xp_logs | Siege Perilous - Part 4

Siege Perilous Day 13 - Back to current time, Emma makes her move against Selene.

In normal times, Emma couldn’t touch magic, couldn’t see it, couldn’t interact with it at all. But what Adam was doing was giving her access suddenly to lines and streaks and shapes of magical energy that her telepathy could touch, shape. Carefully but swiftly, she began to build the channels she needed, a blend of telepathy and magic that she manipulated with expert mental hands to give her exactly what she wanted. A smile danced on her lips as she realised that being trapped in her own magical cage for so long, testing the bars and always failing to breach them, had taught her the things she needed to know now.

The sheer volume of magical energy swirling around the room was enormous; a tsunami that only Adam could properly see. He reached up, whispering the words he'd dug out from Strange's note about a thousand years of the Darkhold. Energy leapt from his fingers and struck Illyana, outlining her in green flames. The surviving Acolytes were tripping over each other fleeing and with a motion, lines of similar energy sprung from their bodies and reconnected to Illyana.

"You c***s wanted to sacrifice yourself for this shit? Wished fucking granted." Adam snarled as he brought both hands down in fists. A surge went through the magical web, tearing energy from the survivors and feeding it further into Illyana, whose mouth opened in a silent scream. He could feel the entity inside her; a magical parasite older than he could imagine, it's ancient consciousness already prodding at his magical shields. He could barely see Jean through the strain, energy sleeting through him, building like an explosive charge. With two last complex gestures, hands surrounded by arcane symbols burned into the air, he seized the conduit of energy and with a scream, channeled it directly into Grey.

Jean had never had the experience of knowing what being struck by lightning felt like, but she had a feeling it was something like this. As the magical energy slammed into her, she felt every cell within her burn. For a moment, she started to push it away, driven by the mortal fear of touching something not meant to be known, but found something driving it back in. Emma.

It felt wrong, and right, all at the same time. The promise of power, and eternity. Jean gave in and let it consume her. As her body lifted off the ground and hovered in place, like she was suspended in water, her clenched eyes opened. And when they did, they were black.

Emma felt the Darkhold make its home in Jean, the woman start to fight to drive it out instinctively, and Emma snapped her diamond-hard cage of magic and telepathy shut around the redhead. Magic and mutancy pulsed hard against it for a moment, but Emma had learned well and the diamond bars held until suddenly Jean’s resistance to the Darkhold collapsed and she let it flow into her.
Normally Emma might have given herself a moment to relax, to recover from the effort she’d just expended, but she didn’t have time for that right now. She had things to do.
Like kill Selene.

Her telepathy reached out, found the witch, smashed as much of her power into Selene’s mind as she could. Then Emma shut off her telepathy as she turned to diamond and lunged for the Black Queen, ignoring the woman suddenly floating behind her.

Since she was a child, Jean had been used to whispers, voices that most people couldn't hear. They usually spoke to themselves, focused on their own little world. But these voices were different. They spoke to her, whispering knowledge, words and pictures and symbols of things forbidden. They promised the world, for a price. Everyone paid a different price.

Jean winced, letting out a cry of pain as the knowledge appeared written on her skin, face and arms and legs, in words and symbols like tattoos in quick succession before being sucked underneath the skin. Her eyes flickered back and forth as the ideas grew faster, morphing and changing, struggling to make sense.

Emma wanted to kill Selene. Technically, she wanted to rip out Selene’s guts and feed them to her as the witch wailed and ached and died, but killing her by smashing diamond fists into her face until it was a bloody smear would do, if that was all she could manage. But even as she clawed towards Selene’s eyes with diamond fingernails, she knew that she might not be able to withstand the magic that had held her trapped for so long.

But then Jean’s eyes opened as she hovered above them, eyes black, her skin scrolling with arcane symbols, magic and telepathy and telekinesis writ large and fiery in the air above them.

That, Emma knew, that concatenation of power, that could kill Selene. Could crack her open like an egg and suck out magic and life and devour the witch whole, far more efficiently than Emma could.

So Emma’s hand curled into fists and punched outwards even as she reached Selene, took the witch in the chest and drove her back towards the flaming woman in the sky. She would leave the witch to whatever it was she had turned Jean into.

Reeling backwards from Selene’s counterattack, magic that had slashed into her as soon as her fists had touched the witch, Emma spun on her heel to regain her balance and suddenly saw Adam and Illyana. He had pulled the girl close; she looked as if she was about to fall and he was holding her upright against his side, one arm raised in what Emma assumed was a shielding spell against the magic that spun and heaved throughout the chamber. But she could see the strain on his face, the bend in his knees, knew that he had nearly drained himself completely doing what he did with the Darkhold.

Ignoring whatever was happening between Jean and Selene behind her, Emma hurried to Adam’s side to assist him.

During the battle, Felicia, North and Gabriel decide discretion is the better option than staying around and being killed by crazy magic users and vengeful telepaths.

Really, Gabriel should have expected that the signal that he and Felicia had established would prove unnecessary. Nothing announced that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge like a massive explosion that took down, of all people, Selene, and left chaos and rubble in its wake.

And thus, unpredictability, predictable as ever, blew yet another hole in Gabriel's plans. The blast hadn't injured him, but it had sent him staggering. And more troubling, it had disoriented him. His ears were ringing, and he was struggling a bit to make sense of the mess and the clashes now breaking out around him.

Using his powers seemed risky, given that he was now surrounded by a number of juiced-up, unpredictable hotheads. He had to find Felicia.

Words started filtering in through the roaring wall of sound, still far away but getting closer. "No, I already told you, no shooting him, I need him," a clear voice said. Felicia rounded a corner, her blonde hair grey with rubble dust, and waved manically when she spotted him. "Because you love me and we're all going to go steal stuff together, it will be fun."

Felicia suddenly dodged to the side, and the bullet that had been aimed at her went through the skull of one of the Hellfire Club members that had evidently caught up to her. "That had better not have been you!" she yelled into her earpiece, wiping at her nose as she stood up, and shrugged at Gabriel. "He's fine, he's still coming around."

"I'm not going to pretend to find that reassuring," Gabriel said flatly. "But I guess I don't really have a choice." It occurred to him he'd traded one uneasy alliance for another. "How quickly can he come around? I was hoping for a low-key exit."

"Not as quickly as I can place a bullet in his head," North replied cheerfully, the look on his face a stark counterpoint to his tone. He fired off another shot, which was quickly followed by the click of an empty chamber and a short sigh. "Closing shop. Bring your Spanky friend and meet me at the brownstone southwest of you. Now, unless you mean to bring more strays home."

Felicia cut short the mocking hand gesture she'd been making as North spoke, eyes rolled, and shrugged. "Sorry. He's worried that if he goes along with all this too easily they'll take away his grumpy old man membership. It's very special to him since they issued it to him as an exception when he was six," she said, giving Gabriel a grimacing smile. There was another boom in the distance, and she offered her hand, even as she realized it would be stupid to dash off together holding them, but apparently she was going with it. "Still coming?"

"Too late to turn back now." Well, these were his allies now: an old man who was apparently trigger happy and — well, okay, Gabriel didn't have anything but respect for Felicia, really, but her choice of partner gave him reason to question. Not that it mattered; he'd use this as a way out of his current situation, and if it didn't pan out, he'd move on.

So he took her hand, as cheesy of a gesture as it was, and offered her a smile that was cut short at the sound of gunshots. "Let's get the hell out of here before our luck runs out."

There’s still two magic users left to go and Adam has his hands full dealing with Topaz and Clea.

He was strong, certainly capable of holding his own. Topaz shielded herself and Clea, picking around in their opponent's brain for a little bit of emotion -- just enough to keep her going. No one told her coming to New York would involve this much fighting.

"I'm all ears if you have an idea," she said to Clea without taking her eyes off the other man.

Magic whirled around the witch, "Flank. Let him feel what dread really is." Instantly copies of both Topaz and Clea surrounded Adam. "I'll take care of the rest."

"Dread." A small smile pulls at Topaz' lips. "I can do that. " She reached out again, more confidently this time, picking Adam's mind out of the chaos. A little bit of poking is all it takes to open up the floodgates of fear.

"Dread?" Adam's voice took on a vague echo effect. "Dread? Of two silly children playing with what they don't understand? Bollocks to that." He hissed. He was almost spent, but that didn't matter. They'd killed his mentor, his friends, his family. Maybe they'd kill him. But that didn't matter. When Topaz touched his mind, she found there was no fear left.

Just a few tricks he hoped would be enough. That was enough to pause her long enough for six feet of heavily embroidered cloth to hit her directly in the face, toppling her over and trying to wrap her up. The Cloak of Levitation was a bit of a trick; it was a magical focus that mimicked a real relic. Channel magic through it and it would give you the appearance of life and power for a minute or two. He hoped it was enough.

Clea tilted her head towards Adam, "Children?" The witch asked, purple energy started to swirl around her hands and up her arms. "Shall we play with the big girls now?"

"I wouldn't call those big girls, luv. I mean, they're nice, but big girls? Those are perky girls at best." Adam said, trying to remember the sequences of the back up spells that Strange had taught him.

Clea resisted the urge of rolling her eyes, "Quite the joker aren't you? I wonder what you are planning with all this stalling."

"Certainly trying to buy himself time," Topaz added conversationally, as if she wasn't still trying to detangle herself from cloak. "His mind just keeps on going."

"We can't all flip it off most the time like you two pillocks." Adam reached into his shirt, pulling out an oblong medallion.

"To be entirely fair to you, this isn't really my field of expertise," Topaz admitted with a shrug as she dug into his head, grabbing every emotion she could drain away from him - all the anger, the resentment, the grief. All gone in the blink of an eye. "I usually have to buy some time for myself to figure out what I'm doing."

A ball of energy formed in her hand. She threw it right at Adam's face - not to injure, but to blind. Distract.

When the ball of energy unleashed from Topaz, Clea took the opportunity to flank on the right and several mystic bolts went flying towards Adam.

Adam didn't even seem to notice the magic energy flying towards him. His hands moved in a circle, energy trailing from them as they traced an outline around the amulet. He rose into the air, a nimbus of magic surrounding him, absorbing both of the energy strikes sent at him. Arcane symbols flickered and the amulet shifted, turning like the face had turned to liquid, until a golden glow burst forth, bathing them in energy.

"By the Eye of Agamotto, let what is unseen become seen." Adam said, his voice artificially booming as it was caught up in the magical storm.

Inside the golden light, both women felt momentarily like every cell in their bodies was pricked with icy needles. The golden light turned dark; blackness swallowing them as behind their eyes, every horrible act, every moment of sadistic pain and cruelty, every decision they'd made that caused hurt and loss was opened back up to them in the bleakest, starkest honest truth possible.

The pain caught Topaz off guard, and that would have been enough, if it hadn't opened up more. She herself had never had a direct hand in hurting anyone - it was one of the upsides of her power. She manipulated and tricked, but she didn't hurt. But that didn't make the sudden rush of memories any easier to bear. She squeezed her eyes shut against the onslaught, trying to find some balance, to lash out, to to stop him-

Clea halted as she looked at the amulet. The one thing that she coveted more than anything in all the dimensions. It was then that the horrible pain swelled inside of her, but it was nothing compared to what her uncle had done to her or to her own people. Her decisions were not because she didn't have a heart, but because she was a ruler. She would be willing to sacrifice anyone that stood in her way in achieving what she wanted and in that moment, what she wanted was that amulet. The purple energy crackled around Clea around her as she allowed the pain to flow through her, and out of her.

The air was positively crackling with energy, presumably magic, judging by the… well, Emma presumed the young women would have called it banter. But Adam was starting to wilt under it and Emma couldn’t allow that to happen. She could have gone for telepathy, she knew, but she wasn’t sure how exactly that might intersect with someone in the middle of a magic spell and the room was already making some disturbing noises after the explosion and then the magical battle.

So… simple.

She came in behind the young woman named Topaz at speed, as she grimaced and did... something that looked like trying to use her power. Emma had never worked out exactly what it was Topaz did, but what happened now was fairly straightforward; Topaz dropped to her knees as a diamond fist caught her in her kidneys, took the breath out of her. Emma grinned, a flash of diamond teeth as she did something she could only do in diamond form; she lifted Topaz easily, the young woman’s fists flailing helplessly towards Emma as tried to recover her breath, then threw her straight into Clea.

“Get out of here,” Emma shouted at Adam as he suddenly stumbled as both attacks against him were suddenly short-circuited.

Adam didn't argue. He was running on dregs and his toolkit was empty. He turned and made a run over the shattered floor, skidding over a pile of rubble before reaching Illyana. The young woman had been smart, taking cover when the fighting started. He helped her up from behind her improv shelter of broken chairs.

"Time to go. Follow me and we'll get you somewhere safe."

"Yeah, until the next maniac comes along," Illyana muttered, gripping his wrist to heave herself to her feet. Her legs were - yeah, a little on the shaky side.

Emma gave a sigh of relief as she saw Adam collect the blonde, start to lead her away. She looked down as the two girls she had smashed into each other began to groan and untangle themselves and prudently drew back into the haze and shadows. She may have been living diamond and telepath, but she had long ago learned that she wasn’t immune to magic and wasn’t going to risk walking into a new trap.

The final battle - Jean vs Selene. And beyond.

TW: death

Grief was a dangerous emotion. It crept inside and hollowed you out, leaving you empty for other things to take its place..

"Selene," Jean's voice cut through the room amidst the crackle of remaining fire from the explosion and the fight nearby as she focused on the woman at the center of her thoughts.

"Let's end this."

The world had ended for Jean Grey this night. It seemed only right for her to do the same to the one who did it.

Selene's good eye fixated on Jean. She'd already faced down Emma, using her magic to block the blows from the diamond woman. Now, there was nothing left. Her court was in shambles, her ritual ruined, and the explosion had injured her badly enough that only her abilities were keeping her on her feet. Despite all of that, she was still deadly as a snake.

"I told Amanda not to waste so much time with you. Just some silly private school cheerleader. She should have ripped your brain apart and left your body used up in an alley for the transients to finish up with." Selene said icily. Left one handed from the blast, she sketched a couple of symbols in the air. Ebon energy flashed around her fingers and claws of crackling ebony closed on Jean.

The ebony energy claws sparked off an unseen shield as Jean, still floating above her, looked down upon the woman.

"And yet, all that power you craved still went to me," Jean said. She cocked her head to the side mirthlessly.

"Thanks for the idea, by the way.

The words written upon her skin turned red as a burst of psionic and magical energy shot toward the other woman, aiming to pull her soul right out of her body and into the Astral Plane.

Selene pulled up a shield of black energy, but the streams of red punched through it, scorching her skin as they passed through. She hissed in pain, pushing back against the onslaught with the rest of her limited reserves.

"This is beyond you, child. It will consume you and discard the remains."

"Probably," Jean said. She could hear the voices whispering madness all around her, the dark mysteries seeping into her skin, but her focus was on something else: vengeance. Selene was the progenitor of it all. And for that, she would pay for it.

"But at least I'll take you with me."

Jean chose to embrace the power that had been given to her, listening to the voices, but also telling them her story, pouring her pain and fear and guilt into a rallying cry, pushing past the layers toward something more.

As she unleashed another wave of energy toward Selene, the energy that emitted from her soon began to have curls of smoke wisping off of it. It sheathed Jean's body, her black hair suddenly smoking as well, as the dye seemed to be burning away, leaving the copper red underneath.

Selene's lips curled into a snarl as the energy washed over her, beaten back only by the last of her wards and protection spells. In a hundred years, no one had ever threatened her existence this way and now, it was being tested to the very limit. She called up her darkest spells, flinging that at Jean, but the Darkhold held sway of a hundred generations of prior majick that hers was built on, tossing them aside. The snarl twisted, elongated and changed to a noiseless scream. The weight of the years her powers had held at bay crashed through her shields and as they suffused her body, the torrent of Jean's energy engulfed her. The witch had time for one last brief scream before she joined the ashes around her.

The rush of power flung Jean across the floor and she came to rest on her back, staring up at hole that had been blown out of the ceiling to the stars above.

A simple word rang through Jean's mind, over and over again. For a moment as the woman perished the layers of her psyche had peeled away, unveiling the rotten core at the center.

That was not Selene, but an imposter. Someone else equally as old but far more deadly. A proverbial spider in her web.

Roma.

In the silent stillness, a glint of light caught Jean's attention and she caught the eye of something, something that she knew somehow had been there all along: a bird, made of fire. The sight of it seemed to set off a spark, a flash of knowledge that she didn't quite understand.

Sitting up, Jean climbed to her feet. Somehow, the dark energy that was left of the woman had been filtered down to its rawest form, floating around them like a glistening white fog. But something seemed to stand out among the fog: deep, raw gashes that seemed to be carved into the very air. A wound that needed to be healed.

And somehow, in that moment, she knew that she was more than this life she had now. She was a healer.

Something guided her hands, and the fog-like energy seemed to grow thicker that she directed toward the gashes to cover like a balm. As the energy spread throughout the cracks it moved beyond the room they were in, farther and farther, beyond the Earth, to the moon, to the stars, and the galaxy, and the universe. And Jean's mind followed, like Alice down the rabbit hole, curious to where it might lead.

Emma had not been paying too much attention to the fight between Selene and Jean behind her, trying her best to take on Selene’s remaining acolytes and allow Adam to escape in the aftermath of the massive use of his powers that had left him so drained.

But she felt it as Jean’s mind stripped Selene down to nothing and then burned it away and then, somehow, expanded outwards again, channeling down cracks and holes in the world that healed over behind the flow of Jean’s energy. But in its wake, Jean thinned, her mind following and expanding outwards, flowing away, dissipating, stretching more than it was ever meant to.

Emma’s mind was no longer caged, completely free at last of Selene’s leash. But she had paced the edges of that cage a million million times in her captivity, learning how to capture a mind. She took that hard-won knowledge now and used it to build a psi-shape, channels and bars that she used to capture Jean’s mind as it began to turn to wisps, pull all of it back into the room, into Jean, into a psyche she recognised. Jean’s mind stabilised within the shape Emma had made for it and Emma sighed and released the shape, let Jean’s mind free, once again whole.

They say that two heads are better than one. And in this case, if those two heads happened to belong to two powerful telepaths, well...It was comfortable to say that it was very hard for an illusion to be maintained.

As their minds linked it worked like a wrecking ball, crashing into the false wall that was the world.

But what lay on the other side?