xp_logs | Fires From The Ashes

Emma's team discovers an infernal foe to challenge them

It was as if a portal had opened, jarred on by the random explosions, chaos and terror emanating from the city. Right before their eyes appeared another Wanda, Topaz, Billy, Adrienne, Emma and Amanda. From the look in their eyes, they weren't friendly. Nor did they look like they wanted to talk.

In fact -- they looked downright hostile.

Adrienne instinctively moved behind Emma, figuring that since her sister had gotten the defensive powers in the family, it was only fair to use her as a shield. "What are you wearing?" she asked Emma as she stared at the alternate form of her sister.

“Horns, apparently,” said Emma, raising a surprised eyebrow. “And a tail. It appears the Hellfire Club might be somewhat more literal where they’ve come from.” She reached out, cautiously, with her telepathy, aware that the alt-Emma might have powers that matched her own, but it was like bouncing off a rubber mat, not letting her find the shape of any of them on the Astral Plane. They were there, but it was like an old badly-tuned TV – barely discernible shapes in a sea of crackling interference.

Topaz could only blink as she stared at the group before them. She'd picked her own face out, hidden under a grotesque outer look - what was she like, she wondered stupidly. Were her powers the same? That'd probably be a pain to fight...

"What the hell?" She finally managed to say, taking an uncertain step back.

"Oh, fuck no..." Amanda looked over the group of doppelgangers, noting the horns and tails and cloven hooves, the ripped leather and skin-tight lycra, the glowing red eyes. "Um, call me crazy, but this reminds me of what happened to Meg and Cal and Fred and the rest in that mini-Limbo dimension back last year," she said at last. "They look like us, if we'd been trapped in Limbo for years."

Wanda, the real one, looked on their doubles with a weary expression. Deep down, all she wanted to do was sit down and not get up for a few years but they were to be given no reprieve. Not now and ... possibly not for a very long time. Her powers flared to life and she winced - everything was in chaos. She'd never seen anything like it; unnatural was an apt description. They were real and yet not and ...

Her eyes widened as she saw the something red shift on the other side and realized it was the demon version of her - skin as red as the chaos lines - raise her hands. "Move!" she screamed, shoving the nearest person to the side as a crackling bolt of chaos and entropy was fired directly into their midst.

Chaos. Billy felt it prickling on his skin, itching, begging to be used, far more tangible than he'd ever felt before. He looked across at the demonic version of himself, immediately aware that he could sense it as well. Except that version seemed to revel in the sensation, even reaching toward the alternate Wanda. Sparks of electricity appeared, dancing over his body, arching between the two, becoming entwined with her red chaos. A wicked, Cheshire smile appeared, hovering there momentarily as his physical form began to fade, leaving behind a humanoid shaped electric being. Billy stood mesmerized, the trance only broken as Wanda threw him out of the path of danger.

Adrienne took a second, still using Emma as a shield, to wrestle with the important decision of which gun she should use. North had set her up with a Sig p226 similar to the one she'd used in Genosha and the Heckler and Koch USP Compact she used in her training with him. But had also given her a Heckler and Koch MP7A1 Submachine gun. She'd only just started training with it in their lessons together, but if there were ever a time to use it, now would probably be it, right? "I like your boots," she told her demon self as she unstrapped the submachine gun from her back. "But that headdress thing's gotta go. And... seriously? A cape?!"

“Nothing wrong with a cape, dear.” Emma reproved her sister lightly. She considered the situation for a moment and then switched to diamond form. Whatever was filling up the Astral Plane – or (Emma tilted her head, considering) was using a lot of psychic power to control this group – made her telepathy somewhat pointless. “But if you wouldn’t mind, could you try shooting other-me? I’m wondering if the secondary mutation translated over...”

"My pleasure," Adrienne replied enthusiastically as she dodged a bolt from altWanda, setting her feet and firing a cluster of bullets from the submachine gun at her sister's doppelganger. Though nowhere near professional standards, Adrienne had been training in marksmanship for several years now, first with Bishop and Vanessa, now with North and Kane. As with everything she did, she worked hard at her lessons, and had become quite a competent shot, managing to hit the demon Emma several times. "Wait? Did I sound a little too excited there?" she asked no one in particular as she moved to find better cover. "I swear- I'm excited about the gun, not the target."

Topaz was a bit locked on everything else that was going on, and didn't realize right away when something pressed into her mind. She did, however, notice when she felt her emotions being siphoned.

"Oi!" She snapped, slamming her shields down as her gaze flew to her own deformed alternate. "She drains emotions too. Oh that's just wonderful."

"Let's change things up a bit and play swap partners." Amanda let herself sink partly into the floor as she drew on the city's power. "Naff off, bitch," she grated, a pulse of pure London energy blasting from her hands and into the Topaz doppelganger.

The altTopaz tried to shield, but no matter what universe she was from, she couldn't stand up to Amanda's power. The blast of energy shattered the shield and blasted the demonic girl back.

"One more reason to stay on your good side," Topaz mumbled despite herself. That attack should have kept her doppelganger down, but Limbo had apparently made her more resilient. She pushed herself back up with a growl, energy sparking between her fingers. Ready for a fight.

It was like trying to grab onto a thousand vibrating strings. Wanda had hit the ground hard after shoving Billy out of the way and was desperately trying to wrest control back from her alter ego. The other version of herself grinned and flexed claw like fingers that glistened with chaos energy like poison. Wanda shoved herself up from it, watching as alt-Wanda glanced at Billy and then herself. "Oh no," she murmured. "Eyes on me."

She grabbed a fistful of the lines, not caring that some didn't stay in her hands long enough to do anything, and slammed her hands fist first into the ground. Entropy exploded out, chewing up the ground as Wanda drove it towards her double, forcing the other woman to scramble and try to block the assault.

Billy groaned, using his staff as crutch to pull himself back to his feet, He glanced across the way at his incorporeal counterpart, the sparks surrounding his own hands seeming useless against his double. "He's feeding on her chaos," he growled, as altWanda looked his way. For a moment, Billy stood there here helpless. There was almost too much power in the air, despite the Wandas' tug of war, and the other Billy obviously had much more practice wielding. He didn't even dare try anything that big. If it went...wrong. A smile broke across his face. Let it go wrong. He raised his voice loud enough so the entire team could hear--they'd get it, though the others had no idea what was in store. "I WANT POTATOES!" One instantly appeared in his hand, and he lobbed it at the altWanda. "This is called learning from your mistakes," he called after it, knowing more were soon to follow.

"Wait, what the fuck?!" Adrienne cried out as a potato fell from the sky. "If it's going to start raining fucking potatoes I'm getting the fuck out of here!" She fired off another cluster of bullets, this time at her alt, who had no gun, but a bow and quiver of arrows. Apparently they didn't have guns in whatever dimension these freaks were from. The bow was nice, though. Adrienne wanted it after she put her alternate down.

Emma scowled faintly as a potato bounced off her diamond form, but didn't take it seriously as she stalked towards DemonEmma, who obviously had inherited her secondary mutation. Adrienne's bullets had sent her bouncing backwards, but now she was heading back into the fray. "Oh dear heart me," she said, when she got close enough to her alternative for it to hear her. "If only I'd been given the tail - what I could have done with it. I could have owned the world." And without any further introduction, Emma punched herself in the face.

The actual Wanda winced as altWanda hissed at Billy as a potato smacked her in the head. An actual, honest to god hiss. She wondered if she could just die of embarrassment. But she couldn't dwell on the absurdity of any of it for long, not when there was an insistent tug on her powers. Her eyes scanned the battle field for a moment before she spotted altBilly staring at her intently. She shuddered as all the strings before her dimmed in color and felt a sluggishness start to steal over her.

Topaz turned just in time to see an arrow flying at her. No time for a shield, but ducking and dodging away worked just well. "Christ," she grumbled as she straightened up, facing the alternate Adrienne, who was already readying another arrow. "Sorry, mind if I borrow somethin'?" She asked as she forced her way into the demon's head, draining her emotions. Not that demons had much in the way of emotions, but there was anger and really, what was more powerful than that?

Energy flowed through her, down her arms, into her fingertips, crackling between her fingers, and she blasted altAdrienne back, the bow clattering to the floor as the demon lost her grip on it in her flight backwards.

"Takes one to drain one, fucker." The voice came from behind the barely-human version of Billy as Amanda used her link with London to pop up through the floor. She rammed her hand into the energy being's back, the back of her shirt beginning to smoke and smolder as she pulled the magical power out of him via the channeling spell Candra had carved into her. "Ow, ow, fucking ow," she muttered under her breath, the runes of the spell glowing red-hot with the power load. But it was working - the creature was becoming corporeal once more as she literally leeched the power from it.

Except, as she had said, their demonic counterparts knew their weaknesses. The other version of Amanda herself, giant ram's horns sprouting from her forehead and curling back over her skull, wasn't about to let her compatriot be drained. Reaching into her own chest, she pulled out a sword - no, not just any sword, the Soul Sword, Illyana's Soul Sword - and rammed it into Amanda's back, disrupting the spell.

Amanda screamed, arching backwards as her magic, her connection with London, Candra's channeling spell, suddenly went haywire, energy sparking from her body like an electrical overload.

"Holy shit what the fuck what the fuck what the-" The whole chest-sword-Amanda-stabbing was too much for Adrienne, who stopped firing and dropped behind her cover. This magic shit was insane. She couldn't deal with this. But how could she get away from it? Everything around her had gone to hell. She couldn't exactly walk away. She'd be a sitting duck. Despite everything inside her screaming to run away, she had to take the fight option of flight or fight.

Getting some precognition Readings off her weapons, Adrienne gritted her teeth and with an annoyed sigh, scoped out the area from behind her cover, looking for the horned bitch who'd stabbed one of her best friends with a fucking magic chest sword. Pretending she was in a DR session with Garrison, she planned out her movements and then followed through, as she'd been taught to do. Rolling out from behind her cover, she paused long enough to line up the correct angle and fired a cluster from the submachine gun into the head of the horned bitch before dashing away, keeping herself moving as the altAmanda poofed out of existence.

Raining potatoes created a small chaos of their own, but seemed to be working. At least his skin didn't feel like it was crawling with power, and whether from that or Amanda's direct assault, or some combination of the above, his counterpart was beginning to take form again. He watched in horror, though, as the situation took bad turn. "I want to be there now, I want to be there now!" he said, picturing himself immediately behind his alternate. Then there he was, wooden non-conductor staff swinging toward his opponent. altBilly had just enough form that it connected with a thunk, and Wiccan whipped it around in a quick uppercut that sent his mirror flying into the air. Billy looked to Amanda, terrified at the raw energy surrounding her. "Topaz, help!" he called out to her. "We've got to help her get control."

The first blow hadn't been quite enough to put out the demon Adrienne, who was already diving for her bow again, but Topaz was faster, blasting her back again - this time she followed her comrades, disappearing.

Of course, peace never lasted long. At Billy's call she whirled around, eyes wide when she saw Amanda. "Shite," she mumbled, hurrying over. The energy that was pouring off the blonde was almost overwhelming.

The sword was gone, but its effect, the ability to disrupt magic, was still sending Amanda's powers haywire. And with the state they were in, who knew how London would react? She gritted her teeth, trying to rein herself in, but she had nothing to work with.

"Topaz," she grated. "Drain off what you can." Fire was oozing from her eyes like tears, dribbling down her face. "Emma... can short-circuit my powers. Billy... cover Wanda."

Topaz didn't bother with words - she went right into Amanda's head, forcing past her shields, and after only a moment if hesitation she dug in as deep as she could, draining off Amanda's emotions. Fear, panic, every bit of it pulled off of Amanda and into Topaz's head.

Emma, who had, up until this point been thoroughly enjoying her rather random brawl with her equal and opposite (well, perhaps not entirely opposite) self, glanced over at Amanda and frowned suddenly. "Sorry, darling," she said to her alternate self and then, as altEmma dragged her closer, leaned forward and planted a languid kiss on diamond mouth. It had exactly the effect she intended, as she felt the shock course through other-Emma's body, followed by the wave of diamond transforming back to flesh. "I would have loved to see what you could do with that tail," she murmured, as she drove diamond fingers deep into altEmma's skull, until her other-sister fell lifeless from her hand.

Wiping her fingers with a disdainful grimace on her clothing, Emma turned back to Amanda and Topaz, transforming back to flesh as she did so. ~Enough, Topaz,~ she said and then extended her powers, reaching into Amanda's mind and tapping, hard, at the source of her power, the link between Amanda and London. For a moment, the feedback threatened to overwhelm Emma but she caught it and shunted it aside and tapped harder again, breaking the link entirely.

The witch dropped to her knees, panting as her powers were abruptly cut off. She felt oddly... no, not oddly calm, there was nothing odd about it, given Topaz's intervention. But she felt calm, disconnected, and able to think clearly without the tsunami of grief hiding just behind her walls. "I'm good," she said at last, voice without its usual inflections. "Thanks for that."

On the other side, Wanda's powers had snapped back into focus as the alternate Billy's focus was dragged off of her. But she hadn't rushed back into the fight immediately. Instead, she'd faded back and had stalked the battlefield, gathering chaos to her. This wasn't something she did often - holding onto the energy was like trying to hold onto a live wire except the consequences of what she held close to her was worse than electricity.

But she waited, gathering more, until she saw the other Billy stagger and she saw he was now completely physical. She bolted, long legs chewing up the ground and she reached him right as he turned around. He stumbled away from her and she felt the tug of his attempt to absorb the chaos from her and turn it into something else. Her momentum slammed her into him and Wanda grabbed for him, hands clenched at his throat and chest.

And instead of fighting him, Wanda fed him the chaos. Hands glowed red as she shoved it down his throat, filling him up and overloading his senses. And him. He fought her, with his powers and his fists, but Wanda was not to be moved. The flesh under her fingers turned brittle as the entropy ate him from the inside and the chaos caused everything to shut down. Eventually he shattered under the pressure and red dust exploded out in all directions.

Billy snatched up one of the potatoes by his feet. He let the electricity build in his hand, until the vegetable began to spark on its own accord. He took a better stance, wound it around like a pitch, and threw it as hard as he could at the downed demonic Wanda. It sailed through the air, silent for a moment before hitting her with a thunderous crack. A shower of dust and lightning bolts and red flashes filled into the air, and when it cleared a moment later, nothing remained but a smoking crater.

Relieved that Amanda seemed to be okay, Adrienne scrambled over to her friend- grabbing the bow dropped by her alternate self on the way- to make sure for herself that she was in one piece. "You really didn't get stabbed to death with some chesty demon sword? That's great! Magic is so fucked up," she muttered grouchily under her breath, scanning the battlefield for the remaining demons and taking aim with her submachine gun at the other Topaz. Or was it the real Topaz? Shit, she needed glasses. Maybe if she survived this. No, it was demon Topaz. Whew. That could have been bad.

Topaz didn't particularly care for something - especially a demon - running around with her face and her powers. She was prepared to just let Ms. Frost shoot it - until she saw the energy sparking through her alternate self, watching her zero in on Adrienne.

"No you don't," she hissed, putting Amanda's emotions - the energy buzzing around in her head, just begging to be used - to good use and blasting the demon. The other Topaz tried to resist, but it was a token effort at best - she'd burned up all of her power early on, while Topaz still had a little to spare. The attack slammed into the demon, and she disappeared in a burst of light. Topaz squeezed her eyes shut, taking a deep breath. That had used up a bit more than she'd intended; her head was starting to hurt.

After a moment she opened her eyes, a bit blearily, and looked around. "Is that it?"

“For here. And for now,” said Emma, after a quick visual and mental scan of the area. She gave a quick shudder, wiping her fingers once again on her trousers. “But we did just get attacked by our demon-selves from another dimension who appeared to be under a serious psychic compulsion.” Emma scanned again, a broader sweep to see if she could find the source of the psychic compulsion, but instead she found... “There’s a hole in the world,” she said softly. “So many people missing...” She took a deep breath. “I think we need to find out what’s going on.”