Creations Beautiful and Wondrous - Breaking the Dream

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The rescue party finds their missing people.



Monet leaned against the wall of the ruined factory and stared down
the road through a broken window. From here, it was easy to see the
building Nathan and Angelo were in. (Probably. Hopefully. If nothing
had gone even more wrong.) She rested one hand on Yvette's shoulder
and bit her lip. "Dom? What's the best plan of attack?"

"Staying put for a minute and watching that building," Domino
muttered. "I don't feel like there's anything dire about to happen,
but I'm not sure it's entirely calm, either..." She looked down at
Yvette. "You're okay here," she said, fairly sure of that. "You know
that if anything else happens when we go into that building, you need
to get back to the guest house and wait there for Mina, right? We'll
need you to tell her what happened."

Yvette nodded, although her expression was hard to read from the
hardening of her skin. "...Yes," she said, with a brief nod and a
flaring of her eyes.

Jane skipped around a rusting conveyor belt, and settled against the
wall a few feet beyond Monet. "We just sit and watch? I could maybe,
y'know," She rolled her wrist a few times through the air, motioning
toward the window, "Up and out and see what"s going on, but maybe a
little closer?"

Rahne had transformed part of the way back to human, but her ears were
still elongated and just different enough at the base to swivel. Right
now, both of them were pointed forward. "Might be better to wait
until--" She broke off. "I hear something."

The "something" wasn't that loud -- footsteps on hard ground, and a
huffing noise that was half snarl and half interested. A large brown
dog appeared at the corner of the building they were watching, pulling
against its collar and leash and looking in their direction with its
ears pricked up. A man appeared behind it, hauling backward. He
stumbled and swore loudly when the dog lunged, then jerked the leash
hard.

"Fuuuuck". Monet swore and darted around the corner to punch the guard
one in the jaw. He fell in a boneless heap, hopefully uninjured and
the dog went for her, teeth latched onto her thigh. Well, at least it
was too busy savaging her to bark. "Um. Help? How do you knock a
--good puppy, who's a good puppy? How do you stop dogs?"

"I've got it." Jane dissolved into a fine mist and swirled across the
floor, enveloping the growling dog and cutting off its air supply.
Can you keep a hold on him for a moment so he doesn't run?
she asked as it released its deathgrip on Monet's calf, suddenly
woozy.

Long gloved fingers wrapped around the dog's collar, Yvette using all
of her weight to haul the unsteady guard dog back from Monet. "~Bad
dog,~" she admonished it in Albanian. "~And don't try to bite me, or
you'll break all your teeth!~" Fortunately for the dog, the lack of
oxygen hit it before it could try such a foolhardy exercise and it
slumped to the ground, nearly taking the small red girl with it.

Domino eyed Monet for a moment, gave Jane a look that suggested she
was impressed, and then glanced, troubled, at Yvette before she turned
her attention back to the building in question. "Okay," she said
finally, "I am not getting any sense that we're about to plunge into
something too sticky, here. So we're going to stick together
-all of us - and sneak in there as quietly as possible. Follow me, but
everyone but Rahne, stay back a few paces." She wanted some space, and
to minimize variables, if they ran into any more thugs with dogs.
"Rahne, focus on finding those scents," she said, moving out into the
open.

Rahne had stood up and shifted a moment before, but there hadn't
seemed to be much point trying to intimidate the dog when it was
already passing out... and she was just as glad not to have had to
treat this one like the rabid one that idiot let out at the shelter.
She nosed it in passing and started off just by Domino, moving
silently and scanning to pick back up the familiar trail.

"Are you being okay?" Yvette whispered to Monet as the remaining three
followed cautiously. "The dog, it did not hurt you?"

"Nah, I'm fine. I think it broke a tooth, but." Monet dropped back to
cover everyone as they entered the most likely building. She blinked
in surprise to see the storehouse of ...stuff, stolen... junk most of
it. "Shit", she breathed. I can hear people in there. Sort of. 's
bloody quiet.

Domino had noticed the view through the windows as well, but continued
along the building until she found another door. She opened it very
slowly - and stopped, staring wide-eyed at what it revealed. "Holy
shit," she said, looking around at all the bodies. "They're not - no,
they're breathing," she said. She could see that much from here.
Frowning, she turned her attention to the vacant-eyed teenager at the
center of it all. He was upright, apparently awake. Not particularly
alert, to judge by the way he wasn't reacting to their appearance.

"Rahne? Smell the guys?"

Rahne had paused just at Domino's heels, at least equally stunned, but
shook herself at the prompting and walked forward.

A lot of the people in the room had a rather stronger personal and
bacterial scent than Angelo at the moment -- perhaps they'd been here
longer -- but none of the rest of them were familiar. She wove
unerringly to the one figure on the floor whose grayish tone wasn't
from dust, over near the room's other door. She pressed her nose to
the side of his throat to evaluate his pulse (steady), and then
sniffed the floor briefly before stepping aside and half-changing back
to stand up and reach for the doorknob. "He's... not bad, aside from
the obvious. He came through here," she said, "and Nathan's not in
here, so I'm thinking.... Domino, any reason not to touch the door?"

Domino eyed the door, hard. "Monet," she said slowly. "Go take a look
back there. Just in case..." She wasn't entirely sure there was
any threat here, but it never hurt to be careful.

Monet nodded, running toward the door, carefully stepping around and
sometimes on the prone bodies. She paused for a moment at the door.
"Janey? Yvette? Is there anything youse can do for first aid with
them?" She broke the lock easily and pulled the door open. Nathan was
unconscious on the floor there. Monet moved past him with a twinge of
regret, to check the rest of the building. Sorry, Nathan.


- Hide quoted text -
I'll check, Jane slid down to the ground and solidified
beside a slight, middle-aged woman, her eyes half-lidded and glassy.
Quickly checking her over, she noticed nothing physically wrong with
her and moved to the figure beside her, trailing a series of small
clouds from her swirling shift. Two people, three, people, four
people. Jane lingered near the figure in the center, reluctant to
touch him, lest she get pulled into this...spell, trap, nightmare.
Whatever this was. "They all seem fine, just out of it," she called to
the others. "I don't know if we can do much for them here. Maybe if we
got them out into the fresh air?"

Yvette nodded, glancing around nervously. This seemed a little too
easy, with that she'd heard about various kidnappings and adventures.
"We will need the help, I think? I am not strong enough to be carrying
the people." She gave a wry eyeroll. "Now is the time we are needing
Monet, yes?"

This was too easy. Way too easy. Thank god for Domino. Compared to
what? One little mission that went pear shaped? There were no
other guards that Monet could see and no-one else but Nathan
unconsious outside the main room. "Nate'n Angelo first or these
others?" Most of whom looked to be in worse shape than either of
theirs, lips dry and cracked, far too thin and all covered in a layer
of dust. She hoiseted Nathan into a fireman's carry and flew toward
the door, carefully placing him on a sunny patch of concrete. The
bastard was too damn tall to carry easily. "See what you can do for
him outside, eh?" She turned and went back in for Angelo.

Domino followed them out, kneeling down beside Nathan. "Come on, old
man, wake up," she muttered, laying a hand on his face. I need you
to tell me what's going on here.

It took a minute or two, and by then Monet was coming out with Angelo.
Nathan blinked, his eyes obviously struggling to focus as he looked at
her. "Where's-" He trailed off, confusion and something else surfacing
in his bleary gray eyes.

"Where's what? Nate, you and Angelo have been gone all night. We found
you in there passed out with a bunch of locals - what's going on?"

Nathan pushed himself up on an elbow, looking around uncertainly. "I
don't-" His expression tightened with something close to pain, and he
swallowed visibly. Then his gaze fell on Yvette, and his eyes widened
as his head whipped back around towards Domino.

#What the HELL is she doing here?#

What, I was going to leave her in the chaikana? When we had no idea
what was happening? Domino snapped right back at him, if silently;
best not to fight in front of the kids right now.

#She's a student!# It was helping him focus, at least. This was real.
Where he'd been - not real. Not... Nathan blinked rapidly, glaring at
Domino. #You should have-#

Oh, shut up! She didn't hit him, although it was tempting.
"Again, do you have any idea what's going on?" she said, aloud this
time. "We've got a few dozen people in there, out cold..."

"... entranced," Nathan muttered, falling back against the ground. "Literally."

Jane dropped the old man she'd been dragging on the ground, not far
from where Nathan was trying to burst a blood vessel. Judging from
appearances, he was about to get clocked by Domino if he didn't calm
down. It was funny how he'd woken up so quickly once he'd gotten
outside. The air in there hadn't been that bad, otherwise they'd all
have gone down as well, by now. Jane watched the others start to carry
out the rest of the victims, and a thought occurred to her as the
figure at her feet started to stir. Quickly, before she could change
her mind, she went back into the building and crept up behind the
teenager in the chair.

It was different than the dog, for a lot of reasons. There was the
lack of certainty that what she was doing was right, that she had
guessed wrong. There was no obvious malice at work here. The absolute
stillness of the boy was disturbing, a whispered sigh and dropping
eyelids the only sign that it was time for Jane to let go.

Monet stared as the men and women began to slowly sit up as soon as
Jane finished knocking the boy out. They were dazed and a few began to
stagger toward the boy, pawing at his arms and legs. She supposed he
was a mutant but what the hell kind of power did that? Kneeling beside
Angelo, she touched his shoulder. "You right, mate?"

He was staring into space, but jerked at Monet's touch. "I... yeah.
Just... that kid was doin' that? He knows his stuff."

Yvette had been sitting over a young girl, but as the boy fell
unconscious, her 'patient' sat up, trying to crawl towards him. "I do
not think we should be staying..." she said, nervously. Right now they
were focussed on the boy, but if they should realise what had
happened, she wasn't sure they'd be happy about it.

Domino eyed the unconscious boy, then sighed. They were going to have
to try and do something here. Good thing the old man's
married to an expert. "Yeah, time to get to a safe distance and
call Muir - Nathan, snap out of it. None of us are carrying
you."