Higher Than Hope: Marie-Ange and Artie

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Marie-Ange goes to find and extract Artie, and encounters Garrulous whose power would be even more effective if both MA and Artie didn't hate persuasion/empathy powers so. very. much.

Content Warning: Self-Harm



Marie-Ange silently watched the chaos of panicked guests until there was a lull in the frantic scurrying towards exits. She stepped away from the wall where she'd been doing her best impression of a cowering, terrified arm-candy in a too-short skirt and into the stream of fleeing partygoers just as a gap opened.

The jostling, shoving and flailing carried her off the ballroom floor, with a minimum of bruising and through the caterer's entrance, where she ducked into an alcove where they kept the serving carts. She had just tapped her earbud to get Artie's attention when she saw the flickers of blue light from the kitchen proper. "Change of plans. Make the nearest exit!" She said, as she plucked a card from her sleeve and dashed to the opposite wall intent on assisting Emma and Wade.

Her dash was interrupted by the impromptu entrance of a high schooler. The boy wasn't over twenty, but he carried himself with a haughty swagger even in the chaos of the oncoming crowd; eyes fixed pointedly on the kitchen entrance. That is, for the few seconds that he didn't recognize the Archduke and himself had encountered earlier. Gabriel's mouth twisted into a wire smile. He grabbed her arm, and his voice was a mix of honey and down-home Alabama charm, "You surely want to listen to me."

Artie scooped up a kitchen knife, hiding it close against his leg and shook his head at Gabriel. Two more images of him appeared, rising from crouches behind the kitchen counters. One held a gun, aiming it at Gabriel's head. The other shook its head, gesturing let her go.

"Artie, no, let us hear him out. He seems sincere." Marie-Ange fingers let the card slip, and she held still instead of plucking another from the endless stashes of them in her clothes.

The image holding the gun looked skeptical but lowered the weapon. Artie himself kept his face studiously blank, as did the other decoy image. There was a plan here. Somewhere. He was sure that he'd find out what, soon. But in the meantime, he watched Gabriel's eyes and prepared a pair of illusions. One to disorient him and one to ensure Artie himself was able to vanish.

"Good. It is imperative you listen to my words. Follow my words." Gabe's eyes danced frantically across the sudden onslaught of Arites, but they lingered a tellingly on the gun. He gulped and his breathing slowed as he stiffened in his posture, centering himself.

"You," he said, indicating Marie-Ange, "Tell me what you are doing here."

For a moment it seemed as if the frenchwoman was about to answer, her mouth ready to spill their secrets - until a image of a devil doing one-handed pushups appears on Gabe's shoulder. Her lips snapped shut on a word, and she shook her head as if clearing sleep. "What? Why would I do that?" She asked, confused, and almost straining for an answer.

A frown. "I am your friend. You want to tell me what you are doing here. Who you are with. Tell me."

"I am.. " Marie-Ange rubbed at one eye and squinted at the man - so young, but cute - with the other. "Here for a party, my friend said I could crash." Her outfit didn't say "party crasher", it said "gold digger" but she hoped that whoever her new friend was, that he wouldn't notice, until Artie could get out and then she could make nice with the new guy. Maybe set him up with one of Amanda's students, the one with the wings.

Artie nodded. The images mirrored his actions a moment later. The delay wasn't noticeable but he shifted the hand with the gun, just a little. He wasn't supposed to keep it pointing at Gabe. Gabe was his friend. The image put the gun down on the counter.

Gabe's eyes, saucer-wide, were fixed on the gun. He absently let go of Marie-Ange's arm as his posture relaxed with renewed confidence. "Just put the gun down. Put it down now. We saw you stealing documents in the backrooms. No cleverness. Tell me the truth. "

It was a general command. A few of the fleeing guests and hired guards were hit as well, and slowed as if entranced by the compulsion to spill all of their secrets.

Stealing documents. Right. The new guy was nice but they had a job. Marie-Ange turned her face away as two of the waitstaff tried to press into their little chat, babbling about petty cash and not thinking anyone would care. "See, see, no they stole it, not us." She took tiny steps backwards until she could pluck another card out of her clothes. "See, we just wanted to meet people like us. That's why we crashed." In her hand, the card showed a plain grey stone tower, and at her feet an identical one appeared, complete with miniature figures leaping out of it. "See? See? Mutants, just like you. We don't mean any harm."

Gabe wasn't buying it, but the edge of a whine was starting to creep into his tone. "Confess your crimes. Now." His puffed cheeks really underscored the melodrama.

He had enough awareness left that, while he was willing to tell the truth, he was also able to keep the two images going, despite the headache starting to throb behind his eyes and the feeling that he was doing something very wrong by lying to Gabe. Confess his crimes. He could do that. There was a certain power in honesty but he couldn't really remember why he wasn't supposed to tell everything and if he couldn't do that, he could at least start at the start. Confess his crimes. All of them.

Text began to float above the two images' heads and a detailed listing of his transgressions with them. "I stole a toy car off a kid in the park - Leech and me blamed Jamie every time we ate the last of the cookies - this woman was panhandling and I was like five and Annalee distracted her while I stole her money - we were the ones who spilled water on Jamie's algebra final and threw it in the bin- I pretended I had tonsillitis to get out of a field trip - I was the one who broke the DVD player in the rec room both times - I used fake ID to buy beer with Matt this one time - I cheated on all of my trig tests and most of my bio ones - I knew Annalee was going to empath at me and didn't tell anyone - I never buy the proper tickets on the subway - I always said that I liked Lorna's meatloaf but it tastes like ass --"

The Archeduke's young, budding neonazi protege blinked. He was vaguely aware the other gathered guests were also confessing small things, but his eyes settled on the two making no noise. He glared at Marie-Ange. "What's with the Powerpoint Presentation?"

~empath~ Marie-Ange blinked in confusion a few times, the word ~empath~ was flashing at her, blinking erratically, and it was irritating her, distracting her from chatting up this nice new friend. She glanced up to meet Gabe's eyes, and bit her lip."That is Artie's power. He can make illusions." The word flickered, black, red, black, red, black with a red center, and slide down the speech bubble to touch 'ass' before bouncing back up, flashing red on black, red, red, red...

"Mine also, but more solid." The little tower at her feet slumped like melting ice cream. "I had hoped we could make friends, but I think perhaps not now." She pulled her attention away from Gabe, and looked over at Artie. "Would it be tacky to confess murder, do you think?" She asked, as she pulled a long knife from the air, one that matched the tattoo on her arm. "Stop what you are doing, or I will have to add another few deaths to my very long list of crimes."

Artie let the illusions vanish, the two men flickering out of existence. Part of him wanted to run at Marie-Ange, stop her from hurting Gabe, stop her from hurting his friend. Annalee had been his friend once, too. He knew empaths. He knew them and he lifted the hand holding the knife, pressed it down against his forearm and cut through the suit, the shirt and his skin underneath. He looked down at the blood staining the knife dully for a moment, the sting of the cut balancing out the emotion.

Artie lunged forward, slicing the knife diagonally down the back of the waiter closest to him. Empathy went two ways.

There was no effect, aside from Gabe paling a bit at the sudden and random show of blood. He cleared his throat experimentally. "Stop." Then again, with more force and conviction. "Stop what you are doing."

The bystanders froze. The slashed waiter sat in mid crouch, bleeding puddles onto the floor. Gabe frowned at the mess. "You'll ruin the carpet."

The increasingly loud sounds of a fight in the kitchen - and peculiar exclamations from Wade - broke through the last of Marie-Ange's mental fog. The urge to listen - and to obey the commands from the young man - lingered, but as little more than a nagging reminder, easily ignored, if she also ignored the guilt that came with dismissing him. Rather like ignoring reminders in her email and phone to draw more, eat more, sleep more and be wrong on the public journals less where the teenagers could see it.

She stepped forward, surrounded by a suddenly appearing clatter of falling metal discs that sublimated away as they hit the ground, and in the chaos, stomped at Gabe's foot with her shoe. Her heels were fashionable, if not entirely sturdy enough to survive through one good hard stomp, but it carried her up into his space, where Marie-Ange could throw an elbow into his stomach, and then grab him around the neck. "Tell us where the two American women are, Miss Abbott and Miss Collins, and then make sure we get there safely."

"Don--" But the kid's protests were strangled away. He coughed, looking abashed. "Miss... Collins? Abbott? Who?"

Artie answered in images, showing pictures of the two as he moved closer, taking a place across from Marie-Ange where he could watch the corridor. He kept flexing his injured arm, stabs of pain flaring out of the background throb of the injury.

"Oh. Well, I have no idea who the blonde is and..." Gabe had gotten enough time to grab the inhaler from my pocket. "You shouldn't mind this. Pay no attention. I have a cond..." He dropped, slipping from Marie-Ange's weak hold and simultaneously inhaled and tucked into a roll away closer to the kitchen entrance. The change was obvious: his eyes had dilated, and his manner had morphed from good ole boy to more of a chipmunk.

"Give me your attention." His command projected down the hallway, unfreezing the guests and drawing forth more guards and patrons from unseen corridors.

He definitely had Marie-Ange's attention. The catering corridor was suddenly packed with people, all pressing in to hear the now squeaky-voiced teenager. The urge to stay and listen, even if he now sounded exactly like a high-pitched rodent named Alvin (or possibly Simon, or even Theodore) was so strong that even as Marie-Ange shoved and elbowed away from the crowd, she kept glancing over her shoulder to try to watch him speak.

He caught Artie's attention, too, as thoroughly as he had everyone else's, despite the squeaky voice. And that was. That was. Artie flexed his forearm, pain clearing his head a bit. That was wrong. You. Didn't. Listen. Artie sliced the knife across his arm again. You didn't listen to empaths. Except for Annalee because she loved him.

Artie took a deep breath and a moment later smoke and flames began to pour out of the kitchen door, while the emergency lights began to strobe. The illusion wouldn't hold long but it was enough to shift some of the crowd.

"Protect me. Protect the Archeduke."

The words hit like a wave. The crowd solidified into a protective bubble around the boy with the high-pitched, irresistible voice almost immediately. It became hard to tell where he was. But one of Gabe's skills had always been projection. "Kill the redhead."

Wade's parting comment to Holocaust caused him to miss part of what the squeaky man said, but he did hear the last part as he and Emma got closer. He blinked, mind going back and forth with itself for a moment. "Look, you squeaky little man... boy... man-boy," he began, hobbling faster down the hall and putting a little more weight on Emma's shoulders than he would've liked. "I'd be able to protect you if the Archduke himself hadn't just baconized my insides - talk about inhospitable..." But then, "And I will not be killing the redhead."

There was a small part of Wade's mind, sort of stunted and overshadowed by other things, that kept telling him they should work to avoid some kind of international, really public incident because that would be bad. And killing innocent civilians would be worse. Probably. It would probably be worse. For the moment, it seemed like most of the people in the mob behind them were torn between various commands - protect squeaky man-boy, protect the Archduke, kill the redhead - of which there were several. Couldn't do all of that at once, at least. "C'mon, McSparkles, let's hobble faster - before somebody shouts 'for the horde' and starts an actual riot."

Telepathy swept through Marie-Ange's head like opening a freezer, cold and crisp - Emma's shielding blanketing the compulsions that were still slithering around in their minds. It was like breathing in the perfect frozen air after a snowfall.

She grabbed Artie by one shoulder and steered him through the parting crowd in Emma and Wade's wake, until they found the emergency exits and stumbled out. It took only a moment to cover the door in imaged brick and chains. "That will not last, but it will keep them from chasing us long enough to get away safely."