Psi War: Umbra | Death
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xp_logsConfronted with a terrifying choice, Quentin is forced to make the ultimate decision. Trigger warning for self-harm and suicide.
The taxi pulled to a stop in front of the building that housed the Snow Valley office. Quentin stepped out, his eyes blazing, and the driver sped away without another word (or payment). Quentin idly waved a hand, and before the cab has even passed the next intersection, it crashed straight-on into the side of a nearby building. The aneurysm that had actually killed the driver spared him from the agony of what would have been fatal injuries. It was a small mercy.
The front doors opened when Quentin approached, and he frowned when the doors to the Snow Valley suite remained steadfast. They must have locked them. Fine, they could play the hard way. Even though Quentin's telekinesis paled in comparison to Jean's (though he would have access to that delectable power soon enough, he thought hungrily), glass was glass, even bullet-resistant glass, and cracks began to spiderweb all over it under the relentless psychic assault.
"I'll huff and I'll puff . . ." he sang.
Jim sensed what was coming like a sudden change in air pressure. He'd been watching the ritual from the cusp of the astral plane, and so he saw the darkness wash towards them an instant before the sound, lightning before the thunderclap. Dark -- and familiar.
Haller whirled, eyes hard and grey, and flung forth a wall of telekinesis just as the glass sectioning off the suite exploded.
"Amanda!"
With a yelp, Amanda flung up a wall of her own, using her shielding spell to push Stephen and Illyana towards Wanda. "What the bloody fucking hell?!" The spell wobbled and wavered, Amanda's magic still drained from the astral plane, and she shot a look over at Wanda. "Get them out of this, Boss Lady! I'll be back in a jiffy!" And with that, she sank into the floor - she needed a recharge, badly, and New York would provide.
Wanda immediately dropped the strings that connected her to the three others. Had she had more time, she would have done it gently but she had to trust her readings that throwing down the life strings was, actually, preferable to holding on at the moment. As Stephen and Illyana were pushed past her by Amanda's spell, she surged forward, putting herself in front of them. Red energy blossomed around her, nullifying any psychic attacks against herself, at least.
If needed, she thought grimly, she'd drop as much chaos in the room as possible but only as a last resort. She needed to protect people, not fry their brains.
Stephen gasped in surprise as he felt a push, some kind of invisible force pushing him forward, away from the exploding glass that seemed to shatter out of now where. The only thing the teen could do was gather his magic in his hands, feeling the comforting weight of it as he glanced around in surprise. "What's going on?" Illyana wasn't sure what the actual hell was happening, but she knew she was regretting literally every decision she'd made that had brought her to it. "We need to get out of here," she snapped, not sure whether she was more irritated by the panic climbing up her throat or Stephen's (in her opinion) altogether too-mild reaction.
"Head back towards the door," Wanda said, voice calm but very firm, eyes on the broken window, slowly walking backwards until she felt Illyana and Stephen against her legs.
Quentin reached an arm through the broken window to unlock the door and open it. He tssked when he stepped inside, surveying the damage and the small crowd before him. "You need better security; anyone can just get in if they're persistent enough," he scolded them. His eyes fell on Haller. "Oh. It's you again. Did you not get enough the first time that you're back for more?"
Shit. Shit. How had it found Quentin? The boy hadn't even been there that night, they hadn't even thought -- but there was no time for that.
Jack made a clawing motion with one hand and Quentin's shirt and jacket peeled away from his torso as if being discarded for the night. Instead the fabric stopped midway, trapping the boy's arms over his head and leaving him blind.
"I could say the same for you," the telekinetic snarled. The cloth began to twist against Quentin's arms, painful. The immobilizing pressure emphasized just how much more powerful Haller was than the Shadow King's current host. While he lacked Cyndi's fine control, he found he had more than enough rage.
A thin razor or telekinesis sliced through the t-shirt, and though Quentin's arms remained restrained, he could see again. His expression was unfazed. "If he were still here, he would encourage you to make it tighter," the Shadow King taunted in Quentin's voice. "How many fantasies of his are you living out right now? Personally, I have never cared much for these . . . pleasures of the flesh."
The alter was aware of movement behind him; he assumed it was Wanda removing Stephen and Illyana, but he didn't dare turn to look. It didn't take much telekinesis to inflict damage if you used it right, and he didn't know how long Amanda would be doing . . . whatever she was doing. Jack flexed his fingers, and half a dozen large glass shards Quentin had so thoughtfully created with his entrance lifted to ring the boy's head like an eye-level halo.
"Funny thing to say," said the alter, inching two shards towards Quentin's now-exposed eyes, "considering every time we meet you're crawling into someone else's."
"Careful, David, you don't want to hurt this body, do you? Have a death on your conscience. You're already so broken, already lost so much." A tendril of telepathy struck Haller like a whip. A brief flash of purple hair, vanishing the instant it appeared. For a moment, Quentin's voice sounded higher, more feminine, twinged with an upper-class British accent. "Will you lose more?"
Just for an instant surprise flickered. The alter's grey eyes speckled with brown and blue, and, just for an instant, the glass shards dipped.
"Shadow King! ," Jean's voice was heard just before she rounded the corner, clenching her fists. Talking would do nothing.
It took everything she had to meet Quentin's body in the eyes. She had had her suspicions, and now they were confirmed. Not only was the Shadow King still alive, but he had also taken over her student. Though Quentin was an adult by now, she'd known him before that. She'd helped him. He was her responsibility.
And now, the Shadow King threatened the people she loved and cared for. This couldn't stand.
"You want me? You got me."
She lashed out with a focused, telepathic blast equivalent to bullets, aiming for his shields. All she needed was a crack. Just a crack. Then she could get in and find Quentin.
"Not interested." Shadow King knew Quentin's shields would falter under a prolonged assault, so it struck back with the weapon it did wield. Quentin's already tremendous telepathic ability, bolstered and freed from inhibition by the Shadow King, lashed out at everyone. His offensive was a jackhammer to the brain, a magnitude 10 earthquake on the quieted Astral Plane. The Shadow King reveled in pushing Quentin's abilities past his self-imposed limits, baring his teeth in a wicked, monstrous smile and ignoring the thin trickle of blood dripping from his nose.
Not blood, though. Something thicker, more substantive. Some astral ichor as the Shadow King flooded the area with unchecked psychic power.
Well-placed telekinetic bursts shattered the glass knives into dust and shred Quentin's jacket to free him from his binding. The Shadow King smirked, brushing itself off, and redoubled the attack. A psionic tsunami rose up, spurred by the psychic-seismic disruption, and smashed against the telepaths' mental seawalls.
Illyana, though unhurt by the psychic tsunami, grasped behind herself for something to hold onto, nauseated to the point of pain by the tumult in the astral plane.
Staying was not an option - Wanda could possibly be of use but it would be like using a sledgehammer. Psionic battles were best left to people who actually could use them. She'd really rather not attack Quentin's actual body, possessed as it was. "Shield us, Stephen. Illyana, move as soon as I say it is safe."
Turning, she slammed her hands against the nearest wall and the entropic energy started to flow through her to it. Red light pulsed and heaved, building under her quiet curses, an attempt to work faster. Finally, with a shout, the wall exploded away from her, sending debris flying out into the hall.
"Go!" she snapped to both the younger people. "Keep the shield up until the last second and then I'll follow!"
Stephen could only stare at the sheer chaos of the situation, the glass scattering around the room with a soft tinkle as it fell to the ground like snow. It was only Wanda's shouted command that snapped him out of his stupor, his head bobbing up and down in a nod. The teenager's shaking hands gestured out in front of him, a sparkling translucent wall of power rippling into place between Illyana himself and the malignant individual who had barrelled into the room as he began backing away.
The floor behind the Shadow King rippled as Amanda resurfaced without warning. She had stayed long enough to fully charge and then some, New York reacting to her sense of urgency, and she blasted his back with pure magical energy. All the chaos and fury and energy of the city concentrated into a single burst, like water from a firehose.
The waters suddenly stilled. The Shadow King cried out as the blast felled him onto its hands and knees. It looked up and the returned sorceress, that ichor still dripping from Quentin's nose and now a cut on his back, too. "Magic," it roared.
The unbearable psychic throb disappeared. Haller uncurled from his crouch, disoriented enough he wasn't entirely sure which one of him he was at the moment. Nonetheless, he'd had time to register the most important thing: reinforcements had arrived.
"Glad you could make it," he said to the woman, his voice still wavering with the mild accent of Jack. He glanced at Amanda, eyes settling into the more normal brown and blue. "Looks like he doesn't have a huge comfort zone beyond the psionic."
"Sorry for the wait," was Amanda's reply in the same vein, but there was an almost feral expression in her eyes and her voice resonated oddly, blended with city traffic and sirens and the tramp of millions of feet and a hundred other sounds that made up a city. "We'll have to make up for lost time, won't we?" And with that she raised her hands to blast the Shadow King again, hoping to make the body so uncomfortable the squatter would have to depart. Quentin might be hurt, but she had plenty of sources for a healing spell, and hurt was better than dead.
The Shadow King blindly swiped at the air — or at least, it seemed blind until the space between Quentin and Amanda shimmered, and half a dozen tapered cylinders of brilliant pink energy materialized and launched directly themselves at her. Not cylinders, upon closer inspection. Psychic cruise missiles, focused manifestations of the Shadow King's appropriated telepathy that could each deliver a payload capable of annihilating an unprotected psyche. Shackles appeared at her feet, holding Amanda in place.
"NO!" Jean screamed, as a shimmering shield rippled into place around Amanda a split second before the psychic barrage hit. The redhead gritted her teeth, biting back a cry of pain, her body shuddering as the shield took the brunt of the psychic force. She staggered backward, wiping the blood from her nose before the shackles were ripped apart. She whirled to face Quentin. She wasn't going to lose anyone today.
"Give him back, " she demanded. The air around her started to grow hot and hazy with smoke. Something seemed to glow faintly underneath her skin as she telekinetically slammed him against a wall. But, still recovering from taking the hit from the psychic ballistic missiles, it wasn't as powerful as it could've been.
"NOW!"
"Hold him still." Amanda appeared at her side and directed another burst of magic at the trapped figure. "Only one way out of this, you bastard," she growled, sweat appearing on her brow at the energy she was expending. "Get out of the kid or you're toast."
Jack's lips curled back, and a chair exploded. Four pieces of jagged debris embedded themselves into the wall as if shot from a nailgun, trapping Quentin's wrists in the crease of an X.
Restrained against the wall with its arms splayed, the Shadow King snarled with the fury of a caged predator. Steam rose from Quentin's chest where Amanda's spell had hit him, and small chunks of something fell to the ground with a soft squish sound, like he was an unstable gelatin mold. Quentin's dark eyes fell on Haller and his telepathy lashed out, burrowing through the psi's mental shields to find something, anything to use as a weapon.
#I like this assertive side of you#, the Shadow King rasped inside Haller's head. A plume of purple-tinted smoke rose from the floor, visible only to Haller, and resolved into an unmistakably humanoid female shape. A red mark scarred where her right eye would be. #You should have been like this since the beginning. Think of all you would have kept if only you had not been such a wet tissue.#
It wasn't the words, it was the sensation. It felt like her. Like the touch he still groped for in the middle of the night when he woke up from his nightmares, disoriented and afraid. Now it dripped into his mind with all the contempt of their last meeting.
Despite everything he knew emotions flooded back, thick and chaotic, and for an instant Haller's defenses were completely down.
"Haller?" Amanda glanced over her shoulder at the former guidance counselor, unsure why she was concerned but aware something was wrong. The small lapse in concentration was enough for the Shadow King - with a minute gesture of its fingers, the witch was flung backwards and into one of the few walls still standing, sliding down to fall in a crumpled heap on the floor.
The Shadow King bared Quentin's teeth in a bestial smile, embedding its stingers deeper into Haller's brain. #Daddy's not here to help you now#, it hissed, its voice like metal pressing against dry ice. #One more mess of yours he can't clean up. What would he say if he were here, though? Would this be the last straw? How much more can he take from a reckless, impulsive child who continuously fails to live up to him?#
The words created their own path. The psychic knife slid deep into Haller's mind, towards the personality with the fewest defenses -- the personality it could hurt the most.
"Stop it! Stop!!" he cried, the worlds high with childish terror. Haller clutched his head, and when he opened his eyes again they were blue and lost. Panicked, he whirled around until his eyes lit on Jean in vague recognition.
"Where am I?" Davey sobbed, fingers curling against his cheeks. "Something's in my head, I can't find Jack -- Dad? DAD!"
"I'll peel you apart, piece by piece, layer by layer," the Shadow King threatened. The psychic tide drew back, and when the monster snapped its appropriated fingers, another tidal wave rose and crashed over its three victims, engulfing them in its brutal undercurrent, disorienting them, slamming into them with such force they could not draw in a breath. The Shadow King laughed, and Quentin's trapped body shook. More gleaming ichor fell from his nose, ears, and eyes, now a trickling stream instead of drips and drops. His skin lost its luster, turning gray and sallow. The Shadow King did not seem to notice its host's metamorphosis.
"And once I do, he's mine," it rasped at Jean, turning Quentin's bleeding eyes to her as he telepathically bore down on her. "Quire, Haller, Frost, Xavier. Your parents, your sister, your niece and nephew. All of them. And once I'm done eviscerating them, I'll come for you. And I'll make you beg me to conquer you, too. You will pray for me to end it."
Jean stood among the storm of hell that was all around them. They were losing. Her eyes flickered between Jim, who had become lost in himself, and Quentin, who seemed to be falling apart. He was close to death. And if he jumped into Haller....who was vulnerable, she didn't know if the others could fight that kind of power too.
She could think of only one option.
"Take me," she said, taking a step toward him.
"If you promise you'll leave the people at the mansion alone, and my family, you can take me."
She'd gone over the scenarios, over and over again in her mind. If her dream was right, he could take over the world. But she knew what she had to do. She'd fought him before. She could do it again. She could try to trap him in her mind. All she had to do was made sure Quentin and the others didn't die before that happened.
"So noble," the Shadow King mewled. Quentin licked his lips, almost salivating, and leaned forward. Wispy pink energy faintly resolved into an almost lupine face, its teeth long and sharp enough to make any carnivore jealous, like a ceremonial mask over Quentin's head. A blood priest preparing a human sacrifice. "You would give yourself to me for the boy. You are quite the hero."
Jean maintained eye contact with the Shadow King. Both Jean and Quentin were the same height, so they stood eye to eye. She clenched her fists, lifting her chin. The thought of him taking her over again terrified her, but she was prepared this time. She knew it was coming. She could fight back.
"Not just him. For all of them. Do we have a deal?" she said.
The Shadow King roared victoriously, its cry reverberating and piercing deep into their minds. "Deal!" The manifestation of psychic energy lunged forward, a predator attacking its prey, but was pulled back before it could make its way to Jean. Quentin breathed it in like smoke.
"Fuck you, you fucking fuck," he said. "And you." He looked at Jean. "The hell's wrong with you? You're gonna let this thing in you to save me? Are you actually legitimately insane? God damn." He looked down at the puddle of ooze and astral blood at his feet, and let us a harsh laugh. "This thing's fucking killed me already. I'm not taking you with me, you dumbass."
Jean was startled at first when Quentin reasserted his control, but clenched her fists.
"Why do you have to be so--I know what I'm doing. Let me save you!" she said. She refused to believe it. His body was falling apart but they could figure out something.
"You can't. And there's no time to 'find a way' or whatever. Look at me. I'm actually melting. This fuck's pushed my power too far . . ." Quentin's trademark sneer faded, and he looked at Jean with something approaching deference for the first time. "How embarrassing would it be if someone else died for me? I could never live it down. Let me have this, Jean. Hey, witch." He turned to Amanda, still slumped over from Shadow King's earlier telekinetic attack. "Wake up. Wake up!" He sent a small telepathic slap to rouse her, about all the extra energy he could muster while still tamping down on the parasite.
"Bugr off," came the mumbled reply, before Amanda opened her eyes blearily and took in the scene. Quentin, melting, check. Haller, curled up in a ball, check. And Jean, about to...
Behind the blocks Xorn had installed in the survivors' minds, fiery wings opened and immolated the world. The Shadow King, wearing Jean's body, with access to her powers...
"NO!" Amanda cried out and cast her shielding spell. Not around herself or even Quentin's decaying form, but around Jean herself. The translucent bubble of light cut the red-head off from the rest of the room, locking her away from the Shadow King for precious moments.
Jean was stopped in her tracks. The world shimmered behind the bubble. It took her a moment to realize what had happened, and even then she was still stunned. She looked between Amanda and Quentin, torn between rage and panic.
"What are you doing?!" she screamed, beating on the bubble as hard as she could.
"LET ME OUT!"
She soon threw a telekinetic blast at it, but it ricocheted off the shield and knocked her off her feet.
"No! NO! DON'T DO THIS!"
"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," Quentin castigated her. He sighed and closed his eyes, and began drawing his power inward. The Shadow King raged in its makeshift prison in Quentin's head. The bars rattled and threatened to dislodge and free the beast. Quentin had to be fast if he were to slay the monster and save the day.
Save the day. Quentin Quire. Who the fuck thought up this reality?
He opened his eyes and looked at Jean and Amanda. "Hey, do me a favor, though. Tell Gabriel . . . he's a pretty good lay."
Quentin could only do this because he had watched the Shadow King do the same. He had never managed to focus telepathy into a weapon before, but now he could just mimic it. The energy flowed, pink steam rising from his deteriorating body. Instead of missiles, his power manifested as a pistol pressed up against the side of his head. If anyone was going to go out in a frenzy, it would be him.
There was no sound. For a second, nothing seemed to have happened. But then the gun fell to the floor and vanished, and, his powers exponentially exerted beyond his level, his body lost all cohesion. He slipped through Haller's bindings and splashed to the floor, just a puddle of translucent ooze and discarded clothes.
Jean let out a scream.
No, it was not a scream but a howl, a howl of frenzied despair and anger and disbelief, her fists clenched. She wailed at the sky, her tears catching fire as the fire burst into brilliant light, encapsulated by the shield.
It lasted as long as she screamed, and continued to beat against the shield, even after Quentin was no more.
Then, after a few moments, the fire stopped, flickering away until it was just Jean. She stared at the space where he'd been, sobbing uncontrollably.
Her scream was what finally brought Haller back to himself from whatever dark place the Shadow King had trapped him. A place where time seemed to dilate as he heard Jean bargain with words uttered under water and watched Quentin kill himself through distorted glass. Now, at last, he was back in control of himself -- too late.
Too late to save Quentin.
Too late to spare Jean.
His cheeks were still wet with Davey's tears, but right now he was no one. His empty eyes trailed from Quentin's remains, to the weeping Jean, and finally to Amanda.
Painfully, Amanda pushed herself up into a sitting position and with a gesture cancelled the shielding spell. The bubble around Jean disappeared with an audible 'pop' and the sound of her sobs filled the room. Amanda's face was unreadable as she looked from Jean to meet Haller's empty-eyed gaze.
~You know why,~ she sent to him telepathically, barely a whisper of a thought.
The taxi pulled to a stop in front of the building that housed the Snow Valley office. Quentin stepped out, his eyes blazing, and the driver sped away without another word (or payment). Quentin idly waved a hand, and before the cab has even passed the next intersection, it crashed straight-on into the side of a nearby building. The aneurysm that had actually killed the driver spared him from the agony of what would have been fatal injuries. It was a small mercy.
The front doors opened when Quentin approached, and he frowned when the doors to the Snow Valley suite remained steadfast. They must have locked them. Fine, they could play the hard way. Even though Quentin's telekinesis paled in comparison to Jean's (though he would have access to that delectable power soon enough, he thought hungrily), glass was glass, even bullet-resistant glass, and cracks began to spiderweb all over it under the relentless psychic assault.
"I'll huff and I'll puff . . ." he sang.
Jim sensed what was coming like a sudden change in air pressure. He'd been watching the ritual from the cusp of the astral plane, and so he saw the darkness wash towards them an instant before the sound, lightning before the thunderclap. Dark -- and familiar.
Haller whirled, eyes hard and grey, and flung forth a wall of telekinesis just as the glass sectioning off the suite exploded.
"Amanda!"
With a yelp, Amanda flung up a wall of her own, using her shielding spell to push Stephen and Illyana towards Wanda. "What the bloody fucking hell?!" The spell wobbled and wavered, Amanda's magic still drained from the astral plane, and she shot a look over at Wanda. "Get them out of this, Boss Lady! I'll be back in a jiffy!" And with that, she sank into the floor - she needed a recharge, badly, and New York would provide.
Wanda immediately dropped the strings that connected her to the three others. Had she had more time, she would have done it gently but she had to trust her readings that throwing down the life strings was, actually, preferable to holding on at the moment. As Stephen and Illyana were pushed past her by Amanda's spell, she surged forward, putting herself in front of them. Red energy blossomed around her, nullifying any psychic attacks against herself, at least.
If needed, she thought grimly, she'd drop as much chaos in the room as possible but only as a last resort. She needed to protect people, not fry their brains.
Stephen gasped in surprise as he felt a push, some kind of invisible force pushing him forward, away from the exploding glass that seemed to shatter out of now where. The only thing the teen could do was gather his magic in his hands, feeling the comforting weight of it as he glanced around in surprise. "What's going on?" Illyana wasn't sure what the actual hell was happening, but she knew she was regretting literally every decision she'd made that had brought her to it. "We need to get out of here," she snapped, not sure whether she was more irritated by the panic climbing up her throat or Stephen's (in her opinion) altogether too-mild reaction.
"Head back towards the door," Wanda said, voice calm but very firm, eyes on the broken window, slowly walking backwards until she felt Illyana and Stephen against her legs.
Quentin reached an arm through the broken window to unlock the door and open it. He tssked when he stepped inside, surveying the damage and the small crowd before him. "You need better security; anyone can just get in if they're persistent enough," he scolded them. His eyes fell on Haller. "Oh. It's you again. Did you not get enough the first time that you're back for more?"
Shit. Shit. How had it found Quentin? The boy hadn't even been there that night, they hadn't even thought -- but there was no time for that.
Jack made a clawing motion with one hand and Quentin's shirt and jacket peeled away from his torso as if being discarded for the night. Instead the fabric stopped midway, trapping the boy's arms over his head and leaving him blind.
"I could say the same for you," the telekinetic snarled. The cloth began to twist against Quentin's arms, painful. The immobilizing pressure emphasized just how much more powerful Haller was than the Shadow King's current host. While he lacked Cyndi's fine control, he found he had more than enough rage.
A thin razor or telekinesis sliced through the t-shirt, and though Quentin's arms remained restrained, he could see again. His expression was unfazed. "If he were still here, he would encourage you to make it tighter," the Shadow King taunted in Quentin's voice. "How many fantasies of his are you living out right now? Personally, I have never cared much for these . . . pleasures of the flesh."
The alter was aware of movement behind him; he assumed it was Wanda removing Stephen and Illyana, but he didn't dare turn to look. It didn't take much telekinesis to inflict damage if you used it right, and he didn't know how long Amanda would be doing . . . whatever she was doing. Jack flexed his fingers, and half a dozen large glass shards Quentin had so thoughtfully created with his entrance lifted to ring the boy's head like an eye-level halo.
"Funny thing to say," said the alter, inching two shards towards Quentin's now-exposed eyes, "considering every time we meet you're crawling into someone else's."
"Careful, David, you don't want to hurt this body, do you? Have a death on your conscience. You're already so broken, already lost so much." A tendril of telepathy struck Haller like a whip. A brief flash of purple hair, vanishing the instant it appeared. For a moment, Quentin's voice sounded higher, more feminine, twinged with an upper-class British accent. "Will you lose more?"
Just for an instant surprise flickered. The alter's grey eyes speckled with brown and blue, and, just for an instant, the glass shards dipped.
"Shadow King! ," Jean's voice was heard just before she rounded the corner, clenching her fists. Talking would do nothing.
It took everything she had to meet Quentin's body in the eyes. She had had her suspicions, and now they were confirmed. Not only was the Shadow King still alive, but he had also taken over her student. Though Quentin was an adult by now, she'd known him before that. She'd helped him. He was her responsibility.
And now, the Shadow King threatened the people she loved and cared for. This couldn't stand.
"You want me? You got me."
She lashed out with a focused, telepathic blast equivalent to bullets, aiming for his shields. All she needed was a crack. Just a crack. Then she could get in and find Quentin.
"Not interested." Shadow King knew Quentin's shields would falter under a prolonged assault, so it struck back with the weapon it did wield. Quentin's already tremendous telepathic ability, bolstered and freed from inhibition by the Shadow King, lashed out at everyone. His offensive was a jackhammer to the brain, a magnitude 10 earthquake on the quieted Astral Plane. The Shadow King reveled in pushing Quentin's abilities past his self-imposed limits, baring his teeth in a wicked, monstrous smile and ignoring the thin trickle of blood dripping from his nose.
Not blood, though. Something thicker, more substantive. Some astral ichor as the Shadow King flooded the area with unchecked psychic power.
Well-placed telekinetic bursts shattered the glass knives into dust and shred Quentin's jacket to free him from his binding. The Shadow King smirked, brushing itself off, and redoubled the attack. A psionic tsunami rose up, spurred by the psychic-seismic disruption, and smashed against the telepaths' mental seawalls.
Illyana, though unhurt by the psychic tsunami, grasped behind herself for something to hold onto, nauseated to the point of pain by the tumult in the astral plane.
Staying was not an option - Wanda could possibly be of use but it would be like using a sledgehammer. Psionic battles were best left to people who actually could use them. She'd really rather not attack Quentin's actual body, possessed as it was. "Shield us, Stephen. Illyana, move as soon as I say it is safe."
Turning, she slammed her hands against the nearest wall and the entropic energy started to flow through her to it. Red light pulsed and heaved, building under her quiet curses, an attempt to work faster. Finally, with a shout, the wall exploded away from her, sending debris flying out into the hall.
"Go!" she snapped to both the younger people. "Keep the shield up until the last second and then I'll follow!"
Stephen could only stare at the sheer chaos of the situation, the glass scattering around the room with a soft tinkle as it fell to the ground like snow. It was only Wanda's shouted command that snapped him out of his stupor, his head bobbing up and down in a nod. The teenager's shaking hands gestured out in front of him, a sparkling translucent wall of power rippling into place between Illyana himself and the malignant individual who had barrelled into the room as he began backing away.
The floor behind the Shadow King rippled as Amanda resurfaced without warning. She had stayed long enough to fully charge and then some, New York reacting to her sense of urgency, and she blasted his back with pure magical energy. All the chaos and fury and energy of the city concentrated into a single burst, like water from a firehose.
The waters suddenly stilled. The Shadow King cried out as the blast felled him onto its hands and knees. It looked up and the returned sorceress, that ichor still dripping from Quentin's nose and now a cut on his back, too. "Magic," it roared.
The unbearable psychic throb disappeared. Haller uncurled from his crouch, disoriented enough he wasn't entirely sure which one of him he was at the moment. Nonetheless, he'd had time to register the most important thing: reinforcements had arrived.
"Glad you could make it," he said to the woman, his voice still wavering with the mild accent of Jack. He glanced at Amanda, eyes settling into the more normal brown and blue. "Looks like he doesn't have a huge comfort zone beyond the psionic."
"Sorry for the wait," was Amanda's reply in the same vein, but there was an almost feral expression in her eyes and her voice resonated oddly, blended with city traffic and sirens and the tramp of millions of feet and a hundred other sounds that made up a city. "We'll have to make up for lost time, won't we?" And with that she raised her hands to blast the Shadow King again, hoping to make the body so uncomfortable the squatter would have to depart. Quentin might be hurt, but she had plenty of sources for a healing spell, and hurt was better than dead.
The Shadow King blindly swiped at the air — or at least, it seemed blind until the space between Quentin and Amanda shimmered, and half a dozen tapered cylinders of brilliant pink energy materialized and launched directly themselves at her. Not cylinders, upon closer inspection. Psychic cruise missiles, focused manifestations of the Shadow King's appropriated telepathy that could each deliver a payload capable of annihilating an unprotected psyche. Shackles appeared at her feet, holding Amanda in place.
"NO!" Jean screamed, as a shimmering shield rippled into place around Amanda a split second before the psychic barrage hit. The redhead gritted her teeth, biting back a cry of pain, her body shuddering as the shield took the brunt of the psychic force. She staggered backward, wiping the blood from her nose before the shackles were ripped apart. She whirled to face Quentin. She wasn't going to lose anyone today.
"Give him back, " she demanded. The air around her started to grow hot and hazy with smoke. Something seemed to glow faintly underneath her skin as she telekinetically slammed him against a wall. But, still recovering from taking the hit from the psychic ballistic missiles, it wasn't as powerful as it could've been.
"NOW!"
"Hold him still." Amanda appeared at her side and directed another burst of magic at the trapped figure. "Only one way out of this, you bastard," she growled, sweat appearing on her brow at the energy she was expending. "Get out of the kid or you're toast."
Jack's lips curled back, and a chair exploded. Four pieces of jagged debris embedded themselves into the wall as if shot from a nailgun, trapping Quentin's wrists in the crease of an X.
Restrained against the wall with its arms splayed, the Shadow King snarled with the fury of a caged predator. Steam rose from Quentin's chest where Amanda's spell had hit him, and small chunks of something fell to the ground with a soft squish sound, like he was an unstable gelatin mold. Quentin's dark eyes fell on Haller and his telepathy lashed out, burrowing through the psi's mental shields to find something, anything to use as a weapon.
#I like this assertive side of you#, the Shadow King rasped inside Haller's head. A plume of purple-tinted smoke rose from the floor, visible only to Haller, and resolved into an unmistakably humanoid female shape. A red mark scarred where her right eye would be. #You should have been like this since the beginning. Think of all you would have kept if only you had not been such a wet tissue.#
It wasn't the words, it was the sensation. It felt like her. Like the touch he still groped for in the middle of the night when he woke up from his nightmares, disoriented and afraid. Now it dripped into his mind with all the contempt of their last meeting.
Despite everything he knew emotions flooded back, thick and chaotic, and for an instant Haller's defenses were completely down.
"Haller?" Amanda glanced over her shoulder at the former guidance counselor, unsure why she was concerned but aware something was wrong. The small lapse in concentration was enough for the Shadow King - with a minute gesture of its fingers, the witch was flung backwards and into one of the few walls still standing, sliding down to fall in a crumpled heap on the floor.
The Shadow King bared Quentin's teeth in a bestial smile, embedding its stingers deeper into Haller's brain. #Daddy's not here to help you now#, it hissed, its voice like metal pressing against dry ice. #One more mess of yours he can't clean up. What would he say if he were here, though? Would this be the last straw? How much more can he take from a reckless, impulsive child who continuously fails to live up to him?#
The words created their own path. The psychic knife slid deep into Haller's mind, towards the personality with the fewest defenses -- the personality it could hurt the most.
"Stop it! Stop!!" he cried, the worlds high with childish terror. Haller clutched his head, and when he opened his eyes again they were blue and lost. Panicked, he whirled around until his eyes lit on Jean in vague recognition.
"Where am I?" Davey sobbed, fingers curling against his cheeks. "Something's in my head, I can't find Jack -- Dad? DAD!"
"I'll peel you apart, piece by piece, layer by layer," the Shadow King threatened. The psychic tide drew back, and when the monster snapped its appropriated fingers, another tidal wave rose and crashed over its three victims, engulfing them in its brutal undercurrent, disorienting them, slamming into them with such force they could not draw in a breath. The Shadow King laughed, and Quentin's trapped body shook. More gleaming ichor fell from his nose, ears, and eyes, now a trickling stream instead of drips and drops. His skin lost its luster, turning gray and sallow. The Shadow King did not seem to notice its host's metamorphosis.
"And once I do, he's mine," it rasped at Jean, turning Quentin's bleeding eyes to her as he telepathically bore down on her. "Quire, Haller, Frost, Xavier. Your parents, your sister, your niece and nephew. All of them. And once I'm done eviscerating them, I'll come for you. And I'll make you beg me to conquer you, too. You will pray for me to end it."
Jean stood among the storm of hell that was all around them. They were losing. Her eyes flickered between Jim, who had become lost in himself, and Quentin, who seemed to be falling apart. He was close to death. And if he jumped into Haller....who was vulnerable, she didn't know if the others could fight that kind of power too.
She could think of only one option.
"Take me," she said, taking a step toward him.
"If you promise you'll leave the people at the mansion alone, and my family, you can take me."
She'd gone over the scenarios, over and over again in her mind. If her dream was right, he could take over the world. But she knew what she had to do. She'd fought him before. She could do it again. She could try to trap him in her mind. All she had to do was made sure Quentin and the others didn't die before that happened.
"So noble," the Shadow King mewled. Quentin licked his lips, almost salivating, and leaned forward. Wispy pink energy faintly resolved into an almost lupine face, its teeth long and sharp enough to make any carnivore jealous, like a ceremonial mask over Quentin's head. A blood priest preparing a human sacrifice. "You would give yourself to me for the boy. You are quite the hero."
Jean maintained eye contact with the Shadow King. Both Jean and Quentin were the same height, so they stood eye to eye. She clenched her fists, lifting her chin. The thought of him taking her over again terrified her, but she was prepared this time. She knew it was coming. She could fight back.
"Not just him. For all of them. Do we have a deal?" she said.
The Shadow King roared victoriously, its cry reverberating and piercing deep into their minds. "Deal!" The manifestation of psychic energy lunged forward, a predator attacking its prey, but was pulled back before it could make its way to Jean. Quentin breathed it in like smoke.
"Fuck you, you fucking fuck," he said. "And you." He looked at Jean. "The hell's wrong with you? You're gonna let this thing in you to save me? Are you actually legitimately insane? God damn." He looked down at the puddle of ooze and astral blood at his feet, and let us a harsh laugh. "This thing's fucking killed me already. I'm not taking you with me, you dumbass."
Jean was startled at first when Quentin reasserted his control, but clenched her fists.
"Why do you have to be so--I know what I'm doing. Let me save you!" she said. She refused to believe it. His body was falling apart but they could figure out something.
"You can't. And there's no time to 'find a way' or whatever. Look at me. I'm actually melting. This fuck's pushed my power too far . . ." Quentin's trademark sneer faded, and he looked at Jean with something approaching deference for the first time. "How embarrassing would it be if someone else died for me? I could never live it down. Let me have this, Jean. Hey, witch." He turned to Amanda, still slumped over from Shadow King's earlier telekinetic attack. "Wake up. Wake up!" He sent a small telepathic slap to rouse her, about all the extra energy he could muster while still tamping down on the parasite.
"Bugr off," came the mumbled reply, before Amanda opened her eyes blearily and took in the scene. Quentin, melting, check. Haller, curled up in a ball, check. And Jean, about to...
Behind the blocks Xorn had installed in the survivors' minds, fiery wings opened and immolated the world. The Shadow King, wearing Jean's body, with access to her powers...
"NO!" Amanda cried out and cast her shielding spell. Not around herself or even Quentin's decaying form, but around Jean herself. The translucent bubble of light cut the red-head off from the rest of the room, locking her away from the Shadow King for precious moments.
Jean was stopped in her tracks. The world shimmered behind the bubble. It took her a moment to realize what had happened, and even then she was still stunned. She looked between Amanda and Quentin, torn between rage and panic.
"What are you doing?!" she screamed, beating on the bubble as hard as she could.
"LET ME OUT!"
She soon threw a telekinetic blast at it, but it ricocheted off the shield and knocked her off her feet.
"No! NO! DON'T DO THIS!"
"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," Quentin castigated her. He sighed and closed his eyes, and began drawing his power inward. The Shadow King raged in its makeshift prison in Quentin's head. The bars rattled and threatened to dislodge and free the beast. Quentin had to be fast if he were to slay the monster and save the day.
Save the day. Quentin Quire. Who the fuck thought up this reality?
He opened his eyes and looked at Jean and Amanda. "Hey, do me a favor, though. Tell Gabriel . . . he's a pretty good lay."
Quentin could only do this because he had watched the Shadow King do the same. He had never managed to focus telepathy into a weapon before, but now he could just mimic it. The energy flowed, pink steam rising from his deteriorating body. Instead of missiles, his power manifested as a pistol pressed up against the side of his head. If anyone was going to go out in a frenzy, it would be him.
There was no sound. For a second, nothing seemed to have happened. But then the gun fell to the floor and vanished, and, his powers exponentially exerted beyond his level, his body lost all cohesion. He slipped through Haller's bindings and splashed to the floor, just a puddle of translucent ooze and discarded clothes.
Jean let out a scream.
No, it was not a scream but a howl, a howl of frenzied despair and anger and disbelief, her fists clenched. She wailed at the sky, her tears catching fire as the fire burst into brilliant light, encapsulated by the shield.
It lasted as long as she screamed, and continued to beat against the shield, even after Quentin was no more.
Then, after a few moments, the fire stopped, flickering away until it was just Jean. She stared at the space where he'd been, sobbing uncontrollably.
Her scream was what finally brought Haller back to himself from whatever dark place the Shadow King had trapped him. A place where time seemed to dilate as he heard Jean bargain with words uttered under water and watched Quentin kill himself through distorted glass. Now, at last, he was back in control of himself -- too late.
Too late to save Quentin.
Too late to spare Jean.
His cheeks were still wet with Davey's tears, but right now he was no one. His empty eyes trailed from Quentin's remains, to the weeping Jean, and finally to Amanda.
Painfully, Amanda pushed herself up into a sitting position and with a gesture cancelled the shielding spell. The bubble around Jean disappeared with an audible 'pop' and the sound of her sobs filled the room. Amanda's face was unreadable as she looked from Jean to meet Haller's empty-eyed gaze.
~You know why,~ she sent to him telepathically, barely a whisper of a thought.
