xp_logs | Burn The Witch || Battle at the Church

Topaz wakes up locked in a cell.

Topaz groaned as she picked herself up, blinking heavily and looking around. Her head was pounding like she'd gone on a powers binge, but this definitely wasn't the Box-

Wait. India. Church. Right. Topaz rubbed the back of her head, wincing when she felt the lump.

God damn it. I'm really gonna owe Amanda an apology.

She shook her head a bit, looking around. She was in one of the cells, that much was obvious. Oh boy. She crawled over to look past the bars and saw the four terrified girls in the cells across from hers. "Are you okay?" She asked in Hindi. They all just looked at her, wide-eyed and terrified. Topaz could feel the fear rolling off of them. "Has he hurt you? How long have you been here?"

It was another moment before one of them finally answered. "A-A week," she stuttered. "I think."

"Th..three days, they came home and then..." another of the girl offered before she broke down into sobs, the tears flowing through well worn tracks through the dirt on her face.

The third girl moved to comfort her, her voice devoid of emotion as she answered, "I've been here 5 days," she said as evenly as she could, doing her very best not to break down in front of the other girls. The quivering of her lips giving a lie to her efforts, "We've been down here since they took us, they don't tell us why we're here just..."

The second girl piped up in a small voice, "They tell us we need to be cleansed."

Topaz bit her lip, giving them a look over. Right off she could tell there was absolutely nothing magical about these girls. Not even the hint of something magic-related. So if that was what Saini was trying to cleanse he'd jumped the gun in a big way. "Okay." Topaz did her best to sound as calm and comforting as possible. "I know you're all scared, but it's gonna be okay. I promise."

"How do you know?" One of the girls demanded. Topaz pushed herself up and stepped back from the cell door.

"Because I have a friend coming. She's good at handling this kind of stuff." As Topaz spoke, energy crackled around her hand. She aimed her hand at the door, focusing on the lock, and a small ball of energy shot out. It was quite as dramatic as blowing the door off its hinges, but it did break the lock and allow the door to swing open.

The girls eye's couldn't have been wider open, they'd heard about mutants, they were all over hte news these days but none of them had ever seen one before, "but," the first girl swallowed, "I...we can't do that."

"I know you can't," Topaz said as she let herself out of the cell, looking around. Too much to hope that there would be a set of keys or something somewhere close by. "These people are morons. I'm gonna try and find some keys and I'll come back and let you out as soon as I can."

"Wait, you can't leave!" The crying girl burst out. Topaz paused, letting out a long breath. She needed to get out of here and there was no way she was going to manage that with four panicking girls.

"I'll be back. I promise I'll be back. With help, even. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you."

She regarded them for a moment, gritting her teeth before finally reaching out with her mind, draining their emotions. She might need the power up and there was no reason to leave them here scared out of their minds.

The girls slumped down in their cages, the emotion drained from their minds as they nodded slowly. "If you promise," one of them ventured as they stared at Topaz hopefully, "Good luck."

Topaz gave them a small nod and a smile before making her way down the hall. It was quiet, and she couldn't feel anyone nearby, which was good. And there weren't even any guards at the door. Which was...suspicious. But she took it as a sign that maybe her luck was actually changing and headed for the stairs...

Only to find herself cornered by Saini and his congregation. So much for luck changing.

"Ahh, Vimala, so nice of you to join us, how did you know we were talking about you?" Aedesh asked rhetorically before turning to face the congregation with a large smile, "My friends, this...poor lost girl came to us herself looking for help, for information. And look how eager she is for our help, despite the darkness that has taken over her she seeks us out. If there was ever a sign we are doing good and just work."

Blimey, what a nutter. "Uh, yeah, about that." Topaz inched sideways, not missing the way a couple of the beefier men in the crowd were looking at her. "I think I made a mistake. I'm actually pretty happy with the darkness, not much for light, me. So if you don't mind I think I'll just go now. No need to waste your time when I'm beyond hope and all."

"Nonsense," Aedesh waved away her objections, "No-one is beyond hope my dear. It's just a matter or applying the correct stimulus and giving it the right amount of time Time and stimulus, those are both things we have plenty off."

"Right, well..." Topaz took another small step to the side. "As I said, I'm pretty happy being a creature of the night and all, so I'll just..."

She bolted. Being small often had its advantages, and she'd spent a lot of time running from things in her life. She was fast.

The men who had been glaring at her, however, were faster. They dove at her and she reacted instinctually, managing to blast one of them. He flew back while the other one grabbed her, wrestling her to the ground.

"There's no need to panic," Aedesh said seemingly oblivious to the way his men were manhandling Topaz, "We're just here to help you drive the evil from your system. I know it seems scary but no-one can live a happy life possessed by a great evil."

Almost instantly the twittering that had started when Topaz had blasted the man died away. Topaz herself gritted her teeth, muttering, "Sorry mate," as she pushed her way into his head...

And found a wall.

What the fuck?

Aedesh's eyes widened slightly, a slight catch in his voice the only reaction though his eyes turned to bore into Topaz's "Yet that evil drives them to lash out in all the ways they can at those that would help them. Physically, mentally, the evil is resolute in it's will to survive. And there we ourselves might indeed learn a lesson from our foe."

God damn it. Okay, she'd just have to work with what she had, then. Energy crackled around Topaz's fingers, blasting the man who was holding her, and he slammed back against the wall behind them. By now the rest of the congregation had stood, closing in on Topaz, and she backed up a bit, scared despite herself. They may have been all be regular people without powers, but they were regular people without powers who far outnumbered her and were clearly willing to do anything for the precious priest.

Still, no one could ever say Topaz was one to just give up. Energy sparked to life once more between her fingers as she tried to figure out her next move.

"It's no use my child," Aedesh shook his head sadly, "Are you truly so far gone that you'd even attack a room full of innocent poor hearted people who just want to help you? Surely you haven't given yourself truly to the darkness, there must be a spark of kindness and compassion left inside you that would stay your hand. Or would you truly attack a mother trying to help teh child she sees hurting infront of her, a father giving all the can to help his community become a place he'd truly like to see his children grow up in?"

That brought Topaz up short. These people weren't bad, they had just been manipulated. They were being used by the very man taunting her.

Not evil. Just misguided.

The moment of hesitation was enough for one brave soul to spring forward, grabbing her and slamming her back against the wall. Her head snapped back with a sickening thud, and her last, slightly disconnected thought before she passed out was, I'm gonna have a hell of a headache.

Topaz wakes up tied to a stake. The cell was probably better.

True to her last, semi-coherent thought, Topaz had one hell of a headache when she woke up.

But that wasn't the first thing she noticed as consciousness returned. No, the first thing she noticed was that she was quite an odd angle considering she'd been unconscious. She frowned faintly, forcing her eyes open...

And found herself tied to a pole with a pile of wood beneath her.

What the...

Her head snapped up to find herself looking at Saini's congregation, with the man himself standing at the head, holding a lit torch.

"Are you bloody kidding?" Was the only thing she could think to say in that moment.

"Alas no, and I am truly sorry for this my dear but you have left us no choice. You refuse to admit the presence of the darkness, you refuse our help and we cannot allow you to return to spread your inequity, so," Aadesh raised the torch an almost apologetic look on his face, "our only choice is to force the darkness to face the light and free you from it's grip by any means possible."

"You're mental!" Big words considering she was tied to a pole, but she wasn't going to give in. "What century is this, did I go back in time?!"

"Sometimes the old ways are the best way, because we know they work," Aadesh replied a sad look on his face as he leaned forward to lay his torch on the wood by Topaz's feet. "I truly do regret this, you have such a curious mind, you could have done so much to help us if you had not been irrecoverably corrupted."

The wood took quickly, and for her bravado Topaz was scared. Her one saving grace right then was that she knew Amanda was here -- she had to be by now. Maybe...maybe...

"You're not gonna get away with this." Smoke billowed upward and Topaz shook her head, coughing a bit. "My family's here. They're gonna stop you."

Aadesh shook his head, "No," he disagreed, "You have no family, no-one is coming for you. No-one will get you out of this, but we will save you."

The effect Aadesh was going for was somewhat ruined when the door behind him dropped inwards with a loud bang and a slight Chinese-American woman stepped forward, wriggling her fingers at him in a mocking hello.

"Here's Johnny!" She crowed, sending a bright burst of sparks upwards to blind anyone looking directly at her.

Amanda was too angry to even give Jubilee an eyeroll. She strode into the room, eyes blazing, hair fairly crackling with the furious energy she was pulling from the city. "Deadpool, get Topaz," she rapped out - no hesitation or doubts this time. "Tarot, Cypher, Speedy, White Queen, deal with the spectators." She turned flashing eyes on Saini. "I'll take this one."

"The dark ones send their agents to stop us," Aadesh shouted gesturing at the intruders, "Stop them, they must not stop us. We can not allow them to take another innocent and corrupt her so thoroughly."

Wade moved forward as soon as Amanda gave the world, flipping his handgun around so he could pistol whip people rather than out and out shooting them if they got in his way. They didn't seem like true combatants, but his attention remained focused on the pyre, what the fuck? Luckily, most of the onlookers paid him no mind, so he got to the fire quickly, kicking some of the larger pieces out of the way.

The confusion caused by their entrance and the speed with which Wade was acting provided a healthy distraction of an opening for Gabriel to work. "Speedy," he spat out bitterly as the world slowed around him. "Bunch of fucking racists with this 'ándale, ándale' bullshit." With his powers engaged, he punched the closest congregant in the stomach. "Not even a goddamn speedster," he said to the man who was doubling over in slow-motion. "And even so," his foot launched into the back of the knees of another man as Gabriel continued his rant despite a lack of audience, "you'd think a bunch of spies would be a bit more clever."

There was nothing for it, though, given how quick the tinder near Topaz had caught. Wade holstered his gun and flicked a throwing knife into his palm as he stepped into the fire.

Topaz was struggling to get her feet up as the flames licked at her shoes, melting the rubber, and she coughed heavily, trying to hold still as Wade cut through the ropes.

It only took Wade a moment to slice through the ropes binding her. The soles of his boots withstood the heat remarkably well as he scooped Topaz up, but his pants caught fire even as he walked back out of the flames.

Free of the fire she continued to cough, smoke irritating her lungs. "They're innocent," she managed to croak out, not nearly loud enough for anyone but Wade to hear. "He's controllin' them, he's an empath."

Moving over to the side of the room, Wade leaned Topaz up against the wall and paused just long enough to put out the flames on his pants. Then he tapped his comm unit to make sure the others could hear and said, "The asshat Daytripper's going up against is an empath, he's controlling the others. Try not to kill them, I guess? I'ma stick over here and take care of miss thing's burnt feet." He didn't actually know if Topaz's feet were burned, but she had some serious smoke inhalation going on there, so.

If they wanted dark ones, they could have them. Marie-Ange's teeth were bared in a grimace, as she directed the images pulling themselves out of the ground to charge at the crowd. Inky black winged demons with knobby twisted limbs clambered all over the first person they tackled, and silently clacked their teeth at another.

These were good people pushed too far by a single man. Doug tried to remember that as the congregation rushed them. Their lack of skill was balanced out by their sheer numbers and the fact that they seemed heedless to any harm. Fanatics, but induced. He pulled several zip ties out of a pocket - nonlethal measures were the order of the day.

Emma grimaced as she felt the minds around her. They weren’t shielded. Instead, they felt like they were down beneath deep water, distorted and wavering beneath the siren call of the empath who had dragged up their worst fears and shoved their conscious minds far, far below the tide of emotion. Breaking through that, for the size of the crowd, would take her more than a few minutes.

Thankfully, Emma Frost now had other options.

“Jubilee,” she called. “Perhaps some dazzling light effects are called for? With just a touch of amplification, we should be able to take a few of these people out of the fight.” Emma waved her hand vaguely at the crowd, allowing diamond to wash across her limbs as she did.

"I like how you think, your majesty," Jubilee replied with an impudent grin, firing up her powers with a twist of her fingers and sending a variety of glowing balls of plasma directly at Emma's newly diamond skin.

Normally she was fairly careful with just how bright she made things - while her own eyes never seemed to have much problem with her own powers, those of her team-mate's were another matter entirely. This time however, with the refraction's from Emma's diamond form, the light was taken in, amplified and spread out in directed form, splashing across the various faces of incoming bad guys, blinding them quite thoroughly in the process.

Emma smiled as the people she had aimed at, cried out and stopped suddenly, slamming hands over their eyes in bedazzled pain. Emma dropped diamond form, reaching out with her mind into those in front of her. They were still all emotion, but pain had scalded across their nerves and several of them were now free of the effects of the empath, driven out of his influence for a moment by the combined pain and the sudden fear of blindness. Free enough, anyway, that Emma could reach out and shut down those minds in one swoop, leaving them to drop bonelessly unconscious to the floor.

For every person that came charging at Doug, they left his space sprawled on the floor, limbs ziptied awkwardly across their bodies, or to the leg of a pew, or in one case, hanging upside down from a sconce. He was running out of zip ties, and the flood of opponents wasn't dwindling.

Aadesh advanced on Amanda clutching at the cross which had been strung around his neck, holding out towards her like a talisman, "Back foul one," he cried at the top of his voice, "You and your's have no place here. I cast you out, leave this place and this child in peace and return to the darkness whence you were spawned. Begone."

Amanda flinched back, covering her face. "It burns!" she wailed, sinking into the floor and vanishing, leaving Aadesh to stare at the floor in surprise. But before he could claim his victory, a hand grabbed him by the back of his tunic, yanking him backwards before wrenching off his cross.

Not for the first time, Amanda secretly thanked Manuel for teaching her - accidentally - how to shield against an empath, the man's fear and righteousness failing to infect her. "You fucking tosser," the witch growled, clutching the cross in the fist she had raised as if to punch the would-be saviour. "You honestly think we're demons? That the magic in us is evil? You have no fucking idea what Topaz has done with hers, how many people she's saved and if it wouldn't be a bloody pain in the arse, I'd summon an actual demon here and now to show you what true evil looks like."

Despite himself Aadesh couldn't help but give a little squeal as a hand appeared from no-where wrenching the cross from out of his hand, "I know exactly how dark you and yours our. My own wife and daughter, wrenched from me and tainted by your magic. no more. No-one else will suffer as I did." He spat at her while backpedaling furiously, this was't how it was supposed to go not how he'd imagined the first clash with the wielders of magic at all. That was as far as Aadesh got, his back-pedalling brought him perilously close to Marie Ange's first victim where he had curled up in a fetal position on the floor. As his heel connected with his follower Aadesh went sailing backwards, the grinning face of one of the inky demons the last thing he saw before darkness consumed him.

Amanda's face twisted with contempt as she watched Aadesh trip and fall. "Fucking coward," she spat, before turning her attention to the rest of the group. "We contained?”

Doug had just elbowed one of the congregation across the point of the jaw and had been about to follow up when the man he'd been fighting threw up his hands protectively and cowered away from him. The dramatic shift in body language made Doug pause, and as he glanced around, he saw similar scenes across the floor. Previously aggressive nigh-fanatics had reverted to the scared congregation that they really were. "Looks like you broke his hold," he concurred. "Fucking empaths," he muttered. "Deadpool?" he called.

"Trouble and me are fine. She's got some smoke inhalation and blisters going on, possibly first degree burns on her feet but the medical peeps will be able to say better than me," Wade answered. "None of the creepers in here came near us once you guys started in on 'em. Probably don't want Trouble to walk on her own, but we're good to move."

Topaz's eyes were on Saini, out cold in the middle of the room, and she swallowed hard, coughing for a moment as the action tickled her throat. "What about him?" She managed to ask, raising her voice enough for it carry.

“Get him back to the hotel and let me play with him,” replied Emma, a distracted look on her face as she drove her telepathy deep into the unconscious mind of Aadesh. “We might have to keep him knocked out while I rummage, but when he’s not using it, his power isn’t that complicated. I can’t take it off him, but I can put enough barriers in place that he’ll never be able to access it. Or at least not without enough vomiting that he won’t be able to get close enough to people to influence them.”

"We could just kill him," Amanda began, but caught sight of Topaz's face. There was something there, something other than shock at a near escape. "Or we could do Her Majesty's thing," she conceded. "All right, let's be away. Cypher, Speedy, you get to lug that bastard sack of spuds. Em, if you could make us less noticeable on our way? We'll sort out the loose ends once we're safe out of sight."

This last was directed at Topaz.

Topaz looked up at Amanda for half a second before looking away quickly, shoulders hunching up a bit. After a minute she looked up at Wade, giving him the best smile she could manage -which wasn't much. "Thanks Mr. Wilson," she muttered as she pushed herself up, wincing.

She wasn't looking forward to this.