Sins of the Father || Fight and Rescue

[xp_topaz]

Team Magic - Clea, Stephen,Ty, and Illyana - take out the demon guards and the warding around the Destines hideout.



On the outside, the two-story house was almost cute, with it’s light grey coloring and red door and front porch with a swing and everything. At least until the trio crossed the property line, shuddering through the ward, and found a small front yard full of demons.


"See, I knew it was too easy!" For a moment Stephen ignored the demons, turning his back on them to face the girls with him, "See, next time we're gonna have to break down the door, or pick the lock with an old rusty set of lockpicks. Anything challenging so that we know that when we get through it's gonna be easier than this." The teen turned to face the demons, an annoyed look on his face, "Hey, excuse me we're trying to have a conversation here. Could you stop with the chittering for just one second please so I can talk to my friends?"

"You are bloody weird." Clea said to Steve but she meant it in the playful banter she usually had with him. Her eyes traveled back to the demons. She actually never seen one before and for some reason she didn't think her uncle counted. "I feel a weird ping in this general area. I think what we are looking for might be nearby. Hence the bloody demons." Her hands started to spark with the magical energy that was stored inside of her. "Plan: defeat demons, find the weird ping, move on."

Illyana gave both Stephen and Clea a dubious look, the Soulsword flashing by her side; though she didn't actually say, "I think now I get why you guys need magic school," it was clearly implied. "Great plan," she said flatly, edging away from them - not out of pure sass, but rather to give herself some room to maneuver without an unintentional experiment on what happened when a magic-disrupting sword hit a magic-using person. "Like, now, or did you want to wait until those ones grow their final set of fingers?"

"Well, I did think that it was worth giving them a fighting chance but since you ask," Stephen dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out a handful of tick-tacks, a smile touching this lips as they started glowing breaking down into a handful of brightly glowing particles. "I've been wanting to try this for a while but...they say sugar is bad for you, this is proof." As he spoke the teen threw the dust at the demons, bright sparks flaring up as they touched the demons leaving mottled skin behind. Each blow might have been insignificant, but together the effects added up, bringing some of the demons to their knees with a screech of pain.

Clea spoke softly as she hand gestured as three more Clea's appeared. She was silently thanking for those extra study sessions on her illusion spells. With the other Clea's occupying the demons attention, Clea focused on locating the nearest stone. Brushing aside some dirt, she located one. Amanda's words came into mind about not touching the shiny magical weapons, Clea made another hand gesture as the stone cracked into two pieces. "Four more." She yelled.

Ty drew on his cloak of shadows to intercept the demons running at the kids. The darkness nearly moved on its own, almost eager to touch, and then consume them. Ty shuddered at the indescribable sensation, his face twisting in disgust as only a plopping noise was left behind of four of them.

Illyana stabbed at a demon, smaller than the rest and obviously the runt of the group, with more force than was strictly necessary; it was the last of the group, although she could hear rustling from both side of the house and knew they hadn't managed to eliminate the entire threat at once. The demon fell, and she pulled her sword out, grateful (not for the first time) that she didn't have to clean it after these fights. Ichor pooled on the ground beneath it, and a glimmer of something nearby caught her eye. "Hey," she said, crouching down next to what turned out to be a stone, half-hidden by the grass. "Is this what we're looking for?"

Stephen glanced over at the small glittering stone Illyana was pointing to, the magic suffusing it glittering like gold to the teenager's eyes as he nodded, "Aye, that looks like it. we just need to find the rest of em and then figure out how we wanna destroy them."

Clea rolled her eyes as she pushed past Steve and knelt down beside Illyana to view the stone. "We don't want to touch the stone." She made the similar hand gesture and the stone cracked into two pieces, like before. The magic that pulsed inside faded. "Rule number one of anything magic. Don't touch it. Or face the wrath of our teacher. And you won't like her when she is angry." Standing up and pointed in a direction. "I see movement in that direction. So we go there."

"I think I got another one!" Ty picked up the stone, then started as it sort of.... fizzled out, then cracked in half. "Oops?"

Illyana gave Clea a pointed look. "Yeah, I can tell the no-touching rule has really sunk in," she said, standing back up briskly. She kept her sword in her hand, almost nervously, not a calm as she pretended to be. "You want to find the next one?"

"I see it as more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule," Stephen demurred, "I mean, we've already had to battle hordes of demons and everything to get here so...what's the worst that can really happen?" The teen glanced around, his eyes catching sight of another sparkling stone as the scrambled over to it. there was an almost disappointed tilt to the boy's face as he rolled the stone between his fingers, failing to see it fall apart as he flicked it over at Ty, "Heads up."

Ty caught it and smiled when it cracked. "Maybe you're just lacking the mojo, Mr. Strange?"

"Uh, no it's more than a guideline Mister Stephen Strange." Clea used his full name, signifying that she was very very angry. "Worst that can happen? I can tell Amanda what you did and make you repeat the class of 'Don't touch anything of unknown magic', you know, the first class we took when we first got to the school. And that is if you don't blow up first or be sucked into the portal of wherever these things come from." Clea narrowed her eyes and looked at Illyana, "Why the blood hell did we bring them along?" She stood up and unleashed a magic blast that was sent right behind Steve, killing a demon.

"You're asking me? You're the ones in the class. I don't even know why you brought me." Which wasn't quite true, but demons and magical shenanigans were among the many things that made Illyana cranky. So did stabbing demons, but at least that was somewhat satisfying as well; she did so almost off-handedly, still distracted by the topic at hand. "They'll be lucky if they don't get cursed with that rash that makes you scratch off all your skin."

Ty looked sideways at Ilyana. "Don't go inviting bad luck down on us!" he exclaimed. Two more demons went BLOORP into his shadows, and did not come back out.

Stephen shook his head as he shifted his gaze to the floor, "All rules are just guidelines in the end, if Ty hadn't touched the stone we wouldn't know how to destroy them would we?" The teen's voice was calm, as he picked up a random stone, focusing his magic on it, wrapping it in a web of enchantment before he dropped it to the floor, the now glowing stone rolling bey itself along the path like a bloodhound. "So it's not always bad to touch the weird magical object, that wasn't the point of Amanda's class," or at least it wasn't the point he'd taken away from it. "You've got to think about what you're doing, but then what we do is play with the very fabric of reality, sometimes you need to poke the unknown or press the glowing red button. Without even looking two more stone flicked out of his hand to race for the two demons closing behind Clea like homing missiles the demon's vanishing in puffs of smoke as the bloodhound stone started to bounce up and down excitedly, Stephen retreiving his target and tossing it in Ty's department. "If you know the risk and you're willing to pay the price to get the job done then I'm always going to pick up the stone to help a friend." Or maybe sometimes just to see what happens.

"And yet, I was able to break two." Clea mumbled, obviously furious at Stephen. If he couldn't understand why she was upset, then he would have to deal with an angry Clea. She turned just at the last stone vanished - causing the wards to break apart around the hidehout. Their allies would be able to get through now. Her hand came up as she through a blast towards a straggling demon and it burst into chunky bits as she started to make her way over to the building.

The Soulsword didn't get dirty, but that didn't mean that it didn't feel gross to have it slicing through demons, so Illyana shook it distastefully, a blur of light; it also served as a physical reaction to Stephen's comments. Well, that and the dramatic eye roll she directed at no one in particular. It wasn't that she hoped Stephen would get cursed so much as that she felt it would be a salutary educational experience - one he was clearly not getting elsewhere. "Please don't let these people be the ones I die with," she muttered, not particularly quietly, as she followed Clea.

The last stone crumbled in Ty's hand, and he shook the dust from his palm. "Nobody is dying tonight," he said in a low promise.



Spies don’t like it when you take something that belongs to them.



The house was perfectly normal. It was so normal that it could have come out of a particularly well-crafted episode of House Hunters. "Yes, we are three rogue magicians, we earn money from evil magic, we need four bedrooms, two baths, a greenhouse, a sunroom and the neighborhood must be walkable and have at least one organic grocery and a farmer's market." The summary wrote itself, and would not be all that out of place.

Aside from the magic.

Aside from the gouges in the lawn, an intricate braid of tread marks and burns and dirt crusted with salt and smelling of bleach and gasoline.

And aside from the woman in the grey hooded jacket smashing the patio door open with a baseball bat that pulsed neon green and arctic blue.

"On my mark," Marie-Ange had said. "Assume everyone in this house is twice as dangerous as we have seen and have wards all the way up the block. If we do not get to the doors without them knowing, then Domino and Cypher get to use explosives."

They had gotten to the doors. Amanda's team had gotten the wards down.

And thanks to the little device that was tucked in Domino's pocket, now they had the only working phones in a hundred foot radius.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, a pale red glow appeared in front of them. "Oh dear. Dear me. Deary deary me. My wards have been broken. Lo, my sanctuary breached. If only I had thought ahead. Curse my over-confidence." Adam's dry, mocking voice resonated through-out the house, even if the man himself wasn't in sight. "I swear, for a group of supposed super-heroes, you X-cunts are thick as planks of woods."

The red glow intensified and deepened. "You honestly think that my adopted sister's path to the basement is a surprise for us? Or that our wards started and stopped around the house? Bloody hell..."

"Well, it is inconvenient that you noticed so quickly," Wanda murmured, not terribly surprised but unhappy nonetheless. Nothing seemed to go the right way whenever they dealt with this family. But they were inside the house, at least. Wary of Marie-Ange's warning, she didn't try to manipulate anything just yet - they were sitting on a house of cards on top of a fire. One wrong move and they were all going down.

"Egomaniac much?" Doug muttered. That little announcement had been straight out of the Villains R Us catalog. What was it with these types, thinking that their opponents had never faced overwhelming odds, or ambushes, or betrayals, or any number of other things. And Doug knew who he wanted in his corner, because after all those things and more, they were the ones still standing.

"Can we use explosives if we technically got just -inside- the door?" he asked wryly.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Dom replied, her firearm long since out of its holster and pointed ahead of them at the as-of-yet unseen wizard. Witch. Whatever. All the glowing was seriously creeping her out, as was the disembodied voice. "He hides away and does his spooky voice, we blow up his fucking house. Seems fair."

"No, we cannot. Not unless someone knows we have all our people out." Marie-Ange's voice over the comms was deadly calm. "The Destines are not stupid, and we know how this is going to work." She knew. "Clear each room carefully, verify that the person you are punching really is the person you think it is, and trust no one without verification. Not even me."

Grace could barely suppress her giggles at the obvious incompetence of the group. Sitting next to Adam, she enjoyed watching the show from her relative safety, although she did have a knife bouncing from hand to hand -- an attempt to calm her (apparent) nerves. "God, how long do you think they're going to keep this up?," she asked her brother. She balanced her knife tip on her finger and focused her energy (well, Albert's if she was honest) on the knife. "I mean, they're not going to win. Can't we just kill them now?"

"Grace, there's a longer game involved here. Besides, we want to make sure they make it to Topaz before we start the fun." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Mandy and the red-headed cunt are friends. I'll start with her and Rambo over there. Do us a favour and make the other two bleed. There's a girl." He rubbed his fingers together for a moment; an unconscious gesture as they started to glow red.

"Time to play host."





An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Warning: Blood, gore



It was not even the worst part of this, going into an occupied house, into someone else's home turf. It was not even the worst that it was a magician's home turf. That was terrible, but it was a kind of terrible that X-Force could and did account for. They did it on the regular.

The Destines practiced a kind of magic unlike Amanda or Topaz, simply because they were willing to do things that Amanda and her students were not. Amanda may have been taught the same kind but she did not practice it, and time dulled that sort of knowledge.

If it was not literally the worst of a dozen or more possible outcomes, Marie-Ange would have just called in a dozen favours and had the house bombed. Solve the problem once and for all. But killing Amanda's last original student just to exterminate the last vestiges of Rack's legacy led down a twisting way that Tarot was not willing to set her friend on.

So instead she was discarding her glowing baseball bat, and the cracked window pane, and creeping in the garage hallway that was either suspiciously - or luckily - unlocked. She tucked lockpicks back in her pocket, lightly kicked the sole of her boot against the concrete, and raised an eyebrow at Domino. "Was that you?" She mouthed silently. "Or ambush?" They had already displaced wards and magical tripwires and everything else that Amanda and her students could think of , this was either the best luck they could have possibly had, or one, or all of the Destines were pulling up pavestones from the future and setting them down on a path just so for X-Force to walk.

And they didn't have a damn choice in the matter.

"Not me," Dom replied with a brisk shake of her head. She was pretty sure their way being unbarred was more likely to put her in danger than the alternative, but sadly no sudden eruption in the ground appeared to keep them from continuing forward. They soon found themselves entering the kitchen through a neatly-organised utility room, the patterned linoleum a strange accompaniment to their task. Domino nodded towards Marie-Ange and the door to her left and then jerked her chin towards the door next to the refrigerator. They had no choice but to split up to cover ground, and with the unknown layout of the house anything could be waiting for them.

As Dom pushed through the door, a thin echo of Adam's voice whispered past her ear. The mage was humming and singing softly with the sing-song rocking medley of a children's rhyme.

"I married a wife on Sunday, She began to scold on Monday," The grips of Dom's weapons started to grow uncomfortably hot.

"Bad was she on Tuesday, Middling was she on Wednesday," Marie-Ange's door opened into a small sitting room. There were a few old couches, a ratty chair, and a small, cheap television with an old style aerial sticking up from it.

"Worse she was on Thursday, Dead was she on Friday," The grips got hot enough that Dom was forced to drop her guns, shaking her hands from the proximity of the scorching heat.

"Glad was I on Saturday night," The television turned on abruptly and an image of Adam filled the screen. He waved brightly at Marie-Ange. "To bury my wife on Sunday." His image mouthed. As it did, a wave of scarlet concussive energy appeared in front of both of them and exploded in a massive shock wave. Furniture was smashed askew, all the exterior windows exploded outwards and both women were crushed with brutal force into the walls. As the energy dissipated, he stepped out of the shadows with a smile.

"It's time to play, children."

Marie-Ange had come armed for the worst that Amanda could possibly throw - for worse than Amanda could throw, because she had certainly never learned this, but Rack - Selene - Arcana Minoru had - could - did - it had meant more than a few guns and letting people indulge their love of concussion grenades. Marie-Ange had ink staining her hands, green and black patterns she'd drawn over and over until she could probably have done them in the dark. It was supposed to be just in case, it was supposed to be a kill everyone and sort it out later sort of tactic, the kind of blind desperation she hated.

She had thrown an arm over her eyes to shield from the glass, and so her entire field of vision was that green and black and red from cuts already bleeding, and a carpet of spikes rippled out of the of the floor around her before she hit the ground, onyx black except where the light turned them blue and purple and sharp as talons.

"Fuck me." This was a bad idea. Not only did Dom have to face the party magician from hell but she had her own teammate's illusions to contend with as well. Hands still throbbing from the near-burn experience, she rolled and pushed herself up, reaching out to grab a piece of debris balanced precariously on some spikes. Without another thought she launched herself towards their foe, already winding up for the swing.

"Interesting." Adam said as the spikes rippled up from the ground. Yet, where they would have pierced him, a red shimmer appeared and they popped in a smear of ectoplasm. "Not particularly good, but interesting. Maybe we'll swap Topaz out for you next?"

He backpedaled slightly from the bat being swung, making a flicking motion at her with his fingers. Red sparks leapt from his fingers, grounding in MA's eyes and ears. Flashes of red interrupted her vision and an angry growl fought for attention in her hearing. "Now, let's try that."

As Domino reached him, he held up an outstretched hand, red energy flashing from finger to finger. In Domino's eyes, Adam vanished in front of her, only to be standing near the opposite wall instead. The mage stepped back as Domino now didn't register his presence, and instead shifted her attack to Marie-Ange.

With a grunt she swung around, still intent on her target. Somewhere in the back of her mind she longed for the days when all she had to deal with was thugs with guns; magic users made for entirely more frustrating foes. Still, all it would take was one solid hit to the head - magic or no, they'd fall just the same.

[MA reaction to Dom attacking her – can combine with next section]

Her cards had gone flying when she hit the wall and most were ruined, soaked through with the ugly squid-ink black that remained of the spikes. Marie-Ange pulled herself to her feet as Domino's attention swung unerringly towards her. The flickers of red shifted with every blink, and it was a very long series of moments before she realized who and why and how Domino's attention was off the warlock and on her.

She ducked the first swung of broken off wood and plaster, and fell back to avoid the second, but the third sent Marie-Ange tumbling over herself as Domino struck for her enemy and landed a swiping blow across her ally's arm instead. Marie-Ange went sprawling to the ground, caught herself and pulled up to her knees half covered in armor that gleamed with brass and oozed ectoplasm and blood from her torn arm. "What did you do, Adam Destine?" She took a step forward - booted feet dissolving her own imaged spikes with a splash. "Who did you bargain with for this power?" She did not wait for his answer, and tightened a fist as the ooze and wet in the carpet pulled itself back up into humanoid shapes.

"The horrors of my entire life, you miserable little privileged cunt." He kept pulling back, even as Domino looked for her target and saw only his face in Marie-Ange.

“Watch your mouth, asshole,” Dom growled. Her head was spinning and the fact that his voice seemed to be coming from completely across the room wasn’t helping her orient herself, but she knew every second she paused was another moment for him to wrap more magic weirdness around them.

She threw herself at her enemy once again, and it was only a half-dozen illusions rippling into existence that slowed her steps. Humanoid, some wore her face, others Marie-Ange’s, who, she realised, she hadn’t even registered for some time. Frustration and anger and fear seemed to clench tight and then something shifted, and suddenly she could see him, clear as day, his stupid face screwed up in a smug expression as he plotted his next attack.

She moved, and a glint out of the corner of her eye drew her to it. The feeling of the gun in her hand was reassuring, its weight and warmth promising safety, an end to the conflict. It was almost all worth it to see the panicked look on his face when he realised that Domino’s powers had cut through his magic as Marie-Ange’s illusions turned on him, mirroring Dom’s movements as she smoothly raised her gun.

"Americans and their fucking guns. Every child needs their toys." A beam erupted from his hand, piercing Domino right between her eyes. But the beam wasn't any kind of destructive energy, it seemed, as the aftertrails faded away. Adam had missed his shot, it seemed.

And then the world lurched sideways and Domino dropped to her knees, the firearm clattering to the ground as she reached up to wrap her arms around her head. Up and down seemed to merge and flip, left and right changed places too fast to track. Closing her eyes did nothing to still the spinning and she gave a half-moan, half-whimper as she fell over, fingers clawing and spasming at the debris around her.

"Right scrambled up there. Don't fret. A few months of therapy and you'll be able to spell out your name in plastic letters. Perhaps." He'd kill her later. The other one practically stank of Mandy's presence. "And now you, the leader of this fucking joke, right? The brave leader?" He planted a hard kick in her ribs. "Stay the fuck down..."

Marie-Ange's only reply was grunt, barely even an acknowledgement of Adam's words before she gasped out the breath the kick stole from her chest. The flare of pain kept her from rolling up to her feet, from filling her lungs and all she could do was fall back and slide behind one of her own imaged duplicates. The little cluster of copies of herself moved with her on the ground, and the trio of Dominos fell as her teammate did, rolling almost to cover the other woman. It was only a few steps to her cards. Two, if she moved fast. Just that little bit and she could get a card, any of the ones she had brought, and drop an elephant - or a giant demon - or King Arthur - on Adam. If she could breathe. If her ribs had not just cracked. If Adam Destine had not gotten his hands on more power than any of them had imagined he could.
"Right, enough of all this. See, I was curious to see you lot in action and well, not impressed, sunshine. Figured Mandy's crew would be just as weak as her but after hearing about your rep-" He waved his hand and the cards on the ground turned to ash in front of her eyes. "-well, guess it's all bullshit, innit?"
He reached down and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her up roughly before grabbing her by the throat and lifting her off her feet. "I wanted you twats here and lo and behold, here you are, to collect a broken piece of baggage. I'll give you a little hint that you can take to the grave about your girl in the basement. Posh bitch like you read 'bout that... Trojan House, right? Well, still got surprises for the rest of them. You know, the ones that actually survive tonight. That won't be you." He shifted his grip, lowering her a little but still holding her up with one hand. He laid the other on the side of her face; an almost intimate gesture. The red energy flared again and suddenly her skin began to crisp and blacken under his touch.

"You'll be a little message back to my dear childhood mate. About what waits for her." His thumb plunged into her eye, searing away the eyelid as she tried to close it. The white hot thumb flashed the liquid in her eye to steam instantly, and it exploded under the searing probe that drove further into her skull. Another inch and it would be her brain flashboiled to instant death.

Marie-Ange's feet kicked against anything she could reach, to no effect. Her legs jerked out of fear and desperation and then pain - unyielding and unacceptable pain as half the world went red and then white hot as her brain caught up with her seared optic nerve and then grey and then gone - not black, not static, just nothing. It was an instant of panic and pain and uncanny inhuman acceptance of the damage.

She didn't consciously move, her feet were still trying to gain traction on the ground, one hand on Adam's thumb trying to break his grip - muscle memory taking over where conscious thought could not.

And her free hand snapping a thin blade out of her sleeve.. The thing was barely a knife, delicate and brittle and more likely to break on a rib than slide under it and

- and if Marie-Ange hadn't been a centimeter from dying she might have found the slightest ironic humor in the situation -

and the only place she could reach was Adam's face. If she could have, she would have sliced his throat, but not with a tiny holdout knife, not with this little thing she'd put there absently while tucking away cards. She sliced up his face, raising a razor line of blood and as he flinched - mouth grimaced, shoulders jerked back, hand twitched, as his thumb almost retreated from the seared hole in her eye, Marie-Ange flipped her wrist and struck down, driving the knife into Adam's eye, opposite hers.

"Fuuuuuck!" Adam hissed, recoiling back. His head snapped away, knocking the blade out of his eyes before it could punch through to his brain. He dropped Marie-Ange, clutching at his face, His ruined mouth hissed, the separated lips making a wet sound as they stretched painfully against his teeth. "Fuck!" He screamed as the first lances of pain hit back past the shock. Blindly, he reached out, fires erupting from the walls all around them. "Burn, you fucking cunts!" He slurred as he staggered back and reached for his neck. His hand closed around an already powered amulet and with a whispered word, he disappeared from sight with a stored teleport spell.



* * * * * *

Blood magic isn’t safe for anyone. Even - and perhaps especially - for the one using it.

Warning: Blood, gore



Doug and Wanda were barely even in the front door before they were confronted with a young woman. Her body language was...simultaneously ecstatic and aggressive, and she looked like she was practically about to vibrate apart on the spot Not that Doug expected anything less than fullblown crazy from someone running with Adam Destine, but this was...extreme. He made a little half-wave. "So I'm thinking we got off on the wrong foot. You have our friend, and we're -really- not leaving without her. But it doesn't have to be all punching and screaming and explosions. That's really up to you."


Being in their line of work meant they had many skills and one that Wanda was very good at was remembering faces. The girl in the room was the same one she'd fought with months ago when they'd gone after Topaz - Grace. Gone, though, was the shattered, crying girl who had looked more out of her league than anything else. It had been replaced with madness and...Wanda frowned sharply. Yes, there was now an essence of corruption that hadn't been there before.


She didn't say anything, just watched. Very carefully.


Grace could barely stand still. Rocking on her heels, she slowly drew out a visibly red string of energy from one palm, and started moving it back and forth like a slinky. Her amulet glowed from its place on her chest, giving her face an eerie glow to match the disjointed smile. "Oh," she responded to Doug, "but what if I want punching and screaming and explosions? Anything else wouldn't be nearly as much fun." She grinned even wider, blood oozing out of her gums and dripping down her face. It may have been just an illusion, but Grace put everything into it.


She'd learned so much from Adam about intimidation.


She'd learned even more about patience.


"Suit yourself." Doug's pistol practically jumped into his hand, and he squeezed off a pair of rounds, center mass, aiming for the creepy amulet.


It was almost too easy. The amulet practically changed in size, swallowing the bullets whole and pulsating as the kinetic energy was transferred. With a creepy grin, Grace held out her hand and dropped two bullets on the ground. "You really think I'm going to make it easy on you?"


"There's another," Wanda said, keeping to the shadows as she paced around the other side. "She had two the last I saw her. Only one ended up - corrupted." Her fault, she knew, but she felt no guilt - this child had been on this path longer than one run in with Wanda. "And no," she continued, though directed at Grace now, "I doubt that you'd make it easy on us at all. It makes this easier."


A hex bolt shot towards Grace with explosive speed but Wanda was only half paying attention. She was following the lines of chaos, looking for any clue where that second amulet was.


Once Doug knew something was hidden, he tended to be very good at sussing out where that thing was, by the patterns surrounding it. Even if it wasn't visible to the naked eye, there would be hints and clues around it. In art, it's referred to as 'negative space', in the real world, it would be the fact that an invisible object would still take up space. Grace's hands would have to skirt around it and be unable to move through it.


Doug squeezed off several measured shots, letting Grace block them easily. He wasn't trying to injure anymore, but rather using it almost like sonar... Ah. There. "Stungo," he murmured to Wanda.


The floor beneath Grace crumbled without warning, old wood eaten away with a tug and a twist of a few threads. Wanda lunged for a seemingly discarded book to the left of Grace. She couldn't see the second amulet, not yet, but with Doug's direction she knew where to 'look' with her powers and it was clear to her now where the girl had stashed the other amulet.


Grace was having fun until that misstep with the floor. She could sense that it wasn't just bad circumstances, but her powers weren't enough, they just weren't enough. Flailing blindly, she reached out towards something -- anything -- to hold her up but she needed a hand free for Albert's amulet. Her own, she was able to control, but the enhanced amulet...well, she still had problems controlling it sometimes. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to fall as she gave as much as she could into the amulet. A red glow grew and almost instantly, she was soaring back up through the hole, hovering lightly above it. This time though, her face seemed almost bloated, like the energy in her body was expanding and had no where else to go. "You have no idea who you are fighting!" With a flick of her wrist, Grace caused the doorway to start to tremble, dust and plaster falling around.


Doug rolled his eyes. "Honestly, do you even listen to yourself? Like, I'm about to get a bingo card full of Creepy Villain Cliches out here, just saying." Between the weird psychosexual aspect, the bad lines, and the unhinged laugh... "It's a little embarrassing, to be honest. Very wannabe Bellatrix Lestrange."


"Less quipping, more doing damage!" But the girl had her attention drawn away for her for a moment, between the anger at being dropped through the floor and Doug, which allowed Wanda time to grab the book she'd spotted. Wrenching it open, the amulet dropped out and into her waiting hand. Wanda gripped it tightly in her hand as she stood up and looked up at Grace even as red light slowly seeped out from where she held the amulet.


Grace's eyes widened in horror as she saw the older woman hold her amulet. The protection spell she'd cast over it should have been strong enough to be undetected, but Grace hadn't counted on the fact that she was slowly losing her hold on it. With each spell containing the tainted magic, the amulet was leaking more and more. Reaching down to her own, uncorrupted amulet, she held on tightly, and felt the magic flow into her veins. She then tried her best to summon Albert's amulet, using all her strength to wrest it from the woman's grasp.


By the time she got it back, she was so drained, she didn't even notice it was a different colour, or that the magic energy felt off. To be honest, everything had felt off since she started using it. "Your filthy hands have no right to touch my brother's amulet!"


"And you do?" Doug snorted. Grace was beyond reasoning with, that was certain. And he could see the second amulet now, laced through with narrow bands of dark red that matched Wanda's powers, set off against the red of Grace's own abilities. It almost looked like the jagged scatter of fractures in the gemstone at its center. Doug's eyes snapped like a lodestone to the flaw just off-center in it, and he snapped out his telescoping baton in the hand not holding his gun and brought it down in a vicious overhand strike. Reinforced steel smashed precisely into the weak point as Grace instinctively brought her hand up to block, and a coruscating burst lashed outward.

The baton not only broke her amuelt, but it filled her with so much raw power. At first, Grace felt tingly and hot -- her usual sensations from absorbing energy. It was like liquid lava coursing through her veins, her body so sensitive that she could feel time itself as it crawled through the universe.

Reaching for her own amulet, she pressed into the curent of energy before creating a dam to harness the power...but it didn't work. Try as she could, this was too much. Barely working before, Albert's fully corrupted amulet could take no more. With the fresh vibrations of the older, less tainted magic, Albert's one drank it in hungrily, while Grace's body twisted and formed with the undulations of the magic.

Of course, none of this was visible to the others. In a matter of nanoseconds, all they'd see is Grace's grossly misshapen body followed by a horrific explosion.

The gore was everyone. Grace's entrails, blood, and an oddly spared finger sprayed the entire room. The only spots left bare from the carnage would be directly behind Wanda and Doug.

On the floor, both drained and cracked amulets lay, the chains somehow entwined and fused together.

It was a nightmarish scene, even for Wanda and Doug. The older woman took a deep breath, eyes wide with shock as she held out her arms in front of her; blood and gore dripped off of her in shockingly large amounts. The idea that the rest of her was even worse sent a shudder through her. "Douglas," she began and then stopped, voice frozen.

And then she screamed, a noise torn from her as her entire body caught fire.

There were no actual flames but where Grace's blood touched felt like someone had caught a match to her. Wanda dropped to the floor, unable to see or even care about what exactly she was laying in, unable to do anything but scream.

Doug took an abortive step toward Wanda, but then his own skin paled beneath the drenching of blood he had taken himself. A tingling in his fingers and toes led him to hold his hands up in front of his face and stare at them confusedly, as if he were trying to ascertain that they were still there. His stomach surged with nausea, and he choked back bile in his throat. His heart began to thunder irregularly, and he panted for breath, as if he suddenly could not get enough oxygen.

Doug stumbled, crumpling to the ground next to Wanda. He almost imagined he could feel Grace's viscera seeping into his own body, eating away at it like acid. He continued to stare at his fingertips, watching his nails dry and crack as Wanda's screams continued to echo in his ears.

It could have been hours or it could have been minutes before the screams finally came to a halting finish, more from a lack of oxygen than an actual halting of real pain. Tears and god only knew what else obscured Wanda's vision as she lay panting on the floor. It took effort to bring her shaking hands up to where she could peer at them, hesitant to see what had become of any part of her...

But beyond the blood that was not her own, there was no damage despite the pain. Her hands dropped down to rest against her chest.

She couldn't see Doug, not clearly, but something was wrong with him as well. But they had to get out now, no matter the pain.




Team Magic finds Topaz. To say she’s not in good shape is an understatement.



Clea kept her back against the wall as she lead the way up the stairs, "I don't see anymore demons." Clea whispered as she reached the upper landing where there was five closed doors that welcomed them. Closing her eyes, and reaching out for a magical trace or anything that would resemble Topaz. "She is close. I can sense her aura."

Ty kept fine threads of shadow at the ready. "Which was the gameshow with the doors? Because this feels like a really crappy version of it."

"Umm...Takeshi's Castle?" Stephen offered lamely, "You know I just wanna say if I get gooed in the face then I'm blaming you guys cause that's really not cool.” The teen sighed as he glanced between the doors on offer, "you know this kinda feels like spin the bottle"

"You have a weird kinky version of spin the bottle." Clea stepped forward once more and approached the first door and put her ear up to it. Nothing. She put her hand on the door and slowly turned it before opening it up to an empty room. "That was scary." She admitted before closing the door. "I thought for sure something was going to happen."

Illyana, listening carefully at a door before peering (Soulsword first, both for light and safety) inside, gave the group an incredulous side-eye. "I don't know anything about sports," she said, "but something is definitely going to happen, so let's not relax yet, okay?"

Ty shook his head before he put his ear to the next door. He heard only silence, felt nothing in the shadows on the other side. When he cautiously opened the door, an empty room met him. "No Topes here," he said.

"Oh god, that nickname," Stephen turned an incredulous look on Ty, "I...you know she'd literally tear you a new one if she ever heard you call her that right?" Stephen took a deep breath, holding his breath as he pulled open the last door, light dancing between his fingers from an uncast spell throwing its weak light into an empty room. So who wants to try lucky door number 5?"

Illyana was quickly losing patience with Stephen's patter, and, rather than responding, simply walked past him and pushed the door open. It took a second for her eyes to adjust; when they did, she stopped dead, flinging up a hand in caution to alert the rest of the group.

The sight was far from pleasant. The room was mostly dark, save for some light that seeped in through a slightly open curtain - just enough for them to make out the small ball huddled in the corner. Topaz' eyes were clouded and glassy, staring at the floor. Her arms - bleeding profusely from self-inflicted scratches - were wrapped tight around her legs, knees pulled up to her chest. For a brief moment she was just still, until her empathy kicked in and picked up four people nearby.

"Nonononono," she whimpered, hands flying to her head, shoulders hunching up. "Go away, go away..."

Clea came behind Illyana and when she saw Topaz in the dark, her heart dropped. "Candles." She summoned and floating candles appeared in the room, giving some light. Squeezing past Illyana, Clea slowly walked up to Topaz. "Topaz?" She got a good look at Topaz's eyes before her eyes traveled down to the wounds and slowly attempted to put a hand on Topaz's shoulder. "It is me, Clea. Steve, Illyana, and Ty are all here as well."

"No!" For the briefest moment there was a presence in all their heads, tugging at their emotions, threatening to leave them numb. But it retreated after a moment, Topaz just backing further into her corner, away from Clea's touch. "Get away..."

"Is it safe to carry her out of here?" Ty asked. The uncomfortable, gnawing hunger that didn't come from his stomach kept him from just picking her up with shadow arms.

It was only faint that Clea felt off but it quickly subsided. "Wait...she doesn't know it is us." Looking over at Ty before moving towards her friend once more. "Topaz, it is Clea. Your friend." She was trying her best to remain calm, as the reminder that Topaz drained emotions and perhaps she could feel the emotions around her. "We are here to help."

Stephen's gaze flicked over the woman in the corner, his gaze narrowing as he felt the tug of something on his mind, his emotions flatlining for a moment. The teenager let his gaze flick away to the door before he looked back at Ty, "I'm not sure if she wants us to, but I don't think we have a lot of choice about it, sorry Topaz," he shot an apologetic look at the woman, "we can't stay here and we really don't want her anywhere near those things. If she's this terrified of us imagine what happens when a real threat shows up. We need to get her back to the mansion, maybe being somewhere safe will help her a little bit."

Ty crouched low to gather the tiny woman into his arms. She was even lighter than he expected. That troubled him on multiple levels. "Let's get her home."

Topaz let out a small, terrified scream, trying to throw herself out of the arms that were holding her, before something finally connected in her brain. She knew these minds. The emotions were familiar, like voices. The one closest to her, the one holding her... that was Ty. Nearby was Clea. And Stephen. She even recognized Illyana, albeit vaguely. They had... come for her? Why? Nothing made sense.

But Ty's arms were warm, and the most comforting thing she'd felt in days, and she couldn't help but shiver as she relaxed into them. She was exhausted in every single way. She was terrified. She wanted to be safe again.





Ty returns to a very bloody scene, and four very beat up people. It’s probably still a victory.



Members of X-Force were no strangers to violence or injury but the amount of gore that coated Wanda and Doug was shocking even by their rather high and twisted standards. As the blood was drying all over her, Wanda's head was killing her. Along with the rest of her body. While the screaming, fire like pain had passed, her entire body ached with a dull pulsing that didn't bode well.

Whatever had been in the blood of the witch that liberally coated her had been potent but, despite the pain it had inflicted, had left no physical marks. Which made her concerned about what else it could do. If there were no physical injuries, what was it hurting? That pain had been intense but her intuition told her that something - no - everything was wrong.

She really, really didn't want to check on the one other thing she could but she had no choice. Cautiously, she activated her powers and an almost physical shock ran through her at the sight. The lines of red that connected everything in the world had gone - the only way to describe it was insane. Sharp, dark spikes ran through every single one she could see - the only thing she could thing was 'corruption', much like the damage left by Chthon.

Stumbling a little, her stomach suddenly had had enough between the wrongness of her powers, the pain and the blood coating her...she turned and vomited off to the side as the corruption all around her pressed in.


If Wanda was stumbling a little, then Doug was full on staggering behind her. His face looked drawn and haggard, his lips pale and dark circles around his eyes like he hadn't slept for days. It looked like it was taking everything he had to stay vertical, and even then he wasn't entirely succeeding. His fingers curled and flexed as if he couldn't quite feel the tips of them, and then he winced in pain.

It was like some sort of perverse 'bad, badder, worse' scenario - whereas Wanda and Doug had been at least somewhat upright there was no question that Dom was only on her feet by the grace of the redhead next to her. Eyes tightly shut, she listed heavily to one side and then the other, her arm wrapped tightly around Marie-Ange's middle as they slowly rejoined the others. The only sound she made was a slight moan as they halted, though her swaying continued even after their progressed had stopped.

Fully half of Marie-Ange's face was bloody, she had pressed a torn shred of fabric from her shirt up against - into - wedged in - the burned wreck of her eye socket and her other eye was blurry with tears and smeared blood but she was steady on her feet, if just barely. "Called for our Uber. ETA in minutes." Which would have been more helpful if it had been in English and not a language only spoken by one other person in the vicinity, who was on the verge of passing out. She set her feet wide and then painstakingly slowly settled Domino against the least-filthy spot on the nearest wall, and then collapsed against it herself.

A sliver of shadow expanded into a giant ball between one breath and the next. Ty stumbled out of it, shuffled three steps to the side as it winked out, and then fell on his ass. "GPS saved you, because I have no idea what that text even said."

"Teleport to medical, as many as you can at once." Still not English, but perhaps understandable, though Marie-Ange slurred her words and spat blood to clear her tongue. "Fast, he could be back at any time and no one of us can fight." And where were the rest? If she and Domino and Wanda and Doug were this injured, where were Amanda's students? Who else was hurt? Who else was dead? "Then come back, find the rest."

Another shadow started to expand from pinpoint. "I got "medical" out of that, and judging by the look of you, I think I get it." The shadow expanded to gulp them all up, only to be spat back out in the mansion's med lab.

"I think it was the pretty rock," Ty said, right before his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell over.