to being coddled, anyway.
Haroun sagged against one wall, exhaling sharply. #Has Sabretooth been taken into custody, or better yet, a shallow unmarked grave?# he thought clumsily to Jean. "Here, we can talk about it more ... over here," he said, grabbing at Jean's arm and wrestling her down the hall to a less-exposed area of the hospital.
"He ran," Jean said when they were farther out of earshot of the curious interns. "Getting her here was more important than catching him." #Don't really know what happened down there - was confined to the Bird. You'll have to ask Scott for more.#
Haroun nodded. "Too many people here. If he makes another attempt, I couldn't stop him without someone getting hurt. How soon can we move her?" he asked Jean, back to being all business again. "I'd like to get her back in the air and to Westchester ASAP."
"No," Jean said, shaking her head. "He'd have no reason to know we brought her here, every reason on earth not to want to try and get past Cain and Nate, and now you, sitting guard here, and moving her is not an option."
"You've read his file, right?" he said, staring at Jean incredulously. "He's a hunter. A predator. If he wants to find her, he will. He's a perfectly-conditioned killing machine with no shred of humanity to hold him back. I have no doubt that he'd quite happily depopulate this entire hospital to get back to Alison," he said strongly. "And I've had my fill of wading knee-deep in blood."
"I'm aware of all of that, Haroun. I've faced him before..." Before you'd ever even heard of him, she finished in her head, but now was not the time. "He chose to run rather than face Cain and Nate and finish the job, he won't come after her here, at least not now. And even if he was outside, on the street, right now, moving Alison is Not. An. Option." The corner of her mind that was still following Rosenberg's thoughts was aware of the thought running through his mind that he didn't think anyone could survive this, but that he was damned if he would let anyone die in his hospital without a fight.
Haroun gritted his teeth, and punched the nearby wall. Childish of him, but pain was a wonderful focus for the mind. "So we sit here and wait? See if these people can put her back together again? Is that it?" he snapped at Jean.
"Have you somehow acquired an MD or twelve without telling us? Learned that Alison has a healing factor we never knew about it?" Jean shot back. "Dr. Rosenberg and his staff are good, Haroun. You have to trust them, or trust me, at least. Or don't for all I care, but keep out of the way." She breathed in, reigning in her anger. "I know it's hard, but there isn't anything you can do now."
"An MD? No. But I know a little thing or two about recovery from trauma. Would it be easier to just replace rather than trying to heal the meat?" he shot back, and then shook his head in negation. "Never mind, that's a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. Sorry, Jean." he said by way of an apology. "How bad is it, really? Lay it on me here."
Jean accepted the apology and moved on, knowing just how much stress he had to be under. "Very," she said, somewhat shortly, her eyes un-focusing for a second as she diverted more of her attention back into the ER. "And if cybernetics would help they would absolutely be in consideration now, but none of the damage is something that can be fixed that way. The fact that she didn't bleed to death before we got here and could get her transfusions is... more a testament to Nate's TK than almost anything else."
"Trust me. Replacing with machines is not an option. Even if it was an option, it's not an option. But if it is that bad then it is that bad. If you'll vouch for the medical staff here then I'll accept your word for it," he said tiredly. "God, what a day. I presume she's still under the knife and thus not able to receive visitors?"
"It is that bad, I'm afraid. The head of the ER is an old friend of mine, and he's letting me ride his mind while they're in there. I promise I'll let you know the minute he knows anything, either way, but for now all we can do is wait."
Haroun nodded, and sank into one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room. "You said Cain and Nathan are here, right? Guess we should try to coordinate some sort of a perimeter, just to be on the safe side," he said tiredly.
"Cain is keeping guard on the main ER entrance," Jean said, nodding in the direction she'd last seen the large man, her own weariness starting to show a little in her eyes. "And Scott and Sam are out with the bird... somewhere. Nathan is nearby." She could feel him doing something, when her concentration on Rosenberg wavered, ever so slightly. But she didn't have the time to pay attention. "I'll be over here, until something changes."
"You up for maintaining a mind net, or should I go bother Nathan?" he said, not looking up from his slumped position in the chair.
"Hassle Nate. I haven't got the energy or the control, and I can't risk intruding more actively on Rosenberg's mind."
"Sounds good." he said listlessly. After a few moments, he pushed himself back to his feet and wandered back into the hospital to go track down a Nathan and a Cain.
~*~
Patterns. Back to patterns. And he knew what the patterns of Alison's mind should look like, could see them in his mind, perfectly reflected in his memory. The fraying, disintegrating wreckage he felt now? Not the way it should be. Nathan closed his eyes, leaning more heavily against the wall, barely perceiving Charles still at work all around him, directing the attention of anyone who didn't need to see what was happening elsewhere.
Not the way it should be. But could he force it back into the way it should be, hold it together? So fragile. Crumbling under his touch, light breaking into erratic, sparkling dust.
Haroun walked - slumped, really, into the waiting room where Nathan was concentrating on whatever it was he was concentrating on. Taking pity on the big man, he got a bad hospital coffee from the vending machine and walked over to him with it. "You look like shit." he said, in a horrible attempt at sounding cheerful.
"Shh." It came out a croak, and Nathan blinked at Haroun, feeling oddly disjointed. Too much of his attention elsewhere. Catching fireflies in the dark, pulling them back together into the patterns they should be. The smell of the coffee did reach him and he reached out a shaking hand, but stopped, suddenly hyperaware of the blood on it. On his hands, all over his leathers, and he flashed suddenly on the image of that room, Alison hanging, strips of flesh on the table...
Haroun blinked and sagged himself, only the cyberwear's autostabilization routines keeping him upright. "Dear God." he said feelingly. "Did you have to fucking well share that with me?"
"I'm sorry." His voice cracked. "I'm trying... I'm holding onto her, but it's all there too." He blinked at Haroun rapidly. "Can you think of her? Focus on something. Not this, but still her. It's what's swallowing her, she can't remember. Have to remember for her."
Haroun crammed himself into one of the chairs, glad for once that he really couldn't feel much below the navel. "Telepathic communication isn't my forte..." he said, but then he closed his eyes to block out as many distractions as he could. He concentrated, and he ... remembered.
Remembered the mulish look on her face when he had something she wanted.
Remembered the slow wicked smile on her face when he drove her back from their first date out together.
The way her office looked with her in it, all of her things neat and tidy and organized, even though her personal space was a disaster
Nathan took each of the memories, the images, and tried to find their echoes in Alison's darkening mind. Tried to give her that sense of Haroun's presence. Something to hold onto. Touchstone moments. It wouldn't take much, would it? Just something. Something that was color and light and love, not darkness and malice and pain, and if she felt it, if she could reach back out, even just for a moment...
Nothing. No response. Another strangled noise of frustration slipped free, and Nathan sagged against the wall.
Haroun kept his eyes closed - in a way, this was torture. To sit here and remember her at her best when she was being cut open and patched back together again ... it was, in his own way, the hardest thing he'd ever done. But he refused to consider it as saying goodbye. He got an inspiration, and began throwing images out at Nathan.
Miles.
The two of them playing chess together, the boy's absent frown of concentration as he struggled to master the game's intricacies. Miles, practically vibrating off this plane of existance from too much sugar, being handed back by an exhausted Haroun.
Nathan seized on the images desperately. Surely this would work. Haroun and Miles together? He knew how important that was to Alison, how...
Nothing.
Nothing? It was like he'd hit a wall, suddenly, his mind refusing to accept that this wasn't working, that she was...
... slipping further. Flickers of light, winking out. Nathan pushed himself away from the wall, staggering towards where they were working on her.
Haroun opened his eyes, and staggered after Nathan. Something was very wrong, and if these were to be her last moments, he wanted to be there.
~*~
There is a moment in everyone's life where a turning point is reached, an event not yet entirely understood yet crucial all the same. Clarice goes through a test, a coming of age she had never anticipated. And without her, this story would not have gone on.
What are Little Girls Made Of?
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.35pm
Impacted bowels on an 80 year old man who had a stroke was not anyone's idea of an emergency, but 911 had been called so Clarice and her team had rushed over for nothing. Wheeling the man in to the ER, while doing their best to distract and calm his irate girlfriend, they met a harried looking intern.
"Number 4 is empty..." he stuttered, glancing over his shoulder quickly. The room was the farthest from the door and normally, they would have taken him to a closer room, but one glance around the ER and it was obvious that Something Was...
"Ca...er...Hydrant!" Clarice said, surprised to see the hulking X-Man standing guard at a room door. "I gotta....I mean..." without waiting for permission from the squad paramedic she headed over, deftly pushing pash confused and disgruntled nurses and technicians. For all of the sense of emergency Clarice could feel, it seemed as though the majority of the staff still carried on about as though it were any normal day in the ER ward, with no drastic cases at hand.
Cain glanced over at Clarice, arching an eyebrow briefly before remembering the girl's 'day job' as a junior EMT. "Juggernaut in the leathers now," he reminded, giving a small smirk. "Sorry, can't let you by. Doc Grey's orders. Gotta keep everyone out." Part of him felt slightly guilty - Clarice wasn't part of the team, but she knew Alison as much as anyone at the school did. But the tension and the panic would be high enough without word getting out this quickly.
"Bullshit, Juggy," she said smirking and crossing her arms over her chest before turning serious, "I'll get past regardless. Lemme help. You wouldn't be here if it weren't bad."
Cain stuck a hand out, shaking his head. "This ain't a scraped knee on the pavement, Clarice. This is damn bad, it's..." he heard the shouts of the doctors from behind the double doors. The words "asystolic" and "defibrillating" didn't mean much to him.
The word "flatline" did, however. A wave of panic washed over him. Doctors weren't going to be able to do enough, not as fast as they needed. Taking a deep breath, Cain came to a quick conclusion.
"Clarice, get to the school now. Grab Amanda, I don't care what she's doing. Get here here in the next fifteen seconds. Move!"
"Yes sir," with a parting glance at her coworkers she teleported to back to the concert, not taking the time to remind Cain of the event. "X-Men emergency, c'mon," she said, before grabbing the girl and teleporting back to the ER.
Cain looked at the two girls, Clarice slightly flushed from the quick exertion, Amanda looking panicked but gathering herself. Grabbing the witch by the arm as gently as he could, Cain pulled her towards the double doors.
"Whatever you've got to do in there, whatever they ask you to do to help - you get it done, hear? Fuck whatever rules they tell you that you can and can't do. Save her life. Please."
With that admonition, Cain calmly opened the door and let Amanda into the chaotic emergency room.
~ 10.38pm ~
"--dy hell do you..." Amanda startled words died in her throat as she looked around her, taking in the ER, the be-gowned doctors and nurses, Jean among them, Nathan in the corner looking pale and strained, Haroun hovering as closely as he could to the knot of people near the operating table without getting in their way. Then her glance fell on the patient and everything else fell away, the voice of the doctor angrily demanding that the girls be removed from the room barely registering. Blood, so much blood, and pale skin that was marked and bruised and covered with welts, and fingers shouldn't be bent that way... In that second, Amanda saw Charlie's still white face in her mind, the pool of blood surrounding him and knew exactly who it was and why she was here, why Clarice had dragged her here, and ice filled the space inside her chest, a spike of fear pinning her to the spot.
She couldn't Heal Alison.
The damage, even from here, was too great, the blood loss too extensive. She didn't have the power - even without the amulet crippling her, there wasn't a power source great enough for this kind of healing. A whole shop full of artefacts, all the mystic sites on Earth, still couldn't give her what she needed here. She couldn't be their miracle, not this time, and the knowledge brought a raging, helpless anger that seared away the ice gripping her heart.
Alison was going to die.
~ 10.40pm ~
Clarice anxiously waited for any sort of news after she brought Amanda to the ER. So far, nothing. Amanda had gone in and....nothing. She wasn't about to port in blindly, even if she had said she would to Cain. She wasn't quite that stupid.
"I'll be okay," Tim Williams, the paramedic and crew chief on Clarice's unit said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. Their call had ended already but they hadn't left the ER and instead were all waiting with her.
"You guys can go...I mean, I'll meet you back at the station when everything's okay, I'm gonna stay," Clarice babbled slightly and flapped one hand.
Amanda ran out of the ER room, a grim look on her face and with a glance at Tim, whispered urgently in Clarice's ear.
Clarice nodded, opening a teleportation disk. "I'll be back," she vowed, not noticing how much she sounded like she was imitating the Terminator before she blinked away.
Illyana wasn't in their suite, either the common room or her room. It figured, Clarice thought, they needed her five minutes ago and Illyana had probably chosen that moment to go back to Russia or something stupid.
Not in the gym. Or the rec room. "There you are," Clarice muttered having finally found her in the kitchen, sitting calmly as if nothing were happening. Grabbing her by the hair, Clarice teleported them back to the ER.
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Illyana demanded sharply, detaching Clarice from her hair none too gently. "And where the bloody hell are - " Her voice died off, stunned, and she pushed Clarice out of her way, catching sight for the first time of Alison though ER doors that opened to let a harried looking nurse rush through.
Or what might have passed for Alison on a good day.
"Bitch, please," Clarice said as Illyana disappeared into the ER room. Taking a couple of unsteady steps backwards she fell into the chair she had vacated only a few minutes before.
~*~
Power is as power does and Illyana is no one's fool. Speed is of the essence ~ and the power Limbo represents is the nearest and greatest at hand which Amanda might be able to use.
In fact, Limbo is the only power Amanda might be able to use… for this day in particular.
And The Children Shall Lead
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.42pm
Stunned, Illyana stared dumbfounded at the bloody scene before her, chaos passing her by as her words (chosen carefully to cut all who stood before her down a notch) died on her lips. It felt like a long time, standing there, though it was only a few seconds; the image of Alison (superimposed over other images, crossing her mind unbidden: A swift blow to the neck, the smooth arc of a sharp knife) bloody and - obviously - perilously on the edge of death. Savaged. She found herself swallowing convulsively, torn between the need not to move (if she moved, she would have to do something, and she had nothing) and the desperate desire to run before someone asked her what the hell she was doing there.
What the hell am I doing here?
Her mind snapped into clear focus just as her eyes caught on Amanda. "Right," she breathed, and then was grabbing Amanda by the arm, striding forcefully forward, already reaching for the link she shared with Limbo. "Get ready," she told Amanda, as much warning as she was willing to afford her. In a flash of harsh light, she and Amanda were sinking into the flat light of Limbo.
The warning wasn't enough, by half, but Amanda was already there, bracing herself for the accumulated power of Limbo smacking her in the metaphorical face. She'd been here before, true, unshielded and helpless against the power surge. This time she had the amulet and the training with Moira behind her.
It still hurt like hell.
Ignoring the wrongness she felt, she opened up her mutant power as much as she could, as much as the amulet allowed, absorbing all the ambient power of the place she could. Then, with a curt nod, she signaled Illyana to take them back, purposefully ignoring their surroundings. If she looked she'd have to acknowledge the other girl was something other than human, to control such a place, and that she wouldn't do. Not after Halloween.
Illyana didn't dare linger after Amanda's nod; they were moving again as soon as Illyana could make them, ascending (how appropriate) back up through the floor of the emergency room. Casting an unfairly impatient glance at the general vicinity, she stood back, trying not to expect - too much - from Amanda and finding herself expecting it anyway.
Okay, showtime. She could do this. She had to do this. Standing at the head of the bed, reining in her concentration, Amanda lay her hands on Alison, one just barely brushing her forehead, the other her midsection, trying to ignore the waves of pain she was beginning to sense as she started the spell. There was so much damage there. Too much. Gritting her teeth, Amanda started the spell, but instead of the cascade of golden light from her hands, a few fitful sparks ensued, the magic petering out.
One of the nurses standing a bit behind the others, holding a tray, was shaking her head slowly. It was, really, as though they'd never seen Amanda or Illyana standing there, continuing their desperate work steadily - but now the pace was slowly down, ever so slightly, identical knowing looks starting to mirror themselves upon the faces of the entire ER team clustered around the table.
"No..." she murmured, frowning and trying again. This time there wasn't even a hint of power. "What the fuck? Come on, I do this all the fuckin' time, this isn't what's s'posed t' happen..." She looked wildly around the room, seeing all those expectant faces but not focusing on any one person. She couldn't, not and see the disappointment there, the accusation. "Again," she told Illyana, voice harsh. "Take me back again, 's just a glitch, I'm sure it'll work next time."
Illyana did not have time for her stomach to twist with failure: Instead, she nodded sharply, and did not bother to warn Amanda again. With a flick of power, they were back standing on an open expanse of marble. The sight of stormclouds building at every angle - quiet, for now, but a reflection of the tumult trying to break through in her head, trying to break her courage - made her grit her teeth with displeasure. "Just tell me when," she told Amanda shortly, saving the cutting remarks for a time when lives didn't depend on Amanda's mental focus.
Taking a deep breath, Amanda reached up and undid the clasp of the amulet's chain. Too much magical interference perhaps, and cutting back on what was being thrown around could only help, right? She blessed Moira's training as Limbo's power hit her again unfiltered this time, managing to hold onto some semblance of control. It was only when she felt the tell-tale shifting in her sinuses that signaled the approaching nose bleed that she nodded at Illyana again. "Now," she grated through clenched teeth.
They went again, Illyana pushing them out of Limbo faster than she usually thought appropriately cautious, the ER appearing in a blinding flash of fluorescents. The voices were no longer calling out with as much urgency as before, it was easy to see and now Haroun was in the room where he'd not been before, leaning on the wall nearby. Had they bothered to look behind them, they would have seen Jean heading for the far corner, towards Nathan.
Staggering slightly at the sudden teleport, Amanda turned to Alison, saying the words of the spell out loud this time. Pushing with all of her will, all of her... wait, where was the power? All she'd absorbed in Limbo, it wasn't there.
"I can't," she choked out. "The power... I can't hold onto it." She looked down at the broken form beneath her hands, hot tears blurring her vision. She was going to fail, and someone else was going to suffer for it.
"It's no use." The voice broke through the now heavy silence, reluctantly so. Though Dr. Rosenberg clearly yearned to keep trying, the damage was simply to great, and the blood loss beyond their ability to counter, now. One by one, the medical staff pulled away from the table, shoulders slumping, some looking away from the table with tight expressions. Haroun was allowed to move closer finally, as though through some silent communication shared by all those in the room.
Illyana closed her eyes briefly, desperation driving her further than she really wanted to go. Okay, clear and obvious solution. "Brace yourself," she snapped at Amanda, hoping the other girl would catch on, and directing her gaze away from the mess (broken, beaten, bleeding, and still, somehow, alive - not for much longer, if nature had its way - Illyana had to fight nausea) in front of them. A flash of light obscured the bloody floor and sank them - she and Amanda, Alison prone on the table, and, because he was too close to push out of the way, Haroun - into Limbo.
The skies, rather than foreboding and dark, were breaking: The throne room shook with thunder, static electricity filled the air, the temperature had dropped dramatically, and rain made its way through the tall narrow windows with a vengeance. Limbo was no longer flat and tranquil: It was actively violent.
Her look could not have been clearer: Do it fast.
Haroun tried to step forward, to demand an explanation. Tried – and failed. His first clue that something was desperately wrong was him hitting the cold, hard ground. Only long training allowed him to throw out a semblance of a breakfall to keep his head from bouncing off the flagstones. Shiro would have mocked him for days, had he seen it. A quick query returned only a stony silence. He was offline, and not in the 'Help, I’m broken' way.
In the 'There’s nothing there' way. Neither girl noticed though, each intent on the other and the woman now lying on a table, from which ragged cables and IVs hung from, swinging haphazardly in the increasingly violent winds of Limbo.
Amanda nodded at Illyana over the throbbing in her head. She still had the amulet off, and the pressure was building, but fuck it, she could suck it up. Deal with the headache later. Closing her eyes, she concentrated 'feeling' for the spell, pushing the power she could feel towards Alison, willing her to heal...
...and the power refused to go.
It was almost like it was mocking her, refusing to do what she wanted. And in that moment she finally realised. It wouldn't do as she wanted, because it wasn't her power to use. It belonged to someone else. She met Illyana's eyes, and said the words she'd never thought she'd utter to Limbo's Queen.
"Help me. I can't do it without you."
~*~
Limbo has ever been a realm of mystery, its secrets held from a succession of Kings and Queens, a line of power stretching out beyond time as Mortal Man knows it. And though it answers to its Ruler, always, it still possesses a will of its own.
Dagger of the Mind
Limbo
Time unknown
Roiling distantly upon Itself, letting the creature from Other Where feel what was right at its fingertips without ever letting it take hold while the other one bled its remaining lifeblood upon Its soil slowly, Limbo purred to itself.
Its Queen was here. Strong and angry and bleeding a myriad other emotions for it to savor, carrying memories of the Other Place for it to tug at, wanting more. Curious as to what kept her away for so long, away from itself.
It would play with the thing scrabbling at it desperately, uncaring of who lived or died while within its embrace, and pay homage to Its ruler.
Illyana's eyes locked with Amanda's, and she found, amid the howling storm outside, that she knew - beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond reason, beyond anything rational - what to do. It wasn't that calm overtook her or cleared her mind: Desperation drove the Soulsword into her hand, instinct taking over thought, need overthrowing everything else, and she was moving closer to Amanda.
I can't do it without you.
Hell was freezing over anyway.
Blood pounded in her ears, and she dared not hesitate: One hand pushed Amanda roughly - almost viciously - to the ground, and the other swung down in a long, seemingly endless arc of light, the only source of it, now, until it found its target.
The Soulsword plunged through Amanda's hand and deep, deep down into Limbo.
Suddenly, a single thought rang out from the one living being it would listen to blindly, the purpose and intent behind it unmistakable.
And Limbo heard.
Whatever it took. Never had Amanda so strongly believed it, even as Illyana pushed her to her knees, held her hand flat against the stony ground. Even as the Soulsword hung in the air for an endless moment, before beginning its descent. Whatever it takes. All her concentration, all her energy was focused on Alison, lying so still now. Not going to let you die. Not this time. Then the Soulsword came hurtling down, pinning her hand to the ground, and everything vanished in a brilliant burst of light and magic and raw power, and only one thing remained in Amanda's mind. One command.
Heal.
~*~
The order was not one it was inclined to follow. Not coming from another than its Queen. And the focus of purity created from the parts of She Who Ruled which were beyond its ken was firmly joined to that of the mortal trying to use its essence. The weapon was anathema to Limbo, hated beyond anything else it had ever known in its millennia of existence.
But through all of this, Her will shone though, clear and strong. Limbo's Queen wanted a healing for the dying creature. And there was more than enough blood soaking the ground for Limbo to make use of it, should it choose to obey Her desires.
Toying with the notion, near to rejecting it as the sword held no power over it as might have his Queen's Will alone, diluting her wishes to mere requests, Limbo paused slowly, another realization pierced through. A window into the Other Where. A means and tool to finally see where its Ruler went, far away until it could not perceive Her. Could not follow Her.
Heal.
With a feeling of satisfaction, Limbo snatched away Alison Blaire's last breath, searing its Mark upon her to claim her as its own.
~*~
~ 10.45pm ~
There is a medical emergency room, in a hospital, in a city, in a country, on a world where Magic does not hold the sway it once did.
In this room, there are people, who moments before were staring at an empty space, gaping in horror and incomprehension.
This space has been filled again. Two girls stand nearby, one dark-haired and near to collapsing, holding to another whose eyes glow with what some would call the fires of hell themselves.
Smoke curls up and around them, as though they have been through a firestorm. It winds around the body of the man near the table, pushing himself up slowly to look at the women resting upon it. Possessively, almost, it curls around the motionless and unmarked body, before finally fading to mere wisps, figments of one's imagination.
Silence reigns, for a moment, until the woman finally moves, just enough to draw air in a desperate gasp, terror and pain echoed in the indrawn breath. The breathing steadies out, though the shivers coursing through her body do not.
Death has been cheated.
And the price has been paid.
~ End of Bad Blood ~
The Village, New York
Remy left the bar, seething. Whoever the Professor was using as his drop, he knew a hell of a lot more than a fucking courier should. Remy made a mental note to see if Jake could ferret out a couple of Xavier's New York contacts that they didn't know of. How the hell this guy knew about the Black Court's little DNA sampling espionage ring was the first question, and the second was how would he know how close Remy was to finding the information.
The only positive thing was that he'd confirmed Remy's suspicions; Wisdom did order the kidnapping, and someone inside the Hellfire Club had sent Meggan back as a double message. First, that Wisdom wasn't going to get what he wanted, and second, if he tried, he'd have to get it from the people best able to hurt him for doing it.
What was in that package that was so important for it to be delivered today. What does Xavier have running? The whole thing stunk, and Remy glowered as he melded into the sidewalk traffic. First he had to get back to the mansion and tell Xavier the job was done. Then get Betsy and Jake moving on the spy ring. The last thing Shaw or any of the Hellfire Club should have is unlimited access to the databases of the CDC or Johns Hopkins' mutant testing facilities.
And once that was sorted, he and Xavier were going to have a little chat.
Haroun arrives. Jean is the one to greet him, a duty any doctor knows well enough. There is precious little comfort she can offer him, though she does her best before resuming her own, weary vigil. Haroun then goes to find Nathan, who is trying as best he can to keep one specific pattern as coherent as he possibly can.
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.25pm
It wasn't that the sense of hurry and rush and must-get-it-done-now had lessened in anyway, it was just that there wasn't anything left that Jean could do. She'd given the hospital staff all she could in the way of knowledge and assistance, and now things were infuriatingly out of her hands. Not that Jean blamed them - hospital rules were not to be breached, you just couldn't afford to have people running about pell mell doing whatever they thought was best, and besides, there was an upper limit to the number of people you could get into an ward before they started getting in each others' way.
Finding Dr. Rosenberg had been a godsend, though, for a number of reasons. For one, Jean had the utmost faith in his abilities, both as a doctor and as the head of the ER, and for another, he knew about her powers and, once they had decided to skip the shocked "You're alive!" conversation in favor of keeping Alison that way, he'd let her info dump what he needed directly into his mind, saving precious minutes, and was not protesting when she occasionally rode his thoughts to track their patient's progress.
Which, on the whole, was not looking terribly positive. Jean's mind was at least half submerged in Dr. Rosenberg's at the moment, but that didn't keep her from sensing the extremely agitated presence zeroing in on her.
That agitated mental presence was like a Force of Nature, and it was Not Happy. Anything that would not get out of his way was simply gone through, or at best around. "What HAPPENED?" he snapped to a small cadre of doctors standing outside one of the operating theater. Bemused expressions greeted him, one of the physicians glancing at his cohorts curiously.
#Haroun, over here,# Jean sent towards him, hoping to cut him off before he badgered the interns out of their wits. The doctors in question were young interns who would normally have been inside, learning their profession, but who had been kicked out of their normal routine and the operating theater once their seniors had gotten a look at Al's wounds. They didn't know anything, and were already confused and frustrated enough. Besides, they couldn't help him. "How much did you hear?" she asked, once she had his attention.
"I was at a concert festival with a couple of the kids," he said. "All I know is that something happened and Alison's in surgery now. Why here? What is going on here?" he demanded.
Oh boy... Jean briefly contemplated trying to cut his control over his vocal cords when she told him, but it was a hopeless thought on several levels. #She was abducted by Sabertooth. Nate and Charles found her and we had to retrieve her, fast. She was in need of more medical care than the school can provide, so we brought her here.# There really wasn't any way to make things not sound as bad as they were, and Haroun wouldn't have taken well to being coddled, anyway.
Haroun sagged against one wall, exhaling sharply. #Has Sabretooth been taken into custody, or better yet, a shallow unmarked grave?# he thought clumsily to Jean. "Here, we can talk about it more ... over here," he said, grabbing at Jean's arm and wrestling her down the hall to a less-exposed area of the hospital.
"He ran," Jean said when they were farther out of earshot of the curious interns. "Getting her here was more important than catching him." #Don't really know what happened down there - was confined to the Bird. You'll have to ask Scott for more.#
Haroun nodded. "Too many people here. If he makes another attempt, I couldn't stop him without someone getting hurt. How soon can we move her?" he asked Jean, back to being all business again. "I'd like to get her back in the air and to Westchester ASAP."
"No," Jean said, shaking her head. "He'd have no reason to know we brought her here, every reason on earth not to want to try and get past Cain and Nate, and now you, sitting guard here, and moving her is not an option."
"You've read his file, right?" he said, staring at Jean incredulously. "He's a hunter. A predator. If he wants to find her, he will. He's a perfectly-conditioned killing machine with no shred of humanity to hold him back. I have no doubt that he'd quite happily depopulate this entire hospital to get back to Alison," he said strongly. "And I've had my fill of wading knee-deep in blood."
"I'm aware of all of that, Haroun. I've faced him before..." Before you'd ever even heard of him, she finished in her head, but now was not the time. "He chose to run rather than face Cain and Nate and finish the job, he won't come after her here, at least not now. And even if he was outside, on the street, right now, moving Alison is Not. An. Option." The corner of her mind that was still following Rosenberg's thoughts was aware of the thought running through his mind that he didn't think anyone could survive this, but that he was damned if he would let anyone die in his hospital without a fight.
Haroun gritted his teeth, and punched the nearby wall. Childish of him, but pain was a wonderful focus for the mind. "So we sit here and wait? See if these people can put her back together again? Is that it?" he snapped at Jean.
"Have you somehow acquired an MD or twelve without telling us? Learned that Alison has a healing factor we never knew about it?" Jean shot back. "Dr. Rosenberg and his staff are good, Haroun. You have to trust them, or trust me, at least. Or don't for all I care, but keep out of the way." She breathed in, reigning in her anger. "I know it's hard, but there isn't anything you can do now."
"An MD? No. But I know a little thing or two about recovery from trauma. Would it be easier to just replace rather than trying to heal the meat?" he shot back, and then shook his head in negation. "Never mind, that's a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. Sorry, Jean." he said by way of an apology. "How bad is it, really? Lay it on me here."
Jean accepted the apology and moved on, knowing just how much stress he had to be under. "Very," she said, somewhat shortly, her eyes un-focusing for a second as she diverted more of her attention back into the ER. "And if cybernetics would help they would absolutely be in consideration now, but none of the damage is something that can be fixed that way. The fact that she didn't bleed to death before we got here and could get her transfusions is... more a testament to Nate's TK than almost anything else."
"Trust me. Replacing with machines is not an option. Even if it was an option, it's not an option. But if it is that bad then it is that bad. If you'll vouch for the medical staff here then I'll accept your word for it," he said tiredly. "God, what a day. I presume she's still under the knife and thus not able to receive visitors?"
"It is that bad, I'm afraid. The head of the ER is an old friend of mine, and he's letting me ride his mind while they're in there. I promise I'll let you know the minute he knows anything, either way, but for now all we can do is wait."
Haroun nodded, and sank into one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room. "You said Cain and Nathan are here, right? Guess we should try to coordinate some sort of a perimeter, just to be on the safe side," he said tiredly.
"Cain is keeping guard on the main ER entrance," Jean said, nodding in the direction she'd last seen the large man, her own weariness starting to show a little in her eyes. "And Scott and Sam are out with the bird... somewhere. Nathan is nearby." She could feel him doing something, when her concentration on Rosenberg wavered, ever so slightly. But she didn't have the time to pay attention. "I'll be over here, until something changes."
"You up for maintaining a mind net, or should I go bother Nathan?" he said, not looking up from his slumped position in the chair.
"Hassle Nate. I haven't got the energy or the control, and I can't risk intruding more actively on Rosenberg's mind."
"Sounds good." he said listlessly. After a few moments, he pushed himself back to his feet and wandered back into the hospital to go track down a Nathan and a Cain.
Patterns. Back to patterns. And he knew what the patterns of Alison's mind should look like, could see them in his mind, perfectly reflected in his memory. The fraying, disintegrating wreckage he felt now? Not the way it should be. Nathan closed his eyes, leaning more heavily against the wall, barely perceiving Charles still at work all around him, directing the attention of anyone who didn't need to see what was happening elsewhere.
Not the way it should be. But could he force it back into the way it should be, hold it together? So fragile. Crumbling under his touch, light breaking into erratic, sparkling dust.
Haroun walked - slumped, really, into the waiting room where Nathan was concentrating on whatever it was he was concentrating on. Taking pity on the big man, he got a bad hospital coffee from the vending machine and walked over to him with it. "You look like shit." he said, in a horrible attempt at sounding cheerful.
"Shh." It came out a croak, and Nathan blinked at Haroun, feeling oddly disjointed. Too much of his attention elsewhere. Catching fireflies in the dark, pulling them back together into the patterns they should be. The smell of the coffee did reach him and he reached out a shaking hand, but stopped, suddenly hyperaware of the blood on it. On his hands, all over his leathers, and he flashed suddenly on the image of that room, Alison hanging, strips of flesh on the table...
Haroun blinked and sagged himself, only the cyberwear's autostabilization routines keeping him upright. "Dear God." he said feelingly. "Did you have to fucking well share that with me?"
"I'm sorry." His voice cracked. "I'm trying... I'm holding onto her, but it's all there too." He blinked at Haroun rapidly. "Can you think of her? Focus on something. Not this, but still her. It's what's swallowing her, she can't remember. Have to remember for her."
Haroun crammed himself into one of the chairs, glad for once that he really couldn't feel much below the navel. "Telepathic communication isn't my forte..." he said, but then he closed his eyes to block out as many distractions as he could. He concentrated, and he ... remembered.
Remembered the mulish look on her face when he had something she wanted.
Remembered the slow wicked smile on her face when he drove her back from their first date out together.
The way her office looked with her in it, all of her things neat and tidy and organized, even though her personal space was a disaster
Nathan took each of the memories, the images, and tried to find their echoes in Alison's darkening mind. Tried to give her that sense of Haroun's presence. Something to hold onto. Touchstone moments. It wouldn't take much, would it? Just something. Something that was color and light and love, not darkness and malice and pain, and if she felt it, if she could reach back out, even just for a moment...
Nothing. No response. Another strangled noise of frustration slipped free, and Nathan sagged against the wall.
Haroun kept his eyes closed - in a way, this was torture. To sit here and remember her at her best when she was being cut open and patched back together again ... it was, in his own way, the hardest thing he'd ever done. But he refused to consider it as saying goodbye. He got an inspiration, and began throwing images out at Nathan.
Miles.
The two of them playing chess together, the boy's absent frown of concentration as he struggled to master the game's intricacies. Miles, practically vibrating off this plane of existance from too much sugar, being handed back by an exhausted Haroun.
Nathan seized on the images desperately. Surely this would work. Haroun and Miles together? He knew how important that was to Alison, how...
Nothing.
Nothing? It was like he'd hit a wall, suddenly, his mind refusing to accept that this wasn't working, that she was...
... slipping further. Flickers of light, winking out. Nathan pushed himself away from the wall, staggering towards where they were working on her.
Haroun opened his eyes, and staggered after Nathan. Something was very wrong, and if these were to be her last moments, he wanted to be there.
There is a moment in everyone's life where a turning point is reached, an event not yet entirely understood yet crucial all the same. Clarice goes through a test, a coming of age she had never anticipated. And without her, this story would not have gone on.
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.35pm
Impacted bowels on an 80 year old man who had a stroke was not anyone's idea of an emergency, but 911 had been called so Clarice and her team had rushed over for nothing. Wheeling the man in to the ER, while doing their best to distract and calm his irate girlfriend, they met a harried looking intern.
"Number 4 is empty..." he stuttered, glancing over his shoulder quickly. The room was the farthest from the door and normally, they would have taken him to a closer room, but one glance around the ER and it was obvious that Something Was...
"Ca...er...Hydrant!" Clarice said, surprised to see the hulking X-Man standing guard at a room door. "I gotta....I mean..." without waiting for permission from the squad paramedic she headed over, deftly pushing pash confused and disgruntled nurses and technicians. For all of the sense of emergency Clarice could feel, it seemed as though the majority of the staff still carried on about as though it were any normal day in the ER ward, with no drastic cases at hand.
Cain glanced over at Clarice, arching an eyebrow briefly before remembering the girl's 'day job' as a junior EMT. "Juggernaut in the leathers now," he reminded, giving a small smirk. "Sorry, can't let you by. Doc Grey's orders. Gotta keep everyone out." Part of him felt slightly guilty - Clarice wasn't part of the team, but she knew Alison as much as anyone at the school did. But the tension and the panic would be high enough without word getting out this quickly.
"Bullshit, Juggy," she said smirking and crossing her arms over her chest before turning serious, "I'll get past regardless. Lemme help. You wouldn't be here if it weren't bad."
Cain stuck a hand out, shaking his head. "This ain't a scraped knee on the pavement, Clarice. This is damn bad, it's..." he heard the shouts of the doctors from behind the double doors. The words "asystolic" and "defibrillating" didn't mean much to him.
The word "flatline" did, however. A wave of panic washed over him. Doctors weren't going to be able to do enough, not as fast as they needed. Taking a deep breath, Cain came to a quick conclusion.
"Clarice, get to the school now. Grab Amanda, I don't care what she's doing. Get here here in the next fifteen seconds. Move!"
"Yes sir," with a parting glance at her coworkers she teleported to back to the concert, not taking the time to remind Cain of the event. "X-Men emergency, c'mon," she said, before grabbing the girl and teleporting back to the ER.
Cain looked at the two girls, Clarice slightly flushed from the quick exertion, Amanda looking panicked but gathering herself. Grabbing the witch by the arm as gently as he could, Cain pulled her towards the double doors.
"Whatever you've got to do in there, whatever they ask you to do to help - you get it done, hear? Fuck whatever rules they tell you that you can and can't do. Save her life. Please."
With that admonition, Cain calmly opened the door and let Amanda into the chaotic emergency room.
"--dy hell do you..." Amanda startled words died in her throat as she looked around her, taking in the ER, the be-gowned doctors and nurses, Jean among them, Nathan in the corner looking pale and strained, Haroun hovering as closely as he could to the knot of people near the operating table without getting in their way. Then her glance fell on the patient and everything else fell away, the voice of the doctor angrily demanding that the girls be removed from the room barely registering. Blood, so much blood, and pale skin that was marked and bruised and covered with welts, and fingers shouldn't be bent that way... In that second, Amanda saw Charlie's still white face in her mind, the pool of blood surrounding him and knew exactly who it was and why she was here, why Clarice had dragged her here, and ice filled the space inside her chest, a spike of fear pinning her to the spot.
She couldn't Heal Alison.
The damage, even from here, was too great, the blood loss too extensive. She didn't have the power - even without the amulet crippling her, there wasn't a power source great enough for this kind of healing. A whole shop full of artefacts, all the mystic sites on Earth, still couldn't give her what she needed here. She couldn't be their miracle, not this time, and the knowledge brought a raging, helpless anger that seared away the ice gripping her heart.
Alison was going to die.
Clarice anxiously waited for any sort of news after she brought Amanda to the ER. So far, nothing. Amanda had gone in and....nothing. She wasn't about to port in blindly, even if she had said she would to Cain. She wasn't quite that stupid.
"I'll be okay," Tim Williams, the paramedic and crew chief on Clarice's unit said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. Their call had ended already but they hadn't left the ER and instead were all waiting with her.
"You guys can go...I mean, I'll meet you back at the station when everything's okay, I'm gonna stay," Clarice babbled slightly and flapped one hand.
Amanda ran out of the ER room, a grim look on her face and with a glance at Tim, whispered urgently in Clarice's ear.
Clarice nodded, opening a teleportation disk. "I'll be back," she vowed, not noticing how much she sounded like she was imitating the Terminator before she blinked away.
Illyana wasn't in their suite, either the common room or her room. It figured, Clarice thought, they needed her five minutes ago and Illyana had probably chosen that moment to go back to Russia or something stupid.
Not in the gym. Or the rec room. "There you are," Clarice muttered having finally found her in the kitchen, sitting calmly as if nothing were happening. Grabbing her by the hair, Clarice teleported them back to the ER.
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Illyana demanded sharply, detaching Clarice from her hair none too gently. "And where the bloody hell are - " Her voice died off, stunned, and she pushed Clarice out of her way, catching sight for the first time of Alison though ER doors that opened to let a harried looking nurse rush through.
Or what might have passed for Alison on a good day.
"Bitch, please," Clarice said as Illyana disappeared into the ER room. Taking a couple of unsteady steps backwards she fell into the chair she had vacated only a few minutes before.
Power is as power does and Illyana is no one's fool. Speed is of the essence ~ and the power Limbo represents is the nearest and greatest at hand which Amanda might be able to use.
In fact, Limbo is the only power Amanda might be able to use… for this day in particular.
Bronx-Lebanon Medical Center, New York
10.42pm
Stunned, Illyana stared dumbfounded at the bloody scene before her, chaos passing her by as her words (chosen carefully to cut all who stood before her down a notch) died on her lips. It felt like a long time, standing there, though it was only a few seconds; the image of Alison (superimposed over other images, crossing her mind unbidden: A swift blow to the neck, the smooth arc of a sharp knife) bloody and - obviously - perilously on the edge of death. Savaged. She found herself swallowing convulsively, torn between the need not to move (if she moved, she would have to do something, and she had nothing) and the desperate desire to run before someone asked her what the hell she was doing there.
What the hell am I doing here?
Her mind snapped into clear focus just as her eyes caught on Amanda. "Right," she breathed, and then was grabbing Amanda by the arm, striding forcefully forward, already reaching for the link she shared with Limbo. "Get ready," she told Amanda, as much warning as she was willing to afford her. In a flash of harsh light, she and Amanda were sinking into the flat light of Limbo.
The warning wasn't enough, by half, but Amanda was already there, bracing herself for the accumulated power of Limbo smacking her in the metaphorical face. She'd been here before, true, unshielded and helpless against the power surge. This time she had the amulet and the training with Moira behind her.
It still hurt like hell.
Ignoring the wrongness she felt, she opened up her mutant power as much as she could, as much as the amulet allowed, absorbing all the ambient power of the place she could. Then, with a curt nod, she signaled Illyana to take them back, purposefully ignoring their surroundings. If she looked she'd have to acknowledge the other girl was something other than human, to control such a place, and that she wouldn't do. Not after Halloween.
Illyana didn't dare linger after Amanda's nod; they were moving again as soon as Illyana could make them, ascending (how appropriate) back up through the floor of the emergency room. Casting an unfairly impatient glance at the general vicinity, she stood back, trying not to expect - too much - from Amanda and finding herself expecting it anyway.
Okay, showtime. She could do this. She had to do this. Standing at the head of the bed, reining in her concentration, Amanda lay her hands on Alison, one just barely brushing her forehead, the other her midsection, trying to ignore the waves of pain she was beginning to sense as she started the spell. There was so much damage there. Too much. Gritting her teeth, Amanda started the spell, but instead of the cascade of golden light from her hands, a few fitful sparks ensued, the magic petering out.
One of the nurses standing a bit behind the others, holding a tray, was shaking her head slowly. It was, really, as though they'd never seen Amanda or Illyana standing there, continuing their desperate work steadily - but now the pace was slowly down, ever so slightly, identical knowing looks starting to mirror themselves upon the faces of the entire ER team clustered around the table.
"No..." she murmured, frowning and trying again. This time there wasn't even a hint of power. "What the fuck? Come on, I do this all the fuckin' time, this isn't what's s'posed t' happen..." She looked wildly around the room, seeing all those expectant faces but not focusing on any one person. She couldn't, not and see the disappointment there, the accusation. "Again," she told Illyana, voice harsh. "Take me back again, 's just a glitch, I'm sure it'll work next time."
Illyana did not have time for her stomach to twist with failure: Instead, she nodded sharply, and did not bother to warn Amanda again. With a flick of power, they were back standing on an open expanse of marble. The sight of stormclouds building at every angle - quiet, for now, but a reflection of the tumult trying to break through in her head, trying to break her courage - made her grit her teeth with displeasure. "Just tell me when," she told Amanda shortly, saving the cutting remarks for a time when lives didn't depend on Amanda's mental focus.
Taking a deep breath, Amanda reached up and undid the clasp of the amulet's chain. Too much magical interference perhaps, and cutting back on what was being thrown around could only help, right? She blessed Moira's training as Limbo's power hit her again unfiltered this time, managing to hold onto some semblance of control. It was only when she felt the tell-tale shifting in her sinuses that signaled the approaching nose bleed that she nodded at Illyana again. "Now," she grated through clenched teeth.
They went again, Illyana pushing them out of Limbo faster than she usually thought appropriately cautious, the ER appearing in a blinding flash of fluorescents. The voices were no longer calling out with as much urgency as before, it was easy to see and now Haroun was in the room where he'd not been before, leaning on the wall nearby. Had they bothered to look behind them, they would have seen Jean heading for the far corner, towards Nathan.
Staggering slightly at the sudden teleport, Amanda turned to Alison, saying the words of the spell out loud this time. Pushing with all of her will, all of her... wait, where was the power? All she'd absorbed in Limbo, it wasn't there.
"I can't," she choked out. "The power... I can't hold onto it." She looked down at the broken form beneath her hands, hot tears blurring her vision. She was going to fail, and someone else was going to suffer for it.
"It's no use." The voice broke through the now heavy silence, reluctantly so. Though Dr. Rosenberg clearly yearned to keep trying, the damage was simply to great, and the blood loss beyond their ability to counter, now. One by one, the medical staff pulled away from the table, shoulders slumping, some looking away from the table with tight expressions. Haroun was allowed to move closer finally, as though through some silent communication shared by all those in the room.
Illyana closed her eyes briefly, desperation driving her further than she really wanted to go. Okay, clear and obvious solution. "Brace yourself," she snapped at Amanda, hoping the other girl would catch on, and directing her gaze away from the mess (broken, beaten, bleeding, and still, somehow, alive - not for much longer, if nature had its way - Illyana had to fight nausea) in front of them. A flash of light obscured the bloody floor and sank them - she and Amanda, Alison prone on the table, and, because he was too close to push out of the way, Haroun - into Limbo.
The skies, rather than foreboding and dark, were breaking: The throne room shook with thunder, static electricity filled the air, the temperature had dropped dramatically, and rain made its way through the tall narrow windows with a vengeance. Limbo was no longer flat and tranquil: It was actively violent.
Her look could not have been clearer: Do it fast.
Haroun tried to step forward, to demand an explanation. Tried – and failed. His first clue that something was desperately wrong was him hitting the cold, hard ground. Only long training allowed him to throw out a semblance of a breakfall to keep his head from bouncing off the flagstones. Shiro would have mocked him for days, had he seen it. A quick query returned only a stony silence. He was offline, and not in the 'Help, I’m broken' way.
In the 'There’s nothing there' way. Neither girl noticed though, each intent on the other and the woman now lying on a table, from which ragged cables and IVs hung from, swinging haphazardly in the increasingly violent winds of Limbo.
Amanda nodded at Illyana over the throbbing in her head. She still had the amulet off, and the pressure was building, but fuck it, she could suck it up. Deal with the headache later. Closing her eyes, she concentrated 'feeling' for the spell, pushing the power she could feel towards Alison, willing her to heal...
...and the power refused to go.
It was almost like it was mocking her, refusing to do what she wanted. And in that moment she finally realised. It wouldn't do as she wanted, because it wasn't her power to use. It belonged to someone else. She met Illyana's eyes, and said the words she'd never thought she'd utter to Limbo's Queen.
"Help me. I can't do it without you."
Limbo has ever been a realm of mystery, its secrets held from a succession of Kings and Queens, a line of power stretching out beyond time as Mortal Man knows it. And though it answers to its Ruler, always, it still possesses a will of its own.
Limbo
Time unknown
Roiling distantly upon Itself, letting the creature from Other Where feel what was right at its fingertips without ever letting it take hold while the other one bled its remaining lifeblood upon Its soil slowly, Limbo purred to itself.
Its Queen was here. Strong and angry and bleeding a myriad other emotions for it to savor, carrying memories of the Other Place for it to tug at, wanting more. Curious as to what kept her away for so long, away from itself.
It would play with the thing scrabbling at it desperately, uncaring of who lived or died while within its embrace, and pay homage to Its ruler.
Illyana's eyes locked with Amanda's, and she found, amid the howling storm outside, that she knew - beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond reason, beyond anything rational - what to do. It wasn't that calm overtook her or cleared her mind: Desperation drove the Soulsword into her hand, instinct taking over thought, need overthrowing everything else, and she was moving closer to Amanda.
I can't do it without you.
Hell was freezing over anyway.
Blood pounded in her ears, and she dared not hesitate: One hand pushed Amanda roughly - almost viciously - to the ground, and the other swung down in a long, seemingly endless arc of light, the only source of it, now, until it found its target.
The Soulsword plunged through Amanda's hand and deep, deep down into Limbo.
Suddenly, a single thought rang out from the one living being it would listen to blindly, the purpose and intent behind it unmistakable.
And Limbo heard.
Whatever it took. Never had Amanda so strongly believed it, even as Illyana pushed her to her knees, held her hand flat against the stony ground. Even as the Soulsword hung in the air for an endless moment, before beginning its descent. Whatever it takes. All her concentration, all her energy was focused on Alison, lying so still now. Not going to let you die. Not this time. Then the Soulsword came hurtling down, pinning her hand to the ground, and everything vanished in a brilliant burst of light and magic and raw power, and only one thing remained in Amanda's mind. One command.
Heal.
The order was not one it was inclined to follow. Not coming from another than its Queen. And the focus of purity created from the parts of She Who Ruled which were beyond its ken was firmly joined to that of the mortal trying to use its essence. The weapon was anathema to Limbo, hated beyond anything else it had ever known in its millennia of existence.
But through all of this, Her will shone though, clear and strong. Limbo's Queen wanted a healing for the dying creature. And there was more than enough blood soaking the ground for Limbo to make use of it, should it choose to obey Her desires.
Toying with the notion, near to rejecting it as the sword held no power over it as might have his Queen's Will alone, diluting her wishes to mere requests, Limbo paused slowly, another realization pierced through. A window into the Other Where. A means and tool to finally see where its Ruler went, far away until it could not perceive Her. Could not follow Her.
Heal.
With a feeling of satisfaction, Limbo snatched away Alison Blaire's last breath, searing its Mark upon her to claim her as its own.
~ 10.45pm ~
There is a medical emergency room, in a hospital, in a city, in a country, on a world where Magic does not hold the sway it once did.
In this room, there are people, who moments before were staring at an empty space, gaping in horror and incomprehension.
This space has been filled again. Two girls stand nearby, one dark-haired and near to collapsing, holding to another whose eyes glow with what some would call the fires of hell themselves.
Smoke curls up and around them, as though they have been through a firestorm. It winds around the body of the man near the table, pushing himself up slowly to look at the women resting upon it. Possessively, almost, it curls around the motionless and unmarked body, before finally fading to mere wisps, figments of one's imagination.
Silence reigns, for a moment, until the woman finally moves, just enough to draw air in a desperate gasp, terror and pain echoed in the indrawn breath. The breathing steadies out, though the shivers coursing through her body do not.
Death has been cheated.
And the price has been paid.
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