The Color of Horror || Finale
Nov. 4th, 2021 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe fight turns into running, and Topaz makes a hard choice.
Topaz dove to grab another puppet, ramming a ball of magic into its head to make it drop what it was trying to take. They were fighting, but they weren’t winning, and at this rate the monsters would get away with things. She couldn’t let that happen.
She slid her hand into her pocket, pulling out the small alarm ball, and slammed it into the ground. It shattered, setting off a god awful shrieking sound that would reach every single person and let them know to get out now.
The monsters withered for a moment, surprised and stunned by the noise, giving everyone a head start. Topaz threw up a shield of her own, trying to cover as much as possible as she backed up, looking behind her to make sure everyone was out. More beasts were swarming her defenses, forcing her back. But the others were safe. She backed up a few more steps before abruptly bringing her hands down; the shield dissolved into a wave of energy that swept through the gathering monsters before pulling back to surround her in a bright, glowing purple light. She was close enough to the door. She could do this.
I’m sorry, she thought regretfully. Somehow, she knew Avalon understood.
The energy around her branched out, finding every crack and crevice it could and seeping in. Topaz stumbled as she tried to take another step back. The door was right there, if she could just-
One of the shadow monsters made one last attempt at diving forward, aiming for Topaz. She ducked, sweeping a hand up to throw it aside, but the distraction was enough - the unstable ground gave way, and Topaz went with it, letting out a small shriek as she tumbled down…
A multiverse and five feet away, the door to Avalon slammed shut.
The slam of a door followed by a drop in sound and sudden stillness in the air around them had Darcy coming to a wincing, abrupt stop, hand tightening around Doug's almost painfully. The muffled thumps against the side door had ceased, but so had the shrieking of the alarm and the muted, hypnotic humming that'd been echoing since Halloween night. "We need to get back to the others faster, c'mon, my knee will be fine."
Something in the stillness raised the hairs on the back of Doug's neck. It didn't feel like a respite, there was a wrongness that simultaneously desperate to know what was happening and afraid of the answers he would get. His own hand grasped Darcy's just as painfully tight, and he tugged her into an even faster run toward the others.
"No!" The cry was a gasp as Wanda saw the door slam shut, as she caught a glimpse of Topaz beyond that just seconds prior. She launched herself forward, hands crackling with entropic energy as she sought the shatterpoint. There was none. There was no breaking point for the door back to Avalon because there was no door. Which meant there was no way to get to Topaz...
Wanda slammed her hands against the wall a final time and took a step back, breathing hard, hands held in shaking fists. The temptation to rend an opening, any opening, burned like fire.
"Where's Topaz?" Amanda came forward from the back of the group where she'd - reluctantly, but also wanting to make amends for prior issues - had obeyed her former student's order to fall back and protect those fleeing the chaos. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead, there were a number of cuts in her leather jacket and she was wobbling on her feet with exhaustion, but still she came forward, conducting the mental headcount that came at the end of every mission. "She was right behind you, she should... Wanda, what happened?"
Amanda's voice cut through the noise in Wanda's head and her hands dropped uselessly by her side. Moving to face Amanda, she felt strain at her ribs - she wasn't sure if there was a cut or a break but she'd deal with that later. Taking a shaky breath, she responded, "I do not know. She was right behind us and then the door..." Red sparks of chaos danced across her knuckles. "Closed. I..." Her voice grew quiet but urgent. "I cannot sense it with my powers. Can you?"
“No.” It was both a response to Wanda’s question and a reaction to the situation. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Don't worry. Topaz had said, and here she was, gone. “I can’t feel anything. She can’t be gone, it’s not possible…” Amanda’s voice rose to a high edge, exhaustion and pain and loss, far too much loss combining to push her towards hysteria. She lunged at the wall where the door to Avalon had been, pounding on it with her fists. “TOPAZ!”
Between one blow and the next, the entirety of Kyle Gibney slammed into the wall, shoulder first. It did not give, and he pushed away to slam into it again. "Someone..." He stood, and took a step back. "Get me" another slam at the wall. "A chainsaw." And another, just as ineffective. "Movemovemove..." Doug repeated as he kept moving full-tilt for the door. If Amanda or Kyle couldn't breach with magic or physical force... "C'mon, make a hole," he said roughly, taking Amanda by the shoulders and spinning her toward Wanda, then giving Kyle a hard shoulder check toward where Darcy was trailing him. With the area in front of the doorway clear, he put his right hand up against the door. "Find me a hole, guys. Find me a crack, find me -anything-." Any microscopic crevice that the nanites might detect where the naked eye could not. He could jam in and get leverage, to hell with allergic reactions to magic, he had an EpiPen on him, this was for -Topaz-...
~error~ ~error~ ~foreign energy detected~ ~error~ ~zero rupturebreachinterstice found~ ~error~ ~errorErROrERROR~
Doug's hand moved more frantically along the surface. The doorknob might have been a decorative bit of rock for all the lack of function it gave. No keyhole, no seam, no hinge... The back of Doug's nanite hand began to crawl and start to flex away from the door. "Come on!" he yelled at it.
~ERROR~ ~user input dougramseycypher unable to complete~ ~abort process~
"GODDAMIT!" Doug yelled, driving his left hand into the door hard enough that a crack of bone could be heard. He stared down dumbly at the trickle of blood on his left hand, and the twitching of his right. Punching...his brain raced, trying to remember who else was in the area.
"AMERICA!" he roared, spinning to look for the dimension-hopper. "GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"
Doug's voice terrified her into a sprint. She slid to a stop in front of the door that was no longer there. "What happened? Wait, where..." she turned in a circle, then again. "Where's Topaz?"
Doug pointed at the sheer wall with the image of a door somehow embedded inside it. "I need you to hit that as hard as you possibly can."
The world dropped out from beneath her feet, her knees turned to water. Desperation stiffened them back up. "I got this?" She said uncertainly. She stepped up to the wall, foot raised, and slammed it into the brick as hard as she could.
No stars appeared. The Multiverse did not open beneath her foot.
'Crisis now stupid, you can cry about Topaz later.' Darcy shoved down the sob trying to crawl out of her throat, blinking a few times until she was sure she could talk without tears. "This is not helping, everyone back up." Her voice was loud and sharp, oddly emotionless as it cut through the noise with ease. "NOW." Once she had everyone's attention she moved forward. "Breaking your bodies on a wall will not bring Topaz back. Do something useful."
She turned to Doug first. "Take Amanda to Marie-Ange, tell her what happened, ask her to either do the team announcement or text me to do it. Then go to medical, or I will send Clarice after you. Jubilee, please inform Felicia. Wanda." She frowned at the older woman. "I am sorry that I need to ask this of you, but please inform Kurt and Hope. I will inform the others, and send out a mansion-wide notice once it is done. The rest of you..." she trailed off, sweeping a hand at the boxes and various bits in the room. "Please help finish packing and moving. If it has a hazard label, leave it for now. Storage in any of the side rooms that are open is fine. Matt, please help direct storage versus one of the eXcalbur offices still in use. Any questions?"
Doug's emotions were running high, and he only barely bit back the urge to lash out at Darcy for her cold precision, so like Laurie. But he knew she was right. And Angie would know...at the very least, she would know if there was still hope to be had. He nodded sharply, falling in easily as Darcy's second in command. For instance, he could see mulish stubbornness in every inch of America's long frame as she continued to slam ineffectually at the barrier. That was likely to be a problem. "America. America!" he said sharply, but she was past getting her attention with words. "Namor, could you please..." He nodded toward America. Of the people at hand, the Atlantean was probably the only one who stood a chance of strong-arming and restraining her long enough for her to see reason.
Then he gathered Amanda from Wanda, not sure if the Brit would accept his supportive arm around her, but giving it a shot anyway. And with that, he steered her toward the exit, already fishing for his phone with his free hand.
“’m fine,” Amanda said, but her voice was distant, barely audible. “Don’t worry about me, find Topaz, we have to find Topaz…” But despite her words she let Doug lead her away, knowing that for now, at least, things were hopeless.
A clearing of the throat broke the hopelessness, at least momentarily.
"The loss of sister in arms is truly regrettable, and We will remember her sacrifice."
Namor's tone was completely subdued as he stood behind the crowd, imperiously letting the tide of emotions break around him like water around a rock. Until he decided to continue, "Anyway. These boxes are very unlikely to move themselves." He helped underscore this point as he broke stance to retrieve a box from a non-unresponsive golem. "A regrettable loss of magic."
Was this a comment about Topaz or the previously animated statues? Only Namor knew.
Alani blinked at the Atlantean, still struggling to piece things together -- because Topaz, no Topaz around was not something she could easily process, let alone on top of the sickness she'd been feeling since having something go through her. She followed slowly after him, a little wobbly, but the sounds of the younger woman hitting the wall were reverberating in her stomach. She blankly took hold of the box in his hands before nodding her head towards America. "America, he said grab America, she... Can you grab America, Namor? Please?" She was not going to start crying right now, they needed to finish moving things.
This was met with a long sigh. "We suppose it will save on repair bills later."
Box now out of hand, the prince rolled his eyes a little as he approached the frenzied "America." Why anyone would name someone after this feted country escaped the Atlantean's understanding, but he could understand grief and a need for a target. He could not empathize, but... his next words, whispered softly behind the woman to empathize how they were only for her, were even more condescending than usual. "We see that you do not have -'this.'- Or much of anything that might help. The most valuable thing you can do is stop."
Grab America. Grab her attention. Grab her ire. One of those.
He got all three. She pulled back on her punch at the last second, not letting it land. A fist-fight between the two of them would only result in property damage. "I could have done it before you idiots broke my powers." Her voice cracked, just a bit, on the last word.
Jubilee had been trying to this point to keep Molly and Alani from going off the deep end, talking to them quietly as everyone else tried what they could to get Topaz back. It was time for them to get going though, there were people who would need to know before this was broadcast to everyone else, and it would need to be said to everyone else.
"We need to go, I'm sure all of you have people you can think of that need to know before this gets like, spread everywhere. So like, I get it, I do. But we gotta go, and you all need to go tell people what's happened while I find Fi."
"This is bull crap," Molly stomped her foot, a worried, annoyed, and sour look on her face.: "I told you we should have just left it or blown it up but now it got Topaz!" she then added, clenching her fists. Turning, she stomped her way out of the room with her new shield. "I'm going to the lab to figure something out. And yeah yeah, I'll tell people what happened first."
Taking a few deep breaths and clenching his fists, Matt had liked Topaz, she was a spitfire and so smart. To lose her. Life continually showed that it was unfair. Nodding, he squared his shoulders, "We mourn later. Now, we work," he stated, wishing that weren't the case. He hated losing people.
Once everyone had dispersed to finish the work or start notifying people, Darcy moved away to do her own notifications. Her feet led her to Topaz's office, where she slid down to the floor with a thump, arms going around her knees and shoulders shaking as she lost the battle with her tears.
A few minutes later her phone buzzed, an unpleasant reminder that she had things to do. She carefully dried her face, sending texts to Team Magic with an apology for not telling them in person, then texted Maya. That done, she slid her phone back into her pocket and stood, the small lantern on Topaz's desk catching her eye. She crossed the room to flick it on, watching it fill the room with gentle light.
"You got all of us out, Topaz. I'll find a way to bring you home, no matter what I have to do. I promise. But for now, a small light to guide you back."
She turned to leave, firming her shoulders and chin as she slipped out the door and quietly pulled it shut. She had people to inform and a job to do. Her emotions could wait.
Topaz dove to grab another puppet, ramming a ball of magic into its head to make it drop what it was trying to take. They were fighting, but they weren’t winning, and at this rate the monsters would get away with things. She couldn’t let that happen.
She slid her hand into her pocket, pulling out the small alarm ball, and slammed it into the ground. It shattered, setting off a god awful shrieking sound that would reach every single person and let them know to get out now.
The monsters withered for a moment, surprised and stunned by the noise, giving everyone a head start. Topaz threw up a shield of her own, trying to cover as much as possible as she backed up, looking behind her to make sure everyone was out. More beasts were swarming her defenses, forcing her back. But the others were safe. She backed up a few more steps before abruptly bringing her hands down; the shield dissolved into a wave of energy that swept through the gathering monsters before pulling back to surround her in a bright, glowing purple light. She was close enough to the door. She could do this.
I’m sorry, she thought regretfully. Somehow, she knew Avalon understood.
The energy around her branched out, finding every crack and crevice it could and seeping in. Topaz stumbled as she tried to take another step back. The door was right there, if she could just-
One of the shadow monsters made one last attempt at diving forward, aiming for Topaz. She ducked, sweeping a hand up to throw it aside, but the distraction was enough - the unstable ground gave way, and Topaz went with it, letting out a small shriek as she tumbled down…
A multiverse and five feet away, the door to Avalon slammed shut.
The slam of a door followed by a drop in sound and sudden stillness in the air around them had Darcy coming to a wincing, abrupt stop, hand tightening around Doug's almost painfully. The muffled thumps against the side door had ceased, but so had the shrieking of the alarm and the muted, hypnotic humming that'd been echoing since Halloween night. "We need to get back to the others faster, c'mon, my knee will be fine."
Something in the stillness raised the hairs on the back of Doug's neck. It didn't feel like a respite, there was a wrongness that simultaneously desperate to know what was happening and afraid of the answers he would get. His own hand grasped Darcy's just as painfully tight, and he tugged her into an even faster run toward the others.
"No!" The cry was a gasp as Wanda saw the door slam shut, as she caught a glimpse of Topaz beyond that just seconds prior. She launched herself forward, hands crackling with entropic energy as she sought the shatterpoint. There was none. There was no breaking point for the door back to Avalon because there was no door. Which meant there was no way to get to Topaz...
Wanda slammed her hands against the wall a final time and took a step back, breathing hard, hands held in shaking fists. The temptation to rend an opening, any opening, burned like fire.
"Where's Topaz?" Amanda came forward from the back of the group where she'd - reluctantly, but also wanting to make amends for prior issues - had obeyed her former student's order to fall back and protect those fleeing the chaos. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead, there were a number of cuts in her leather jacket and she was wobbling on her feet with exhaustion, but still she came forward, conducting the mental headcount that came at the end of every mission. "She was right behind you, she should... Wanda, what happened?"
Amanda's voice cut through the noise in Wanda's head and her hands dropped uselessly by her side. Moving to face Amanda, she felt strain at her ribs - she wasn't sure if there was a cut or a break but she'd deal with that later. Taking a shaky breath, she responded, "I do not know. She was right behind us and then the door..." Red sparks of chaos danced across her knuckles. "Closed. I..." Her voice grew quiet but urgent. "I cannot sense it with my powers. Can you?"
“No.” It was both a response to Wanda’s question and a reaction to the situation. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Don't worry. Topaz had said, and here she was, gone. “I can’t feel anything. She can’t be gone, it’s not possible…” Amanda’s voice rose to a high edge, exhaustion and pain and loss, far too much loss combining to push her towards hysteria. She lunged at the wall where the door to Avalon had been, pounding on it with her fists. “TOPAZ!”
Between one blow and the next, the entirety of Kyle Gibney slammed into the wall, shoulder first. It did not give, and he pushed away to slam into it again. "Someone..." He stood, and took a step back. "Get me" another slam at the wall. "A chainsaw." And another, just as ineffective. "Movemovemove..." Doug repeated as he kept moving full-tilt for the door. If Amanda or Kyle couldn't breach with magic or physical force... "C'mon, make a hole," he said roughly, taking Amanda by the shoulders and spinning her toward Wanda, then giving Kyle a hard shoulder check toward where Darcy was trailing him. With the area in front of the doorway clear, he put his right hand up against the door. "Find me a hole, guys. Find me a crack, find me -anything-." Any microscopic crevice that the nanites might detect where the naked eye could not. He could jam in and get leverage, to hell with allergic reactions to magic, he had an EpiPen on him, this was for -Topaz-...
~error~ ~error~ ~foreign energy detected~ ~error~ ~zero rupturebreachinterstice found~ ~error~ ~errorErROrERROR~
Doug's hand moved more frantically along the surface. The doorknob might have been a decorative bit of rock for all the lack of function it gave. No keyhole, no seam, no hinge... The back of Doug's nanite hand began to crawl and start to flex away from the door. "Come on!" he yelled at it.
~ERROR~ ~user input dougramseycypher unable to complete~ ~abort process~
"GODDAMIT!" Doug yelled, driving his left hand into the door hard enough that a crack of bone could be heard. He stared down dumbly at the trickle of blood on his left hand, and the twitching of his right. Punching...his brain raced, trying to remember who else was in the area.
"AMERICA!" he roared, spinning to look for the dimension-hopper. "GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"
Doug's voice terrified her into a sprint. She slid to a stop in front of the door that was no longer there. "What happened? Wait, where..." she turned in a circle, then again. "Where's Topaz?"
Doug pointed at the sheer wall with the image of a door somehow embedded inside it. "I need you to hit that as hard as you possibly can."
The world dropped out from beneath her feet, her knees turned to water. Desperation stiffened them back up. "I got this?" She said uncertainly. She stepped up to the wall, foot raised, and slammed it into the brick as hard as she could.
No stars appeared. The Multiverse did not open beneath her foot.
'Crisis now stupid, you can cry about Topaz later.' Darcy shoved down the sob trying to crawl out of her throat, blinking a few times until she was sure she could talk without tears. "This is not helping, everyone back up." Her voice was loud and sharp, oddly emotionless as it cut through the noise with ease. "NOW." Once she had everyone's attention she moved forward. "Breaking your bodies on a wall will not bring Topaz back. Do something useful."
She turned to Doug first. "Take Amanda to Marie-Ange, tell her what happened, ask her to either do the team announcement or text me to do it. Then go to medical, or I will send Clarice after you. Jubilee, please inform Felicia. Wanda." She frowned at the older woman. "I am sorry that I need to ask this of you, but please inform Kurt and Hope. I will inform the others, and send out a mansion-wide notice once it is done. The rest of you..." she trailed off, sweeping a hand at the boxes and various bits in the room. "Please help finish packing and moving. If it has a hazard label, leave it for now. Storage in any of the side rooms that are open is fine. Matt, please help direct storage versus one of the eXcalbur offices still in use. Any questions?"
Doug's emotions were running high, and he only barely bit back the urge to lash out at Darcy for her cold precision, so like Laurie. But he knew she was right. And Angie would know...at the very least, she would know if there was still hope to be had. He nodded sharply, falling in easily as Darcy's second in command. For instance, he could see mulish stubbornness in every inch of America's long frame as she continued to slam ineffectually at the barrier. That was likely to be a problem. "America. America!" he said sharply, but she was past getting her attention with words. "Namor, could you please..." He nodded toward America. Of the people at hand, the Atlantean was probably the only one who stood a chance of strong-arming and restraining her long enough for her to see reason.
Then he gathered Amanda from Wanda, not sure if the Brit would accept his supportive arm around her, but giving it a shot anyway. And with that, he steered her toward the exit, already fishing for his phone with his free hand.
“’m fine,” Amanda said, but her voice was distant, barely audible. “Don’t worry about me, find Topaz, we have to find Topaz…” But despite her words she let Doug lead her away, knowing that for now, at least, things were hopeless.
A clearing of the throat broke the hopelessness, at least momentarily.
"The loss of sister in arms is truly regrettable, and We will remember her sacrifice."
Namor's tone was completely subdued as he stood behind the crowd, imperiously letting the tide of emotions break around him like water around a rock. Until he decided to continue, "Anyway. These boxes are very unlikely to move themselves." He helped underscore this point as he broke stance to retrieve a box from a non-unresponsive golem. "A regrettable loss of magic."
Was this a comment about Topaz or the previously animated statues? Only Namor knew.
Alani blinked at the Atlantean, still struggling to piece things together -- because Topaz, no Topaz around was not something she could easily process, let alone on top of the sickness she'd been feeling since having something go through her. She followed slowly after him, a little wobbly, but the sounds of the younger woman hitting the wall were reverberating in her stomach. She blankly took hold of the box in his hands before nodding her head towards America. "America, he said grab America, she... Can you grab America, Namor? Please?" She was not going to start crying right now, they needed to finish moving things.
This was met with a long sigh. "We suppose it will save on repair bills later."
Box now out of hand, the prince rolled his eyes a little as he approached the frenzied "America." Why anyone would name someone after this feted country escaped the Atlantean's understanding, but he could understand grief and a need for a target. He could not empathize, but... his next words, whispered softly behind the woman to empathize how they were only for her, were even more condescending than usual. "We see that you do not have -'this.'- Or much of anything that might help. The most valuable thing you can do is stop."
Grab America. Grab her attention. Grab her ire. One of those.
He got all three. She pulled back on her punch at the last second, not letting it land. A fist-fight between the two of them would only result in property damage. "I could have done it before you idiots broke my powers." Her voice cracked, just a bit, on the last word.
Jubilee had been trying to this point to keep Molly and Alani from going off the deep end, talking to them quietly as everyone else tried what they could to get Topaz back. It was time for them to get going though, there were people who would need to know before this was broadcast to everyone else, and it would need to be said to everyone else.
"We need to go, I'm sure all of you have people you can think of that need to know before this gets like, spread everywhere. So like, I get it, I do. But we gotta go, and you all need to go tell people what's happened while I find Fi."
"This is bull crap," Molly stomped her foot, a worried, annoyed, and sour look on her face.: "I told you we should have just left it or blown it up but now it got Topaz!" she then added, clenching her fists. Turning, she stomped her way out of the room with her new shield. "I'm going to the lab to figure something out. And yeah yeah, I'll tell people what happened first."
Taking a few deep breaths and clenching his fists, Matt had liked Topaz, she was a spitfire and so smart. To lose her. Life continually showed that it was unfair. Nodding, he squared his shoulders, "We mourn later. Now, we work," he stated, wishing that weren't the case. He hated losing people.
Once everyone had dispersed to finish the work or start notifying people, Darcy moved away to do her own notifications. Her feet led her to Topaz's office, where she slid down to the floor with a thump, arms going around her knees and shoulders shaking as she lost the battle with her tears.
A few minutes later her phone buzzed, an unpleasant reminder that she had things to do. She carefully dried her face, sending texts to Team Magic with an apology for not telling them in person, then texted Maya. That done, she slid her phone back into her pocket and stood, the small lantern on Topaz's desk catching her eye. She crossed the room to flick it on, watching it fill the room with gentle light.
"You got all of us out, Topaz. I'll find a way to bring you home, no matter what I have to do. I promise. But for now, a small light to guide you back."
She turned to leave, firming her shoulders and chin as she slipped out the door and quietly pulled it shut. She had people to inform and a job to do. Her emotions could wait.
