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xp_logs2016-04-02 09:21 pm
x-hawkeye.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2016-04-02 09:21 pm
Are We Ourselves? Confrontation & Resolution
Our intrepid heroes plan their inevitable confrontation with Fixer as best they can, initially attempting to convince him to change his mind. However, fights break out across the room as those not infected with nanites attempt to stop those who are.
"'Kay, so I'm pretty sure we're not gonna be able to have me pretend I'm still his Furby." Kyle said, as he peered down the stairwell. "Man though, I can smell that guy from about a football field away, that dude is sick, and not just in the head. Bro is not healthy." He rubbed at his nose. "I got at least two other people in there real close from footsteps but there's some echoes so it's hard to tell. T, can you, uh." he waved his hands by his ears. "You know. Psi stuff. Tell how many people we got in there? Or does people being broseph's meat puppet mess that up?"
Topaz decided to be a big person and ignore the 'psi stuff' comment, frowning as she tried to focus. "Well it'd be nice if they didn't all feel the exact same thing," she said quietly. "Kinda makes it hard to pick one apart from the other when there's nothing distinct. Nine, maybe? Ten? Definitely more of them then there are us."
Molly looked thoughtful and had a bit of a smile on her face. Smelling powers were so cool, except for the part where he could actually smell gross things. So was empathy. All she got to do was be unsquishable and punch stuff. Blinking away the distracting thought, she glanced around. "And those guys are probably good guys but being controlled. So… only minimal bruising, got it. If the smelly guy is around, though, we definitely need him. I need to pick his brain. And then punch his brain."
From his position next to Kyle, Ev could not see much more, and he resisted the urge to gain Kyle's enhanced senses lest his personal Lite-Brite alert the hostiles. "The missing SHIELD agents are there," he said softly. That much he could see. Mind-controlled or not, that was the gait of a trained agent. A flash of purple in his head grabbed his attention and he glanced around. "Barton, too."
"Well that blows. So we're going in, basically 'could be five dudes, could be fifteen.'" Kyle grunted. "Mols, it's you and me on the power play. E, eye-dee-kay how you work but maybe ace in the hole, since you can pick up any of us? I think?" Kyle's understanding of Ev's powers was limited to 'I copy powers and make rainbows.'
"Hayes, are you bulletproof?" Ev asked, looking over his shoulder at the younger woman. "Consider this alternative: I go in first and draw attention" — and take the greater risk of death and/or dismemberment than these kids (kids, relatively speaking) — "And then you all follow to take them out more easily. Not ideal, but if Barton is under the same thrall you were, Gibney, then stealth isn't an option."
Molly grinned. "Yep, I am totally unsquishable. Wait — you can use anyone's powers too?" she said, both envious and curious all at the same time. She didn't know a lot about the guy except he was cute, and tall!
Ev nodded, his lips twitching in mild amusement at her enthusiasm despite the danger around them. "More or less. As long as you don't get too far away, I can fully mimic your mutation. So we get in, you launch your EMP, and we should be able to get to the bottom of this." He stood up and turned his mind's eye to the Lisa Frank-shade of purple of Molly's aura to prime himself to it. "Ready?"
This was absolutely mad. Great. Two nearly indestructible people, one who could mimic the two nearly indestructible... and her, the very small, very breakable girl with a useless mutation and enough magical offense to survive, but probably not be any good.
Who the hell had suggested she be here again?
"If there aren't too many I can probably do the same thing I did to Kyle," Topaz said quietly, wanting to contribute something. This was going to be a disaster.
"Ready."
"Ready!"
"Let's go."
Staying behind a few seconds was not Kyle's preferred strategy. He was pretty hard to hurt, and he bounced back from it. But Ev — Ev, this guy he could pick up a dose of Molly Hayes maybe with a side dose of Kyle. It made sense. He just kind of hated it.
With everything set, Molly grabbed their secret weapon out of her backpack: an EMP she fashioned out of a cell phone she'd found in the IT room and some spare parts. It was the best she could do with what she had, but it'd do the job.
She hoped. She'd never had to disable nanites before.
Eyeing the group of robot-acting dudes in the distance, she waited until they were more clustered together... then she struck,mashing down the button. Now, EMPs don't work like the movies where a big burst of visible energy just shoots out and makes everything stop. It's invisible. But it still works kinda the same way to shut off all the electrical impulses.
"It's done," she said to Ev, Topaz, and Kyle.
Kyle didn't like hearing shouts directed at a teammate and not being able to dive right in. He didn't like keeping his attention on Molly setting off her EMP and then counting to three before he jumped in.
He didn't mind so much that Norbert — that dweeb — was standing right there ready to be leaped on and have his dweeb annoying head bounced off the floor.
James cradled the item carefully in his palm. Mister Ebersol had assured him it was of the utmost importance. He had one mission left, possibly two. His head swung toward the door, as did the head of every other person standing in the basement storage area, when several of their members closest to the hallway suddenly dropped.
Retaining enough sense of self to look back toward Mister Ebersol, James gave the man a firm nod and made a beeline for the exit behind those of Mister Ebersol's supporters who were still standing. He had to get the item in his hands to safety — to the people waiting outside. Once he did that, all he had to do was report back to Mister Ebersol.
"Guys we got a runner!" Kyle yelled, as he tackled one of the mind-controlled SHIELD agents. "Someone go after him!" He would have, but he was too busy dodging an agent with a taser.
"Actually, I'd prefer you stay right where you are, young man." At the voice and a gesture, the exit Hendrickson had used was blocked by the nanite-controlled people, civilians and SHIELD agents. "And you, miss, you might be rather clever with mechanics, but you have a lot to learn about EMPs. Without a stronger power source, you can only disable one of my... helpers at a time."
The voice was coming from behind the crowd, from a slight, frail-looking man in khakis and a lab coat of all things. A reminder to himself that he was still a scientist, despite all. "I have to admit, I'm surprised that you got this far. Most don't." Ebersol shrugged. "Not that it matters. You'll succumb eventually. They all do."
Molly made a face at the man who obviously was the leader. "Hey, I was improvising! Not all of us can shop at Evil 'R' Us for our supplies," she said. She eyed the controlled SHIELD agents before glancing back to Ebersol. "And you're wrong, Mr.Roboto. We're totally gonna kick your ass."
Ev, still glowing with the combined powers of Molly and Kyle, surveyed the room, trying to figure out the quickest and least bloody way to end the inevitable violent confrontation. It might have been easy, were Clint not hiding at the periphery of his sixth sense. What was he doing? "I could have a full SHIELD extraction team here in less than ten minutes," he threatened, turning his focus to Ebersol. "Is that the route we're gonna play or will you let me arrest you right now?"
"If you had that option, you would have played it the moment your friends became my tools." Ebersol tilted his head slightly, curious. "I have to admit, I do wonder how it was you freed the young man. No one has resisted my nanites before."
"I'm just that cool, Norbert." Kyle said, with a disturbingly cheerful grin, but narrowed eyes that confirmed that this was definitely The Guy. He remembered that voice, and the smell, even if he hadn't paid much attention to what he'd looked like. "Not dumb enough to tell you how either. Maybe you never even really had me. Maybe you just imagined it in your sick and sad little head." He put just the slightest emphasis on sick. Norbert did not smell healthy.
Molly shook her head. "So what's your plan anyway? Take over the world? SO overdone. Even if inventing nanites is like... super mad advanced," she said, looking a little wistful at the thought as she nerded out over the technological aspect of it before catching herself, jabbing a finger into the air to prove her point. "But still... evil. There are people who can totally stop you. Like us! So... you need to stand down."
Ebersol snorted a laugh. "Oh dear, how simplistic your worldview is. Good and evil, black and white... my dear child, the world is far more complicated than you realize. You're the same as the small-minded morons who saw me as nothing more than a mechanic at the airport. They had no idea of what I could do, what I have done. World domination? Nothing so crude and cartoony."
"Oh, so you're one of those dime-a-dozen 'super geniuses' who's trying to compensate for their other shortcomings," Ev said dismissively. "Join a support group, man. Your new world order isn't happening. They never happen."
"Deaf as well as dumb enough to come barging in here when you're vastly outnumbered." Ebersol shook his head. "I already said that wasn't my goal. Why would I seek a new world order when the current one suits my needs? Capitalism, supply and demand. I can make as much money as I could ever need with the objects SHIELD has put into mothballs in this frozen waste. Enough to create any machine I can think of. Including all the nanites I could ever need."
Molly blinked. "Dude, you know much GOOD you could've done with these things? Instead you're monologuing and taking over people with them? Not cool! So yeah, maybe my EMP is kinda small but I can still use it over and over again. And I will. Then I'll figure out how your little dudes work and we'll take you down!" she said, then paused after a moment. "You could maybe... give me a hint, though." Did he make them all himself? Or were they self replicating once he established a base set? What materials did he use? All those little parts! Gah, it was so cool but so evil. Why did bad guys make all the cool stuff?
"Curiosity killed the cat, and it may well kill you, my dear. I could waste more time giving you a rundown of my nanite process, but I find practical demonstrations so much more effective. And the four of you — even the quiet little miss in the corner there — will make admirable additions to my "assistants". Even you, my prodigal hairy young man. I'm not sure how you resisted the first infection, but perhaps another dose will help."
He raised his finger to his temple, where a small metal button seemed to be embedded in his skin. "A moment of concentration here, and the nanites in my own brain electronically stimulate the nanites in my people here. And off they go." And at that, the mixed group of agents and local townspeople began advancing on the mutants.
"Man why does everyone focus on the hair?" Kyle muttered. "And naw, probably not gonna get re-droned but let's not take chances." He glanced at Ev, and one of his ears twitched, casually, deliberately, as if to say "I hear something else." They still had one guy missing, and Natasha was off in a closet.
"Well, you do have a lot of it," Topaz deadpanned as she backed up away from the fray, eyes darting around. Fighting the SHIELD agents was fine and all, but they were a symptom, not the problem.
Kyle shot off, dropping to all fours to charge at a SHIELD agent who was drawing a gun, tackling the body-armored agent just in time to prevent them from getting a shot off at Topaz.
The problem was the bloke who wouldn't shut up. Topaz's eyes fixed on him, and she dodged around Kyle, heading for him.
Clint slid out of the shadows above everyone else, nimbly jumping from one beam to another as he headed for a box that he suspected would hold items suitable for throwing. He kept an eye on the fighters on the floor, counting Bert's supporters as they went toe to toe with his team. He wished he'd had the foresight to bring them with him when he went looking for Kyle — they could've avoided all this. Bert could've shown them how great his plan was, how awesome his tech was, how innovative his ideas were!
Threat assessment was easy — as long as Molly stayed down on the ground, she couldn't touch him. Topaz could do the empathy thing, but that was all theory in his mind and she seemed occupied with Bert, anyway. That left the Ev — so familiar. It was a dangerous familiarity, though, which meant that he was obviously the player who needed to be taken out first. That would even up the playing field for Bert's other supporters.
Clint reached the box and lifted the hinged lid, then smiled. Excellent. A toolbox. He'd never been one to blindly follow orders, but while there was a small voice in the back of his mind trying to point that out, he still picked up one of the wrenches from the box. Hefting it, he followed the impulse the nanites provided him, the one electronically downloaded into his brain by the miniaturized robots, and threw the wrench in a perfect arc toward Ev.
Even a master acrobat would have had a hard time dodging the makeshift weapon. But Ev, his eyes glowing brightly with all the colors of the rainbow, spotted it coming his way and, without even a moment of hesitation, improbably shot it out of the air. The gunshot and the sound of the bullet blasting the wrench echoed loudly in the hangar. He fired another couple of shots at the figure up above him. He probably could have hit Clint, too, but that was not the point. Only to call his attention and warn him of what was coming.
That was a nice shot. Freezing in place for a moment, Clint calculated the angles of the shots Ev fired, then grabbed an armful of tools and ran through the rafters. Dust dropped in clumps as he disturbed it, but his footing was sure and steady as he moved. Once positioned a comfortable distance from the place where his friend would inevitably appear, he made sure he was out of Ev's sight lines and then began throwing the tools.
One ricocheted off of a post and then a rafter before dinging into the ladder the other man would have to climb to reach him. A second followed rapidly, but its path brought it in from the opposite direction. Keeping Ev's probable momentum in mind while all of the other factors involved in the shots also played out, Clint began moving again.
It was amazing how familiar this position felt to Topaz — surrounded by innocent people while a puppet master used them as a shield. She looked around desperately at the townspeople closing in on her.
But this time it wasn't another empath. And she could actually do something about it.
The emotions were still there, even if they were warped and different. It didn't matter. Topaz reached into every single one of their heads and drained them without a second thought, pulling the weird, warped emotions into her own mind. With nothing left to push them on they all paused, looking a bit like zombies. They probably weren't moving any time soon.
Which just left the bloke manipulating them.
"What are you all waiting for? Subdue her!" Ebersol focused on his nanites, trying to circumvent whatever this... girl was doing to his hosts. There was a twitch or two, but nothing like what he was trying to achieve. What he needed to achieve. He pushed harder, even though it risked burning out his tech.
"Sorry, mate," Topaz said with a calm she didn't feel, stepping closer to him. "They're gonna be down for at least half a day now. And you don't seem like you're in much of a position to fight or you wouldn't need these people to do it for you so how about you just lay down and wait for the secret agents to come arrest you?"
Even as she spoke, she gathered magical energy in her hands, not expecting him to give up that easily. She wasn't that lucky.
As much as he stimulated their synapses, the only response was a sluggish half-movement towards the girl. Whatever it was she was doing, it was overriding his control. But that didn't mean they were useless. "Go after the rest of the intruders!" he commanded, satisfied when they obeyed. It was definitely the girl that was the problem. "If you think I'm going to give up, little girl," he sneered, "You have no idea of what's at stake. Or what I'm capable of." With a mental command, he revved up the synthetic muscle tissue of his legs, propelling himself towards Topaz like a juggernaut.
Kyle did mind being shot at. "Did I mention I was totes sorry for barfing on you?" He was literally using Molly Hayes as a human shield as the brainwashed SHIELD agents fired slow, measured shots at the pair of mutants. She was bulletproof. He wasn't.
He popped up from behind her shoulder, and scythed a kick out at an agent who had apparently run out of bullets, knocking the man away and into the wall. "Because I am. Totally sorry. I will totally buy you donuts when we get home."
Molly let out a giggle. "Dude, I totally love donuts but you already said sorry like five times. It's cool!" she said, eyeing an agent behind Kyle. She reached up and grabbed the empty gun that the other agent had dropped when he was flying backwards. With a flash of purple eyes she tossed it at the guy's head, just hard enough to knock him out. Grinning, she continued, "I blame the robots. It's always robots."
"Robots in my damn brain." Kyle grunted, as he slid under Molly's arm and tackled a SHIELD agent to the ground. "In my damn brain! And I threw them up on you!" He rested his face on the cool concrete for a moment — barely a heartbeat — before he stood back up. "I think we're... wait no." A door slid open and another handful of townspeople came through. "How many fricking dudes does Norbert even fucking have?"
Molly tilted her head at the group of people, sizing them up. After a moment, a broad, sneaky grin spread across her face. "Dude. Do you like bowling?"
"Love it." Kyle was pretty average when it was a ball and pins but he was pretty sure Molly was intending him to be the ball. He stomped hard on the hand of yet another dude who was on the ground and reaching for a gun, and added one thing to his now two-things-long list of reasons to like shoes. Warmth, and stomping hands. "Bros got tasers. I don't mind those so much."
"Maybe they'll be so surprised they'll forget to use them?" Molly offered helpfully with a sympathetic grin as man, having run out of bullets, charged her. She clotheslined him with her arm before he could get off a punch. Slapping her hands together, she held open her arms. "You ready?"
He'd expected maybe an underhand softball throw, or even just to be used as Kyle the Human Javelin. He was pointy enough for it. Kyle hadn't expected Molly to grab his belt and jacket and spin around a few times before letting go. It was still Track and Field, Mutant Edition, but the sport was Shot Put.
He tucked into a somersault as Molly launched him, and hit one of the townspeople with his feet, knocking them, and the two behind them to the ground, hard. "Gold medal for America!" He yelled back to Molly. "Perfect ten!"
Molly sprinted over to Kyle, then held up her hand for a high five. "U.S.A.! U.S.A!"
Movement out of the corner of her eye caught Molly's attention, and she saw Hendrickson creeping back in the door he'd left through. "Hey, I'm gonna go take care of Hawkeye's old partner. Are we okay here?"
"We're good." Kyle eyed a few SHIELD agents trying to get to their feet. "Gimme a few, I'll back you up." First he was going to go check on Clint's ladyfriend in the closet — she'd been down awhile. Molly was basically Wonder Woman and invulnerable, she'd probably be okay on her own.
Ev would run out of bullets quickly — not to mention risk ricocheting and hitting someone — if he kept trying to shoot Clint's weapons out of the air. Synched to Clint's preternatural equilibrium, his mind was running just as quickly, directing him away from the projectiles even as he ran to the ladder to reach his friend.
Friend. He had to remind himself of that. Whatever was happening, this was not Clint, and Ev had to act accordingly.
Running out of tools sucked a lot. It meant that Clint had to stop evading Ev completely and actually engage. Taking a running start, he threw himself into a controlled tumble along one of the larger ceiling beams. He rolled to his feet, and leaped at Ev as he came into sight.
Synching to two mutants at once was difficult on its own. When they were both physical mutations, it was even harder. Still, up here in the rafters was Clint's domain, not Ev's, and Ev would not gain the advantage by synching to Clint alone. Thankfully, Kyle was in range. Ev's aura flared, enveloping him in a myriad shades of reds, blues, and yellows. It was amorphous at first, but it sluggishly took a humanoid shape when Clint tackled him. The aura around his fingers sharpened, and he swiped at Clint's face with claws of hard light to disable the archer.
Dodging the swipe was easy. The aura showed up gray-white to Clint's colorblind eyes, but he knew what it meant. "That's cheating," he said, dropping off the side of the beam they were on. He used his momentum to swing up, hooking his knees on the next one over. That hurt. Metal rafters weren't meant to catch a guy like a trapeze bar. Still, the lovely little robots would go about repairing whatever damage he'd just done to himself.
The follow-through on the jump put him another beam away from Ev, but Clint knew that wouldn't do him much good if the guy was cheating. And he had to be. Ugh.
A low bestial growl escaped from Ev and he bared his teeth. "Says the asshole hiding in the rafters and throwing monkey wrenches around. What are you, one of those Mario hammer bros? Face me like a man, Barton!" he challenged, leaping after Clint with unnatural agility.
"I don't have to conform to your stereotypical, hyper-masculine gender roles, Thomas," Clint yelled back. "Besides, I'm using what nature gave me. You're skimming." Which wasn't strictly true, he knew, but that was beside the point. He had a point, he definitely did. The point was Bert. He had to do what Bert had asked him to do, which meant eliminating the threat Ev represented. "And Mario Kart is awesome, don't even try and front!"
Swinging around a vertical beam attached to the ceiling, Clint danced back along the length of the rafter beside the one he'd been on. "C'mon, get your manly self over here. We both know you know how to move."
"If you want to get technical, and I know you do, I'm only using what I have naturally, too." Ev followed Clint, using Kyle's own enhanced physiology to make the long jump instead of taking assistance from the beam above them. "Although really, who gives a damn? You're sick, Clint. Let me help you."
A flicker of movement at the exit, the one his puppets were protecting, showed Ebersol that Hendrickson had returned. Excellent — another combatant to deal with the annoyance. “James, could you convince the young lady she’s on the wrong side?” His voice was almost warm and friendly, like he was asking for Hendrickson to pass him the salt. “She’d be much happier working with me.”
James was more than happy to do as Mister Ebersol requested, so he turned on his heel to face the small girl. Whatever inclination he might have had toward levity or charm, toward friendliness because he knew her and he'd enjoyed meeting her the first time despite the circumstances, was subsumed by the order Mister Ebersol had given him. He walked toward her, intending to do as he'd been told.
Molly was still trying to get past how creepy Hendrickson was acting. His eyes didn't seem to have any kind of warmth in them. As he came her way, she backed up, circling him, while she tried to figure out a plan. "Okay, so you've got robots in you. That's bad. But it's me, Molly! We had burgers and shakes that one time, remember?"
Disregarding her words, James continued his approach. He acted quickly, lunging forward to engage Molly with a flurry of blows.
Even though it wouldn't have mattered much anyway if he did strike her, Molly was more worried about him. So when he attacked, Molly's training from Asgard kicked in, and she dodged the swipes and jabs, using her tiny size to her advantage to move fast (but yeesh, the guy was good. Man, SHIELD trained their guys well).
"I really — " She ducked an uppercut. " — don't want — " Then spun out of the way to avoid a punch to the stomach. " — to hurt you!" Making a face, Molly eyed a row of crates and other equipment in the corner, then took off toward them, tossing an old office phone at the florescent light overhead. The light exploded, sending that part of the room into darkness. She needed the element of surprise.
Following despite his inability to see in the dark unaided, James crashed through the stacks of snack food and bottled drinks packed into the corner. His mind was foggy, the desire to follow orders had abated but something drove him on. It lacked finesse, it lacked the fine motor skills he'd taken so many years to acquire and perfect. It made him stop in the dark, breathing hard as he tried to find the girl.
Molly crept through the shadows, listening for Hendrickson's breath until she was right behind him. Then, she struck, launching herself from the darkness to try to tackle him and wrap him in a sleeper hold. "Gotosleepgotosleep... you should really gotosleeeep... she sang to the tune of a lullaby.
James did not go to sleep. Not immediately, anyway. He struggled, using every bit of training he'd acquired. None of it did him any good, though. His blows made no impact on her and there was simply no way for him to overcome her strength. Darkness crept in at the corners of his eyes, blacking out his peripheral vision, and he finally sagged in her arms.
Peering down at him, Molly waited a moment or two before slowly easing up and carefully setting him down on the ground before glancing around for something to tie him up with. Didn't want him waking up before they could get the tiny robots out of him.
"Sick?" Clint said, only mildly indignant. "I'm not sick. Me and Bert, we got an understanding. I didn't get it at first, but he's got a plan." It wasn't often he fought someone capable of keeping up with him. Matt could, thanks to his heightened senses and his training. Kyle could, because of his reflexes. He'd gotten some training sessions in with Logan, but that was mostly dodging because getting punched by that man hurt like a motherfucker. Natasha definitely could. Which reminded him! Where was his best friend? Grinning when that thought jogged another one lose in his brain, he launched himself at Ev again — feet first, this time.
Ev recognized the move as soon as Clint launched himself into it. A favorite of the smaller, more lithe combatants he'd fought with and trained. Natasha likely would have had an easier time to hooking her legs around Ev's neck and tossing him off the edge, but Clint was much too big and bulky. Ev dropped and swung around the rafter, like a gymnast on an uneven bar, slipping out of Clint's reach and swinging back up behind him.
"Sloppy, buddy. You're definitely not in your right mind if you tried that move."
"Ugh," Clint said, his planned rebound having been foiled by Ev's move. He spun to face the other man, going in for close hand-to-hand now because sometimes punching people was just necessary.
On the best of days, it would have been a toss up for who could overcome the other. But with the nanites exerting their control on Clint and Ev mimicking a powerset almost tailor-made for close-quarters fighting, it was not a fair fight. Ev blocked or dodged most of Clint's blows, only allowing to land those that would bring them closer and give Ev the opportunity to switch from defense to offense. He swiped at Clint's midsection, his aura's claws shredding Clint's shirt and drawing blood from shallow cuts. The sharp, coppery odor of spilled blood mildly burned Ev's borrowed atavistic senses, and elicited a growl of distaste.
"Ow, motherfucker!" Clint exclaimed, unable to stop the automatic reaction as he hunched over to press his hands to his newly acquired wounds.
Ev fought back the bile rising in his throat in response to the horrific smell and slipped into Clint's reach, pinning the archer's arms behind his back with one arm while using the other to grasp him in a tight sleeper hold. "We're done, Barton," he snarled. "Kicking your ass isn't fun anymore. We all have better things to do now."
Well Ebersol was right about one thing — she had no idea. Topaz jerked back as he moved at a speed she wasn't expecting, throwing up a shield around herself for him to ping pong off of.
Fixer glanced off the shield with a grunt, ricocheting into the wall. He picked himself up, glaring at Topaz. "Nice trick. How long can you keep that up?" And with that, he lunged at her again, swinging enhanced arms at the shield in huge roundhouse punches.
With what she'd just absorbed from his puppets? Longer than normal but probably not long enough to outlast him considering he'd just rammed into a wall and stood up again like it was nothing. She winced back as he punched at her shield, scrolling quickly through her options. Everyone else was busy in their own fight and there was no cavalry swinging in to save her this time.
As Fixer reared back for another punch she dropped the shield and blasted him back, energy crackling around her fingers.
Fixer managed to throw up his arms to protect his face, his skin burning away beneath the energy to reveal not flesh but metal. Faster than she might have anticipated, he surged forward again, taking advantage of her dropped shield to try to tackle her to the floor.
"Fucking — " Was about as far as Topaz got, shock momentarily distracting her — was he a bloody robot? — before Fixer slammed into her and sent her crashing to the ground. Her head snapped back, stars bursting to life before her eyes, and she blinked desperately to try and stay conscious.
"I didn't want to do it this way." His hands, part metal and part burned skin and meat, reached around her throat. "If you'd just LEFT ME ALONE to finish my work..." His eyes bulged in his head as he squeezed harder. "I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END THIS WAY!"
Whenever she saw someone getting choked in a movie, Topaz had always thought it was stupid that the person tried to claw at their attacker's hands. Wouldn't it make more sense to go for the face?
Apparently adrenaline and panic turned even the smartest people into idiots, though. Topaz grasped desperately at the man's hands, trying to throw him off, gasping uselessly for air. No, no, no, no, nononono...
Eyes snapping open, James reached up to grasp Molly's wrist before she could step away from him completely. With one hard yank, he unbalanced her while raising his other hand, his fingers jabbing into her mouth they both tumbled onto the catwalk. With what he knew about the girl he had to take special measures to follow orders.
Molly reflexively wanted to kick herself for not realizing he was trying to trick her (it was a total move like in the movies).
"Hey!" Her eyes widened as she felt a sudden stab of pain in her mouth and she immediately pushed him away, stumbling across the catwalk with her hands clutching her temples. "What did you — " She suddenly went rigid, her arms dropping slack at her side as her attention turned back to Hendrickson, her previous look of disgust melted away to that of appreciation. "Thank you. I feel much better now."
"Glad to hear it," James wheezed. The last order he'd received had been to stop the girl. He'd stopped her. And now she understood her purpose. She would help Mister Ebersol complete whatever tasks still needed to be done. He could rest.
Things that were very important to Molly Hayes were as follows:
1.) Help Mr. Fixer
2.) Stop people who would hurt Mr. Fixer
3.) Make everyone help Mr. Fixer
4.) Flossing
After all, Mr. Fixer was the best thing ever, and if someone couldn't see that then she would have to show them, now wouldn't she? Sometimes people just needed a little bit of convincing. Besides, she had cool tiny robots IN HER BODY now to help her. This would be easy!
People were running around fighting each other, and she spotted Kyle close by. He had been helping Mr. Fixer before but he wasn't anymore because she'd been silly and hadn't realized how cool it was to work for Mr. Fixer when she helped the stupid X-People to stop him. He'd be so much happier if he were helping Mr.Fixer again. She just knew it! But he was also really stubborn, so she'd probably have to fight dirty on this one. That sounded kinda fun.
Besides, he'd heal, right? So that was her thought when she leaped from a catwalk overhead toward Kyle, attempting to tackle him off his feet. "LET ME HELP YOU!"
"Fuck no!" Molly had definitely not been okay on her own. Kyle didn't have time to note to himself that leaving her on her own had been a shitty idea before he took a double-dose of her boots right in the chest. She hit so hard he skidded, claws breaking off on the concrete before he could pop upright and return the favor. His tackle was not nearly so effective. Molly was fifty tons of badass in a fourteen pound package. He got one knee into her gut, and felt his kneecap give a little.
Molly glanced down curiously as she doubled over slightly, mainly from surprise, then looked back up at Kyle with a disappointed frown as her eyes flashed and she tried to level a punch at his face that would probably knock out some teeth and send him slamming into a nearby support beam. "Now you're just being unreasonable, Kyle," she said, shaking her head with a sigh. "Mr. Fixer just wants the world to be in harmony. He helped me see that. You can see it again too! Let me show you!"
"Fuck harmony, fuck Norbert, fuck this." Kyle rolled back up from where he'd smacked into the beam, spat out some blood and broken pieces of tooth, and snarled. He shook his head a few times to clear it and then charged again, leaping high at the last minute to hook a leg around Molly's neck. "Bitch, I have had enough of Norbert."
Molly's mouth dropped open at the string of cursing, and she started to protest, thrown off long enough allow Kyle's attack to send her sprawling to the ground with a heavy smack that resounded against the concrete. Reaching back, she grabbed a handful of hair to try to yank his head back (and possibly hard enough to pull parts of his scalp with it).
"HOW DARE YOU TAKE MR. FIXER'S NAME IN VAIN!" she shrieked. Now he was just being rude. And mean! And a jerk! She went for his mouth with her other hand, trying to jam it in there like Hendrickson had done.
Molly's strength meant Kyle couldn't pull his hair — he was so buzzing it short again once they got home, there was fish and barf and blood in it, it was beyond saving — out of her grasp, or get away from her hand. Usually fingers in his mouth meant he was going to bite — his sharp teeth took care of fingers pretty well, but if the nanites were in Molly's blood, even if he could maybe break her skin, which he couldn't, then he'd be brainwashed too. Again.
Fuck that.
He'd trained with Garrison, and usually walked away bruised and reminding himself why he hated fighting people with super strength. Give him a good energy projector any day. Or another feral. "Norby can suck my ass." He was stuck. Anything he could so, she could ignore, or just break his face by slamming it into the concrete.
Desperate measures.
Kyle's hand shot out, grabbing at Molly's chest, and his claws went through the first layers of clothes, all the way to skin, and then he pulled. Hard.
Blinking, Molly looked offended as he grabbed her bra and yanked her forward. She narrowed her eyes, and grabbed his wrist, attempting to twist it, to break bone and rip tendons. "HEY!" she said, swinging her other fist at his jaw.
Kyle slid to the side, avoiding Molly's wild punch — also avoiding the third or fourth shattered jaw of his life. As Molly lunged, he pulled his wrist free — barely, he was going to need to tape it up because something had for sure cracked in there — and turned hard and fast as he shoved her shoulder and back. Molly went head over heels over Kyle's hip and slid hard into a wall, her own strength providing the momentum to carry her along.
THWACK!
That was the sound of Molly's head hitting the wall as her neck was snapped backward. She fell onto her knees, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in her wake. She sat there for a couple of moments, moving her head back and forth repeatedly.
Reaching up to touch her temple, her movements were shaky, body jerking as she glanced up to Kyle, her wide eyes panicked, pleading, and terrified. And then, her face went slack, eyes rolling back into her head and closing before they snapped open and her face twisted into rage. Launching herself up off the ground, she ran at Kyle like a linebacker, going for the gut, to knock him off his feet and straddle his chest on the way down. She started to punch. "I — " Punch. " — will — " Punch. " — TAKE YOU DOWN!" Punch.
She couldn't be punching at full strength. Kyle was sure of it, because he'd be dead if she was. He'd seen Molly Hayes lift a half-ton boulder. Maybe more than half a ton. And that was years ago, she'd gotten stronger since then. She'd been taught how to fight since then.
He still felt his shoulder give, and one of the blows cracked the jaw he'd worked so hard earlier to avoid breaking. He twisted, unable to move under the immense strength of a young woman half his size and barely got one arm free. He felt the bones in his wrist and hand buckle in the process, but his hand was free and he could ignore pain. His fingers still worked well enough to grab the tiny ampule of venomous gas and squeeze it open. Odorless, and instantly potent, he felt his muscles spasm as the toxins began attacking his body.
Molly's fist, aiming for Kyle's nose, missed by a good six inches and punched the ground instead. Her body started jerking and twitching again, this time thanks to the aerosolized venom. She let out a few quiet whimpers of pain from behind gritted teeth before her body slumped against Kyle's, her breath heavy.
Molly Hayes was not a lightweight. Which is about all Kyle had time to consider before the spasms in his muscles overwhelmed him and he collapsed under Molly. He was finally free of Molly's super-strong hold, but his healing factor was working overtime, sending him into troubled and uneasy unconsciousness.
Eventually — finally — the young woman went still as Molly joined Kyle in the land of unconsciousness. Her head hit the ground with a thunk, drool dribbling from her mouth.
Knock out.
James watched the fighting as it took place, abstractly enjoying the back and forth as the nanites in his body repaired the damage the small girl with the hat had done to him. He'd helped her, though. He'd fixed her. She was fighting the tall one with the claws now. He'd understood how superior Mister Ebersol was to all others, but he didn't any longer — something had happened to change the tall one's mind. James didn't want to know what it was. He was quite content where he lay on the floor, catching his breath.
Then the tides turned in the room, the fight in the rafters ended prematurely — rainbows forming claws and teeth on one man as Barton moved in ways that he probably shouldn't be able to. When Barton stopped struggling, James knew he needed to get back up. Struggling, it took him a moment, but then he pushed up to his feet and shrugged his shoulders out. He flexed his fingers, watching the man in the rafters drop Barton. This wasn't going to be fun.
It wasn't the fight itself that had taken so much out of Ev, but maintaining the synch with Kyle's feral nature for so long, supplemented with Clint's extraordinary vision, had him fighting back yearning to collapse and sleep for the next twelve hours. He couldn't, though, not when the mission still was not complete. One arm still around Clint while the other hand held onto one of the vertical beams to keep his balance, Ev released his synchs, letting the world lose its sharp focus and resolve into a sort of mundane stillness.
Still, it didn't take supersight to spot Agent Hendrickson, still possessed, get back up for round two. Well, if that's what he wanted. Molly was still in range, and though synching to her took a moment longer than it would have were he not so sapped, he let go of the rafter to lift Clint in a fireman's carry and leaped off. The superhero jump was hell on his knees, but it made a good show.
"Was that meant to be impressive?" James asked. "Or intimidating? The first one I'll give you. Not so much the second one, though. Once the nanites revive Barton, we're going to incapacitate you until Mister Ebersol can show you the error of your ways."
"Expediency." Ev set Barton down a few feet away and then turned back to the other agent. "'Show me the error of my ways,'" he scoffed, charging Hendrickson. "Nanites aren't very original, are they? Next time hire Bruce Vilanche to write your material." On solid ground, possessing the strength to lift an RV, this confrontation would be a quick one.
"That implies this is a comedy," James replies. "It's not." Pulling his sidearm, the SWORD agent began firing at the other man.
What would have really made this comedic would have been for Ev to just stand still and deadpan as the bullets bounced off his impenetrable aura. Instead, he ignored them like so many gnats and reached for Hendrickson, one hand going for his piece and the other for his throat.
"Make another move and this'll be your last breath." An empty threat, mostly, as it wasn't Hendrickson's fault he was acting as he did. But Ev would have been justified, given his treatment of Clint when they were partners.
Since it had worked so well on the tiny girl, James attempted to jab his hand into the ridiculous rainbow man's mouth. He didn't care that the move would most likely be his last. He needed to help Mister Ebersol.
But what worked well on a little girl, whether or not trained by the gods, was not the strategy that would work on a field agent with half a lifetime of experience. Ev squeezed the wrist he held until he heard the bones start to crackle, silently marveling at the ease with which he did so much damage, and then pushed him away, slamming Hendrickson against the wall several yards behind him.
Hendrickson was out, as were several of his less-trained followers. Even while choking the girl, Ebersol was aware that things were not going his way. He couldn’t allow it. The project was too important, there was too much at stake.
"Stop that man. Save Hendrickson." Fixer — it was easier to think about himself as that identity, in order to do what must be done — commanded the pliant Clint before turning his attention back to his own situation.
Dazed as he came to consciousness, that awareness spurred on by Bert's little nanites, Clint pushed himself into a sitting position and then rolled over until he could get to his feet. It took him a moment, but Bert'd told him to do something, which meant it was important and he really needed to do it.
Oh. Oh, Hendrickson was down. That wasn't good.
But that niggling feeling in the back of his mind — he didn't follow other people's order, he'd never followed orders this way! — poked itself up and forward a bit. "Hey," Clint said, stumbling forward. "Hey, Ev?" There was something — there was... it was something. A loophole. Maybe. "Ev?" Blinking slowly, he coughed and rubbed at his throat. "Stop. Please, stop." Because that was what Bert had told him to do — to stop Ev. So if Ev stopped when Clint asked him to, then... then he'd stopped him. Letter of the law.
And Ev did. The tone of Clint's voice had changed. There was still a flatness that indicated the thrall, but it was the kind of stillness like in the ocean that indicated something lurking below the surface, waiting for the right moment to break through. So, shoulders sagging and breath heavy from maintaining the synch with Molly, Ev turned from Hendrickson back to his friend and partner. "Clint..."
It's gonna kill Amanda to lose another student.
That was the thought that cleared Topaz's mind enough to focus. She couldn't breathe, but she could still cast a spell. She forced herself to focus, gathering the energy in her palms once more, reaching back to the very corners of her mind and dragging it all forward.
And she blasted Fixer off of her.
He flew across the room, crashing into the wall with a bone-breaking thump. The air rushed out of him and he slid down the wall to land on the floor, limp and still, his neck unnaturally twisted.
For a moment Topaz just lay on the ground, waiting for him to come back and trying desperately to find the energy to move. Her head was spinning, adrenaline mixing with the emotions she still had left in her mind to make a very interesting, and somewhat disconcerting, high.
Until a minute too long passed and she realized that Fixer wasn't coming at her again. She forced herself to sit up, blinking when she saw him crumpled against the ground. Had she knocked him out? Thank god. She stumbled up, cautiously moving closer...
And froze when she saw the angle his neck was at.
"Oh god..." She whispered, kneeling down and reaching out in a vain attempt to look for a pulse. Stupid — he was clearly dead. The lack of one wasn't a surprise.
Topaz withdrew her hand, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes and breathing deep, trying to focus. "Fuck."
"Hi," Clint said, voice sounding more like his own for a moment. "Hey." Then he let himself half collapse to the ground, one hand rising to rub at his neck. Sleeper holds sucked. They sucked a lot. But they were hella effective. "He asked, y'know. No. Told me. Told me to stop you. So I did, right? You stopped. It's... it's good. That you stopped..." Clint trailed off, though, eyes going wide for a long moment. It was obvious he wasn't actually seeing anything.
His eyes closed a moment later and he slumped over, still breathing, but completely unconscious — like the power'd been cut.
Or the puppeteer had dropped his strings. That met this Ebersol fellow was... Ev spun, following the pale yellow of Topaz's aura until he spotted her, looking as drained to the bone as he felt, kneeling over the limp, lifeless corpse of the puppeteer himself.
That was it, then. The rainbow glow around Ev faded, and, finding himself without the super strength to keep him going, he followed everyone else to the ground.
"'Kay, so I'm pretty sure we're not gonna be able to have me pretend I'm still his Furby." Kyle said, as he peered down the stairwell. "Man though, I can smell that guy from about a football field away, that dude is sick, and not just in the head. Bro is not healthy." He rubbed at his nose. "I got at least two other people in there real close from footsteps but there's some echoes so it's hard to tell. T, can you, uh." he waved his hands by his ears. "You know. Psi stuff. Tell how many people we got in there? Or does people being broseph's meat puppet mess that up?"
Topaz decided to be a big person and ignore the 'psi stuff' comment, frowning as she tried to focus. "Well it'd be nice if they didn't all feel the exact same thing," she said quietly. "Kinda makes it hard to pick one apart from the other when there's nothing distinct. Nine, maybe? Ten? Definitely more of them then there are us."
Molly looked thoughtful and had a bit of a smile on her face. Smelling powers were so cool, except for the part where he could actually smell gross things. So was empathy. All she got to do was be unsquishable and punch stuff. Blinking away the distracting thought, she glanced around. "And those guys are probably good guys but being controlled. So… only minimal bruising, got it. If the smelly guy is around, though, we definitely need him. I need to pick his brain. And then punch his brain."
From his position next to Kyle, Ev could not see much more, and he resisted the urge to gain Kyle's enhanced senses lest his personal Lite-Brite alert the hostiles. "The missing SHIELD agents are there," he said softly. That much he could see. Mind-controlled or not, that was the gait of a trained agent. A flash of purple in his head grabbed his attention and he glanced around. "Barton, too."
"Well that blows. So we're going in, basically 'could be five dudes, could be fifteen.'" Kyle grunted. "Mols, it's you and me on the power play. E, eye-dee-kay how you work but maybe ace in the hole, since you can pick up any of us? I think?" Kyle's understanding of Ev's powers was limited to 'I copy powers and make rainbows.'
"Hayes, are you bulletproof?" Ev asked, looking over his shoulder at the younger woman. "Consider this alternative: I go in first and draw attention" — and take the greater risk of death and/or dismemberment than these kids (kids, relatively speaking) — "And then you all follow to take them out more easily. Not ideal, but if Barton is under the same thrall you were, Gibney, then stealth isn't an option."
Molly grinned. "Yep, I am totally unsquishable. Wait — you can use anyone's powers too?" she said, both envious and curious all at the same time. She didn't know a lot about the guy except he was cute, and tall!
Ev nodded, his lips twitching in mild amusement at her enthusiasm despite the danger around them. "More or less. As long as you don't get too far away, I can fully mimic your mutation. So we get in, you launch your EMP, and we should be able to get to the bottom of this." He stood up and turned his mind's eye to the Lisa Frank-shade of purple of Molly's aura to prime himself to it. "Ready?"
This was absolutely mad. Great. Two nearly indestructible people, one who could mimic the two nearly indestructible... and her, the very small, very breakable girl with a useless mutation and enough magical offense to survive, but probably not be any good.
Who the hell had suggested she be here again?
"If there aren't too many I can probably do the same thing I did to Kyle," Topaz said quietly, wanting to contribute something. This was going to be a disaster.
"Ready."
"Ready!"
"Let's go."
Staying behind a few seconds was not Kyle's preferred strategy. He was pretty hard to hurt, and he bounced back from it. But Ev — Ev, this guy he could pick up a dose of Molly Hayes maybe with a side dose of Kyle. It made sense. He just kind of hated it.
With everything set, Molly grabbed their secret weapon out of her backpack: an EMP she fashioned out of a cell phone she'd found in the IT room and some spare parts. It was the best she could do with what she had, but it'd do the job.
She hoped. She'd never had to disable nanites before.
Eyeing the group of robot-acting dudes in the distance, she waited until they were more clustered together... then she struck,mashing down the button. Now, EMPs don't work like the movies where a big burst of visible energy just shoots out and makes everything stop. It's invisible. But it still works kinda the same way to shut off all the electrical impulses.
"It's done," she said to Ev, Topaz, and Kyle.
Kyle didn't like hearing shouts directed at a teammate and not being able to dive right in. He didn't like keeping his attention on Molly setting off her EMP and then counting to three before he jumped in.
He didn't mind so much that Norbert — that dweeb — was standing right there ready to be leaped on and have his dweeb annoying head bounced off the floor.
James cradled the item carefully in his palm. Mister Ebersol had assured him it was of the utmost importance. He had one mission left, possibly two. His head swung toward the door, as did the head of every other person standing in the basement storage area, when several of their members closest to the hallway suddenly dropped.
Retaining enough sense of self to look back toward Mister Ebersol, James gave the man a firm nod and made a beeline for the exit behind those of Mister Ebersol's supporters who were still standing. He had to get the item in his hands to safety — to the people waiting outside. Once he did that, all he had to do was report back to Mister Ebersol.
"Guys we got a runner!" Kyle yelled, as he tackled one of the mind-controlled SHIELD agents. "Someone go after him!" He would have, but he was too busy dodging an agent with a taser.
"Actually, I'd prefer you stay right where you are, young man." At the voice and a gesture, the exit Hendrickson had used was blocked by the nanite-controlled people, civilians and SHIELD agents. "And you, miss, you might be rather clever with mechanics, but you have a lot to learn about EMPs. Without a stronger power source, you can only disable one of my... helpers at a time."
The voice was coming from behind the crowd, from a slight, frail-looking man in khakis and a lab coat of all things. A reminder to himself that he was still a scientist, despite all. "I have to admit, I'm surprised that you got this far. Most don't." Ebersol shrugged. "Not that it matters. You'll succumb eventually. They all do."
Molly made a face at the man who obviously was the leader. "Hey, I was improvising! Not all of us can shop at Evil 'R' Us for our supplies," she said. She eyed the controlled SHIELD agents before glancing back to Ebersol. "And you're wrong, Mr.Roboto. We're totally gonna kick your ass."
Ev, still glowing with the combined powers of Molly and Kyle, surveyed the room, trying to figure out the quickest and least bloody way to end the inevitable violent confrontation. It might have been easy, were Clint not hiding at the periphery of his sixth sense. What was he doing? "I could have a full SHIELD extraction team here in less than ten minutes," he threatened, turning his focus to Ebersol. "Is that the route we're gonna play or will you let me arrest you right now?"
"If you had that option, you would have played it the moment your friends became my tools." Ebersol tilted his head slightly, curious. "I have to admit, I do wonder how it was you freed the young man. No one has resisted my nanites before."
"I'm just that cool, Norbert." Kyle said, with a disturbingly cheerful grin, but narrowed eyes that confirmed that this was definitely The Guy. He remembered that voice, and the smell, even if he hadn't paid much attention to what he'd looked like. "Not dumb enough to tell you how either. Maybe you never even really had me. Maybe you just imagined it in your sick and sad little head." He put just the slightest emphasis on sick. Norbert did not smell healthy.
Molly shook her head. "So what's your plan anyway? Take over the world? SO overdone. Even if inventing nanites is like... super mad advanced," she said, looking a little wistful at the thought as she nerded out over the technological aspect of it before catching herself, jabbing a finger into the air to prove her point. "But still... evil. There are people who can totally stop you. Like us! So... you need to stand down."
Ebersol snorted a laugh. "Oh dear, how simplistic your worldview is. Good and evil, black and white... my dear child, the world is far more complicated than you realize. You're the same as the small-minded morons who saw me as nothing more than a mechanic at the airport. They had no idea of what I could do, what I have done. World domination? Nothing so crude and cartoony."
"Oh, so you're one of those dime-a-dozen 'super geniuses' who's trying to compensate for their other shortcomings," Ev said dismissively. "Join a support group, man. Your new world order isn't happening. They never happen."
"Deaf as well as dumb enough to come barging in here when you're vastly outnumbered." Ebersol shook his head. "I already said that wasn't my goal. Why would I seek a new world order when the current one suits my needs? Capitalism, supply and demand. I can make as much money as I could ever need with the objects SHIELD has put into mothballs in this frozen waste. Enough to create any machine I can think of. Including all the nanites I could ever need."
Molly blinked. "Dude, you know much GOOD you could've done with these things? Instead you're monologuing and taking over people with them? Not cool! So yeah, maybe my EMP is kinda small but I can still use it over and over again. And I will. Then I'll figure out how your little dudes work and we'll take you down!" she said, then paused after a moment. "You could maybe... give me a hint, though." Did he make them all himself? Or were they self replicating once he established a base set? What materials did he use? All those little parts! Gah, it was so cool but so evil. Why did bad guys make all the cool stuff?
"Curiosity killed the cat, and it may well kill you, my dear. I could waste more time giving you a rundown of my nanite process, but I find practical demonstrations so much more effective. And the four of you — even the quiet little miss in the corner there — will make admirable additions to my "assistants". Even you, my prodigal hairy young man. I'm not sure how you resisted the first infection, but perhaps another dose will help."
He raised his finger to his temple, where a small metal button seemed to be embedded in his skin. "A moment of concentration here, and the nanites in my own brain electronically stimulate the nanites in my people here. And off they go." And at that, the mixed group of agents and local townspeople began advancing on the mutants.
"Man why does everyone focus on the hair?" Kyle muttered. "And naw, probably not gonna get re-droned but let's not take chances." He glanced at Ev, and one of his ears twitched, casually, deliberately, as if to say "I hear something else." They still had one guy missing, and Natasha was off in a closet.
"Well, you do have a lot of it," Topaz deadpanned as she backed up away from the fray, eyes darting around. Fighting the SHIELD agents was fine and all, but they were a symptom, not the problem.
Kyle shot off, dropping to all fours to charge at a SHIELD agent who was drawing a gun, tackling the body-armored agent just in time to prevent them from getting a shot off at Topaz.
The problem was the bloke who wouldn't shut up. Topaz's eyes fixed on him, and she dodged around Kyle, heading for him.
Clint slid out of the shadows above everyone else, nimbly jumping from one beam to another as he headed for a box that he suspected would hold items suitable for throwing. He kept an eye on the fighters on the floor, counting Bert's supporters as they went toe to toe with his team. He wished he'd had the foresight to bring them with him when he went looking for Kyle — they could've avoided all this. Bert could've shown them how great his plan was, how awesome his tech was, how innovative his ideas were!
Threat assessment was easy — as long as Molly stayed down on the ground, she couldn't touch him. Topaz could do the empathy thing, but that was all theory in his mind and she seemed occupied with Bert, anyway. That left the Ev — so familiar. It was a dangerous familiarity, though, which meant that he was obviously the player who needed to be taken out first. That would even up the playing field for Bert's other supporters.
Clint reached the box and lifted the hinged lid, then smiled. Excellent. A toolbox. He'd never been one to blindly follow orders, but while there was a small voice in the back of his mind trying to point that out, he still picked up one of the wrenches from the box. Hefting it, he followed the impulse the nanites provided him, the one electronically downloaded into his brain by the miniaturized robots, and threw the wrench in a perfect arc toward Ev.
Even a master acrobat would have had a hard time dodging the makeshift weapon. But Ev, his eyes glowing brightly with all the colors of the rainbow, spotted it coming his way and, without even a moment of hesitation, improbably shot it out of the air. The gunshot and the sound of the bullet blasting the wrench echoed loudly in the hangar. He fired another couple of shots at the figure up above him. He probably could have hit Clint, too, but that was not the point. Only to call his attention and warn him of what was coming.
That was a nice shot. Freezing in place for a moment, Clint calculated the angles of the shots Ev fired, then grabbed an armful of tools and ran through the rafters. Dust dropped in clumps as he disturbed it, but his footing was sure and steady as he moved. Once positioned a comfortable distance from the place where his friend would inevitably appear, he made sure he was out of Ev's sight lines and then began throwing the tools.
One ricocheted off of a post and then a rafter before dinging into the ladder the other man would have to climb to reach him. A second followed rapidly, but its path brought it in from the opposite direction. Keeping Ev's probable momentum in mind while all of the other factors involved in the shots also played out, Clint began moving again.
It was amazing how familiar this position felt to Topaz — surrounded by innocent people while a puppet master used them as a shield. She looked around desperately at the townspeople closing in on her.
But this time it wasn't another empath. And she could actually do something about it.
The emotions were still there, even if they were warped and different. It didn't matter. Topaz reached into every single one of their heads and drained them without a second thought, pulling the weird, warped emotions into her own mind. With nothing left to push them on they all paused, looking a bit like zombies. They probably weren't moving any time soon.
Which just left the bloke manipulating them.
"What are you all waiting for? Subdue her!" Ebersol focused on his nanites, trying to circumvent whatever this... girl was doing to his hosts. There was a twitch or two, but nothing like what he was trying to achieve. What he needed to achieve. He pushed harder, even though it risked burning out his tech.
"Sorry, mate," Topaz said with a calm she didn't feel, stepping closer to him. "They're gonna be down for at least half a day now. And you don't seem like you're in much of a position to fight or you wouldn't need these people to do it for you so how about you just lay down and wait for the secret agents to come arrest you?"
Even as she spoke, she gathered magical energy in her hands, not expecting him to give up that easily. She wasn't that lucky.
As much as he stimulated their synapses, the only response was a sluggish half-movement towards the girl. Whatever it was she was doing, it was overriding his control. But that didn't mean they were useless. "Go after the rest of the intruders!" he commanded, satisfied when they obeyed. It was definitely the girl that was the problem. "If you think I'm going to give up, little girl," he sneered, "You have no idea of what's at stake. Or what I'm capable of." With a mental command, he revved up the synthetic muscle tissue of his legs, propelling himself towards Topaz like a juggernaut.
Kyle did mind being shot at. "Did I mention I was totes sorry for barfing on you?" He was literally using Molly Hayes as a human shield as the brainwashed SHIELD agents fired slow, measured shots at the pair of mutants. She was bulletproof. He wasn't.
He popped up from behind her shoulder, and scythed a kick out at an agent who had apparently run out of bullets, knocking the man away and into the wall. "Because I am. Totally sorry. I will totally buy you donuts when we get home."
Molly let out a giggle. "Dude, I totally love donuts but you already said sorry like five times. It's cool!" she said, eyeing an agent behind Kyle. She reached up and grabbed the empty gun that the other agent had dropped when he was flying backwards. With a flash of purple eyes she tossed it at the guy's head, just hard enough to knock him out. Grinning, she continued, "I blame the robots. It's always robots."
"Robots in my damn brain." Kyle grunted, as he slid under Molly's arm and tackled a SHIELD agent to the ground. "In my damn brain! And I threw them up on you!" He rested his face on the cool concrete for a moment — barely a heartbeat — before he stood back up. "I think we're... wait no." A door slid open and another handful of townspeople came through. "How many fricking dudes does Norbert even fucking have?"
Molly tilted her head at the group of people, sizing them up. After a moment, a broad, sneaky grin spread across her face. "Dude. Do you like bowling?"
"Love it." Kyle was pretty average when it was a ball and pins but he was pretty sure Molly was intending him to be the ball. He stomped hard on the hand of yet another dude who was on the ground and reaching for a gun, and added one thing to his now two-things-long list of reasons to like shoes. Warmth, and stomping hands. "Bros got tasers. I don't mind those so much."
"Maybe they'll be so surprised they'll forget to use them?" Molly offered helpfully with a sympathetic grin as man, having run out of bullets, charged her. She clotheslined him with her arm before he could get off a punch. Slapping her hands together, she held open her arms. "You ready?"
He'd expected maybe an underhand softball throw, or even just to be used as Kyle the Human Javelin. He was pointy enough for it. Kyle hadn't expected Molly to grab his belt and jacket and spin around a few times before letting go. It was still Track and Field, Mutant Edition, but the sport was Shot Put.
He tucked into a somersault as Molly launched him, and hit one of the townspeople with his feet, knocking them, and the two behind them to the ground, hard. "Gold medal for America!" He yelled back to Molly. "Perfect ten!"
Molly sprinted over to Kyle, then held up her hand for a high five. "U.S.A.! U.S.A!"
Movement out of the corner of her eye caught Molly's attention, and she saw Hendrickson creeping back in the door he'd left through. "Hey, I'm gonna go take care of Hawkeye's old partner. Are we okay here?"
"We're good." Kyle eyed a few SHIELD agents trying to get to their feet. "Gimme a few, I'll back you up." First he was going to go check on Clint's ladyfriend in the closet — she'd been down awhile. Molly was basically Wonder Woman and invulnerable, she'd probably be okay on her own.
Ev would run out of bullets quickly — not to mention risk ricocheting and hitting someone — if he kept trying to shoot Clint's weapons out of the air. Synched to Clint's preternatural equilibrium, his mind was running just as quickly, directing him away from the projectiles even as he ran to the ladder to reach his friend.
Friend. He had to remind himself of that. Whatever was happening, this was not Clint, and Ev had to act accordingly.
Running out of tools sucked a lot. It meant that Clint had to stop evading Ev completely and actually engage. Taking a running start, he threw himself into a controlled tumble along one of the larger ceiling beams. He rolled to his feet, and leaped at Ev as he came into sight.
Synching to two mutants at once was difficult on its own. When they were both physical mutations, it was even harder. Still, up here in the rafters was Clint's domain, not Ev's, and Ev would not gain the advantage by synching to Clint alone. Thankfully, Kyle was in range. Ev's aura flared, enveloping him in a myriad shades of reds, blues, and yellows. It was amorphous at first, but it sluggishly took a humanoid shape when Clint tackled him. The aura around his fingers sharpened, and he swiped at Clint's face with claws of hard light to disable the archer.
Dodging the swipe was easy. The aura showed up gray-white to Clint's colorblind eyes, but he knew what it meant. "That's cheating," he said, dropping off the side of the beam they were on. He used his momentum to swing up, hooking his knees on the next one over. That hurt. Metal rafters weren't meant to catch a guy like a trapeze bar. Still, the lovely little robots would go about repairing whatever damage he'd just done to himself.
The follow-through on the jump put him another beam away from Ev, but Clint knew that wouldn't do him much good if the guy was cheating. And he had to be. Ugh.
A low bestial growl escaped from Ev and he bared his teeth. "Says the asshole hiding in the rafters and throwing monkey wrenches around. What are you, one of those Mario hammer bros? Face me like a man, Barton!" he challenged, leaping after Clint with unnatural agility.
"I don't have to conform to your stereotypical, hyper-masculine gender roles, Thomas," Clint yelled back. "Besides, I'm using what nature gave me. You're skimming." Which wasn't strictly true, he knew, but that was beside the point. He had a point, he definitely did. The point was Bert. He had to do what Bert had asked him to do, which meant eliminating the threat Ev represented. "And Mario Kart is awesome, don't even try and front!"
Swinging around a vertical beam attached to the ceiling, Clint danced back along the length of the rafter beside the one he'd been on. "C'mon, get your manly self over here. We both know you know how to move."
"If you want to get technical, and I know you do, I'm only using what I have naturally, too." Ev followed Clint, using Kyle's own enhanced physiology to make the long jump instead of taking assistance from the beam above them. "Although really, who gives a damn? You're sick, Clint. Let me help you."
A flicker of movement at the exit, the one his puppets were protecting, showed Ebersol that Hendrickson had returned. Excellent — another combatant to deal with the annoyance. “James, could you convince the young lady she’s on the wrong side?” His voice was almost warm and friendly, like he was asking for Hendrickson to pass him the salt. “She’d be much happier working with me.”
James was more than happy to do as Mister Ebersol requested, so he turned on his heel to face the small girl. Whatever inclination he might have had toward levity or charm, toward friendliness because he knew her and he'd enjoyed meeting her the first time despite the circumstances, was subsumed by the order Mister Ebersol had given him. He walked toward her, intending to do as he'd been told.
Molly was still trying to get past how creepy Hendrickson was acting. His eyes didn't seem to have any kind of warmth in them. As he came her way, she backed up, circling him, while she tried to figure out a plan. "Okay, so you've got robots in you. That's bad. But it's me, Molly! We had burgers and shakes that one time, remember?"
Disregarding her words, James continued his approach. He acted quickly, lunging forward to engage Molly with a flurry of blows.
Even though it wouldn't have mattered much anyway if he did strike her, Molly was more worried about him. So when he attacked, Molly's training from Asgard kicked in, and she dodged the swipes and jabs, using her tiny size to her advantage to move fast (but yeesh, the guy was good. Man, SHIELD trained their guys well).
"I really — " She ducked an uppercut. " — don't want — " Then spun out of the way to avoid a punch to the stomach. " — to hurt you!" Making a face, Molly eyed a row of crates and other equipment in the corner, then took off toward them, tossing an old office phone at the florescent light overhead. The light exploded, sending that part of the room into darkness. She needed the element of surprise.
Following despite his inability to see in the dark unaided, James crashed through the stacks of snack food and bottled drinks packed into the corner. His mind was foggy, the desire to follow orders had abated but something drove him on. It lacked finesse, it lacked the fine motor skills he'd taken so many years to acquire and perfect. It made him stop in the dark, breathing hard as he tried to find the girl.
Molly crept through the shadows, listening for Hendrickson's breath until she was right behind him. Then, she struck, launching herself from the darkness to try to tackle him and wrap him in a sleeper hold. "Gotosleepgotosleep... you should really gotosleeeep... she sang to the tune of a lullaby.
James did not go to sleep. Not immediately, anyway. He struggled, using every bit of training he'd acquired. None of it did him any good, though. His blows made no impact on her and there was simply no way for him to overcome her strength. Darkness crept in at the corners of his eyes, blacking out his peripheral vision, and he finally sagged in her arms.
Peering down at him, Molly waited a moment or two before slowly easing up and carefully setting him down on the ground before glancing around for something to tie him up with. Didn't want him waking up before they could get the tiny robots out of him.
"Sick?" Clint said, only mildly indignant. "I'm not sick. Me and Bert, we got an understanding. I didn't get it at first, but he's got a plan." It wasn't often he fought someone capable of keeping up with him. Matt could, thanks to his heightened senses and his training. Kyle could, because of his reflexes. He'd gotten some training sessions in with Logan, but that was mostly dodging because getting punched by that man hurt like a motherfucker. Natasha definitely could. Which reminded him! Where was his best friend? Grinning when that thought jogged another one lose in his brain, he launched himself at Ev again — feet first, this time.
Ev recognized the move as soon as Clint launched himself into it. A favorite of the smaller, more lithe combatants he'd fought with and trained. Natasha likely would have had an easier time to hooking her legs around Ev's neck and tossing him off the edge, but Clint was much too big and bulky. Ev dropped and swung around the rafter, like a gymnast on an uneven bar, slipping out of Clint's reach and swinging back up behind him.
"Sloppy, buddy. You're definitely not in your right mind if you tried that move."
"Ugh," Clint said, his planned rebound having been foiled by Ev's move. He spun to face the other man, going in for close hand-to-hand now because sometimes punching people was just necessary.
On the best of days, it would have been a toss up for who could overcome the other. But with the nanites exerting their control on Clint and Ev mimicking a powerset almost tailor-made for close-quarters fighting, it was not a fair fight. Ev blocked or dodged most of Clint's blows, only allowing to land those that would bring them closer and give Ev the opportunity to switch from defense to offense. He swiped at Clint's midsection, his aura's claws shredding Clint's shirt and drawing blood from shallow cuts. The sharp, coppery odor of spilled blood mildly burned Ev's borrowed atavistic senses, and elicited a growl of distaste.
"Ow, motherfucker!" Clint exclaimed, unable to stop the automatic reaction as he hunched over to press his hands to his newly acquired wounds.
Ev fought back the bile rising in his throat in response to the horrific smell and slipped into Clint's reach, pinning the archer's arms behind his back with one arm while using the other to grasp him in a tight sleeper hold. "We're done, Barton," he snarled. "Kicking your ass isn't fun anymore. We all have better things to do now."
Well Ebersol was right about one thing — she had no idea. Topaz jerked back as he moved at a speed she wasn't expecting, throwing up a shield around herself for him to ping pong off of.
Fixer glanced off the shield with a grunt, ricocheting into the wall. He picked himself up, glaring at Topaz. "Nice trick. How long can you keep that up?" And with that, he lunged at her again, swinging enhanced arms at the shield in huge roundhouse punches.
With what she'd just absorbed from his puppets? Longer than normal but probably not long enough to outlast him considering he'd just rammed into a wall and stood up again like it was nothing. She winced back as he punched at her shield, scrolling quickly through her options. Everyone else was busy in their own fight and there was no cavalry swinging in to save her this time.
As Fixer reared back for another punch she dropped the shield and blasted him back, energy crackling around her fingers.
Fixer managed to throw up his arms to protect his face, his skin burning away beneath the energy to reveal not flesh but metal. Faster than she might have anticipated, he surged forward again, taking advantage of her dropped shield to try to tackle her to the floor.
"Fucking — " Was about as far as Topaz got, shock momentarily distracting her — was he a bloody robot? — before Fixer slammed into her and sent her crashing to the ground. Her head snapped back, stars bursting to life before her eyes, and she blinked desperately to try and stay conscious.
"I didn't want to do it this way." His hands, part metal and part burned skin and meat, reached around her throat. "If you'd just LEFT ME ALONE to finish my work..." His eyes bulged in his head as he squeezed harder. "I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END THIS WAY!"
Whenever she saw someone getting choked in a movie, Topaz had always thought it was stupid that the person tried to claw at their attacker's hands. Wouldn't it make more sense to go for the face?
Apparently adrenaline and panic turned even the smartest people into idiots, though. Topaz grasped desperately at the man's hands, trying to throw him off, gasping uselessly for air. No, no, no, no, nononono...
Eyes snapping open, James reached up to grasp Molly's wrist before she could step away from him completely. With one hard yank, he unbalanced her while raising his other hand, his fingers jabbing into her mouth they both tumbled onto the catwalk. With what he knew about the girl he had to take special measures to follow orders.
Molly reflexively wanted to kick herself for not realizing he was trying to trick her (it was a total move like in the movies).
"Hey!" Her eyes widened as she felt a sudden stab of pain in her mouth and she immediately pushed him away, stumbling across the catwalk with her hands clutching her temples. "What did you — " She suddenly went rigid, her arms dropping slack at her side as her attention turned back to Hendrickson, her previous look of disgust melted away to that of appreciation. "Thank you. I feel much better now."
"Glad to hear it," James wheezed. The last order he'd received had been to stop the girl. He'd stopped her. And now she understood her purpose. She would help Mister Ebersol complete whatever tasks still needed to be done. He could rest.
Things that were very important to Molly Hayes were as follows:
1.) Help Mr. Fixer
2.) Stop people who would hurt Mr. Fixer
3.) Make everyone help Mr. Fixer
4.) Flossing
After all, Mr. Fixer was the best thing ever, and if someone couldn't see that then she would have to show them, now wouldn't she? Sometimes people just needed a little bit of convincing. Besides, she had cool tiny robots IN HER BODY now to help her. This would be easy!
People were running around fighting each other, and she spotted Kyle close by. He had been helping Mr. Fixer before but he wasn't anymore because she'd been silly and hadn't realized how cool it was to work for Mr. Fixer when she helped the stupid X-People to stop him. He'd be so much happier if he were helping Mr.Fixer again. She just knew it! But he was also really stubborn, so she'd probably have to fight dirty on this one. That sounded kinda fun.
Besides, he'd heal, right? So that was her thought when she leaped from a catwalk overhead toward Kyle, attempting to tackle him off his feet. "LET ME HELP YOU!"
"Fuck no!" Molly had definitely not been okay on her own. Kyle didn't have time to note to himself that leaving her on her own had been a shitty idea before he took a double-dose of her boots right in the chest. She hit so hard he skidded, claws breaking off on the concrete before he could pop upright and return the favor. His tackle was not nearly so effective. Molly was fifty tons of badass in a fourteen pound package. He got one knee into her gut, and felt his kneecap give a little.
Molly glanced down curiously as she doubled over slightly, mainly from surprise, then looked back up at Kyle with a disappointed frown as her eyes flashed and she tried to level a punch at his face that would probably knock out some teeth and send him slamming into a nearby support beam. "Now you're just being unreasonable, Kyle," she said, shaking her head with a sigh. "Mr. Fixer just wants the world to be in harmony. He helped me see that. You can see it again too! Let me show you!"
"Fuck harmony, fuck Norbert, fuck this." Kyle rolled back up from where he'd smacked into the beam, spat out some blood and broken pieces of tooth, and snarled. He shook his head a few times to clear it and then charged again, leaping high at the last minute to hook a leg around Molly's neck. "Bitch, I have had enough of Norbert."
Molly's mouth dropped open at the string of cursing, and she started to protest, thrown off long enough allow Kyle's attack to send her sprawling to the ground with a heavy smack that resounded against the concrete. Reaching back, she grabbed a handful of hair to try to yank his head back (and possibly hard enough to pull parts of his scalp with it).
"HOW DARE YOU TAKE MR. FIXER'S NAME IN VAIN!" she shrieked. Now he was just being rude. And mean! And a jerk! She went for his mouth with her other hand, trying to jam it in there like Hendrickson had done.
Molly's strength meant Kyle couldn't pull his hair — he was so buzzing it short again once they got home, there was fish and barf and blood in it, it was beyond saving — out of her grasp, or get away from her hand. Usually fingers in his mouth meant he was going to bite — his sharp teeth took care of fingers pretty well, but if the nanites were in Molly's blood, even if he could maybe break her skin, which he couldn't, then he'd be brainwashed too. Again.
Fuck that.
He'd trained with Garrison, and usually walked away bruised and reminding himself why he hated fighting people with super strength. Give him a good energy projector any day. Or another feral. "Norby can suck my ass." He was stuck. Anything he could so, she could ignore, or just break his face by slamming it into the concrete.
Desperate measures.
Kyle's hand shot out, grabbing at Molly's chest, and his claws went through the first layers of clothes, all the way to skin, and then he pulled. Hard.
Blinking, Molly looked offended as he grabbed her bra and yanked her forward. She narrowed her eyes, and grabbed his wrist, attempting to twist it, to break bone and rip tendons. "HEY!" she said, swinging her other fist at his jaw.
Kyle slid to the side, avoiding Molly's wild punch — also avoiding the third or fourth shattered jaw of his life. As Molly lunged, he pulled his wrist free — barely, he was going to need to tape it up because something had for sure cracked in there — and turned hard and fast as he shoved her shoulder and back. Molly went head over heels over Kyle's hip and slid hard into a wall, her own strength providing the momentum to carry her along.
THWACK!
That was the sound of Molly's head hitting the wall as her neck was snapped backward. She fell onto her knees, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in her wake. She sat there for a couple of moments, moving her head back and forth repeatedly.
Reaching up to touch her temple, her movements were shaky, body jerking as she glanced up to Kyle, her wide eyes panicked, pleading, and terrified. And then, her face went slack, eyes rolling back into her head and closing before they snapped open and her face twisted into rage. Launching herself up off the ground, she ran at Kyle like a linebacker, going for the gut, to knock him off his feet and straddle his chest on the way down. She started to punch. "I — " Punch. " — will — " Punch. " — TAKE YOU DOWN!" Punch.
She couldn't be punching at full strength. Kyle was sure of it, because he'd be dead if she was. He'd seen Molly Hayes lift a half-ton boulder. Maybe more than half a ton. And that was years ago, she'd gotten stronger since then. She'd been taught how to fight since then.
He still felt his shoulder give, and one of the blows cracked the jaw he'd worked so hard earlier to avoid breaking. He twisted, unable to move under the immense strength of a young woman half his size and barely got one arm free. He felt the bones in his wrist and hand buckle in the process, but his hand was free and he could ignore pain. His fingers still worked well enough to grab the tiny ampule of venomous gas and squeeze it open. Odorless, and instantly potent, he felt his muscles spasm as the toxins began attacking his body.
Molly's fist, aiming for Kyle's nose, missed by a good six inches and punched the ground instead. Her body started jerking and twitching again, this time thanks to the aerosolized venom. She let out a few quiet whimpers of pain from behind gritted teeth before her body slumped against Kyle's, her breath heavy.
Molly Hayes was not a lightweight. Which is about all Kyle had time to consider before the spasms in his muscles overwhelmed him and he collapsed under Molly. He was finally free of Molly's super-strong hold, but his healing factor was working overtime, sending him into troubled and uneasy unconsciousness.
Eventually — finally — the young woman went still as Molly joined Kyle in the land of unconsciousness. Her head hit the ground with a thunk, drool dribbling from her mouth.
Knock out.
James watched the fighting as it took place, abstractly enjoying the back and forth as the nanites in his body repaired the damage the small girl with the hat had done to him. He'd helped her, though. He'd fixed her. She was fighting the tall one with the claws now. He'd understood how superior Mister Ebersol was to all others, but he didn't any longer — something had happened to change the tall one's mind. James didn't want to know what it was. He was quite content where he lay on the floor, catching his breath.
Then the tides turned in the room, the fight in the rafters ended prematurely — rainbows forming claws and teeth on one man as Barton moved in ways that he probably shouldn't be able to. When Barton stopped struggling, James knew he needed to get back up. Struggling, it took him a moment, but then he pushed up to his feet and shrugged his shoulders out. He flexed his fingers, watching the man in the rafters drop Barton. This wasn't going to be fun.
It wasn't the fight itself that had taken so much out of Ev, but maintaining the synch with Kyle's feral nature for so long, supplemented with Clint's extraordinary vision, had him fighting back yearning to collapse and sleep for the next twelve hours. He couldn't, though, not when the mission still was not complete. One arm still around Clint while the other hand held onto one of the vertical beams to keep his balance, Ev released his synchs, letting the world lose its sharp focus and resolve into a sort of mundane stillness.
Still, it didn't take supersight to spot Agent Hendrickson, still possessed, get back up for round two. Well, if that's what he wanted. Molly was still in range, and though synching to her took a moment longer than it would have were he not so sapped, he let go of the rafter to lift Clint in a fireman's carry and leaped off. The superhero jump was hell on his knees, but it made a good show.
"Was that meant to be impressive?" James asked. "Or intimidating? The first one I'll give you. Not so much the second one, though. Once the nanites revive Barton, we're going to incapacitate you until Mister Ebersol can show you the error of your ways."
"Expediency." Ev set Barton down a few feet away and then turned back to the other agent. "'Show me the error of my ways,'" he scoffed, charging Hendrickson. "Nanites aren't very original, are they? Next time hire Bruce Vilanche to write your material." On solid ground, possessing the strength to lift an RV, this confrontation would be a quick one.
"That implies this is a comedy," James replies. "It's not." Pulling his sidearm, the SWORD agent began firing at the other man.
What would have really made this comedic would have been for Ev to just stand still and deadpan as the bullets bounced off his impenetrable aura. Instead, he ignored them like so many gnats and reached for Hendrickson, one hand going for his piece and the other for his throat.
"Make another move and this'll be your last breath." An empty threat, mostly, as it wasn't Hendrickson's fault he was acting as he did. But Ev would have been justified, given his treatment of Clint when they were partners.
Since it had worked so well on the tiny girl, James attempted to jab his hand into the ridiculous rainbow man's mouth. He didn't care that the move would most likely be his last. He needed to help Mister Ebersol.
But what worked well on a little girl, whether or not trained by the gods, was not the strategy that would work on a field agent with half a lifetime of experience. Ev squeezed the wrist he held until he heard the bones start to crackle, silently marveling at the ease with which he did so much damage, and then pushed him away, slamming Hendrickson against the wall several yards behind him.
Hendrickson was out, as were several of his less-trained followers. Even while choking the girl, Ebersol was aware that things were not going his way. He couldn’t allow it. The project was too important, there was too much at stake.
"Stop that man. Save Hendrickson." Fixer — it was easier to think about himself as that identity, in order to do what must be done — commanded the pliant Clint before turning his attention back to his own situation.
Dazed as he came to consciousness, that awareness spurred on by Bert's little nanites, Clint pushed himself into a sitting position and then rolled over until he could get to his feet. It took him a moment, but Bert'd told him to do something, which meant it was important and he really needed to do it.
Oh. Oh, Hendrickson was down. That wasn't good.
But that niggling feeling in the back of his mind — he didn't follow other people's order, he'd never followed orders this way! — poked itself up and forward a bit. "Hey," Clint said, stumbling forward. "Hey, Ev?" There was something — there was... it was something. A loophole. Maybe. "Ev?" Blinking slowly, he coughed and rubbed at his throat. "Stop. Please, stop." Because that was what Bert had told him to do — to stop Ev. So if Ev stopped when Clint asked him to, then... then he'd stopped him. Letter of the law.
And Ev did. The tone of Clint's voice had changed. There was still a flatness that indicated the thrall, but it was the kind of stillness like in the ocean that indicated something lurking below the surface, waiting for the right moment to break through. So, shoulders sagging and breath heavy from maintaining the synch with Molly, Ev turned from Hendrickson back to his friend and partner. "Clint..."
It's gonna kill Amanda to lose another student.
That was the thought that cleared Topaz's mind enough to focus. She couldn't breathe, but she could still cast a spell. She forced herself to focus, gathering the energy in her palms once more, reaching back to the very corners of her mind and dragging it all forward.
And she blasted Fixer off of her.
He flew across the room, crashing into the wall with a bone-breaking thump. The air rushed out of him and he slid down the wall to land on the floor, limp and still, his neck unnaturally twisted.
For a moment Topaz just lay on the ground, waiting for him to come back and trying desperately to find the energy to move. Her head was spinning, adrenaline mixing with the emotions she still had left in her mind to make a very interesting, and somewhat disconcerting, high.
Until a minute too long passed and she realized that Fixer wasn't coming at her again. She forced herself to sit up, blinking when she saw him crumpled against the ground. Had she knocked him out? Thank god. She stumbled up, cautiously moving closer...
And froze when she saw the angle his neck was at.
"Oh god..." She whispered, kneeling down and reaching out in a vain attempt to look for a pulse. Stupid — he was clearly dead. The lack of one wasn't a surprise.
Topaz withdrew her hand, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes and breathing deep, trying to focus. "Fuck."
"Hi," Clint said, voice sounding more like his own for a moment. "Hey." Then he let himself half collapse to the ground, one hand rising to rub at his neck. Sleeper holds sucked. They sucked a lot. But they were hella effective. "He asked, y'know. No. Told me. Told me to stop you. So I did, right? You stopped. It's... it's good. That you stopped..." Clint trailed off, though, eyes going wide for a long moment. It was obvious he wasn't actually seeing anything.
His eyes closed a moment later and he slumped over, still breathing, but completely unconscious — like the power'd been cut.
Or the puppeteer had dropped his strings. That met this Ebersol fellow was... Ev spun, following the pale yellow of Topaz's aura until he spotted her, looking as drained to the bone as he felt, kneeling over the limp, lifeless corpse of the puppeteer himself.
That was it, then. The rainbow glow around Ev faded, and, finding himself without the super strength to keep him going, he followed everyone else to the ground.