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xp_logsFollowing the attack the night before, Topaz and Taboo have retreated to their apartment. But peace doesn't last for long. London Time: 5:00 p.m.
Sleep was impossible.
Topaz wanted to, needed to. The fight had left her physically and mentally drained, sleep was a necessity in order to recover. But she was in the living room, and Luca was pacing back and forth, and he wouldn't allow her to go to her room. Which was logical - if the Destines were to attack, it would make sense for Topaz and Luca to be together. She understood that.
But sleep would have been nice, too.
Taboo - it was hard not to think of himself as that name now, it had become so much a part of his revenge - glanced at the girl huddled on the couch. She looked tired, but he couldn't risk letting her out of his sight. Who knew what might happen to her. "They'll come," he told her, voice rough with lack of sleep and his own exhaustion. "We must be ready. We can't let them go unpunished."
"Right." Topaz responded, her voice flat. She'd long mastered the art of keeping her emotions and mental states out of her tone. Even with Luca and - No, don't think about her - it was habit. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, stretching her senses out. It was early enough in the evening that most of their neighbors weren't home - there wasn't much to feel. The child directly below them was throwing a fit, much to his mother's distressed. The man three doors down was depressed - again. That was all she found, though. "Do you think we'll be able to take them when they show up?" She asked as she opened her eyes again. "We've lost the element of surprise."
"If we cannot, we will die. There is no question." Taboo's expression was bleak. "Kill or be killed."
Topaz didn't answer. Didn't have an answer. She pushed herself up on her knees to look over the edge of the couch and out the window. The street below was empty. The crying child had finally calmed down. It was quiet.
Taboo watched her, and deep down inside, where the man Luca still lived, something twisted. She was so young, dragged into a magical vendetta that was looking more and more hopeless. By him.
"Topaz," he began, sounding unsure for the first time in months. "I--"
That was as far as he got. They both felt the reverberation from Taboo's wards as they were smashed through in several places. The Destines had found them.
She'd barely reacted to his saying her name, but the sudden shift of the wards being shattered had her bolting straight up, eyes widening as she hurriedly stretched her mind out, finding nothing but cruel intentions and vengeance surrounding them. Too close. No time to-
Her thoughts were cut off by the back and front doors being blasted in.
"Knock fucking knock." Adam Destine stepped through the rubble, glass crunching under his heavy boots. He paused, looking around with great satisfaction as he lit a cigarette. It was time for a, what was the word, he considered? Reckoning. That was it. A reckoning with the gobshites stupid enough to think that they could mess with his crew and think they could just walk away from it. "Let me explain to you cunts just how this is going to be. You will fucking co-llect yourselves and get front and centre fucking sharpish, with a white flag held high. Anything less will make me mad, and if you make me mad, I will personally make sure this is drawn out as long as fucking possible. Do we have clarity?"
What an arrogant man, Topaz thought as she slid off the couch, her eyes drifting over the rest of the gathered clan members before turning to regard the leader with a cold look - an attempt to shake off her sudden misgivings. Their entire plan had revolved around the element of surprise. Logically, surrender would be the best idea at this point. But as Luca had said, kill or be killed.
She turned her attention to him now, waiting for his reaction to Adam's words before she tried anything.
"He's lying, Topaz. As soon as we step outside, he'll kill us both." Taboo moved to her side and lay his hand on her shoulder. The gesture was an old reminder of the man he had been, the father who had raised her, but now there was none of the warm emotional resonance with it, the fatherly affection. Only a desire for vengeance and a growing fatalism that neither of them would live through this. "We will fight, and we'll take as many of them with us as we can. Use everything you can, Topaz, you hear me? Everything."
Topaz stood tall under Luca's - Taboo's - touch, her eyes shifting quickly around. She'd received his message, and planned on following through to the best of her abilities. There were four Destines currently present - Adam at the back door with Dominic, and at the front door, closest to where she stood, Grace and Albert. She'd leave Adam and Dominic to Taboo, she decided in a split second. Grace and Albert would be far easier to manipulate.
There was more than enough energy for her to use - hate was very powerful emotion, and there was so much of it in the room it was almost overwhelming. They're trying to kill us. If anything could cause bad karma, it was attempted murder.
"You are trying my patience." Adam called out loudly, staring malevolently through the dust and rubble. "I'll make you a deal, right? You get your wrinkled arse out here, and I'll let the tart fuck off out the back. Otherwise, got me a geezer that can make a munt off her in one of the Paki houses up Newham." As the threat echoed, he turned to Dominic. "Fuck these animals. Burn them out then, Dom luv."
Dominic nodded when he was given an order, drawing on his life force he created fire and set the building on fire - though it was only an illusion it looked and felt real enough.
Human instinct called for panic - a vulnerable person standing in the middle of a burning building, panic and flight were the logical courses of action. But Dominic Destine's specialty was illusions. So Topaz forced the natural responses down, reassuring herself that the fire likely wasn't real - and even if it was, she had orders to follow.
Focusing on Albert and Grace, trying to remember what the apartment had looked like before the flames. The remnants of a bookcase had been sat very close to where Albert was, if she recalled, though the area was a ball of flames now. He's here to kill us, Topaz told herself as she gathered some of the hatred in the room, her gaze solely on Albert now. If she was lucky, she might be able to get him to knock himself out.
Albert reached up to stroke one of his amulets, he could end this now he though. It wouldn't be nice, and would definitely be painful, but that was hardly a reason to stop now was it. Focusing on Taboo he gathered his magic, focusing it through the amulet and out towards Taboo in the form of tendrils of smoke. They might look insubstantial but they were strong enough to bind someone and where they touched they would cause excruciating pain, the perfect spell to bind a magician Albert felt. And apparently they were strong enough to topple a bookcase; it had never happened before Albert's control was absolute but somehow he still managed to knock over the bookcase. Throwing up his hands Albert didn't even have time to think before the air was knocked out of him as he was driven to the ground his legs trapped under the heavy shelves.
Topaz smiled grimly. With Albert down, at least for the moment, she turned her attention to Grace. The flames were higher now, momentarily distracting her as her brain once again reacted, wanting to run.
"You little-" Grace managed to avoid the bookshelf, but only barely. Lifting her own amulet, she didn't wait for Topaz to have a chance; white lightning roared inside of the room, aimed directly at the pair.
It was only with the barest of luck - and maybe a little magic - that Topaz managed to jump back and knock into Luca, putting them both more or less out of harm's way. She could feel the electricity of the bolt as it shot by. Far, far too close.
Luca's arms closed automatically around Topaz as she knocked into them, shielding her from the electricity with his body as best he could. But it was Taboo who responded, gesturing with one hand and flinging a force bolt back at Albert and Grace, knocking them back.
"Do I have to do everything myself?" Adam rolled his eyes heavenward and mouthed a few silent words. Behind them, the wall exploded inward, toppling both Topaz and Luca down to the flat's floor. The magnus shoved some debris out of his way, pushing through into the room with them. "I asked to you give an old man and his Slum Dog daughter a proper dose and instead, you fucking kill the wall to wall instead? Fuck me." His eyes lit on them, struggling to their feet, and he grabbed Luca by the back of his neck. "Not so fast, old-timer. Warned you about messing with my crew, and yet, here we are. You familiar with the concept of retribution? It is a justly deserved punishment, enacted in recompense for wrongdoing. That's you, mate. Wrongdoing. With us." He hoisted Luca up.
Bad, bad, bad. Topaz scrambled up, stumbling back a bit, her eyes wide - not fearing for herself, but for Luca. He doesn't deserve to die, he doesn't deserve to die, he doesn't deserve to die, she thought over and over, recalling every kind thing she'd ever seen Luca do - right from the moment he and Alice had taken her in. She'd never tried this before - calling on past karma - but she was desperate now. He doesn't deserve to die.
Albert pushed himself off the ground and turned to face Adam and the captive Luca, he raised his hand and drew his power through the amulets causing them to grow as a spear of fire formed in his hand and he hefted it aiming at the half dead old man. The look of malicious enjoyment on his face slowly faded to one of confusion and dismay. He shook his head and lowered his hand allowing the fire spear to dissipate. "No not like this, he's beaten there's no need to take this any further, just look at him," he continued gesturing to Luca.
"What on Earth are you-" Grace couldn't finish the sentence as regret hit her hard, unexpectedly. Looking over to Topaz on the ground and Taboo dangling from Adam's fist made her stomach shrink. Swallowing hard, she nodded once as she turned towards Albert. "Alright, that's enough. He wants them alive anyway."
Yes! Topaz hissed silently, careful not to let any of her triumph show. Her eyes flitted towards Adam, who still had a death grip on Luca, and Dominic. They weren't going to be nearly as easy to manipulate. And her bag of tricks was basically empty at this point.
"And what about the wrongdoing you did to us?" choked out Taboo, even as he realised what Topaz was doing. "You killed my wife, left our child without a mother, dragged her into this..." Hopefully he could push the guilt generated by Topaz with some old fashioned home grown version.
Albert walked up slowly and rested his hand on Adam's shoulder, "He's right, we don't need to kill him. Honestly it's not worth it, he's just an old man hardly worth the effort. We should just leave him to suffer with the knowledge that he couldn't stop us or save his wife." he told his brother, unwilling to go on with this any further.
"I'm sorry, but who told you pair of cunts that this was a discussion? I want him sorted out and he will sort him out!" Adam had gone very red in the face, shaking Taboo. The old man squirmed in the grip, and Adam slammed his head against the wall. "Both of you, do the girl. I'll take care of this cunt myself if you're all too fucking 'sensitive' about it."
NO! Topaz's head whipped back to Albert and Grace. She could sense the hesitation in them, the unwillingness to attack - partly generated by her, partly just the fact that the pair of them actually had some semblance of souls. Look at him - look at your leader. He's attacking an injured man. It's not right, you know it's not right... In a deep, out of the way corner of her mind, she was begging for this to work, begging her mutation to just be useful for once...
A slow feeling of remorse crept over Albert and he dropped his hand to Adam's, grabbing him and wrenching Taboo from his grasp. "I said leave him be," he ground out his talismans starting to glow. "when did you turn into such a coward that you had to pick on old injured men. We beat him, now leave him alone!"
Grace was having something of a personal crisis as Albert took a defensive stance. Quietly placing herself next to him, she raised her talismans. "We can't be like this, Adam!", shouted in a trembling voice. Energy surged from the stones between her fingers as she cast a look at her leader. "We just can't, I won't allow you to do this."
"Can't? Bollocks to can't. You'll fucking do wot I told you to do!" He cracked Albert''s head against the wall again, opening up a deep cut over his left eye. His grip had gone to his brother's throat, and magical energy crackled along his hands. "I am in charge here! I give the fucking orders, and when I want your opinion, I will fucking tell you wot it is!" Flickers of pain started to shake Albert's body, as Adam's cruel majicks reached into him. With their attentions divert, Taboo pulled himself to his feet, unnoticed.
"Do you want me to put you back in line, like Rack used to? Because it sounds to me like you all think this is some kind of joke that I don't get. And that makes me the cunt." The energy intensified, earning a stifled scream. "Is that it? You want me to be the cunt?"
Well...that had worked a little too well. In the midst of Adam's yelling, Topaz had slid over to where Taboo had shakily pulled himself up. An unspoken agreement went between the two - it was time to run.
So they did.
"They are getting away." Dom pointed in the direction that they were running.
"This is on you twats." Adam snarled, dropping the gasping Albert to the ground. The girl and the old man were already out on to public streets, and heading for crowds. Going after them meant exposing their powers to full view, and if there was one thing they'd learned from Rack, it was to hide their advantages. Adam stepped over Albert and headed for the street himself. "Someone pick him up and get back to the house. It would seem a long chat is in order."
Sleep was impossible.
Topaz wanted to, needed to. The fight had left her physically and mentally drained, sleep was a necessity in order to recover. But she was in the living room, and Luca was pacing back and forth, and he wouldn't allow her to go to her room. Which was logical - if the Destines were to attack, it would make sense for Topaz and Luca to be together. She understood that.
But sleep would have been nice, too.
Taboo - it was hard not to think of himself as that name now, it had become so much a part of his revenge - glanced at the girl huddled on the couch. She looked tired, but he couldn't risk letting her out of his sight. Who knew what might happen to her. "They'll come," he told her, voice rough with lack of sleep and his own exhaustion. "We must be ready. We can't let them go unpunished."
"Right." Topaz responded, her voice flat. She'd long mastered the art of keeping her emotions and mental states out of her tone. Even with Luca and - No, don't think about her - it was habit. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, stretching her senses out. It was early enough in the evening that most of their neighbors weren't home - there wasn't much to feel. The child directly below them was throwing a fit, much to his mother's distressed. The man three doors down was depressed - again. That was all she found, though. "Do you think we'll be able to take them when they show up?" She asked as she opened her eyes again. "We've lost the element of surprise."
"If we cannot, we will die. There is no question." Taboo's expression was bleak. "Kill or be killed."
Topaz didn't answer. Didn't have an answer. She pushed herself up on her knees to look over the edge of the couch and out the window. The street below was empty. The crying child had finally calmed down. It was quiet.
Taboo watched her, and deep down inside, where the man Luca still lived, something twisted. She was so young, dragged into a magical vendetta that was looking more and more hopeless. By him.
"Topaz," he began, sounding unsure for the first time in months. "I--"
That was as far as he got. They both felt the reverberation from Taboo's wards as they were smashed through in several places. The Destines had found them.
She'd barely reacted to his saying her name, but the sudden shift of the wards being shattered had her bolting straight up, eyes widening as she hurriedly stretched her mind out, finding nothing but cruel intentions and vengeance surrounding them. Too close. No time to-
Her thoughts were cut off by the back and front doors being blasted in.
"Knock fucking knock." Adam Destine stepped through the rubble, glass crunching under his heavy boots. He paused, looking around with great satisfaction as he lit a cigarette. It was time for a, what was the word, he considered? Reckoning. That was it. A reckoning with the gobshites stupid enough to think that they could mess with his crew and think they could just walk away from it. "Let me explain to you cunts just how this is going to be. You will fucking co-llect yourselves and get front and centre fucking sharpish, with a white flag held high. Anything less will make me mad, and if you make me mad, I will personally make sure this is drawn out as long as fucking possible. Do we have clarity?"
What an arrogant man, Topaz thought as she slid off the couch, her eyes drifting over the rest of the gathered clan members before turning to regard the leader with a cold look - an attempt to shake off her sudden misgivings. Their entire plan had revolved around the element of surprise. Logically, surrender would be the best idea at this point. But as Luca had said, kill or be killed.
She turned her attention to him now, waiting for his reaction to Adam's words before she tried anything.
"He's lying, Topaz. As soon as we step outside, he'll kill us both." Taboo moved to her side and lay his hand on her shoulder. The gesture was an old reminder of the man he had been, the father who had raised her, but now there was none of the warm emotional resonance with it, the fatherly affection. Only a desire for vengeance and a growing fatalism that neither of them would live through this. "We will fight, and we'll take as many of them with us as we can. Use everything you can, Topaz, you hear me? Everything."
Topaz stood tall under Luca's - Taboo's - touch, her eyes shifting quickly around. She'd received his message, and planned on following through to the best of her abilities. There were four Destines currently present - Adam at the back door with Dominic, and at the front door, closest to where she stood, Grace and Albert. She'd leave Adam and Dominic to Taboo, she decided in a split second. Grace and Albert would be far easier to manipulate.
There was more than enough energy for her to use - hate was very powerful emotion, and there was so much of it in the room it was almost overwhelming. They're trying to kill us. If anything could cause bad karma, it was attempted murder.
"You are trying my patience." Adam called out loudly, staring malevolently through the dust and rubble. "I'll make you a deal, right? You get your wrinkled arse out here, and I'll let the tart fuck off out the back. Otherwise, got me a geezer that can make a munt off her in one of the Paki houses up Newham." As the threat echoed, he turned to Dominic. "Fuck these animals. Burn them out then, Dom luv."
Dominic nodded when he was given an order, drawing on his life force he created fire and set the building on fire - though it was only an illusion it looked and felt real enough.
Human instinct called for panic - a vulnerable person standing in the middle of a burning building, panic and flight were the logical courses of action. But Dominic Destine's specialty was illusions. So Topaz forced the natural responses down, reassuring herself that the fire likely wasn't real - and even if it was, she had orders to follow.
Focusing on Albert and Grace, trying to remember what the apartment had looked like before the flames. The remnants of a bookcase had been sat very close to where Albert was, if she recalled, though the area was a ball of flames now. He's here to kill us, Topaz told herself as she gathered some of the hatred in the room, her gaze solely on Albert now. If she was lucky, she might be able to get him to knock himself out.
Albert reached up to stroke one of his amulets, he could end this now he though. It wouldn't be nice, and would definitely be painful, but that was hardly a reason to stop now was it. Focusing on Taboo he gathered his magic, focusing it through the amulet and out towards Taboo in the form of tendrils of smoke. They might look insubstantial but they were strong enough to bind someone and where they touched they would cause excruciating pain, the perfect spell to bind a magician Albert felt. And apparently they were strong enough to topple a bookcase; it had never happened before Albert's control was absolute but somehow he still managed to knock over the bookcase. Throwing up his hands Albert didn't even have time to think before the air was knocked out of him as he was driven to the ground his legs trapped under the heavy shelves.
Topaz smiled grimly. With Albert down, at least for the moment, she turned her attention to Grace. The flames were higher now, momentarily distracting her as her brain once again reacted, wanting to run.
"You little-" Grace managed to avoid the bookshelf, but only barely. Lifting her own amulet, she didn't wait for Topaz to have a chance; white lightning roared inside of the room, aimed directly at the pair.
It was only with the barest of luck - and maybe a little magic - that Topaz managed to jump back and knock into Luca, putting them both more or less out of harm's way. She could feel the electricity of the bolt as it shot by. Far, far too close.
Luca's arms closed automatically around Topaz as she knocked into them, shielding her from the electricity with his body as best he could. But it was Taboo who responded, gesturing with one hand and flinging a force bolt back at Albert and Grace, knocking them back.
"Do I have to do everything myself?" Adam rolled his eyes heavenward and mouthed a few silent words. Behind them, the wall exploded inward, toppling both Topaz and Luca down to the flat's floor. The magnus shoved some debris out of his way, pushing through into the room with them. "I asked to you give an old man and his Slum Dog daughter a proper dose and instead, you fucking kill the wall to wall instead? Fuck me." His eyes lit on them, struggling to their feet, and he grabbed Luca by the back of his neck. "Not so fast, old-timer. Warned you about messing with my crew, and yet, here we are. You familiar with the concept of retribution? It is a justly deserved punishment, enacted in recompense for wrongdoing. That's you, mate. Wrongdoing. With us." He hoisted Luca up.
Bad, bad, bad. Topaz scrambled up, stumbling back a bit, her eyes wide - not fearing for herself, but for Luca. He doesn't deserve to die, he doesn't deserve to die, he doesn't deserve to die, she thought over and over, recalling every kind thing she'd ever seen Luca do - right from the moment he and Alice had taken her in. She'd never tried this before - calling on past karma - but she was desperate now. He doesn't deserve to die.
Albert pushed himself off the ground and turned to face Adam and the captive Luca, he raised his hand and drew his power through the amulets causing them to grow as a spear of fire formed in his hand and he hefted it aiming at the half dead old man. The look of malicious enjoyment on his face slowly faded to one of confusion and dismay. He shook his head and lowered his hand allowing the fire spear to dissipate. "No not like this, he's beaten there's no need to take this any further, just look at him," he continued gesturing to Luca.
"What on Earth are you-" Grace couldn't finish the sentence as regret hit her hard, unexpectedly. Looking over to Topaz on the ground and Taboo dangling from Adam's fist made her stomach shrink. Swallowing hard, she nodded once as she turned towards Albert. "Alright, that's enough. He wants them alive anyway."
Yes! Topaz hissed silently, careful not to let any of her triumph show. Her eyes flitted towards Adam, who still had a death grip on Luca, and Dominic. They weren't going to be nearly as easy to manipulate. And her bag of tricks was basically empty at this point.
"And what about the wrongdoing you did to us?" choked out Taboo, even as he realised what Topaz was doing. "You killed my wife, left our child without a mother, dragged her into this..." Hopefully he could push the guilt generated by Topaz with some old fashioned home grown version.
Albert walked up slowly and rested his hand on Adam's shoulder, "He's right, we don't need to kill him. Honestly it's not worth it, he's just an old man hardly worth the effort. We should just leave him to suffer with the knowledge that he couldn't stop us or save his wife." he told his brother, unwilling to go on with this any further.
"I'm sorry, but who told you pair of cunts that this was a discussion? I want him sorted out and he will sort him out!" Adam had gone very red in the face, shaking Taboo. The old man squirmed in the grip, and Adam slammed his head against the wall. "Both of you, do the girl. I'll take care of this cunt myself if you're all too fucking 'sensitive' about it."
NO! Topaz's head whipped back to Albert and Grace. She could sense the hesitation in them, the unwillingness to attack - partly generated by her, partly just the fact that the pair of them actually had some semblance of souls. Look at him - look at your leader. He's attacking an injured man. It's not right, you know it's not right... In a deep, out of the way corner of her mind, she was begging for this to work, begging her mutation to just be useful for once...
A slow feeling of remorse crept over Albert and he dropped his hand to Adam's, grabbing him and wrenching Taboo from his grasp. "I said leave him be," he ground out his talismans starting to glow. "when did you turn into such a coward that you had to pick on old injured men. We beat him, now leave him alone!"
Grace was having something of a personal crisis as Albert took a defensive stance. Quietly placing herself next to him, she raised her talismans. "We can't be like this, Adam!", shouted in a trembling voice. Energy surged from the stones between her fingers as she cast a look at her leader. "We just can't, I won't allow you to do this."
"Can't? Bollocks to can't. You'll fucking do wot I told you to do!" He cracked Albert''s head against the wall again, opening up a deep cut over his left eye. His grip had gone to his brother's throat, and magical energy crackled along his hands. "I am in charge here! I give the fucking orders, and when I want your opinion, I will fucking tell you wot it is!" Flickers of pain started to shake Albert's body, as Adam's cruel majicks reached into him. With their attentions divert, Taboo pulled himself to his feet, unnoticed.
"Do you want me to put you back in line, like Rack used to? Because it sounds to me like you all think this is some kind of joke that I don't get. And that makes me the cunt." The energy intensified, earning a stifled scream. "Is that it? You want me to be the cunt?"
Well...that had worked a little too well. In the midst of Adam's yelling, Topaz had slid over to where Taboo had shakily pulled himself up. An unspoken agreement went between the two - it was time to run.
So they did.
"They are getting away." Dom pointed in the direction that they were running.
"This is on you twats." Adam snarled, dropping the gasping Albert to the ground. The girl and the old man were already out on to public streets, and heading for crowds. Going after them meant exposing their powers to full view, and if there was one thing they'd learned from Rack, it was to hide their advantages. Adam stepped over Albert and headed for the street himself. "Someone pick him up and get back to the house. It would seem a long chat is in order."
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