Time Stand Still || Vital Signs
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xp_logsMarie-Ange, Sooraya, Jean, and Betsy play chicken with Evil Topaz; Topaz tries to mitigate psychic damage; Amanda waits for an opening.
Trigger Warning: NPC version of a PC character Death
She really was out of her bloody mind.
Topaz was trying to stay out of the line of fire, doing what she could do best in this situation - get in her head and mess with it. Her emotions and thoughts were a mess of rage, of anger, determined not to be stopped, not after coming so far...
A wave of fury washed over her. She shook her head furiously, forcing the foreign emotions out, but the momentary distraction gave the other Topaz space.
She'd backed herself into a corner, but that was fine. She still had her shields to keep everyone back, taking a minute to look them all over now that no one was in her head. She didn't know a couple of them, vaguely recognized Jean, eyes sweeping by Amanda - cut off from New York, limited power, that'd be useful - and finally landing on Marie-Ange. The eye patch was new.
One hand stayed up to shield herself while the other summoned shadows immediately to Marie-Ange's right; a solid, humanoid figure charged at her.
"Seal the doors." Marie-Ange said under her breath, as she pulled a wicked sharp spear out of nowhere. "November says Avalon will listen." She blocked the shadow-thing's charge with the spear, glared at it with a near-snarl on her face and then twisted the spear to slash along it's body. "Even if we lose, we trap her here."
Just as the others started to push the doors close, Sooraya tossed a quick nod at one of the others and dissolved into her sandform. It has been a toss up if she'd stay outside or enter with the others to deal with the other Topaz, but it was clear she was needed inside. Just as the doors were about to close, she slipped through the small opening and entered the shadows of Avalon. She only had the voices of the others to guide her to where they were...
Jean gave the doors a bit of a telekinetic shove to help things move a little faster, launching a telekinetic blast at one of the shadow creatures as it charged at her. She'd seen her share of these types of beings before. Perhaps it was a standard for an evil minion. Eying a trio of the creatures, she popped a telekinetic ball around them and squeezed them into it, making it smaller and smaller. Testing a theory really. How small could they go until they were no more?
Now that Betsy had followed her teacher into the fray, she was uncertain what to do. This kind of thing really was not her strong point, and besides, this was Topaz. An alternate evil Topaz, sure, but still. At least the shadow creatures had yet to notice her existence. She decided to help them along by giving one an experimental poke with her psychic blade and huh, would you look at that. Apparently they popped.
The psychic tug of war continued. Topaz had to admit, she was impressed by the other's ability to multitask - shielding, maintaining the shadow creatures and demons, and fighting her off all at once was a lot.
But part of her was still Topaz. And Topaz knew exactly what would get her attention.
She slid along the cavern wall, trusting the others to keep the monsters occupied, until she was close enough to say, "So, what then, you killed Adam Destine and then turned into him? Bloody brilliant, aren't you?"
That got her attention. Pure fury rolled off her in waves as she whirled to face Topaz, who barely put up a shield to avoid taking a blast of pure energy to the face and ducked away. A tendril of black wrapped around her arm, stopping her from moving.
"I need you alive. That doesn't mean I need you in one piece."
There was the report of a handgun and a bullet pinged off the wall by Not Topaz's head. Setting her feet more squarely, Amanda sighted down the barrel once more, saying as the two looked over at her: "I bet you were expecting magic, weren't you? Sorry to burst your bubble there, but I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to people going after my people. Let her go, or the next one goes right between your eyes."
She didn't let go, but the distraction was enough for Topaz to break the binding and back off. The look shot in Amanda's direction was one of absolute hatred before a wave of shadows raised up to block her off.
Still concealed, Sooraya had made her way towards the fray. The floor was covered with the weird shadow creatures, but she was able to stay well above them until she was hovering almost directly above the other Topaz. Good... now that Amanda had her well distracted...
Dust did not hesitate and flowed down. Tendrils of sand flowed around the evil witches wrists, pulling them to her waist and two other thick tendrils wrapped themselves around her ankles, pulling those towards each other. The sand thickened and thickened till they were as stiff as steel cables. Finally, two other tendrils wrapped themselves around her head, one covering her eyes and the other filled her mouth.
Her shield dropped as she choked, dropping to her knees, vision going black. No no no no no NO. They won't stop her, not now, not when she was so close...
Magic crackled menacingly along her body, energy wrapping around the tendrils, squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing, until finally the sand scattered. She swung an arm through the dust cloud, casting around for a quick power source - but of course she's being blocked, they have telepaths and that damned younger version of herself, damn it, damn it. She dug deeper into her own energy and summoned a blast of wind to knock the last of the sand away - taking out several of her own shadow creatures in the process. Oh well. There was always more.
It took Sooraya a few moments to gather the scattered sand as the blast of wind died down, but it had taught her a lot. One, for a few moments it had been effective and second was that the shadow creatures were affected by material powers like her own and not purely by psychic power. With that in mind, she reformed her body into her sandman form but instead of hands the sands formed half moon blades. She waded back in the fray, slashing the creatures left and right.
While Jean worked on the outside with her telekinesis to dispatch any shadow creatures in her way, she kept her eyes on the evil Topaz. Reaching out with her mind, she tested her mental defenses for weaknesses, searching for one to blow through so she could stun her enough to make her lose the shadow monsters. She tried to stick next to Betsy, however, as the girl still seemed uncertain.
"How are you doing, Psylocke?”
Betsy kept her gaze focused at the shadow creatures, her little glowing blade slashing through them with deceptive ease now. “It became easier once I got the rhythm going,” she communicated back to her teacher. “Her shields feel weaker than our Topaz’s too. Umm, not that I’ve tried hers, because that would be weird. Anyway, maybe we could use that to create a distraction if both of us came at her together, and got one of the heavier hitters on her simultaneously?” While her tone was still hesitant, she extended her suggestion to the rest of the group as well.
"We have the Frosts on the astral plane handling emotions." Marie-Ange's eyes had gone sideways for a moment, listening to her comm. "Daytripper, November, without empathic powering, how much can she do before she is out of energy?" She eyed the future witch's demonic bodyguards, and swiped hair already escaping her braid out of her face. "The Frosts should have her empathic power supply deconstructed shortly. Cypher is online giving me updates. As soon as he gives the word, we go in hard and fast, and decapitate anything that moves."
She ducked under the swiping claws of a demon, and jabbed the spear into its leg, twisting and pulling out an ugly, wet coil of something. "That means once she is vulnerable..." She kicked at the monster's leg with a booted foot, and it screamed once, and then again as the spear sliced up to stab between its legs. "November I want you in her head. You will not be restricted emotionally, take whatever you need."
Topaz ducked behind a rock, daring to poke the surface of the other's mind, extending all of her senses the best she could without being caught. "Bloody hell," she mumbled. "She's... strong. Cut off from empathy, she can probably still-" A blast of magic blew away the top of the rock she was hiding behind. She scrambled out to avoid being hit and put up a shield. "Still push a bit more than I would usually try, but she'd have to start choosing between maintaining her own defenses or keeping her shadow creatures going, and that's not a hard choice." She took out one of the shadows as she spoke, eyes darting about as she attempted to multitask. "I think Psylocke's got the best plan. Hit her mentally and physically at the same time, the shadows will go down when she's distracted, then..."
"Yes. I want her pulled in many directions. She has one person, herself. That is all she has had." Marie-Ange glanced over at her Topaz, not hers like Topaz was Amanda's, but hers. Her hire for X-Force, her current charge to keep the future intact, her responsibility right now, for all of this. "For as long as she remembers. We all keep her busy, and as soon as she is vulnerable, once the Frosts give the word, you go in and shut her magic down."
The way she had restrained her had worked well before, but Sooraya needed the crazy woman distracted before she could do that again. A final mow of her blade like hands finished the shadow creature to the left and she dissolved back into a cloud of sand. Three razorsharp tendrils lashed out, slicing the three new baby shadows that were starting to form in two and she vanished once more into the shadows of Avalon to find the best point for either to restrain or distract.
Jean took Betsy's suggestion, zeroing in on a weak spot in the other Topaz's mental defenses and giving it a hard, sharp shove to break it while at the same time launching a series of rocks at the woman.
Having cleared herself a bit of space to work with her dagger, Betsy leaned her back against the wall and considered her position. While the situation was very different from her normal operating conditions, her training sessions had prepared her enough that she would be able to gather up enough psychic energy to help blast through what weak shields this version of the empath had. Now for the delivery method… She needed to get closer. What had their Topaz said about simultaneous mental and physical strikes? ‘Sod it,’ she thought and charged the shadow creatures between herself and the impostor while raising her blade above her head with both hands as it extended into a full-blown longsword.
She stumbled back at the sudden slaughter of her shadows and demons, shield up to block the purple-haired girl's blow - the wall of energy cracked and the cracks spidered out, threatening to collapse. Everything was suddenly loud and overbearing in a way it hasn't been in years - so many years - there was too much going on. What was this?
And then there was Amanda, punching her way through the weakened shield with a fist augmented with magic, closing in on the other witch remorselessly. The hubbub of psychic and physical attacks were doing their job - this Topaz couldn't focus enough to cast and Amanda's psychic shields were strong, begun with Dr. Strange's teachings, strengthened by her time with Manuel and honed through training with various telepaths over the years. Still, as she grabbed the other woman by the throat and pushed her back up against a wall, there was a certain sympathy in her eyes.
~She has one person, herself. That is all she has had.~
Marie-Ange's words echoed in her mind as she looked at the face, so familiar and yet the face of a stranger. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Then she drove her hand into Not-Topaz's chest as she had once done with Taboo, long ago and in another world. The woman's eyes grew wide and shocked, her mouth worked soundlessly...
She remembered that moment. That moment in another lifetime, when she was a different person. A scared teenager in a place that would never really be home, trying to go back to the only family she knew, only for him to turn on her. If he had ever been on her side to begin with.
Amanda had been there to help her pick up the pieces then, too. Whatever you do, I'll be right there. Whatever fuck up, I'll help you fix it. Until the fuck ups had been too much, too many, too great. Until Topaz - when she had still been someone resembling Topaz - had felt too much, had pushed everything away, had run. Broken again and again, until the pieces had been too sharp and too small.
This isn't who you are.
Wasn't it now, though? Hadn't she crossed too many lines? And yet here Amanda was again, saving her from herself in the only way that was left. From her own insane, impossible plans. From her willingness to burn the world in her own spite-filled depression and rage.
Her eyes flickered in the last moment, seeking out her younger self. The one who hadn't broken, who had a place here, a life, a future. And she was jealous. She would've laughed, if she could. Jealous that another version of her got to live when she couldn't. When she had done everything to earn this death.
Gazes met; a warming comfort filled her mind. A touch of understanding. They had both stood on the same precipice, both teetered over that edge.
But only one of them had fallen.
...and Amanda closed her fist around her heart, stopping its beating, pulling the woman's life energy into herself.
Not-Topaz slid down the wall, her face strangely at peace, leaving Amanda standing over her, eyes glowing gold from the energy she'd absorbed.
Topaz slid to the ground as well, closing her eyes and drawing her knees up to her chest, letting out a long breath. Ignoring the prickling of tears behind her eyelids. The shadow creatures around them melted away, back into the ground and the walls, as if they'd never been there. And after a moment, Topaz tapped her earpiece to reiterate what was already obvious.
"She's gone."
Trigger Warning: NPC version of a PC character Death
She really was out of her bloody mind.
Topaz was trying to stay out of the line of fire, doing what she could do best in this situation - get in her head and mess with it. Her emotions and thoughts were a mess of rage, of anger, determined not to be stopped, not after coming so far...
A wave of fury washed over her. She shook her head furiously, forcing the foreign emotions out, but the momentary distraction gave the other Topaz space.
She'd backed herself into a corner, but that was fine. She still had her shields to keep everyone back, taking a minute to look them all over now that no one was in her head. She didn't know a couple of them, vaguely recognized Jean, eyes sweeping by Amanda - cut off from New York, limited power, that'd be useful - and finally landing on Marie-Ange. The eye patch was new.
One hand stayed up to shield herself while the other summoned shadows immediately to Marie-Ange's right; a solid, humanoid figure charged at her.
"Seal the doors." Marie-Ange said under her breath, as she pulled a wicked sharp spear out of nowhere. "November says Avalon will listen." She blocked the shadow-thing's charge with the spear, glared at it with a near-snarl on her face and then twisted the spear to slash along it's body. "Even if we lose, we trap her here."
Just as the others started to push the doors close, Sooraya tossed a quick nod at one of the others and dissolved into her sandform. It has been a toss up if she'd stay outside or enter with the others to deal with the other Topaz, but it was clear she was needed inside. Just as the doors were about to close, she slipped through the small opening and entered the shadows of Avalon. She only had the voices of the others to guide her to where they were...
Jean gave the doors a bit of a telekinetic shove to help things move a little faster, launching a telekinetic blast at one of the shadow creatures as it charged at her. She'd seen her share of these types of beings before. Perhaps it was a standard for an evil minion. Eying a trio of the creatures, she popped a telekinetic ball around them and squeezed them into it, making it smaller and smaller. Testing a theory really. How small could they go until they were no more?
Now that Betsy had followed her teacher into the fray, she was uncertain what to do. This kind of thing really was not her strong point, and besides, this was Topaz. An alternate evil Topaz, sure, but still. At least the shadow creatures had yet to notice her existence. She decided to help them along by giving one an experimental poke with her psychic blade and huh, would you look at that. Apparently they popped.
The psychic tug of war continued. Topaz had to admit, she was impressed by the other's ability to multitask - shielding, maintaining the shadow creatures and demons, and fighting her off all at once was a lot.
But part of her was still Topaz. And Topaz knew exactly what would get her attention.
She slid along the cavern wall, trusting the others to keep the monsters occupied, until she was close enough to say, "So, what then, you killed Adam Destine and then turned into him? Bloody brilliant, aren't you?"
That got her attention. Pure fury rolled off her in waves as she whirled to face Topaz, who barely put up a shield to avoid taking a blast of pure energy to the face and ducked away. A tendril of black wrapped around her arm, stopping her from moving.
"I need you alive. That doesn't mean I need you in one piece."
There was the report of a handgun and a bullet pinged off the wall by Not Topaz's head. Setting her feet more squarely, Amanda sighted down the barrel once more, saying as the two looked over at her: "I bet you were expecting magic, weren't you? Sorry to burst your bubble there, but I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to people going after my people. Let her go, or the next one goes right between your eyes."
She didn't let go, but the distraction was enough for Topaz to break the binding and back off. The look shot in Amanda's direction was one of absolute hatred before a wave of shadows raised up to block her off.
Still concealed, Sooraya had made her way towards the fray. The floor was covered with the weird shadow creatures, but she was able to stay well above them until she was hovering almost directly above the other Topaz. Good... now that Amanda had her well distracted...
Dust did not hesitate and flowed down. Tendrils of sand flowed around the evil witches wrists, pulling them to her waist and two other thick tendrils wrapped themselves around her ankles, pulling those towards each other. The sand thickened and thickened till they were as stiff as steel cables. Finally, two other tendrils wrapped themselves around her head, one covering her eyes and the other filled her mouth.
Her shield dropped as she choked, dropping to her knees, vision going black. No no no no no NO. They won't stop her, not now, not when she was so close...
Magic crackled menacingly along her body, energy wrapping around the tendrils, squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing, until finally the sand scattered. She swung an arm through the dust cloud, casting around for a quick power source - but of course she's being blocked, they have telepaths and that damned younger version of herself, damn it, damn it. She dug deeper into her own energy and summoned a blast of wind to knock the last of the sand away - taking out several of her own shadow creatures in the process. Oh well. There was always more.
It took Sooraya a few moments to gather the scattered sand as the blast of wind died down, but it had taught her a lot. One, for a few moments it had been effective and second was that the shadow creatures were affected by material powers like her own and not purely by psychic power. With that in mind, she reformed her body into her sandman form but instead of hands the sands formed half moon blades. She waded back in the fray, slashing the creatures left and right.
While Jean worked on the outside with her telekinesis to dispatch any shadow creatures in her way, she kept her eyes on the evil Topaz. Reaching out with her mind, she tested her mental defenses for weaknesses, searching for one to blow through so she could stun her enough to make her lose the shadow monsters. She tried to stick next to Betsy, however, as the girl still seemed uncertain.
"How are you doing, Psylocke?”
Betsy kept her gaze focused at the shadow creatures, her little glowing blade slashing through them with deceptive ease now. “It became easier once I got the rhythm going,” she communicated back to her teacher. “Her shields feel weaker than our Topaz’s too. Umm, not that I’ve tried hers, because that would be weird. Anyway, maybe we could use that to create a distraction if both of us came at her together, and got one of the heavier hitters on her simultaneously?” While her tone was still hesitant, she extended her suggestion to the rest of the group as well.
"We have the Frosts on the astral plane handling emotions." Marie-Ange's eyes had gone sideways for a moment, listening to her comm. "Daytripper, November, without empathic powering, how much can she do before she is out of energy?" She eyed the future witch's demonic bodyguards, and swiped hair already escaping her braid out of her face. "The Frosts should have her empathic power supply deconstructed shortly. Cypher is online giving me updates. As soon as he gives the word, we go in hard and fast, and decapitate anything that moves."
She ducked under the swiping claws of a demon, and jabbed the spear into its leg, twisting and pulling out an ugly, wet coil of something. "That means once she is vulnerable..." She kicked at the monster's leg with a booted foot, and it screamed once, and then again as the spear sliced up to stab between its legs. "November I want you in her head. You will not be restricted emotionally, take whatever you need."
Topaz ducked behind a rock, daring to poke the surface of the other's mind, extending all of her senses the best she could without being caught. "Bloody hell," she mumbled. "She's... strong. Cut off from empathy, she can probably still-" A blast of magic blew away the top of the rock she was hiding behind. She scrambled out to avoid being hit and put up a shield. "Still push a bit more than I would usually try, but she'd have to start choosing between maintaining her own defenses or keeping her shadow creatures going, and that's not a hard choice." She took out one of the shadows as she spoke, eyes darting about as she attempted to multitask. "I think Psylocke's got the best plan. Hit her mentally and physically at the same time, the shadows will go down when she's distracted, then..."
"Yes. I want her pulled in many directions. She has one person, herself. That is all she has had." Marie-Ange glanced over at her Topaz, not hers like Topaz was Amanda's, but hers. Her hire for X-Force, her current charge to keep the future intact, her responsibility right now, for all of this. "For as long as she remembers. We all keep her busy, and as soon as she is vulnerable, once the Frosts give the word, you go in and shut her magic down."
The way she had restrained her had worked well before, but Sooraya needed the crazy woman distracted before she could do that again. A final mow of her blade like hands finished the shadow creature to the left and she dissolved back into a cloud of sand. Three razorsharp tendrils lashed out, slicing the three new baby shadows that were starting to form in two and she vanished once more into the shadows of Avalon to find the best point for either to restrain or distract.
Jean took Betsy's suggestion, zeroing in on a weak spot in the other Topaz's mental defenses and giving it a hard, sharp shove to break it while at the same time launching a series of rocks at the woman.
Having cleared herself a bit of space to work with her dagger, Betsy leaned her back against the wall and considered her position. While the situation was very different from her normal operating conditions, her training sessions had prepared her enough that she would be able to gather up enough psychic energy to help blast through what weak shields this version of the empath had. Now for the delivery method… She needed to get closer. What had their Topaz said about simultaneous mental and physical strikes? ‘Sod it,’ she thought and charged the shadow creatures between herself and the impostor while raising her blade above her head with both hands as it extended into a full-blown longsword.
She stumbled back at the sudden slaughter of her shadows and demons, shield up to block the purple-haired girl's blow - the wall of energy cracked and the cracks spidered out, threatening to collapse. Everything was suddenly loud and overbearing in a way it hasn't been in years - so many years - there was too much going on. What was this?
And then there was Amanda, punching her way through the weakened shield with a fist augmented with magic, closing in on the other witch remorselessly. The hubbub of psychic and physical attacks were doing their job - this Topaz couldn't focus enough to cast and Amanda's psychic shields were strong, begun with Dr. Strange's teachings, strengthened by her time with Manuel and honed through training with various telepaths over the years. Still, as she grabbed the other woman by the throat and pushed her back up against a wall, there was a certain sympathy in her eyes.
~She has one person, herself. That is all she has had.~
Marie-Ange's words echoed in her mind as she looked at the face, so familiar and yet the face of a stranger. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Then she drove her hand into Not-Topaz's chest as she had once done with Taboo, long ago and in another world. The woman's eyes grew wide and shocked, her mouth worked soundlessly...
She remembered that moment. That moment in another lifetime, when she was a different person. A scared teenager in a place that would never really be home, trying to go back to the only family she knew, only for him to turn on her. If he had ever been on her side to begin with.
Amanda had been there to help her pick up the pieces then, too. Whatever you do, I'll be right there. Whatever fuck up, I'll help you fix it. Until the fuck ups had been too much, too many, too great. Until Topaz - when she had still been someone resembling Topaz - had felt too much, had pushed everything away, had run. Broken again and again, until the pieces had been too sharp and too small.
This isn't who you are.
Wasn't it now, though? Hadn't she crossed too many lines? And yet here Amanda was again, saving her from herself in the only way that was left. From her own insane, impossible plans. From her willingness to burn the world in her own spite-filled depression and rage.
Her eyes flickered in the last moment, seeking out her younger self. The one who hadn't broken, who had a place here, a life, a future. And she was jealous. She would've laughed, if she could. Jealous that another version of her got to live when she couldn't. When she had done everything to earn this death.
Gazes met; a warming comfort filled her mind. A touch of understanding. They had both stood on the same precipice, both teetered over that edge.
But only one of them had fallen.
...and Amanda closed her fist around her heart, stopping its beating, pulling the woman's life energy into herself.
Not-Topaz slid down the wall, her face strangely at peace, leaving Amanda standing over her, eyes glowing gold from the energy she'd absorbed.
Topaz slid to the ground as well, closing her eyes and drawing her knees up to her chest, letting out a long breath. Ignoring the prickling of tears behind her eyelids. The shadow creatures around them melted away, back into the ground and the walls, as if they'd never been there. And after a moment, Topaz tapped her earpiece to reiterate what was already obvious.
"She's gone."
