Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart - Finale
Dec. 17th, 2013 06:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsPixie and Billy do magical battle, not just for their lives but for Megan's soul.
Billy's head whipped about, then finally up, locating the sound of the voice. Or...voices. Or at least bodies. He flinched at the sight of the second darker form grotesquely wrapped around Pixie. He clenched his staff tightly, electricity crackling around his hands. "I know exactly where I am," he said, trying to summon a brave front. "And exactly who I am. I think you're the one who's lost.”
Pixie tipped back her head and laughed when the boy finally locked eyes with her. She felt giddy with power, almost drunk. She’d stabbed a witch and become protégé to a powerful demon. There was nothing she couldn’t do, wouldn’t do to please her master. She fixed her black eyes on him and his staff again. Once he was dealt with, she could just take it. “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” Fresh beads of dust blossomed on her skin.
Billy tensed, the lightning expanding past his hands to encompass the entire staff. "You're not getting through," he called up at her. The energy danced around him, fueled by the surroundings, but he held it tightly. She was a Friend, even if he didn't know her well. That thing on her shoulder, though. It wanted out of this demon realm. He could tell. "You shall not pass!" he shouted at it, planting the staff on the ground.
Pixie flinched as the electricity crackled. She needed to dispatch this magic-user quickly. She released the dust in a cloud around her. It rained down like pollen, coating the boy and the staff, then slowly dispersed in the breeze.
Billy saw the dust begin to rain down. The quick briefing of people's powers sprang to mind, and he took a quick gasp before holding his breath and attempting to dash out from under the descending cloud. "Mmm mmnnnn mnnnnnn," he tried to mumble without opening his mouth, but the magic didn't come. His lungs were beginning to burn, but he didn't dare breathe or chant with her overhead. And no words, no spells. The electricity continued to crackle around him, and finally, he whipped his jacket over his mouth and nose and dared a quick breath as he sent a bolt shooting up towards Pixie.
Pixie dodged the bolt by teleporting a few meters. However, her dusting was disrupted — the dust either scattered to the wind or some of it teleported with her. Normally, she had to be careful and avoid breathing in her own dust — but that didn’t seem to be a concern anymore. She twirled in the air, summoning a second dose of the nightmare dust. As powerful as her new form was, she didn’t want to take her chances against the staff just yet. It was better to see what it could do, before she tried to get in close with her dagger.
It was almost a relief when Pixie vanished and the lightning sailed past harmlessly. He awkwardly held the jacket over his face with one hand, trying to hold the staff in the other as he looked around for her. "This is ridiculous," he muttered, sending a couple rapid fire bolts to keep her occupied. Iwanttobreathe.Iwanttobreathe, he began to chant, mind racing through a jumble of images trying to think of something to protect him from the pollen. Pollen. Bees. Flying. Birds. Bird flu. SARS. The air shimmered in front of him, and suddenly a blue surgical mask popped into existence and fluttered to the ground. "I'll take what I can get," he muttered, blindly sending up another bolt as he let go of the jacket and reached down to snatch it up.
Pixie repeatedly avoided the attacks, but she was getting nowhere. It was stabby knife time. She glided around an aimless bolt and dove quickly in with the blade, seeing an opening as the boy reached for something on the ground.
Stop. Drop. And Roll. Well, something of that nature. Billy paused as a shadow passed over head, glancing up to see Pixie diving toward him. He grabbed the mask in time and quickly tumbled out of the way, but in the act, he lost his grip on the staff. It fell to the ground, sending up a puff of dust as he just managed to get out of reach of her blade.
Pixie’s momentum carried her off-balance when the blade hit nothing but dust-filled air. She corrected herself as she skidded to a halt on the dry, cracked ground, her wings buzzing furiously. Then she saw it lying in the dirt, halfway between her and the boy - the staff. He was now unarmed. She leaped at him again, her last vestiges of caution fading.
Billy eyed the staff, momentarily toying with the idea of trying to get it, but an oncoming Pixie quickly dashed that plan. He lept to his feet, holding the mask over his face with one hand, and holding his other up to block her attack. Iwanttostopher.Iwantostopher, he quickly began to chant as he attempted to summon another lightning bolt.
Now sometimes, at least when in a realm brimming with chaos, one wants their best laid schemes to go awry. A faint hum filled the air as that chaos caught hold of the mix of magic and electricity, and rather than a bolt, a pulsing ball of lightning appeared in the air between them. The sound and brightness quickly intensified as it began to collapse into itself, and Billy barely had the sense to shut his eyes and look away before the orb exploded in a blinding flash and boom that knocked him off his feet.
Pixie cursed and began to turn away. With her heightened speed, it seemed like events were unfolding in slow motion before her. But as fast as her enhanced body was, she wasn't going to be able to dodge the pulsing ball of electromagnetic energy as it unfolded into an explosion. “Master!” Her words were drowned out by the sudden boom. She was thrown into the air, but at the same time she was teleporting to the safety of Belaso’s castle.
Billy lay still for a moment, thankfully only figuratively shocked. "Woah," he said, an astonished grin starting to form, before he remembered his task at hand. He looked up just in time to see Pixie teleport away, wondering what to do. He could follow. With that jolt of confidence, he was sure of it. Well, almost sure of it. A couple of the teams were nearly to the gate, so he scrambled for his staff. "I'm going after Megan," he called toward them. I hope, he added silently, before beginning to chant. IwanttogowhereMeganwent.IwanttogowhereMeganwent. He didn't know exactly where it was, probably inside the spooky castle. He pictured Pixie in his mind, guessed at what the rest might look like, hoping for the best. With his eyes squeezed shut, he didn't see the blue glow that flared around him. He did feel the sudden jerking sensation that made his stomach jumped to his throat, and when he cracked open his eye, he was definitely somewhere else.
The winged woman fell onto the cold stone of the castle floor, her ears ringing and her wings smoldering from the explosion. She began to flail on the floor. “Get off me!!” Megan’s voice rang clear and true. She wasn’t just trying to cool off her wings, she was suddenly locked in a battle with herself. Pixie saw a chance when her other self was stunned by the explosion and took it for all it was worth. She rolled on the floor, trying to heave and claw the evil thing off her. Evil Pixie shifted this way and that, but held on with her claws. She wrapped her tail more tightly around her host’s torso. Pixie caught a glimpse of the boy as she flipped around on the floor. “Help!"
Billy stood there a moment, trying to get his bearings, until Pixie's cry for help shook him from his reverie. He watched the struggle, trying to figure out how to help. Good things never came in threes with his magic, and he didn't want to press his luck, and lightning could hurt them both equally. Finally, he rushed toward them. "You want my staff, have it!" he yelled, jabbing one end at the dark one.
Pixie saw Billy’s staff slide past her and jab into the evil one. Evil Pixie shuddered at the impact, and Pixie poured every fiber of her being into expelling her. “I am Megan Gwynn! I am good!” Her own voice sounded very faint and far away, although she felt like she was screaming at the top of her lungs. While Evil Pixie began to loosen her grip on her host's chest, Pixie visualized that her entire body was made of light, expelling the darkness. “You have no power over me!” Possibly some kind of energy really did radiate out of her, or maybe it was the staff. All she could accurately perceive was a huge vortex of energy forming around her. The evil one lifted away bit by bit, its energy was siphoned off by the vortex. The last thing to disappear was a claw. Then the entire formation collapsed. Pixie collapsed to the floor, face, feeling hollow and empty. Then all the energy of a moment before came rushing in, like air to a vacuum.
"Well done." The voice was rough and raspy, but full of pride. There was a clank of heavy chain as Amanda pushed herself upright from the shadows by the throne which had hidden her. "You did good, Billy-boy. I knew you would." The older witch looked dishevelled and wan, blood caking the front of her shirt and her lips dry and cracked and around her neck a heavy iron collar attached to an equally heavy chain. But she was relatively steady as she climbed to her feet. "Now let's get the fuck out of he--"
Her words were cut off by a choking gurgle as the chain was suddenly yanked tight, pulling her off her feet.
"I think not, witchling. You may think you have won, that you have released my hold over this girl, but you are on my ground." Belasco's voice echoed darkly in the chamber as he came forward, the chain attached to Amanda's collar clutched in his fist. His eyes glowed red with suppressed rage, power emanating from his massive form, but again, there was something lacking, a sense of hollowness. "First the girl, then the boy. I will enjoy seeing him turn, that purity twisted back on its--"
"Oh, shut the fuck up." Amanda climbed to her feet again and grabbed the chain, yanking it back towards her. Incredibly, it broke, rusty links shattering. "You've got nothing, horn-head and you know it."
Belasco stared at the chain. "How...? Your power is gone. My servant..."
"...Stabbed me with a soulblade and disrupted my magic. Yeah, I know, I was there. But you really didn't think I came here like a moron to offer you up Illyana's bloodstones, do you?" Amanda snorted. "I knew you'd turn the tables. But I needed time for the spell to work."
"Spell?" Belasco seemed almost lost, shrinking back onto the rocky throne that loomed too large for him.
"In the bag you crushed. Magical equivalent of nanobots. Very rare, but you can get all sorts of things on the magical black market." Amanda's grin was fierce. "It cost us the yearly income of a small African nation, but it was worth it. As soon as you did your macho destructive thing, you sealed this dimension’s fate. It’ll crumble down around you and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” She turned back to Billy and Megan and began to limp down the steps of the dais. “Time to go, kids. Belasco can’t touch us.”
“Fools!” Belasco rose from the throne, fury and evil incarnate. Black flames flickered around him as he drew on his remaining power. “You think I won’t rebuild? That I won’t come back for you, that I won’t wreck my revenge on those you love? They will die in agony!”
Amanda stopped on her way to join Billy and Megan, and looked back at him, face contemptuous. “You plonker. You think we’d leave you alive to come back like a bad smell?” A small white circle appeared on the floor between them, growing wider. “I’d have killed you myself, only someone has dibs and she’s more scary than you are.”
Belasco shrank back from the circle as a blonde head appeared in the centre, moving upwards to reveal a slim blonde woman in neat, tasteful clothing. In the locket around her neck, the bloodstones pulsed red.
“You?” the demon lord managed.
Illyana Rasputin gave him a withering look. “Of course. Who else?”
Amanda didn’t bother watching. She turned back to the waiting pair, placing a hand on each of their shoulders, as much as reassurance as support. “Billy? If you could do the honours?” she said.
Billy couldn't help looking over Amanda's shoulder and giving Belasco a "nyahnyah" look that stopped just shy of sticking out his tongue. He grabbed onto Amanda and Megan, with a quick "Here goes nothing," before he began to chant. There'snoplacelikehome.Theresnoplacelikehome. The blue glow surrounded the three of them, and when it faded, they stood in a small familiar bedroom. Well, familiar to Billy, at least, the bedroom he grew up on the Upper West Side. "Uh, oops?" he gave them both a sheepish grin, then started to chant again.
"Is someone there?" a voice called out, followed by footsteps in the hallway. By the time the door opened, though, the fading glow blended with the sunlight streaming in the window, and Mrs. Kaplan simply shrugged it off.
Elsewhere, Billy's voice could be heard saying "Well, two out of three isn't bad!," as they made their way across the snow-covered lawn toward the mansion.
Billy's head whipped about, then finally up, locating the sound of the voice. Or...voices. Or at least bodies. He flinched at the sight of the second darker form grotesquely wrapped around Pixie. He clenched his staff tightly, electricity crackling around his hands. "I know exactly where I am," he said, trying to summon a brave front. "And exactly who I am. I think you're the one who's lost.”
Pixie tipped back her head and laughed when the boy finally locked eyes with her. She felt giddy with power, almost drunk. She’d stabbed a witch and become protégé to a powerful demon. There was nothing she couldn’t do, wouldn’t do to please her master. She fixed her black eyes on him and his staff again. Once he was dealt with, she could just take it. “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” Fresh beads of dust blossomed on her skin.
Billy tensed, the lightning expanding past his hands to encompass the entire staff. "You're not getting through," he called up at her. The energy danced around him, fueled by the surroundings, but he held it tightly. She was a Friend, even if he didn't know her well. That thing on her shoulder, though. It wanted out of this demon realm. He could tell. "You shall not pass!" he shouted at it, planting the staff on the ground.
Pixie flinched as the electricity crackled. She needed to dispatch this magic-user quickly. She released the dust in a cloud around her. It rained down like pollen, coating the boy and the staff, then slowly dispersed in the breeze.
Billy saw the dust begin to rain down. The quick briefing of people's powers sprang to mind, and he took a quick gasp before holding his breath and attempting to dash out from under the descending cloud. "Mmm mmnnnn mnnnnnn," he tried to mumble without opening his mouth, but the magic didn't come. His lungs were beginning to burn, but he didn't dare breathe or chant with her overhead. And no words, no spells. The electricity continued to crackle around him, and finally, he whipped his jacket over his mouth and nose and dared a quick breath as he sent a bolt shooting up towards Pixie.
Pixie dodged the bolt by teleporting a few meters. However, her dusting was disrupted — the dust either scattered to the wind or some of it teleported with her. Normally, she had to be careful and avoid breathing in her own dust — but that didn’t seem to be a concern anymore. She twirled in the air, summoning a second dose of the nightmare dust. As powerful as her new form was, she didn’t want to take her chances against the staff just yet. It was better to see what it could do, before she tried to get in close with her dagger.
It was almost a relief when Pixie vanished and the lightning sailed past harmlessly. He awkwardly held the jacket over his face with one hand, trying to hold the staff in the other as he looked around for her. "This is ridiculous," he muttered, sending a couple rapid fire bolts to keep her occupied. Iwanttobreathe.Iwanttobreathe, he began to chant, mind racing through a jumble of images trying to think of something to protect him from the pollen. Pollen. Bees. Flying. Birds. Bird flu. SARS. The air shimmered in front of him, and suddenly a blue surgical mask popped into existence and fluttered to the ground. "I'll take what I can get," he muttered, blindly sending up another bolt as he let go of the jacket and reached down to snatch it up.
Pixie repeatedly avoided the attacks, but she was getting nowhere. It was stabby knife time. She glided around an aimless bolt and dove quickly in with the blade, seeing an opening as the boy reached for something on the ground.
Stop. Drop. And Roll. Well, something of that nature. Billy paused as a shadow passed over head, glancing up to see Pixie diving toward him. He grabbed the mask in time and quickly tumbled out of the way, but in the act, he lost his grip on the staff. It fell to the ground, sending up a puff of dust as he just managed to get out of reach of her blade.
Pixie’s momentum carried her off-balance when the blade hit nothing but dust-filled air. She corrected herself as she skidded to a halt on the dry, cracked ground, her wings buzzing furiously. Then she saw it lying in the dirt, halfway between her and the boy - the staff. He was now unarmed. She leaped at him again, her last vestiges of caution fading.
Billy eyed the staff, momentarily toying with the idea of trying to get it, but an oncoming Pixie quickly dashed that plan. He lept to his feet, holding the mask over his face with one hand, and holding his other up to block her attack. Iwanttostopher.Iwantostopher, he quickly began to chant as he attempted to summon another lightning bolt.
Now sometimes, at least when in a realm brimming with chaos, one wants their best laid schemes to go awry. A faint hum filled the air as that chaos caught hold of the mix of magic and electricity, and rather than a bolt, a pulsing ball of lightning appeared in the air between them. The sound and brightness quickly intensified as it began to collapse into itself, and Billy barely had the sense to shut his eyes and look away before the orb exploded in a blinding flash and boom that knocked him off his feet.
Pixie cursed and began to turn away. With her heightened speed, it seemed like events were unfolding in slow motion before her. But as fast as her enhanced body was, she wasn't going to be able to dodge the pulsing ball of electromagnetic energy as it unfolded into an explosion. “Master!” Her words were drowned out by the sudden boom. She was thrown into the air, but at the same time she was teleporting to the safety of Belaso’s castle.
Billy lay still for a moment, thankfully only figuratively shocked. "Woah," he said, an astonished grin starting to form, before he remembered his task at hand. He looked up just in time to see Pixie teleport away, wondering what to do. He could follow. With that jolt of confidence, he was sure of it. Well, almost sure of it. A couple of the teams were nearly to the gate, so he scrambled for his staff. "I'm going after Megan," he called toward them. I hope, he added silently, before beginning to chant. IwanttogowhereMeganwent.IwanttogowhereMeganwent. He didn't know exactly where it was, probably inside the spooky castle. He pictured Pixie in his mind, guessed at what the rest might look like, hoping for the best. With his eyes squeezed shut, he didn't see the blue glow that flared around him. He did feel the sudden jerking sensation that made his stomach jumped to his throat, and when he cracked open his eye, he was definitely somewhere else.
The winged woman fell onto the cold stone of the castle floor, her ears ringing and her wings smoldering from the explosion. She began to flail on the floor. “Get off me!!” Megan’s voice rang clear and true. She wasn’t just trying to cool off her wings, she was suddenly locked in a battle with herself. Pixie saw a chance when her other self was stunned by the explosion and took it for all it was worth. She rolled on the floor, trying to heave and claw the evil thing off her. Evil Pixie shifted this way and that, but held on with her claws. She wrapped her tail more tightly around her host’s torso. Pixie caught a glimpse of the boy as she flipped around on the floor. “Help!"
Billy stood there a moment, trying to get his bearings, until Pixie's cry for help shook him from his reverie. He watched the struggle, trying to figure out how to help. Good things never came in threes with his magic, and he didn't want to press his luck, and lightning could hurt them both equally. Finally, he rushed toward them. "You want my staff, have it!" he yelled, jabbing one end at the dark one.
Pixie saw Billy’s staff slide past her and jab into the evil one. Evil Pixie shuddered at the impact, and Pixie poured every fiber of her being into expelling her. “I am Megan Gwynn! I am good!” Her own voice sounded very faint and far away, although she felt like she was screaming at the top of her lungs. While Evil Pixie began to loosen her grip on her host's chest, Pixie visualized that her entire body was made of light, expelling the darkness. “You have no power over me!” Possibly some kind of energy really did radiate out of her, or maybe it was the staff. All she could accurately perceive was a huge vortex of energy forming around her. The evil one lifted away bit by bit, its energy was siphoned off by the vortex. The last thing to disappear was a claw. Then the entire formation collapsed. Pixie collapsed to the floor, face, feeling hollow and empty. Then all the energy of a moment before came rushing in, like air to a vacuum.
"Well done." The voice was rough and raspy, but full of pride. There was a clank of heavy chain as Amanda pushed herself upright from the shadows by the throne which had hidden her. "You did good, Billy-boy. I knew you would." The older witch looked dishevelled and wan, blood caking the front of her shirt and her lips dry and cracked and around her neck a heavy iron collar attached to an equally heavy chain. But she was relatively steady as she climbed to her feet. "Now let's get the fuck out of he--"
Her words were cut off by a choking gurgle as the chain was suddenly yanked tight, pulling her off her feet.
"I think not, witchling. You may think you have won, that you have released my hold over this girl, but you are on my ground." Belasco's voice echoed darkly in the chamber as he came forward, the chain attached to Amanda's collar clutched in his fist. His eyes glowed red with suppressed rage, power emanating from his massive form, but again, there was something lacking, a sense of hollowness. "First the girl, then the boy. I will enjoy seeing him turn, that purity twisted back on its--"
"Oh, shut the fuck up." Amanda climbed to her feet again and grabbed the chain, yanking it back towards her. Incredibly, it broke, rusty links shattering. "You've got nothing, horn-head and you know it."
Belasco stared at the chain. "How...? Your power is gone. My servant..."
"...Stabbed me with a soulblade and disrupted my magic. Yeah, I know, I was there. But you really didn't think I came here like a moron to offer you up Illyana's bloodstones, do you?" Amanda snorted. "I knew you'd turn the tables. But I needed time for the spell to work."
"Spell?" Belasco seemed almost lost, shrinking back onto the rocky throne that loomed too large for him.
"In the bag you crushed. Magical equivalent of nanobots. Very rare, but you can get all sorts of things on the magical black market." Amanda's grin was fierce. "It cost us the yearly income of a small African nation, but it was worth it. As soon as you did your macho destructive thing, you sealed this dimension’s fate. It’ll crumble down around you and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” She turned back to Billy and Megan and began to limp down the steps of the dais. “Time to go, kids. Belasco can’t touch us.”
“Fools!” Belasco rose from the throne, fury and evil incarnate. Black flames flickered around him as he drew on his remaining power. “You think I won’t rebuild? That I won’t come back for you, that I won’t wreck my revenge on those you love? They will die in agony!”
Amanda stopped on her way to join Billy and Megan, and looked back at him, face contemptuous. “You plonker. You think we’d leave you alive to come back like a bad smell?” A small white circle appeared on the floor between them, growing wider. “I’d have killed you myself, only someone has dibs and she’s more scary than you are.”
Belasco shrank back from the circle as a blonde head appeared in the centre, moving upwards to reveal a slim blonde woman in neat, tasteful clothing. In the locket around her neck, the bloodstones pulsed red.
“You?” the demon lord managed.
Illyana Rasputin gave him a withering look. “Of course. Who else?”
Amanda didn’t bother watching. She turned back to the waiting pair, placing a hand on each of their shoulders, as much as reassurance as support. “Billy? If you could do the honours?” she said.
Billy couldn't help looking over Amanda's shoulder and giving Belasco a "nyahnyah" look that stopped just shy of sticking out his tongue. He grabbed onto Amanda and Megan, with a quick "Here goes nothing," before he began to chant. There'snoplacelikehome.Theresnoplacelikehome. The blue glow surrounded the three of them, and when it faded, they stood in a small familiar bedroom. Well, familiar to Billy, at least, the bedroom he grew up on the Upper West Side. "Uh, oops?" he gave them both a sheepish grin, then started to chant again.
"Is someone there?" a voice called out, followed by footsteps in the hallway. By the time the door opened, though, the fading glow blended with the sunlight streaming in the window, and Mrs. Kaplan simply shrugged it off.
Elsewhere, Billy's voice could be heard saying "Well, two out of three isn't bad!," as they made their way across the snow-covered lawn toward the mansion.
