Revenant: Raising the Dead
Apr. 1st, 2010 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWhile a stripped-back X-Force, along with Kurt, go to intercept Meggan, Amanda, Jubilee and Amara go to Jamaica Bay to fulfill their end of the bargain.
None of the three were expert sailors, but that didn't matter - the launch they'd acquired was as simple to operate as a golf cart. Amanda piloted, eyes half-closed as she tuned into New York's awareness and the dark presence which lay like an oil slick over her senses. The mood was grim, each of the three focused on their mission - and their previous history with the creature they were to raise tonight.
Jubilee stood beside Amanda, silent except for the steady exhailing of air that created slight puffs of smoke to trail upwards from her lips. Her hands rested lightly on the small glass barrier in front of them, her eyes focussed on the waves.
Amara liked being on the water almost as much as she liked flying - that is to say, not much at all. She sat to one side, not looking out over the water, instead down at her hands. The thought of facing Selene terrified her - Amara had only ever faced down her followers, and the evil they did in her name. What hope did she - did they? - have in the face of a goddess?
Amanda's eyes snapped open at the same time she let go of the throttle. "We're there," she said curtly, trying not to shudder at the taste of black magic she was getting, despite the metres of water between them. "Jubes, drop the anchor, will you?"
Jubilee moved to the back of the boat, picking up and dropping the small anchor over the side. They were in deep water here, and it took awhile for it to stop. When it did, she turned back to Amanda and Amara.
"What's next?" she asked, voice soft in the noise from the rough sea they currently floated in.
Amanda looked at Amara. "How good is your control?" she asked. "I figure if you pull magma up through the sea floor right under the bitch, you can lift the box up high enough for us to get the winch onto it." She gave a thin, tight smile. "I can tell you exactly where she is."
"I can do that," she said with a confidence she didn't feel. Being on the water clouded her connection to the earth, a little like trying to see under water. It was possible, but it was murky and strange.
"Doesn't matter if you parboil her a bit," Amanda replied with another of those humorless smiles. "Jubes, you're on winch duty. Soon as Amara gets the thing close enough, you hook it. There's chains wrapped around the outside, they should give you something to latch onto."
Jubilee shrugged and moved into position, this was Amanda's call and she'd learnt to follow orders when the moment needed it.
"She's gonna be pissed when she gets out of that thing, you know," Jubilee noted, picking up the hook and line device she would use once Amara had raised the prison. "You ready for her?"
"As much as I can be. Besides, she needs us as much as we need her right now - that ought to keep her from sucking the life out of us the minute we crack the box open." Amanda looked over at Amara. "You gunna be okay with all this?"
"I'll be fine." A slight lie, as Amara didn't feel ready at all, but she would just have to be. She would not be the weakest link here, the flaw for Selene to exploit. She would do her best, and hope they wouldn't regret this later on.
"Let me know where to start," she continued. "I'll start examining the bay floor." Exploiting a natural weakness would be easier than creating a new fissure, but finding one would prove difficult. They weren't in California, after all.
Amanda nodded, taking in the barest hint of a quaver in Amara's voice. "Off the right side of the boat," she explained instead. "I can't tell how far down, but I can show you where." She snapped her fingers to make the werelight appear and flicked it out over the water. George seemed relucant to go, but obeyed, hovering in a circle above a patch of water that seemed no different to the rest. "Directly below George," she instructed.
"I'll find it," Amara replied grimly. After taking note of where the light hit, she closed her eyes, focusing on the floor of the bay they were floating on. Once she got past the sensation of being afloat rather than solidly connected to the earth, she found the right area, the area heaving and clouds of steam forming at the bay floor as she dragged magma up from it, the molten rock cooling rapidly and forming volcanic glass as she did. There would be a new ridge on the floor of the bay after this, the coffin rising slowly as it began to solidify.
Jubilee grabbed a boat hook and leaned over the edge, waiting for the coffin to breach the surface before she deftly snagged it with the hook and brought it closer to the boat.
"Dudes, a little help here," Jubilee noted, glancing back at her two companions. She pulled at the coffin, straining against it's weight, and the sucking feel of the ocean around it. She was many things, but the brute force of the team was not one of them.
She didn't need to be - Amanda moved over to the winch controls and flipped the lever to lower the hook down to the level of the coffin. Once Jubilee had hooked it on, she reversed the winch, winding in the steel cable until the concrete box was clear of the water. Silt and water poured from the bottom and bits of kelp dangled off the surface - a surface marked by cracks that hadn't been there when the box had been dropped in, years before. Amanda frowned, but concentrated on her task, using the equipment to swing Selene's prison over the boat's deck and then lower it down with a thunk that dislodged several mussels.
"Don't touch it," she warned the other two. "Not until we get to shore - there's no counting on how much reach she might have."
Jubilee put up her hands in a universal 'who me?' gesture, and shrugged. "Don't have to tell me twice, dude."
She disconnected the hook from the coffin, careful not to come into contact with it, and then settled the chain and hook back where it belonged before securing it properly. No one wanted loose anything in a boat, especially not on the ocean.
Amara had moved back once her work had been done, but she moved again once the coffin was on board. Scrambling back from the box with wide eyes, despite the fact that she'd been nowhere near the thing. Her composure from before was starting to crack, her fear of the woman inside the coffin coming through even more now that she was so close.
"Amara," Jubilee snapped, having noticed the younger woman's reaction. "Keep it together, we need you."
"I'm sorry," she shot back, swiftly getting annoyed. "I just need a minute." Without looking at the coffin again, she moved as far away as possible, wrapping her arms around herself and staring across over the water. What had they done?
On shore, the box is opened, bargains are made and secrets come to light.
The winch whined as they unloaded the box onto the dock, the not-so-gentle landing dislodging more grey silt from the bottom. Amanda let the cable take on enough slack for the hook to detach itself, then snapped the winch off. Her boots echoed hollowly on the dock as she vaulted over the side of the boat and approached the large grey box.
"Show time," she said quietly to herself.
"So what now? Do we make with the crowbars or something?" Jubilee asked, stopping beside her friend and looking down at the coffin with an air of distaste.
If it weren't so needed, she'd have been all for dropping the thing back into the ocean and be damned with it. Even so, if there'd been any chance of finding a way to help Meg elsewhere, she'd have been for that immediately.
"Actually, this is where you get to blow something up," Amanda replied. "You can take care of the chains and the like from a distance - I'm not having anyone within arm's reach of her, not even for Meg's sake." Amara could probably melt the chains off just as easily, but the younger girl's fear was palpable and Amanda didn't want to push her past her breaking point. If Selene hadn't insisted on Amara's presence, using Meg's life as a bargaining tool, she wouldn't even be here. Although it would have made raising the bloody box tricky.
“I’d suggest we all stand a little further back then,” Jubilee noted before walking back a few yards.
She stood; her feet firmly planted hip width apart and raised her hands, palms facing upwards. Small, coruscating balls of multi-coloured light formed above each palm, and then flattened out into disks. Jubilee held them there for a moment, setting them to spinning slowly, and then allowed them to pick up speed before she sent them from her palms toward the chains around the coffin.
Small beads of sweat stood out on her forehead as the disks reached the chains on the coffin, sawing through them like a hot knife through butter. Small things were always harder to create and maintain then large explosions, and she knew she’d have to eat a tonne of food after this little effort if she didn’t want to look like a famine victim in a few days.
Having done their job, she sent the disks upwards to explode harmlessly in the night sky, fireworks that glowed and then were gone.
With the chains gone the coffin's lid was pushed and then slid over. It reached a point where gravity did the rest of the work and the lid went crashing down to the dock's floor from its place atop the coffin. Skeletal hands gripped the lip of the loathsome container tight enough that if there had been any pigment to the skin the knuckles would have gone white. Selene pulled herself up until she could stand, but it had cost her some effort and a fair bit of what energy she had. Hair matted down to her skull, eyes dark and sunken with her cheeks and throat both hollowed out from the years spent at the bottom of that god forsaken watery tomb had left the witch looking little more than like a horror movie vampire of old. Selene, the nosferatu.
Her legs were weak and unstable but she got herself out of the coffin. It was graceless but she was out. She was free. She was free and there they were in front of her. That quiet, gnawing feeling of hunger she'd gotten so used to became a deafening roar in her head. Selene could think of nothing but her hunger and the feel of all that lifeforce standing right there. It begged to be taken the way a ripe berry begged to be picked. Her plan wasn't to take them here but hunger overrode her rational mind and Selene lunged for the women, so young and ripe and bursting with life.
It was easy to shoot a stationary target, harder to hit a moving target, and Bishop was good at both. This wasn't the time to fire a shot, however. He had learned a long time ago that a laser sight on his rifle, while not useful in most situations as it would give away his position, was supremely useful when he wanted to keep someone in line that wasn't quite willing to risk death. The red dot ran right across the bridge of Selene's nose to catch her attention before resting over her heart.
While Bishop went for the chest shot, Morgan's shot went for the head. The red dot of her own laser sight went up the woman's nose - if you could really call what had just crawled out of the coffin a woman - and rested quite comfortably just between her eyebrows. She was a good enough marksman to get the hit whether the creature kept lunging or not. There might have been a plan but if the bitch didn't get in line Morgan would pull the trigger. You couldn't really control a person still if you were dead anyway, right?
The little red light streaking over her vision was an annoyance. Selene swatted at it but then noticed where it came to rest on her chest. She could have sworn there were two little streaks of light but she only found one dot. She was hungry, so hungry but she could think clearly enough to understand what the red dot was. Her lips curled up into an angry snarl for just a moment before she regained her control over herself.
Dead, green eyes swept over the women with a longing expression. It was something much more suited to a long-parted lover than to a starving beast, which was a much more accurate description of her internal reaction. "You brought others." Selene's voice was rough with disuse, but it had a quiet, delicate quality to it. It at once made her sound docile despite her appearance.
"Back up," Amanda replied smoothly, although her voice trembled just a little at the sound of Selene's voice, echoing through memories. "Since we couldn't be sure what state you'd be in when we hauled you out." She glanced at the tarnished silver at Selene's wrists and forehead, the remnants of the spell that Pete had bound her with. "Just being cautious, that's all. They won't do anything unless you do anything that isn't on the plan."
This time Selene caught the snarl before it crossed her lips. The corners of her mouth twitched but no expression formed. If it wasn't for the sniper lingering somewhere out of sight she wouldn't have taken the step backward, however since she won nothing if she died here aside from a possible existence trapped in a teenage girl's body she did take a step back. Another step followed, then a third but Selene did not move near that abominable coffin again.
The young witch had grown smarter since Selene had last dealt with her. That was disappointing, but not something she couldn't work around. Her eyes moved over the other women, observing them more closely now that the raging hunger had been quieted enough to not cloud her vision. Green eyes settled on the other blonde, Amara. She didn't look nearly as calm as the little witch did. In fact, she looked like she may have jumped cleanly out of her skin if given half the chance.
"I need sustenance before I can go anywhere." She hadn't been steady on her feet since she'd climbed out of her coffin and the fumbling with the silver encircling her wrist had nothing to do with her not looking at what she was doing. Selene didn't have the strength to get the damned things off. She couldn't even get a decent grip on them to tug them off so she compromised and instead just tried to pushed them off her wizened hand.
Amanda's lips thinned. "That wasn't part of the deal," she said flatly.
One silver circle went clattering to the ground and Selene waved her hand through the red dot focused on her chest. "Are you in a position to be claiming the moral high ground of sticking to our deal, poppet?" Her voice was very reasonable and still quite docile. "You imprisoned me in the bottom of the ocean. I have starved for how long?" Selene had trouble figuring out how much time had passed. When you had no sunrise and no sunset it became difficult to discern time and it's flow past you. "How far do you think I will get? How much magic do you think I can perform like this?" A hand gave an elegant gesture to her skeletal form.
The dark-haired witch sat, perching daintily on the edge of the coffin she abhorred. "But then I do always have Meggan, don't I? I suppose if this form is ruined for me that shall have to be my home. By all means, cite our deal should you wish me to relocate when this body fails for all our deal requires of it." She was the picture of patience as she watched Amanda. The hunger had been pushed far off her face, the rage was well-contained and the calculating, scheming expression never came close to the surface of her face. It was very hard to look harmless or sound elegantly docile when you looked as Selene did right now and when your voice was so rough with disuse. She'd screamed for what may have been days when she was first put down there and she'd said nothing since, not even to herself. Despite all that, she put quite an effort forth to appear as patient, reasonable and docile as possible.
Amanda glared back at the witch, mind churning furiously. Selene was right - she wouldn't get far like that and the ritual to free Meggan of her influence would take a lot of power. Amanda wasn't going to trust her for a minute, however: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... There was a reason she'd asked Bishop and Morgan along, after all.
"All right," she said after a moment, ignoring the reaction of the other two before her. "You get to feed, just enough to get you back on your feet. But you only take enough from each of us to keep yourself going - any funny business and we'll see if you can heal from two bullet holes in the head."
A polite nod answered rather than the smile that wanted to curl itself over her lips. "You'll all have to come much closer, poppet," Selene told them much like a teacher instructing students. "I'm not strong enough to feed from such distance." That was a lie but none of them would know that, right? She really wouldn't need to use as much energy to feed from proximity. Contact would be even better, and then who would be able to shoot her with human shields conveniently in the way? Selene wouldn't ruin her own plans, no. There was more power to be had through ritual draining, but she could take a touch more from them each than she needed to.
Amara had been doing her level best to regain her equilibrium since they'd raised Selene - she'd barely looked at the witch, unable to keep her gaze on the woman whom she'd been raised to fear as a goddess. The discussion - and agreement - regarding feeding had brought her back to the present, and her gaze returned to Selene, her lip curling at the state of her. She knew how dangerous she was, even in this state, but she couldn't help but feel the tiniest thrill that she'd been reduced to this. Her chin went up, her back straightening - she might be terrified of the witch, but she would at least do this with some sort of dignity. She moved to rejoin the group, her gaze flickering to Amanda and Jubilee before returning to Selene. How would do they do this?
"One at a time," Amanda broke in. "That way two of us can be watching along with our people with the guns." She glanced at Jubilee. "You up for going first? Slightest hint of something going pear-shaped, she's dead."
"Sure, just call me Jubilee ala cart," Jubilee replied, stepping forward slightly closer to Selene's emaciated form. "Get on with it, witchypoo. We ain't got all day."
"You've grown up and learned such witty repartee." Selene got up and moved with what would have been a graceful motion if she wasn't so weak. She drew closer to Jubilee, closer than she needed to, and held out a hand as if testing a boundary. The young woman was weakened in energy, not worth risking a large feeding on. Selene drew energy from her carefully, only taking enough to keep herself stable on her feet for now. If she was going to risk the wrath of the red dots then it had to be for someone worth it.
Her morbid, green eyes left Jubilee and moved to the pair of blondes when she was done with the Asian-American. Her gaze lingered on Amara but then shifted to Amanda who she assumed would put herself on the plate before putting the girl trying so hard to be brave up on the platter.
Amara made the decision for them all, taking the couple of extra steps required to take Jubilee's place in front of Selene. She needed to do it before her courage failed her entirely, and Amara Aquilla was not a coward.
"Go on," Amara said, standing proud despite her fears. She would not let Selene have that much power over her. She would not.
"Such duty," Selene remarked, eyes moving over Amara as if she were a cow for purchase. "I see that conditioning never fails, does it?" The witch drew much closer to the blonde than need be, closer still than she had to Jubilee. Where with Jubilee Selene had reached out but not to the young woman she chose with Amara to let her dry, wizened hand lay on Amara's shoulder before she drew power from her. The woman's hand trailed down the girl's arm and she whispered to her in a very low voice, "You taste like me, still. You destroyed my lovely city I gave you, but you still feel like Nova Roma. Time doesn't change all things, does it, child? Who you are can't be erased by a change of location." Her voice was gentle and may have been soothing to someone who hadn't seen her decrepit form crawl out of that coffin.
By the time Selene finished pulling energy from Amara she looked less like a zombie from a horror film and more like a human. She looked down at herself and noted with some distaste that she was beginning to resemble a starving African. Her skin had color, albeit not much, and she had pulled more energy than she needed to from the girl. Not enough to quite get her in trouble, but hopefully enough to destroy that brave little face the blonde wore.
Amara's eyes widened at Selene's words, unable to keep herself in check as the witch fed on her energy. Amanda's suspicions about Nova Roma flared in her mind once more, as well as the old insecurities about the destruction she caused. She hurried away from Selene as quickly as she could, shaking as she wrapped her arms around herself. She felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.
"Take care of her," Amanda murmured to Jubilee, nudging Amara towards her dark haired teammate and placing herself in such a position as she faced Selene that her body was between her friends and the older witch. "All right, Selene, dessert's up."
The smile came with a small bowing of the woman's head. She never took her eyes off of the blonde witch, Selene wasn't quite that stupid. "I always did enjoy saving my favorites for last." Amanda, however, was truly defiant. She wasn't shooting off at the mouth like Jubilee had and she wasn't putting on a brave face like Amara. No, Amanda was truly ready to stare down the witch and perhaps even see which one of them would come out alive. Selene knew the end result of that scenario, but she had a small modicum of respect for the foolish bravery. It all made it much less enjoyable to simply taunt her or try to make her uncomfortable.
There wasn't any show when Selene drained Amanda of energy. There was no contact, no feigning of aura stroking. There was only the cold feeling of a hand wrapping around Amanda's insides and siphoning off her energy. Selene's eyes and hair seemed to reanimate like a time progression photo series of a flower in reverse from wilting to full bloom. Her frame never quite filled out with flesh enough for Selene's tastes, nor did her skin gain much color, but she could walk steadily and perhaps even run for quite some time without collapsing. Running, however, was beneath her.
When the drain on Amanda's energy came to an end Selene licked her lips and smiled. "Delicious, as always, my poppet. Now, where is my little doll, Meggan? You didn't bother to bring her by to say hello? That's quite rude. Have they taught you no manners yet?"
"She's safe," Amanda replied shortly - she was partly distracted by having to actively draw on New York to regain the energy Selene had taken, partly distracted by trying not to give in to the cold shuddering that was threatening to break her calm. "And she'll be there at the ritual, that's all you need to know." She took a deep breath and straightened, New York a comforting murmur in her centre.
"Let's go get this over with."
None of the three were expert sailors, but that didn't matter - the launch they'd acquired was as simple to operate as a golf cart. Amanda piloted, eyes half-closed as she tuned into New York's awareness and the dark presence which lay like an oil slick over her senses. The mood was grim, each of the three focused on their mission - and their previous history with the creature they were to raise tonight.
Jubilee stood beside Amanda, silent except for the steady exhailing of air that created slight puffs of smoke to trail upwards from her lips. Her hands rested lightly on the small glass barrier in front of them, her eyes focussed on the waves.
Amara liked being on the water almost as much as she liked flying - that is to say, not much at all. She sat to one side, not looking out over the water, instead down at her hands. The thought of facing Selene terrified her - Amara had only ever faced down her followers, and the evil they did in her name. What hope did she - did they? - have in the face of a goddess?
Amanda's eyes snapped open at the same time she let go of the throttle. "We're there," she said curtly, trying not to shudder at the taste of black magic she was getting, despite the metres of water between them. "Jubes, drop the anchor, will you?"
Jubilee moved to the back of the boat, picking up and dropping the small anchor over the side. They were in deep water here, and it took awhile for it to stop. When it did, she turned back to Amanda and Amara.
"What's next?" she asked, voice soft in the noise from the rough sea they currently floated in.
Amanda looked at Amara. "How good is your control?" she asked. "I figure if you pull magma up through the sea floor right under the bitch, you can lift the box up high enough for us to get the winch onto it." She gave a thin, tight smile. "I can tell you exactly where she is."
"I can do that," she said with a confidence she didn't feel. Being on the water clouded her connection to the earth, a little like trying to see under water. It was possible, but it was murky and strange.
"Doesn't matter if you parboil her a bit," Amanda replied with another of those humorless smiles. "Jubes, you're on winch duty. Soon as Amara gets the thing close enough, you hook it. There's chains wrapped around the outside, they should give you something to latch onto."
Jubilee shrugged and moved into position, this was Amanda's call and she'd learnt to follow orders when the moment needed it.
"She's gonna be pissed when she gets out of that thing, you know," Jubilee noted, picking up the hook and line device she would use once Amara had raised the prison. "You ready for her?"
"As much as I can be. Besides, she needs us as much as we need her right now - that ought to keep her from sucking the life out of us the minute we crack the box open." Amanda looked over at Amara. "You gunna be okay with all this?"
"I'll be fine." A slight lie, as Amara didn't feel ready at all, but she would just have to be. She would not be the weakest link here, the flaw for Selene to exploit. She would do her best, and hope they wouldn't regret this later on.
"Let me know where to start," she continued. "I'll start examining the bay floor." Exploiting a natural weakness would be easier than creating a new fissure, but finding one would prove difficult. They weren't in California, after all.
Amanda nodded, taking in the barest hint of a quaver in Amara's voice. "Off the right side of the boat," she explained instead. "I can't tell how far down, but I can show you where." She snapped her fingers to make the werelight appear and flicked it out over the water. George seemed relucant to go, but obeyed, hovering in a circle above a patch of water that seemed no different to the rest. "Directly below George," she instructed.
"I'll find it," Amara replied grimly. After taking note of where the light hit, she closed her eyes, focusing on the floor of the bay they were floating on. Once she got past the sensation of being afloat rather than solidly connected to the earth, she found the right area, the area heaving and clouds of steam forming at the bay floor as she dragged magma up from it, the molten rock cooling rapidly and forming volcanic glass as she did. There would be a new ridge on the floor of the bay after this, the coffin rising slowly as it began to solidify.
Jubilee grabbed a boat hook and leaned over the edge, waiting for the coffin to breach the surface before she deftly snagged it with the hook and brought it closer to the boat.
"Dudes, a little help here," Jubilee noted, glancing back at her two companions. She pulled at the coffin, straining against it's weight, and the sucking feel of the ocean around it. She was many things, but the brute force of the team was not one of them.
She didn't need to be - Amanda moved over to the winch controls and flipped the lever to lower the hook down to the level of the coffin. Once Jubilee had hooked it on, she reversed the winch, winding in the steel cable until the concrete box was clear of the water. Silt and water poured from the bottom and bits of kelp dangled off the surface - a surface marked by cracks that hadn't been there when the box had been dropped in, years before. Amanda frowned, but concentrated on her task, using the equipment to swing Selene's prison over the boat's deck and then lower it down with a thunk that dislodged several mussels.
"Don't touch it," she warned the other two. "Not until we get to shore - there's no counting on how much reach she might have."
Jubilee put up her hands in a universal 'who me?' gesture, and shrugged. "Don't have to tell me twice, dude."
She disconnected the hook from the coffin, careful not to come into contact with it, and then settled the chain and hook back where it belonged before securing it properly. No one wanted loose anything in a boat, especially not on the ocean.
Amara had moved back once her work had been done, but she moved again once the coffin was on board. Scrambling back from the box with wide eyes, despite the fact that she'd been nowhere near the thing. Her composure from before was starting to crack, her fear of the woman inside the coffin coming through even more now that she was so close.
"Amara," Jubilee snapped, having noticed the younger woman's reaction. "Keep it together, we need you."
"I'm sorry," she shot back, swiftly getting annoyed. "I just need a minute." Without looking at the coffin again, she moved as far away as possible, wrapping her arms around herself and staring across over the water. What had they done?
On shore, the box is opened, bargains are made and secrets come to light.
The winch whined as they unloaded the box onto the dock, the not-so-gentle landing dislodging more grey silt from the bottom. Amanda let the cable take on enough slack for the hook to detach itself, then snapped the winch off. Her boots echoed hollowly on the dock as she vaulted over the side of the boat and approached the large grey box.
"Show time," she said quietly to herself.
"So what now? Do we make with the crowbars or something?" Jubilee asked, stopping beside her friend and looking down at the coffin with an air of distaste.
If it weren't so needed, she'd have been all for dropping the thing back into the ocean and be damned with it. Even so, if there'd been any chance of finding a way to help Meg elsewhere, she'd have been for that immediately.
"Actually, this is where you get to blow something up," Amanda replied. "You can take care of the chains and the like from a distance - I'm not having anyone within arm's reach of her, not even for Meg's sake." Amara could probably melt the chains off just as easily, but the younger girl's fear was palpable and Amanda didn't want to push her past her breaking point. If Selene hadn't insisted on Amara's presence, using Meg's life as a bargaining tool, she wouldn't even be here. Although it would have made raising the bloody box tricky.
“I’d suggest we all stand a little further back then,” Jubilee noted before walking back a few yards.
She stood; her feet firmly planted hip width apart and raised her hands, palms facing upwards. Small, coruscating balls of multi-coloured light formed above each palm, and then flattened out into disks. Jubilee held them there for a moment, setting them to spinning slowly, and then allowed them to pick up speed before she sent them from her palms toward the chains around the coffin.
Small beads of sweat stood out on her forehead as the disks reached the chains on the coffin, sawing through them like a hot knife through butter. Small things were always harder to create and maintain then large explosions, and she knew she’d have to eat a tonne of food after this little effort if she didn’t want to look like a famine victim in a few days.
Having done their job, she sent the disks upwards to explode harmlessly in the night sky, fireworks that glowed and then were gone.
With the chains gone the coffin's lid was pushed and then slid over. It reached a point where gravity did the rest of the work and the lid went crashing down to the dock's floor from its place atop the coffin. Skeletal hands gripped the lip of the loathsome container tight enough that if there had been any pigment to the skin the knuckles would have gone white. Selene pulled herself up until she could stand, but it had cost her some effort and a fair bit of what energy she had. Hair matted down to her skull, eyes dark and sunken with her cheeks and throat both hollowed out from the years spent at the bottom of that god forsaken watery tomb had left the witch looking little more than like a horror movie vampire of old. Selene, the nosferatu.
Her legs were weak and unstable but she got herself out of the coffin. It was graceless but she was out. She was free. She was free and there they were in front of her. That quiet, gnawing feeling of hunger she'd gotten so used to became a deafening roar in her head. Selene could think of nothing but her hunger and the feel of all that lifeforce standing right there. It begged to be taken the way a ripe berry begged to be picked. Her plan wasn't to take them here but hunger overrode her rational mind and Selene lunged for the women, so young and ripe and bursting with life.
It was easy to shoot a stationary target, harder to hit a moving target, and Bishop was good at both. This wasn't the time to fire a shot, however. He had learned a long time ago that a laser sight on his rifle, while not useful in most situations as it would give away his position, was supremely useful when he wanted to keep someone in line that wasn't quite willing to risk death. The red dot ran right across the bridge of Selene's nose to catch her attention before resting over her heart.
While Bishop went for the chest shot, Morgan's shot went for the head. The red dot of her own laser sight went up the woman's nose - if you could really call what had just crawled out of the coffin a woman - and rested quite comfortably just between her eyebrows. She was a good enough marksman to get the hit whether the creature kept lunging or not. There might have been a plan but if the bitch didn't get in line Morgan would pull the trigger. You couldn't really control a person still if you were dead anyway, right?
The little red light streaking over her vision was an annoyance. Selene swatted at it but then noticed where it came to rest on her chest. She could have sworn there were two little streaks of light but she only found one dot. She was hungry, so hungry but she could think clearly enough to understand what the red dot was. Her lips curled up into an angry snarl for just a moment before she regained her control over herself.
Dead, green eyes swept over the women with a longing expression. It was something much more suited to a long-parted lover than to a starving beast, which was a much more accurate description of her internal reaction. "You brought others." Selene's voice was rough with disuse, but it had a quiet, delicate quality to it. It at once made her sound docile despite her appearance.
"Back up," Amanda replied smoothly, although her voice trembled just a little at the sound of Selene's voice, echoing through memories. "Since we couldn't be sure what state you'd be in when we hauled you out." She glanced at the tarnished silver at Selene's wrists and forehead, the remnants of the spell that Pete had bound her with. "Just being cautious, that's all. They won't do anything unless you do anything that isn't on the plan."
This time Selene caught the snarl before it crossed her lips. The corners of her mouth twitched but no expression formed. If it wasn't for the sniper lingering somewhere out of sight she wouldn't have taken the step backward, however since she won nothing if she died here aside from a possible existence trapped in a teenage girl's body she did take a step back. Another step followed, then a third but Selene did not move near that abominable coffin again.
The young witch had grown smarter since Selene had last dealt with her. That was disappointing, but not something she couldn't work around. Her eyes moved over the other women, observing them more closely now that the raging hunger had been quieted enough to not cloud her vision. Green eyes settled on the other blonde, Amara. She didn't look nearly as calm as the little witch did. In fact, she looked like she may have jumped cleanly out of her skin if given half the chance.
"I need sustenance before I can go anywhere." She hadn't been steady on her feet since she'd climbed out of her coffin and the fumbling with the silver encircling her wrist had nothing to do with her not looking at what she was doing. Selene didn't have the strength to get the damned things off. She couldn't even get a decent grip on them to tug them off so she compromised and instead just tried to pushed them off her wizened hand.
Amanda's lips thinned. "That wasn't part of the deal," she said flatly.
One silver circle went clattering to the ground and Selene waved her hand through the red dot focused on her chest. "Are you in a position to be claiming the moral high ground of sticking to our deal, poppet?" Her voice was very reasonable and still quite docile. "You imprisoned me in the bottom of the ocean. I have starved for how long?" Selene had trouble figuring out how much time had passed. When you had no sunrise and no sunset it became difficult to discern time and it's flow past you. "How far do you think I will get? How much magic do you think I can perform like this?" A hand gave an elegant gesture to her skeletal form.
The dark-haired witch sat, perching daintily on the edge of the coffin she abhorred. "But then I do always have Meggan, don't I? I suppose if this form is ruined for me that shall have to be my home. By all means, cite our deal should you wish me to relocate when this body fails for all our deal requires of it." She was the picture of patience as she watched Amanda. The hunger had been pushed far off her face, the rage was well-contained and the calculating, scheming expression never came close to the surface of her face. It was very hard to look harmless or sound elegantly docile when you looked as Selene did right now and when your voice was so rough with disuse. She'd screamed for what may have been days when she was first put down there and she'd said nothing since, not even to herself. Despite all that, she put quite an effort forth to appear as patient, reasonable and docile as possible.
Amanda glared back at the witch, mind churning furiously. Selene was right - she wouldn't get far like that and the ritual to free Meggan of her influence would take a lot of power. Amanda wasn't going to trust her for a minute, however: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... There was a reason she'd asked Bishop and Morgan along, after all.
"All right," she said after a moment, ignoring the reaction of the other two before her. "You get to feed, just enough to get you back on your feet. But you only take enough from each of us to keep yourself going - any funny business and we'll see if you can heal from two bullet holes in the head."
A polite nod answered rather than the smile that wanted to curl itself over her lips. "You'll all have to come much closer, poppet," Selene told them much like a teacher instructing students. "I'm not strong enough to feed from such distance." That was a lie but none of them would know that, right? She really wouldn't need to use as much energy to feed from proximity. Contact would be even better, and then who would be able to shoot her with human shields conveniently in the way? Selene wouldn't ruin her own plans, no. There was more power to be had through ritual draining, but she could take a touch more from them each than she needed to.
Amara had been doing her level best to regain her equilibrium since they'd raised Selene - she'd barely looked at the witch, unable to keep her gaze on the woman whom she'd been raised to fear as a goddess. The discussion - and agreement - regarding feeding had brought her back to the present, and her gaze returned to Selene, her lip curling at the state of her. She knew how dangerous she was, even in this state, but she couldn't help but feel the tiniest thrill that she'd been reduced to this. Her chin went up, her back straightening - she might be terrified of the witch, but she would at least do this with some sort of dignity. She moved to rejoin the group, her gaze flickering to Amanda and Jubilee before returning to Selene. How would do they do this?
"One at a time," Amanda broke in. "That way two of us can be watching along with our people with the guns." She glanced at Jubilee. "You up for going first? Slightest hint of something going pear-shaped, she's dead."
"Sure, just call me Jubilee ala cart," Jubilee replied, stepping forward slightly closer to Selene's emaciated form. "Get on with it, witchypoo. We ain't got all day."
"You've grown up and learned such witty repartee." Selene got up and moved with what would have been a graceful motion if she wasn't so weak. She drew closer to Jubilee, closer than she needed to, and held out a hand as if testing a boundary. The young woman was weakened in energy, not worth risking a large feeding on. Selene drew energy from her carefully, only taking enough to keep herself stable on her feet for now. If she was going to risk the wrath of the red dots then it had to be for someone worth it.
Her morbid, green eyes left Jubilee and moved to the pair of blondes when she was done with the Asian-American. Her gaze lingered on Amara but then shifted to Amanda who she assumed would put herself on the plate before putting the girl trying so hard to be brave up on the platter.
Amara made the decision for them all, taking the couple of extra steps required to take Jubilee's place in front of Selene. She needed to do it before her courage failed her entirely, and Amara Aquilla was not a coward.
"Go on," Amara said, standing proud despite her fears. She would not let Selene have that much power over her. She would not.
"Such duty," Selene remarked, eyes moving over Amara as if she were a cow for purchase. "I see that conditioning never fails, does it?" The witch drew much closer to the blonde than need be, closer still than she had to Jubilee. Where with Jubilee Selene had reached out but not to the young woman she chose with Amara to let her dry, wizened hand lay on Amara's shoulder before she drew power from her. The woman's hand trailed down the girl's arm and she whispered to her in a very low voice, "You taste like me, still. You destroyed my lovely city I gave you, but you still feel like Nova Roma. Time doesn't change all things, does it, child? Who you are can't be erased by a change of location." Her voice was gentle and may have been soothing to someone who hadn't seen her decrepit form crawl out of that coffin.
By the time Selene finished pulling energy from Amara she looked less like a zombie from a horror film and more like a human. She looked down at herself and noted with some distaste that she was beginning to resemble a starving African. Her skin had color, albeit not much, and she had pulled more energy than she needed to from the girl. Not enough to quite get her in trouble, but hopefully enough to destroy that brave little face the blonde wore.
Amara's eyes widened at Selene's words, unable to keep herself in check as the witch fed on her energy. Amanda's suspicions about Nova Roma flared in her mind once more, as well as the old insecurities about the destruction she caused. She hurried away from Selene as quickly as she could, shaking as she wrapped her arms around herself. She felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.
"Take care of her," Amanda murmured to Jubilee, nudging Amara towards her dark haired teammate and placing herself in such a position as she faced Selene that her body was between her friends and the older witch. "All right, Selene, dessert's up."
The smile came with a small bowing of the woman's head. She never took her eyes off of the blonde witch, Selene wasn't quite that stupid. "I always did enjoy saving my favorites for last." Amanda, however, was truly defiant. She wasn't shooting off at the mouth like Jubilee had and she wasn't putting on a brave face like Amara. No, Amanda was truly ready to stare down the witch and perhaps even see which one of them would come out alive. Selene knew the end result of that scenario, but she had a small modicum of respect for the foolish bravery. It all made it much less enjoyable to simply taunt her or try to make her uncomfortable.
There wasn't any show when Selene drained Amanda of energy. There was no contact, no feigning of aura stroking. There was only the cold feeling of a hand wrapping around Amanda's insides and siphoning off her energy. Selene's eyes and hair seemed to reanimate like a time progression photo series of a flower in reverse from wilting to full bloom. Her frame never quite filled out with flesh enough for Selene's tastes, nor did her skin gain much color, but she could walk steadily and perhaps even run for quite some time without collapsing. Running, however, was beneath her.
When the drain on Amanda's energy came to an end Selene licked her lips and smiled. "Delicious, as always, my poppet. Now, where is my little doll, Meggan? You didn't bother to bring her by to say hello? That's quite rude. Have they taught you no manners yet?"
"She's safe," Amanda replied shortly - she was partly distracted by having to actively draw on New York to regain the energy Selene had taken, partly distracted by trying not to give in to the cold shuddering that was threatening to break her calm. "And she'll be there at the ritual, that's all you need to know." She took a deep breath and straightened, New York a comforting murmur in her centre.
"Let's go get this over with."
