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xp_logsJubilee, Amanda and Domino face off the second wave of Tunneler defence - Litterbug
A very definite odour of burnt hair and leather clung to Amanda as she joined Jubilee and Domino on the stairs down to the platforms. Her mood was not much better - the damage to the station and the panic of the people was bleeding through her link with the city, and she was alternating between twitchy and angry. But whatever she was using to find their foes seemed to be working, as a large shape detached itself from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
"So, like - I'm not usually all 'must be this attractive to enter' type but holy hell are you fugly," Jubilee noted as she cast a few multi-coloured sparkles high above them, illuminating the area and banishing shadow. "Congrats tho, cause you've just won yourself the ass whopping of the century."
A deep, loud gurgling sound emanated from the large shape below which, if one listened carefully, could be interpreted as a grotesque version of laughter.
"Werl jrst shee abrt thet."
With that the figure dove into the ground, concrete and earth spraying into the air before it started tunneling their way. Ripples of broken floor launched into the air as it moved in a straight line toward them.
Things just continued to get more and more glamorous... Wrinkling her nose, Dom launched herself forward and skipped across the broken floor, each foot landing just right on the churned-up mess of concrete and tile. She aimed for a still-intact pillar off to the left, intent on ducking behind and earning herself a little cover.
"Fuck!" With their foe churning up the floor, Amanda couldn't sink into it to meld with the city. And she was certainly not as agile as Jubilee or Domino. So instead she stood her ground, bracing herself on the stairs and shielding against the debris, hoping that the tactic wouldn't result in her being mushed into the wall.
"Language," Jubilee replied with a grin, aiming a strong, steady stream of plasmoids at the oncoming concrete and earth. "We wouldn't want to be bad examples for the child"
Jubilee's actions left him with no choice but to explode out of the ground. Litterbug did so with a loud growl, fists raised in the air as he charged towards the sources of his frustration. He scooped up a chunk of concrete in his right hand on the way, pulling back that arm with the intent of smashing the first target he came across with it.
At the last moment the concrete pinged out of his hand with a lucky shot from Domino, her shoulder wedged against the pillar to steady herself. She followed it up with another shot, though this one just ricocheted off his carapace ineffectually, causing her to swear and edge around for a better angle.
"Frrkin' hrll," Litterbug cursed, coming to a halt as Domino moved out of his way. There was no more debris in arm's length so he just changed his course and took off again, this time charging after Amanda in an attempt to flatten her where she stood.
The witch responded in kind, with a blast of pure New York energy directed right into his face, where he seemed less armoured. She hoped. "Jubes, tag team!" she yelled. "Go for the joints!"
“You’re it!” Jubilee replied, sending bursts of super-heated plasma at Litterbug’s knees and elbows before throwing herself behind a convenient stretch of debris.
The onslaught seemed to slow him down, giving Domino another chance to fire off a few rounds. As before, the first two glanced off his back harmlessly but the third hit its mark, lodging deep within the chinks of his armoured back. "Yesss," she hissed, silently awarding herself points that nobody else would appreciate. Damn Wade for being absent for her awesome shot.
"Urgh!" Litterbug, slowed by Amanda's and Jubilee's attacks, finally came to a halt after Domino's shot hit home. He collapsed in a heap onto the floor, roared loudly and tried to get up, only to fall still to the ground once again.
Amanda carefully approached, ready to cast a shielding spell around the Morlock if he tried to attack. But from the look of where he'd been shot, she doubted that was a possibility - she didn't know if giant mutant cockroach people had spines, but if they did, his was damaged. "We're good here," she told the other two. "He's not getting up." She looked at the direction Artie, Kevin and North had gone. "Now let's just hope the whole place doesn't blow."
While the fighting is going on, Kevin and North try to defuse the bomb.
"Bomb, bomb, bomb." Kevin muttered under his breath, scanning left and right for an appropriate sized container for the device. Unfortunately, the Tunnelers hadn't been polite enough to slap a 'Bomb inside' sticker onto their weapon, so the list of places that it could be in was long.
"North, you've got your mental... thing. Use it to find the bomb."
North took a moment to give him a bemused look. On one hand, his precognition had never actually worked that way. On the other hand, even if it had, his forced transfusion those months back had reversed the ‘Future on Demand’ aspect of his conditioning. Not that there had been an official announcement or anything. Probably a good thing they had a colleague that could literally speak to the city.
“Abracadabra.” Gesturing with a sooty hand, North gazed pointedly up at a black box stuck to platform signage. Low enough to see, but high enough to have a problem reaching.
Artie pointed to a line on the concourse. "Don't go past there. That's where I'm keeping us hidden to."
"Nice trick. Of course there's no ladder around. Here." Kevin braced himself against the wall below the box, linking together his hands to boost up North. They could see movements under his clothes as Kevin reorganized his skeletal structure to better accommodate holding someone up for a period of time.
Testing his weight on Kevin’s hands with one booted foot first, North nodded and unsheathed a small knife hidden in his boot, satisfied that he was not going to take a tumble onto the tracks. “Let us take a look then.”
Boosted up by his colleague, North made quick work of the outer casing, tossing the black metal haphazardly to the ground as he carefully sifted through the wires – all black – that had been stuffed into the box. “Countdown detonator,” he reported. No remote detonation to worry about.
"That's a relief. Can you defuse the trigger?" Kevin had some down and dirty EOD skills, but most of his experience was decades out of date and he didn't want to risk it.
Shooting it would have been easier, but collapsing ceilings were a thing.
"Yes, give me a minute." No blipping numbers on a large interface to conveniently tell them how much time he actually had. Why did the media always have to make this seem easier than it was? Sliding the thin blade in, he carefully untangled the wires and fiddled around as long seconds ticked by.
"Ready?" He finally asked. Rhetorical question.
Before Kevin or Artie could reply, North dropped the casing to the floor, carefully cradling a tangle of wires and a small cylinder of explosives in his bare hands.
"Lower me down please."
"Damn, you need to lay off the tacos, North." Kevin said, finally letting him down and straightening up with a wince. "Looks like IED level. Good to know they don't have ties to anyone with serious hardware."
North clapped him on the back in thanks, taking care to pick up the discarded metal and screws to hand over to Artie for disposal. "Funny you should mention it. I am feeling rather peckish."
"Well, assuming the rest of our coworkers are alive, I say we celebrate. I could murder a decent Reuben right now."
Time for Callisto (and Gabriel) to put an end to things, by putting Berzerker down.
Thankfully the platforms were now empty, one part due to Kevin and Artie's efforts and one part due to the panic caused by the Tunnelers on the concourse. A chill wind, pushed along the tunnels by distant trains, blew several sheets of newspaper across their path, reminiscent of a spaghetti Western.
And like every good Western, someone was going to have to call out the bad guy.
"Berserker!"
Callisto strode out to the front of the group, casting her sharp eyes around the station, checking every shadow for movement.
"Come out and face us!"
"Thrown in with a bunch of Upworlders. I'm disappointed, Cal. Not surprised, but disappointed." Berzerker stepped out from the train tunnel, electricity playing over his hands and up and down his arms. "What did it take, exactly, to sell your people out? Promises to let you stay up in their pretty world? Elimination of your rivals? What exactly were your thirty pieces of silver to give up the Morlocks, Cal. I'm interested."
"I'll never give up on the Morlocks," Callisto said, fighting to keep her tone calm and just about succeeding, though there was an edge of flint to it. "That would be you, rejecting everything we stand for, resorting to violence against innocent people, terrorism."
"And you just happened on this group of trained people to help you? This is embarrassing, even for you, Cal. Your plan got your most important ally killed. And now you're here to defend upworlders with a group of Kens and Barbies?" Berzerker actually laughed, shaking his head. "You're not a Morlock anymore. You're just another failure, still begging for scraps and telling the rest of us that's how it's got to be. That ends today. You end today."
Callisto sighed, though her keen eyes were ever-moving, still searching the shadows. For now, it seemed to be just Berserker down there.
"Look, no offence, but you're really pissing me off and I don't think we're going to get anywhere by talking when you're in this mood. Can we just fight now?"
"Not even enough honour to face me yourself... Cal, putting you down is more of a mercy to you." He shifted and put his foot directly on the third rail. As he did, snakes of electrical fire lashed out from his body, scattering them as they smashed down into the tunnel.
"Hang on, hang on, you wanna go toe to toe, just you'n'me?" Callisto began to make her way along the platform toward the large mutant. "What are you, twelve? Berseker, this isn't Gladiators, I'm just trying to make this crap go away. Why would I indulge in some infantile pissing contest when there are innocent people's lives on the line? We are all gonna come at you at once, and if I could've got more people? I'd've brought more, and I don't care where they came from. So buckle the fuck up."
"Oh my God, so bored." The words, starting at a rather high-pitched tone, heralded Gabriel's sudden appearance to Berzerker's right. "I mean, seriously." He whirred back around to the front, standing next to Callisto. "Come on." In an instant, he stood behind the man, where Gabriel did his best to launch a kick to Berzerker's back.
The electrical field that he threw up forced Gabriel back, tiny arcs of electricity still spreading across his clothes. Berzerker's eyes were glowing as the sudden hum of electricity surging through him.
"Don't worry about me. Turning this building into a crater will make sure the Upworlders know to leave us alone. Burying you under it before I go is just one more way to protect the rest of my people."
Smiling grimly, Callisto reached into her inside jacket pocket, pulling on the rubber gloves she retrieved. "Right," she muttered. "Let's go."
Callisto reached the edge of the platform parallel with Berserker, turned to face him, and launched herself off it.
Berzerker was ready for her, as she dove into a stream of energy. The electricity washed over her, surged and writhing. Fortunately, being in mid-leap robbed him of a place to ground her, and the blast was merely painful, not fatal as she crashed into him. Berzerker noted the gloves, snarled and hit out instead, landing a solid haymaker over her left eye, sending her head snapping round, though she caught up with herself and spun with the punch's trajectory to lessen the impact.
The Morlock was no fool; her feet barely touched the ground before she lifted them again, springing up and throwing her whole body into a swinging kick, looking more like she was dancing than fighting as her boot slammed into Berserker's side. Callisto was faster than Berserker, she hit harder, and she was trying to stay ungrounded. He was going to have to catch her out.
"It's not going to be good enough, Cal." Berzerker made a clenching motion with his hand, and above her, two of the large lights suddenly flared and shattered, raining shards of hot glass down on her. He took a blow to the chest so he could brace and slammed his shoulder hard into the centre of her chest, knocking her backwards, though Callisto seemed undaunted, still on her feet, still dancing even as the hot broken bulbs fell.
"Fuck!" Gabriel jumped further back at the sound of the glass falling onto the ground, instantly shielding his head for protection. That Callisto was still functioning - if she was still standing - seemed like a miracle. The brief contact with Berzerker had felt like a fire was spreading across his body; parts of his skin still felt like they were crawling. He'd seen those signs on the subway warning about "high voltage" and the daredevil part of him had wondered what high voltage felt like. Now he felt as if he knew.
A fluorescent bulb pulsed above him, and Gabriel's head snapped up. But instead of looking at the light, he glanced to the tracks. "Huh," he said, a moment of realization flickering across his face. And then it, and he, was gone.
Callisto took in Gabe's movements, registering his exit and adapting accordingly. Whatever he was up to, she was facing Berserker alone for now. Her exposed skin - her face, her neck - was covered in tiny cuts and burn marks now - she had a nasty cut above her good eye and had to take a moment to wipe the blood away before moving back in. Leaping at Berseker and grabbing onto his shoulder, she swung around to cling to him, like a 200 pound kid jumping up uninvited for an unexpected piggyback.
"Ground me now, asshole," she said, pulling her fist back for what would surely be a knock-out blow, but a sudden crackle of light flowed across Berserker and over her and she spasmed, falling away to land heavily on her back on the tracks. She was up again immediately, but pale, shaken, her chest aching like her heart wanted to explode out of it, and Berserker was turning to face her again.
"This isn't play-fighting any more, Cal." He grabbed for her, trying to get her close. His right hand was glowing, sparking as electricity surged around it. Finally getting close enough, he hammered a fist into her injured side. As it struck, the electricity exploded across her. The heat set her clothes on fire as it seared into her.
Callisto howled in pain and anger, hitting the ground and wrapping her leather jacket around herself, rolling to douse the flames. She lashed out with a foot to try to take Berserker out at the ankles but he was faster than her, sidestepping the move and lifting his fist, giving a roar as he charged himself further, the air around him sizzling as lightning coursed across his body.
When it happened, it took only a couple of seconds.
First the lights went out in a long wave, one by one flicking off in a race down into the tunnel. Then Berserker seemed to spasm suddenly, and for a moment it looked as though power was flowing out of him into the rails beneath him.
Then everything went dark, and the ever-present background hum went silent.
A whistling sound ruptured the silence, its origin unknown. The noise grew louder, echoing off some of the cavernous walls of the train tunnel, and the tones — if they could be called tones — of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" became more recognizable. And then finally, a voice, unmistakably Gabriel's, coming from somewhere behind Callisto. "Should have gone with the Electric Slide."
Recovering from his initial shock, Berserker flared back into life, then, the sparks rolling across his limbs creating a glow around him. In the flickering he looked around, catching a movement in the corner of his eye, and then a figure surged toward him out of the dark.
"Lights out, kiddo."
When you didn't see Callisto coming, one punch was all it took.
A very definite odour of burnt hair and leather clung to Amanda as she joined Jubilee and Domino on the stairs down to the platforms. Her mood was not much better - the damage to the station and the panic of the people was bleeding through her link with the city, and she was alternating between twitchy and angry. But whatever she was using to find their foes seemed to be working, as a large shape detached itself from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.
"So, like - I'm not usually all 'must be this attractive to enter' type but holy hell are you fugly," Jubilee noted as she cast a few multi-coloured sparkles high above them, illuminating the area and banishing shadow. "Congrats tho, cause you've just won yourself the ass whopping of the century."
A deep, loud gurgling sound emanated from the large shape below which, if one listened carefully, could be interpreted as a grotesque version of laughter.
"Werl jrst shee abrt thet."
With that the figure dove into the ground, concrete and earth spraying into the air before it started tunneling their way. Ripples of broken floor launched into the air as it moved in a straight line toward them.
Things just continued to get more and more glamorous... Wrinkling her nose, Dom launched herself forward and skipped across the broken floor, each foot landing just right on the churned-up mess of concrete and tile. She aimed for a still-intact pillar off to the left, intent on ducking behind and earning herself a little cover.
"Fuck!" With their foe churning up the floor, Amanda couldn't sink into it to meld with the city. And she was certainly not as agile as Jubilee or Domino. So instead she stood her ground, bracing herself on the stairs and shielding against the debris, hoping that the tactic wouldn't result in her being mushed into the wall.
"Language," Jubilee replied with a grin, aiming a strong, steady stream of plasmoids at the oncoming concrete and earth. "We wouldn't want to be bad examples for the child"
Jubilee's actions left him with no choice but to explode out of the ground. Litterbug did so with a loud growl, fists raised in the air as he charged towards the sources of his frustration. He scooped up a chunk of concrete in his right hand on the way, pulling back that arm with the intent of smashing the first target he came across with it.
At the last moment the concrete pinged out of his hand with a lucky shot from Domino, her shoulder wedged against the pillar to steady herself. She followed it up with another shot, though this one just ricocheted off his carapace ineffectually, causing her to swear and edge around for a better angle.
"Frrkin' hrll," Litterbug cursed, coming to a halt as Domino moved out of his way. There was no more debris in arm's length so he just changed his course and took off again, this time charging after Amanda in an attempt to flatten her where she stood.
The witch responded in kind, with a blast of pure New York energy directed right into his face, where he seemed less armoured. She hoped. "Jubes, tag team!" she yelled. "Go for the joints!"
“You’re it!” Jubilee replied, sending bursts of super-heated plasma at Litterbug’s knees and elbows before throwing herself behind a convenient stretch of debris.
The onslaught seemed to slow him down, giving Domino another chance to fire off a few rounds. As before, the first two glanced off his back harmlessly but the third hit its mark, lodging deep within the chinks of his armoured back. "Yesss," she hissed, silently awarding herself points that nobody else would appreciate. Damn Wade for being absent for her awesome shot.
"Urgh!" Litterbug, slowed by Amanda's and Jubilee's attacks, finally came to a halt after Domino's shot hit home. He collapsed in a heap onto the floor, roared loudly and tried to get up, only to fall still to the ground once again.
Amanda carefully approached, ready to cast a shielding spell around the Morlock if he tried to attack. But from the look of where he'd been shot, she doubted that was a possibility - she didn't know if giant mutant cockroach people had spines, but if they did, his was damaged. "We're good here," she told the other two. "He's not getting up." She looked at the direction Artie, Kevin and North had gone. "Now let's just hope the whole place doesn't blow."
While the fighting is going on, Kevin and North try to defuse the bomb.
"Bomb, bomb, bomb." Kevin muttered under his breath, scanning left and right for an appropriate sized container for the device. Unfortunately, the Tunnelers hadn't been polite enough to slap a 'Bomb inside' sticker onto their weapon, so the list of places that it could be in was long.
"North, you've got your mental... thing. Use it to find the bomb."
North took a moment to give him a bemused look. On one hand, his precognition had never actually worked that way. On the other hand, even if it had, his forced transfusion those months back had reversed the ‘Future on Demand’ aspect of his conditioning. Not that there had been an official announcement or anything. Probably a good thing they had a colleague that could literally speak to the city.
“Abracadabra.” Gesturing with a sooty hand, North gazed pointedly up at a black box stuck to platform signage. Low enough to see, but high enough to have a problem reaching.
Artie pointed to a line on the concourse. "Don't go past there. That's where I'm keeping us hidden to."
"Nice trick. Of course there's no ladder around. Here." Kevin braced himself against the wall below the box, linking together his hands to boost up North. They could see movements under his clothes as Kevin reorganized his skeletal structure to better accommodate holding someone up for a period of time.
Testing his weight on Kevin’s hands with one booted foot first, North nodded and unsheathed a small knife hidden in his boot, satisfied that he was not going to take a tumble onto the tracks. “Let us take a look then.”
Boosted up by his colleague, North made quick work of the outer casing, tossing the black metal haphazardly to the ground as he carefully sifted through the wires – all black – that had been stuffed into the box. “Countdown detonator,” he reported. No remote detonation to worry about.
"That's a relief. Can you defuse the trigger?" Kevin had some down and dirty EOD skills, but most of his experience was decades out of date and he didn't want to risk it.
Shooting it would have been easier, but collapsing ceilings were a thing.
"Yes, give me a minute." No blipping numbers on a large interface to conveniently tell them how much time he actually had. Why did the media always have to make this seem easier than it was? Sliding the thin blade in, he carefully untangled the wires and fiddled around as long seconds ticked by.
"Ready?" He finally asked. Rhetorical question.
Before Kevin or Artie could reply, North dropped the casing to the floor, carefully cradling a tangle of wires and a small cylinder of explosives in his bare hands.
"Lower me down please."
"Damn, you need to lay off the tacos, North." Kevin said, finally letting him down and straightening up with a wince. "Looks like IED level. Good to know they don't have ties to anyone with serious hardware."
North clapped him on the back in thanks, taking care to pick up the discarded metal and screws to hand over to Artie for disposal. "Funny you should mention it. I am feeling rather peckish."
"Well, assuming the rest of our coworkers are alive, I say we celebrate. I could murder a decent Reuben right now."
Time for Callisto (and Gabriel) to put an end to things, by putting Berzerker down.
Thankfully the platforms were now empty, one part due to Kevin and Artie's efforts and one part due to the panic caused by the Tunnelers on the concourse. A chill wind, pushed along the tunnels by distant trains, blew several sheets of newspaper across their path, reminiscent of a spaghetti Western.
And like every good Western, someone was going to have to call out the bad guy.
"Berserker!"
Callisto strode out to the front of the group, casting her sharp eyes around the station, checking every shadow for movement.
"Come out and face us!"
"Thrown in with a bunch of Upworlders. I'm disappointed, Cal. Not surprised, but disappointed." Berzerker stepped out from the train tunnel, electricity playing over his hands and up and down his arms. "What did it take, exactly, to sell your people out? Promises to let you stay up in their pretty world? Elimination of your rivals? What exactly were your thirty pieces of silver to give up the Morlocks, Cal. I'm interested."
"I'll never give up on the Morlocks," Callisto said, fighting to keep her tone calm and just about succeeding, though there was an edge of flint to it. "That would be you, rejecting everything we stand for, resorting to violence against innocent people, terrorism."
"And you just happened on this group of trained people to help you? This is embarrassing, even for you, Cal. Your plan got your most important ally killed. And now you're here to defend upworlders with a group of Kens and Barbies?" Berzerker actually laughed, shaking his head. "You're not a Morlock anymore. You're just another failure, still begging for scraps and telling the rest of us that's how it's got to be. That ends today. You end today."
Callisto sighed, though her keen eyes were ever-moving, still searching the shadows. For now, it seemed to be just Berserker down there.
"Look, no offence, but you're really pissing me off and I don't think we're going to get anywhere by talking when you're in this mood. Can we just fight now?"
"Not even enough honour to face me yourself... Cal, putting you down is more of a mercy to you." He shifted and put his foot directly on the third rail. As he did, snakes of electrical fire lashed out from his body, scattering them as they smashed down into the tunnel.
"Hang on, hang on, you wanna go toe to toe, just you'n'me?" Callisto began to make her way along the platform toward the large mutant. "What are you, twelve? Berseker, this isn't Gladiators, I'm just trying to make this crap go away. Why would I indulge in some infantile pissing contest when there are innocent people's lives on the line? We are all gonna come at you at once, and if I could've got more people? I'd've brought more, and I don't care where they came from. So buckle the fuck up."
"Oh my God, so bored." The words, starting at a rather high-pitched tone, heralded Gabriel's sudden appearance to Berzerker's right. "I mean, seriously." He whirred back around to the front, standing next to Callisto. "Come on." In an instant, he stood behind the man, where Gabriel did his best to launch a kick to Berzerker's back.
The electrical field that he threw up forced Gabriel back, tiny arcs of electricity still spreading across his clothes. Berzerker's eyes were glowing as the sudden hum of electricity surging through him.
"Don't worry about me. Turning this building into a crater will make sure the Upworlders know to leave us alone. Burying you under it before I go is just one more way to protect the rest of my people."
Smiling grimly, Callisto reached into her inside jacket pocket, pulling on the rubber gloves she retrieved. "Right," she muttered. "Let's go."
Callisto reached the edge of the platform parallel with Berserker, turned to face him, and launched herself off it.
Berzerker was ready for her, as she dove into a stream of energy. The electricity washed over her, surged and writhing. Fortunately, being in mid-leap robbed him of a place to ground her, and the blast was merely painful, not fatal as she crashed into him. Berzerker noted the gloves, snarled and hit out instead, landing a solid haymaker over her left eye, sending her head snapping round, though she caught up with herself and spun with the punch's trajectory to lessen the impact.
The Morlock was no fool; her feet barely touched the ground before she lifted them again, springing up and throwing her whole body into a swinging kick, looking more like she was dancing than fighting as her boot slammed into Berserker's side. Callisto was faster than Berserker, she hit harder, and she was trying to stay ungrounded. He was going to have to catch her out.
"It's not going to be good enough, Cal." Berzerker made a clenching motion with his hand, and above her, two of the large lights suddenly flared and shattered, raining shards of hot glass down on her. He took a blow to the chest so he could brace and slammed his shoulder hard into the centre of her chest, knocking her backwards, though Callisto seemed undaunted, still on her feet, still dancing even as the hot broken bulbs fell.
"Fuck!" Gabriel jumped further back at the sound of the glass falling onto the ground, instantly shielding his head for protection. That Callisto was still functioning - if she was still standing - seemed like a miracle. The brief contact with Berzerker had felt like a fire was spreading across his body; parts of his skin still felt like they were crawling. He'd seen those signs on the subway warning about "high voltage" and the daredevil part of him had wondered what high voltage felt like. Now he felt as if he knew.
A fluorescent bulb pulsed above him, and Gabriel's head snapped up. But instead of looking at the light, he glanced to the tracks. "Huh," he said, a moment of realization flickering across his face. And then it, and he, was gone.
Callisto took in Gabe's movements, registering his exit and adapting accordingly. Whatever he was up to, she was facing Berserker alone for now. Her exposed skin - her face, her neck - was covered in tiny cuts and burn marks now - she had a nasty cut above her good eye and had to take a moment to wipe the blood away before moving back in. Leaping at Berseker and grabbing onto his shoulder, she swung around to cling to him, like a 200 pound kid jumping up uninvited for an unexpected piggyback.
"Ground me now, asshole," she said, pulling her fist back for what would surely be a knock-out blow, but a sudden crackle of light flowed across Berserker and over her and she spasmed, falling away to land heavily on her back on the tracks. She was up again immediately, but pale, shaken, her chest aching like her heart wanted to explode out of it, and Berserker was turning to face her again.
"This isn't play-fighting any more, Cal." He grabbed for her, trying to get her close. His right hand was glowing, sparking as electricity surged around it. Finally getting close enough, he hammered a fist into her injured side. As it struck, the electricity exploded across her. The heat set her clothes on fire as it seared into her.
Callisto howled in pain and anger, hitting the ground and wrapping her leather jacket around herself, rolling to douse the flames. She lashed out with a foot to try to take Berserker out at the ankles but he was faster than her, sidestepping the move and lifting his fist, giving a roar as he charged himself further, the air around him sizzling as lightning coursed across his body.
When it happened, it took only a couple of seconds.
First the lights went out in a long wave, one by one flicking off in a race down into the tunnel. Then Berserker seemed to spasm suddenly, and for a moment it looked as though power was flowing out of him into the rails beneath him.
Then everything went dark, and the ever-present background hum went silent.
A whistling sound ruptured the silence, its origin unknown. The noise grew louder, echoing off some of the cavernous walls of the train tunnel, and the tones — if they could be called tones — of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" became more recognizable. And then finally, a voice, unmistakably Gabriel's, coming from somewhere behind Callisto. "Should have gone with the Electric Slide."
Recovering from his initial shock, Berserker flared back into life, then, the sparks rolling across his limbs creating a glow around him. In the flickering he looked around, catching a movement in the corner of his eye, and then a figure surged toward him out of the dark.
"Lights out, kiddo."
When you didn't see Callisto coming, one punch was all it took.
