Times They Are A-Changin': Wheel in Spin

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

A bad situation escalates into worse.
NOTE: Trigger warning for child fatality and LJ-cut for navigation around the subject embedded in log.



"Jesus Christ," Wade half-breathed, shaking his head as he watched the behemoth that had once been a man of at least regular stature stumble, go down to his knee, and scream in pain. The mercenary couldn't really take his eyes off of the hulking man, not so much out of any sort of sympathy - more a bizarre kind of fascination. The man's muscles were literally still growing. Rippling and bulging. What clothing he'd been wearing was either pulled too tight across abnormally enlarged muscles - which had to be hurting, right? - or hanging off him in shreds. Moving slowly forward, toward the man, Wade took stock of the situation as best he could. Most of the people had cleared out, at least.

That left Wade with the big guy. The big guy who... apparently couldn't see. The muscles of his face had evidently grown a little more rapidly than the rest of him - or maybe it was just because there were fewer of them. Whatever the cause, his eyes were squished shut and Wade would bet money he couldn't see out of either of them. He'd also bet money on the fact that, if somebody didn't do something, the behemoth was going to continue smashing through things, destabilizing buildings, and probably hurting people. So Wade went for his throwing knives, figuring he could probably immobilize the guy - only the knife, when Wade threw it, didn't even prick the guy's skin. It bounced right off. Frowning, Wade considered his options. They were few and pretty far between, so far as he could tell, so he went in for a bit of hand-to-hand, hoping to get the guy in a full nelson or something, choke off his breathing, subdue him a bit.

Nick felt faint pressure around his neck, nearly unnoticeable compared to the agony in his muscles. Blinded, all he knew was that his nose and mouth were full of dust, and he could smell smoke from somewhere nearby. It smelled like Manhattan four years ago, like the building where his wife had worked when he finally shoved his way through the crowds to find her. The first day he'd met his wife's coworker Stephanie, freed from the rubble but her arm a mangled pulp. And then, thinking of Diana, who wasn't answering her cell and had that bad knee that made stairs so hard, trying to rush into the building only to be held back by an EMT screaming that it was going to come down--

The man roared, whipped violently to the side, and sent Wade flying like a pillow. Wade hit the ground with a dull thud and stayed there for a moment. That hadn't gone anywhere near the way he'd planned it. Pushing himself to his feet, he checked Muscles out again, looking for points of weakness. Knees maybe, but with the bulging, rippling expansion, his tendons might be extra reenforced or something. "Shit," he muttered.


_____


The objects didn't seem directed, but they were doing damage. The hood of a car rebounded off the pavement and caught a fleeing man across the back of the knees, and it was only luck that he was caught by the flat of the metal rather than an edge. Elsewhere a man escorting an older woman cowered as a flying tree branch shattered a second story window, sending glass everywhere. And worst of all, burning debris not only created lethal missiles, but continued to spread the fire.

Scott reached up with a hand activate to his radio, "Cyclops here, is anyone else seeing this? I've got debris flying around like crazy over here. I think we've got a rogue telekinetic on our hands." As he spoke he fired a few optical blasts, trying to destroy the biggest pieces of debris flying in his direction.

"Yes!" Angelo said tensely over the radio, ducking something that came uncomfortably close. "Also I've got a guy made of fire over here."

"A what?" Taking a breath Scott shook his head. "We're the only ones seeing this, so he's gotta be somewhere between us." Scott mused. He ducked a lamp post which whistled past his head, "Legion, are you free? We've got a situation over here."

It took a moment for the response to come. "Telekinetic?" The voice on the other end was Jim, sounding slightly dazed. There was a split second of hesitation before he replied, "Okay. Be right there."

The comm line went silent again.

Scott ran an eye over the battlefield, trying to re-establish his strategic picture while keeping a look out for anymore flying debris. He noticed the aid workers were still hard at work helping the people who had collapsed earlier. He smiled at the sight before turning away to observe the rest of the church yard.

Scott had turned his back too soon, it seemed. He heard a thump behind him, and spun around in alarm as he saw that one of the aid workers had collapsed as well. His brow furrowed, this wasn't right. They should have been safe from any gas leak... unless it wasn't just a gas leak. With members of the FoH displaying mutant powers he should have seen it earlier. Scott's eye opened wide in shock as he noticed a red tint in a small area of the dust: there was a malevolent presence behind the gas attacks.

"Watch out" he yelled to the remaining rescue workers, "Someone's controlling gas in the dust." He started backing away from the red gas, but apparently not fast enough. The gas started to flow after him, eating up the distance between them.

Scott continued to back away from the oncoming mist, his mind flashing through possible strategies. He couldn't hurt the mist himself; his optic blasts passed right through it. The mist ate up the ground rapidly as Scott activated his radio. "Siryn, I need your help here." The mist had almost caught up with him as he spoke and he started coughing, "One of the FoH turned into a cloud of gas", he broke off coughing as he fought to catch his breath.


_____


At first he'd merely been stunned by the impact. Now Jim was beginning to realize there was no way to get down from this roof.

There weren't a lot of options for a man without a ladder at two stories up. There were no conveniently open windows within reach, no shed to drop on. No trees were within what he knew was his reliable jumping range, and their branches didn't look particularly strong anyway. I have to deal with that telekinetic, he thought, trying to force himself to think. Maybe we could try the TK again ARE YOU KIDDING ME NO.

Before he could start looking for drainpipes to climb down, Jim spotted a familiar dark-haired shape below him.

"Korvus!"

The call caught his attention and Korvus looked up. "That is not currently an ideal location!" He called up to Haller.

Jim winced. "Agreed! Can you see anything I can use to get down?"

"I am capable of lifting weight in the order of tons. Even accelerating at an initial rate of thirty-two feet per second per second you will not reach enough force to prevent me from catching you, let alone terminal velocity." Korvus started out strong but his voice tapered off as he realized he was over explaining. He tended to get either too quiet or too wordy when he was nervous.

"So . . . jump." It wasn't that he didn't trust the boy to catch him, but Jim had a lot more length of limb than he. It would be as graceful as catching an unstable lawnchair.

Across the lot a stray piece of debris cannoned into the side of the church. People screamed as they were showered in brick and copper roofing, and Jim found the decision made for him.

"All right," he called down to Korvus as he swung his legs over the side of the roof, "I'm coming!"

Korvus extended his arms to catch Haller across the back and under the knees. He positioned himself well enough and, as the tall man hit his arms, he let the momentum carry them both into an impressively agile flip so that the momentum circled with Korvus' center of gravity as the anchor. He had to dump Haller onto the ground mid-flip, but it was little more than a fall of a few inches before he landed on his feet with a very slight wobble.

Jim climbed to his feet, shaking only a little. It was more from nerves than the landing itself; apparently karma had been monitoring his treatment of Matt.

The X-Man took a moment to catch his breath, then straightened. "Thank you," he told the young man. He turned to head towards the north entrance, then glanced back. There, blonde hair -- Meggan. He hadn't noticed her, but was relieved enough by her presence that he could almost forget it meant a third-party witness.

"I have to go," he said, giving them a nod. "Stay safe."

Korvus watched Haller leave before looking back to Meggan. "That was surreal." He commented.

“More than usual, definitely,” Meggan confirmed with a small smile. After all, it wasn’t every day faculty actually had to be talked into falling into Korvus' arms. In all the mayhem, they should be thankful he wasn’t catapulted directly into anything pointy before he had ended up with them. She frowned in consternation as she caught sight of a bright flash of light from the direction of an alley, before looking back to Korvus. Whatever was going on, someone might need help.


_____


Looking over at the church, there were flames visible, which presented another danger on top of whatever had caused that explosion. If there was a way to put out the fire, that'd be a start. Didn't churches have sprinkler systems of some sort? If they did, and if she could get her hands on the same, then maybe they'd be able to at least put the flames out, to protect Layla and everyone else that might be in danger. Any sprinkler system would be connected to a fire hydrant she reckoned so that was her starting point, and it looked like there was one near the north side of the church. "We need to head over there, maybe there's a sprinkler system or something!"

Sarah wasn't thinking straight, so Maddie knew it was a good thing that she was there. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, looking for anything that might hit them. She was so busy looking in the air that she failed to notice the screaming toddler she nearly fell on.

"Ow. Geez kid. What the heck are you doing down there? Hey Sarah," she bellowed. "Hold up. We have a pre-human separated from his herd."

Turning around at the sound of Maddie's voice, Sarah was about to object and insist that they keep moving on before her eyes fell on the toddler. "What the heck?" Where did that kid come from? No matter, since they obviously couldn't just leave a baby like that out there in the open with everything breaking out into chaos around them like it was. She turned around and ran back, kneeling down and about to pick up the kid but first she checked to make sure he was ok. If he was hurt then maybe they wouldn't be able to move him. "Aww, it'll be ok, sweetie."

The middle-aged woman identified as "Carol" from her nametag had not stopped shrieking since flames had exploded across the parking lot, the sound intensifying in both frequency and pitch as masonry audibly collapsed somewhere behind the church. Her screams were foiling her assistant's attempts to calm the children in their care, and the chaos was multiplied by terrified parents trying to push their way into the tent. The air was thick with the smell of burning asphalt.

Thank goodness Sarah volunteered to pick up the kid; Maddie didn't do children. Plus it meant that she was free to weave through the crowd a bit in search of a frantic-looking mother, or a safe place to put the kid. Instead, she spotted a shrieking harpy of a middle aged woman surrounded by scared looking kids. Worse case scenario, the kid didn't belong there, but it was someplace safe to store the kid until things could be sorted out.

If that woman would calm herself and stop making the kids even more scared.

"Sarah. Horde of barbarians at 2 o'clock. Check it out?"

She had picked up the little fella, holding him as best she knew how, his head hanging over her shoulder which meant his crying was almost right in her ear. "Shhh, shhh, it's ok, you're ok, baby!" She talked to him in a whisper, rubbing and patting his back and trying to get him to calm down. Truth be told she kind of felt like screaming herself but they had to stay calm and levelheaded as best they could.

Following Maddie to the horde she'd mentioned, Sarah tried to get the attention of the panicked woman there. "Ma'am, is this your child, or do you know whose it is?" There was a daycare around there somewhere, she thought, maybe this kid was missing from there. She was pretty ill-equipped to deal with a young child and they had other things to do, so if this woman would just calm down and help them and the other kids it'd be great. It didn't look like that'd be happening any time soon however.

"You think I should use my powers," Maddie asked her friend. She had been working on her control, but she was still learning. And she really wasn't supposed to use them. But this lady was so wound up, and the fires were still burning, and they needed to get those kids out of there.

She took a deep breath, and marched over to the woman. Staring her straight in the eye, Maddie firmly grasped Carol's wrist, careful not to squeeze too hard. She could do this. All she needed to do was clear her mind and focus. Focus on calm and mentally push it onto her object. She spoke soothingly, her own fears subsiding as she felt the woman relax. "Carol. You need remain calm. It's going to be fine. You need to take these kids to safety. Now. Take a deep breath."

Sarah just nodded, staying quiet to let Maddie concentrate, and she focused on trying to keep the little boy quiet as best as she could. While she wasn't all that familiar with the younger girl's powers, after a few seconds it seemed like a sudden calm came over the woman. After she took a deep breath and appeared to be very calm, Sarah carefully handed over the baby to the woman, who took him and began to look after the other children.

"Awesome job Maddie!" It had worked like a charm, and now they could get back to what they'd been doing before. She looked around and saw a nearby fire hydrant by the north side of the church, then pointed to it. "There's the water source, I bet the sprinkler system has to be nearby!"

"Let's go!"


_____


Megan flew in a panic out of the Arts and Crafts area, having lost track of Meggan and Korvus in the chaos. From her slightly elevated view, she hoped to see someone she recognized. But what now drew her attention was the church, now collapsed. Something moved within it. It was a little girl, trapped and crying for help! Megan started towards the rubble and the trapped victim.

A chunk of concrete hurtled through the air, crossing Megan's path and missing her by centimeters. She twisted out of the way and saw it slam into the remains of the church. The concrete block struck a crumbling wall, knocking a crater in it. A large portion of the wall and the roof above it crumbled. Debris rained down as the roof slid down the sagging wall.

The blurry shape of a person could be seen in the avalanche of bricks and rubble. Megan hadn't seen the other young woman, who had been clinging to the wall, trying to escape from the second floor to the ground below. Now she was completely buried. As Megan flew closer, a giant chunk of debris fell onto the buried woman, crushing her. Megan panicked. Should she try to dig the woman out? There was no way she could move that huge thing on top. She again heard the cry of the little girl and moved on, shaken, but determined to get the girl out of danger before she, too, was crushed.

The girl was trapped under a wooden beam and buried with other rubble from the collapsed building. "Hey, I'm going to get you out of here," she told the girl as she reached her. Megan tried to pull the structural beam away, but it was stuck. She finally let go of the beam as she realized it wouldn't budge with her strength alone. She flew up into the air and tried to get attention. "Someone's trapped! We need help!"

Artie never would have considered going into the building if not for Megan's scream. Nonetheless, he was questioning his sanity has he ran toward her, keeping close to the wall. He projected an image of the two of them moving the beam off the trapped woman and then a question mark. We're doing this, right?

He settled his hands on the beam and began a countdown, green glowing numbers in the air. 3... 2... 1...

Megan nodded, and at the imaginary "0" she heaved up the beam in unison with Artie. It didn't move a lot, but the gap between it and the girl's twiggy leg widened.

"Can you get out?"

"No." The girl's face was white, her eyes wide and glassy. She seemed more stunned than hurt, as if she didn't quite realize what had happened. She looked from Megan to Artie with an expression of faint confusion. "Where's my mom?" she asked.

Artie gave as much of a shrug as he could, holding the beam. They'd need to drag her out so he projected "down" and reached for a piece of smashed pew. "up", he said.

Megan scrunched up her face, trying to figure out what Artie was communicating. "Pull this up?" She touched the pew. "Or should I pull her out while you pry it up?"

"Use the pew like a lever."

A man had appeared behind them, unnoticed in the chaos. He was middled-aged and balding, with a face abraded as if it had been struck with something rough. He was red-faced and breathing hard.

Affixed to his jacket was an FOH pin.


_____


Jim staggered to the north side of the lot, trying to ignore the rooftop-inflicted throb from his ribs. Though he was still shaky, Jack was close enough to the surface that the missiles Scott had talked about brushed his senses like an electric hum.

But he couldn't tell where they were coming from. He halted by the lot entrance, trying to pinpoint the source. To his left a strange red haze obscured the view, and to his right someone was facing a man on fire -- Angelo, he thought, but that observation was all he had time for. Across the street a tree limb snapped and drove itself into the pavement at a 45 degree angle, striking the ground so hard it shattered.

That was when he saw the woman.

Stephanie Halverson felt like she was in one of those snow globes, except instead of snow it was sheer fucking chaos. Things were flying around like a tornado.

At first she thought it was mutants that were doing it. It felt just like the day when all hell broke loose and they ruined her life. After all, they were crawling around like some sort of rat infestation right about now, but no, the stuff flying around...it was her. Somehow she seemed to know. She could feel it.

And it scared the shit out of her.

People she knew before, spoke to, they had powers too. How? Had they been hiding it? No...they couldn't have. Could they? Fuck.

She locked eyes with a man staring at her. He didn't seem afraid like the rest of them.

"Who are you?"

Jim held up his hands. "Someone trying to help," he said. Jack was telling him they should swat the threat like a fly, but he couldn't ignore the tightly controlled fear in her voice. Her panic would be feeding the telekinetic activity; engaging in a full-on battle would only make it worse. If he treated her like any other mutant and got her to calm down . . .

He noticed, too, that one of her sleeves was pinned to the side of her jacket. The arm it should have held was missing.

"I'm David," he continued, barely containing a flinch as concrete cracked like thunder bare yards away. He kept his tone even and calm. "Concentrate on me, okay? I know it's scary -- talk to me, please."

Stephanie narrowed her eyes. He was far, far too calm in the land of panicked people.

"I saw you looking. Everyone looks but they pretend not to. My arm? It's missing. I lost it. The day when my life went to hell." The debris around her rippled outward like a shockwave.

"I saw the shadow first...didn't know what it was until I turned around. A wall...I tried to run..."

A street lamp suddenly bent backward with a hideous shriek, like a boxer having been punched.

"You're one of them. Aren't you?" she said.

"Yes, I'm a mutant," Jim said, unflinching. "And yes, I looked at your arm. And I wondered how you lost it." He took a slow step forward, not lowering his hands. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm sorry no one was there to help you then. But if I can, I'd like to help you now."

Stephanie moved backward, keeping their distance even and steady.

"You know what could've helped me? Not losing my arm in the first place. That'd be pretty fucking helpful!" she growled, as a mailbox and other smaller forms of debris started sailing his way.

"This wasn't our fight...it was yours. And you mutants...you put us in the middle. I didn't ask for that. I didn't volunteer. I lost my house, my arm, and my JOB because of what you and your kind did!"

Mailbox and debris abruptly bounced back and downwards as if they'd struck an invisible wall. In a way, they had. Jim's patience could not supersede Jack's intolerance for projectiles aimed at their person. The telekinetic shield had been instantaneous, angled at the last instant to ensure the rebound directed into the ground instead of the buildings behind them.

Bursts, Jack noted as the mailbox buried itself two feet into someone's lawn. There had been no force behind the objects but their initial momentum.

Jack lifted his eyes from the mailbox. "In the middle?" he said, scorn in his voice. "Lady, when a bunch of mutant psychopaths came out of nowhere and declared Manhattan a mutant nation, you think we got a chance to abstain? You think it'd even have mattered if we did? No matter what we did, people already decided who's to blame."

"Easy to say when you're in one piece," Stephanie snarled, the debris around her rising in the frequency of the way it swirled around. She shook her head, as bits of concrete crumbled up from the side walk and joined the other debris.

"If the lot of you didn't exist this wouldn't have happened!"

Well, thought Jack as he took in the dozens of missiles about to speed towards him, least now most of it's going in the same direction.


_____


Somehow Layla had managed to get her and her newly acquired kid through the myriad dust, debris and people of the main booth area. Only now she'd found out why the church had half-collapsed. There was some dude who was way pissed off and apparently way strong down the alleyway. So Layla headed in the direct opposite direction. There were no fires, nothing exploding and, as far as she could tell, not many people down over here.

Ducking down behind the port-a-potties, Layla pulled the kid down beside her until he was crouching. "Okay, hang on. I think we're cool here. If we can just like see how to get out of here I can get you outta dodge, okay?"

He nodded furiously, a bit of a deer in headlights, but eventually managed some sort of mumbled "Mmhm."

"Right." She managed to pry the kid's hand off hers long enough to get free of his bird-like grasp. God, her hand was all gross and sweaty and maybe bleeding from his sharp little talons, too. She peered around the corner to see if anything was calmer where they'd come from but no such luck. That left her squinting across the alley, one hand up against the dust in the air, trying to see what was across from them. Damn it, why didn't she pay more attention before?


_____


Running didn't really help when the problem was coming from you. Rich's brain kept trying to make sense of the spiderwork glow under his skin but it was fighting a losing battle against the constant start and stop shocks of pain that seemed to come from deep down in his body and burst through his skin. He had run, of course, to get away from others and he'd found himself in this alley. But it wouldn't stop. He tried to concentrate or focus or think it away but the movie references he had to work from weren't doing him any good and thinking wasn't really happening too well anyway.

The stocky blond kept trying to breathe, to calm, and then another blinding flash of light would tear through his skin. Was it leaving holes? Was it ripping him open? The bright, haloed after images from the shocks of light didn't make checking feasible.

Jean-Phillipe came to a stop at the mouth of the alleyway, breathing heavily. He spared a moment to be grateful that jogging was his workout of choice, and he was down to only the very occasional cigarette, mostly for appearances. If he had tried this when he first arrived at the mansion, he would likely be bent over and dry heaving. Instead, he was able to assess the situation as he walked slowly toward the other man in the alley.

It was entirely unclear what was causing these extremely chaotic manifestations, but it was clear that they were definitely uncontrolled. The other man was clearly struggling, and obviously had retreated to the alley in an attempt to distance himself from people. So Jean-Phillipe did his best to seem reassuring, introducing himself as he walked. "Ah, bonjour. I am...Jean." He pronounced it in the French manner, leaving off the latter half of his name. A codename seemed too hostile, and essentially telling someone your name was John was sufficiently anonymous.

An attempt to speak went nowhere but into a howling scream of pain as another electrical bolt tore out from his body, this time hitting a nearby tree branch and instantly crisping it. "Go!" Rich managed to croak out the word between clenched teeth. He was trying so hard to just stop this stuff from coming out, to hold it in somehow. He had every muscle in his body tensed as if it would contain the electricity. When another bolt shot out from his skin it burned and left the muscle loose, like he'd been lifting weights for hours. Another bolt of electricity shot down the length of an arm and erupted from the tips of his fingers, burning five jagged lines into the pavement to the port-a-potties . "Go, get away from me! I don't-aaaaaaaaaaaaaah," his head tipped back as he screamed and electricity poured forth from his mouth. Rich was left gasping but he didn't get much reprieve before more electricity reached out from his shoulder, his thigh, his back... "Don' wanna...hurt you."

Jean-Phillipe continued to walk forward, unafraid of the bolts arcing from the other man. "You cannot," he said confidently, allowing electricity to visibly arc around his hand. "I have a similar power, and it provides me immunity," he continued in a tone that was unusually gentle for the Frenchman.

The light spilled into the hospital room and over the bed. As Jean-Phillipe struggled his way toward wakefulness, everything in the room feeling soft and fuzzy around the edges. The reason for that was revealed when he saw the IV snaking into the swath of bandages surrounding his hand. Unusual for a hospital, there was no beep or ping of monitoring machines. In fact there were no electronics to be found, and in a flash, he remembered why. The electricity spilling from his hands, the explosion, the chemical flames... His breath accelerated, and then an older man standing by the window turned to him. "Calm yourself," he told the young Frenchman in English that carried the barest trace of a German accent. "You have been gifted, but you must master it, lest it master you instead."

"Concentrate on your breathing," he instructed. "Deeply and slowly. In as you count to eight, then hold as you count to eight, then out as you count to eight." Jean-Phillipe slowed his own breathing, to demonstrate. The techniques Erik Lensherr had taught him to aid in the control of his power were second nature by now.

The blonde nodded rapidly, the motion of his head in time with his own ragged breathing. Focus. He just had to focus. It was just like slow bicep curls, right? He shut his eyes, clenching his teeth against the pain of more electricity crackling and reaching out from his body. Inhale for eight, he told himself, trying his best to do what the French guy said. Electricity sent lightning racing past Jean-Phillipe, searching for something to reach out to. A small relief came when it connected with something unseen. A tree maybe, the ground again. Not people. Please not people. He was in the middle of holding his breath on the sixth count when he lost it and screamed, sure his chest was being ripped open by the electricity fighting to - and succeeding in - escaping from his body.

Unfortunately, that something unseen was Jean-Phillipe's own power. Like calling out to like. Jean-Phillipe was not worried about being struck by the other man's electricity, but when the bolt struck him and did not dissipate, his brow furrowed. And then his own power triggered involuntarily, rebounding a bolt back to Rich, even more powerful than the one that had lashed out from him to the Frenchman. Positive feedback, Jean-Phillipe identified the phenomenon swiftly. This is bad. But he could not break the connection, and more electricity flowed out of him to feed the roiling storm around the man he had just wanted to help. He sagged to one knee, and then keeled over as he finally ran dry.

The feedback cycle brought Rich's pain from awful to unbearable within moments. He had opened his eyes to see that Jean seemed to be caught in it as well. He had thought the guy had said he was safe. He had an electricity thing too. He was supposed to be immune. Yet Rich watched as the man slowly crumpled to the ground. The scream that followed was a mix of pain from all the added electricity coursing through and now shooting out of his body uncontrollably and frustration that he'd just hurt someone who was trying to help him. He couldn't see or even sense where the lightning bolts went now as they tore through his body and broke free. Maybe it was the light of the bolts or maybe it was the pain but everything seemed to go white.


_____


TRIGGER WARNING: Child fatality. Backbutton and select the 'Resume' tag to continue.













A sudden, blinding light appeared off to Layla's left. She squeezed her eyes shut immediately but it was so bright she was still seeing blobs of light spots when she opened her eyes. "What the fuck? You okay, kid?" No answer. She turned to look at him but was still sort of half-blind. "Kid?"

She tried to shake the after images of the lightning bolt out of her vision like it would help. But nothing helped when she finally figured out what she was looking at.


_____



Meggan took in what was occurring for a long moment, realizing that checking on those frequent sparks of light coming from the mouth of the alleyway was a good idea. At the end of it was the source, along with someone she hadn’t expected to be on the ground. They needed to distract this panicking man from Jean-Phillipe, because something was very wrong if he had been knocked for a loop. Or, if not distract him, then just siphon a portion of the electricity way until there was a way to direct it somewhere safer. Like the ground…

Drinking the electricity was one thing she could do to help, which might work in their favor. But she needed to hurry, before whatever had happened to Jean-Phillipe got any worse, or another bystander wandered into things. “Korvus,” she quickly said, “I’m going to try something.”

Korvus nodded as Meggan moved up. He stood behind her, unsure of what she was going to try, but trusting her. "I will attempt to prevent anyone from wandering this way and into danger."

What had been painful before had become excruciating with the extra flood of electric energy in his body. The stocky blond had abandoned his attempts with the breathing exercises once the Frenchman, Jean, had gone down. He'd gone down and he wasn't moving. The hopeless panic that caused only created a bigger discharge of electric bolts, singeing a nearby tree and gouging into a nearby tree. He ducked down, trying vainly to keep the bolts from setting the tree on fire even as he screamed from the pain.

Meggan stepped closer, noting that his panic was increasing and things might get worse. She didn’t want to sit on his head, that would leave his hands flailing every which way. Instead, she went for an attempted flying tackle to his back, quickly scooting to his side, and holding on for dear life. It looked for all the world like a surprise hug at an inopportune moment. She hoped the move would startle him enough to listen to her, while she tried to drink in the electricity that was pouring off him. “Hey, hey! Hands down would be better, please,” she hurriedly pointed out, loud enough to be heard over the crackling of energy from both him, as well as her as she drank it in. “So this doesn’t zap anybody else? Deep breaths, deep breaths, we'll get you grounded, I promise!"

"Grounded, yes!" Korvus called out before holding his right hand up into the air. It was his first attempt to call Nandaki and he found himself standing, arm raised, hand opened awkwardly for quite a long moment.

The blonde girl's attempt at being useful wasn't helping. If anything, Rich was freaking out more, thrashing against her in an effort to get her off of him. "Get away!" Did she have some sort of death wish? He screamed again, this time the electricity ripping from his body aiming at Meggan as if it was trying to help him push her off of himself. Athletic and well built, it would have been easy to get her off of him any other time, but he was busy contorting with every bolt of electricity that shot out from his skin, burning holes in his clothing where it erupted. And since the other guy had passed out now the bolts were coming in fours and fives instead of ones and twos.

Twisting, Rich got away from the girl and immediately took off down the alley. He needed to get away from all these stupid people who kept coming near him. He hadn't gotten far before an electric bolt tearing out from his calf crumpled him to the ground.


_____



TRIGGER WARNING: Child fatality.












He wasn't moving. Steam inexplicably rose from the far side of the child's body while his chest lay flat and still. Layla picked him up and shook him, one hand slipping into a hot, squishy, bloody mess of flesh. "Kid? Kid? Kid, get up. Wake up. Kid?" Her voice was growing steadily more high-pitched and frantic. "C'mon kid. We were supposed to be safe here. We were gonna get outta this."

Layla dragged the kid's corpse around the corner to the adjacent side of the port-a-potty wall as if that would do him any good. What other options did she have, though? She didn't know what else to do. He wasn't moving. She pulled him into her lap, cradling his body against hers. Still warm but he just wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. Layla took her coat off and wrapped it around him. Covering up the messy wound on his back seemed important somehow. She didn't want his parents to see it.

It was such a stupid little thing. He just needed to twitch. Or blink. Or cry Anything but lay there limp like a doll the dog had torn all the stuffing out of.

And then all she could do was cry and try to will him back to life as if that would work. As if it would do anything. But Layla tried anyway. She tried to hear Nico and Amanda's voices in her head talking about feeling energy and directing it, guiding it. Desperation clawed at her throat. She just had this one thing to do. She had to keep this kid safe to get him back to his parents. Because he still had parents. And she'd failed. But she could fix it. If she just tried hard enough. If she listened to her teachers more. If she was a better student. If she could just do this one thing. She tried to push life back into him somehow. Because he was just a kid. He was a kid and he had parents and they were gonna come searching for him and Layla. Only he would be dead and she would be useless. She was supposed to keep him safe and he was fucking sizzling still.

Hands knotting into the coat wrapped around him, Layla crushed the kid into her and tried to push her own beating heart through her chest and into his.