Behold A Pale Horse - Part 5
Jan. 7th, 2024 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsConduit comes online.
The sounds of combat were mixing with those of panic as the district was caught between those looking to fight and those trying to flee. Atop the Fabian Building, they had a bird's eye view of the surrounding blocks.
First things first, communications. Darcy set the case containing the rifle she'd been practicing with carefully on the concrete of the roof, then made sure her comms were clipped into place comfortably and securely under her noise-muffling headphones. She caught the muffled end of what might've been Angie's voice as they turned on, and she focused inward for a minute, sending a sliver of consciousness into the device until voices were sharp and clear. "Conduit reporting in," she finally broadcast. "In place and getting set up."
That done, she turned to the case, letting the chatter wash through her mind in the background as she focused on assembly and getting into the right headspace to actually shoot people, not targets. No pressure to take her first shots in a loud, chaotic environment where she'd be protecting some of her own. Nope. Worry and panic were buried deep, locked away for the smooth clarity and cold logic she needed in battle.
Her scope didn't need adjusting, and her sightlines were good. No spotter, but they were spread thin. She'd make do, but "Tarot, if you get a chance to send one of ours up, I could use a second set of eyes with a mouth to relay things."
Death enters the battle for the first time.
Amber eyes watched a clot of men vandalizing the window of a respectable local business that just so happened to cater to a clientele in need of clothing somewhat more specialized than merely Big and Tall. Ah, the Friends of Humanity -- or possibly the Sapiens League, he couldn't be bothered to keep them straight. Those would be a loss to no one, although they certainly came in useful at the moment. Clan Akkaba itself didn't have the numbers to kettle the residents of an entire neighbourhood. Bigots, on the other hand, were never in short supply. You didn't even have to pay them to show up.
The man who had been Marius Laverne shook his head. It was all so small.
Death stood with one foot braced on the ledge of the roof, elbow propped on his knee to observe the streets below as the wind whipped at his dark hair. It had been a long time since he'd been to District X; community had never really been his scene, and he'd never been wholly comfortable amidst dense concentrations of mutants. He'd once told Jennie he avoided the place for much the same reason an alcoholic might avoid bars. Now looking down upon it was like being a god gazing upon an anthill.
Such were his thoughts when the ledge gave way.
Taloned fingers gouged deep into the brick. Shards of stone and mortar rained around him as the Horseman twisted in mid-fall, a second arm flashing out to bury itself next to the first to slow him. Armoured as he was, he spent his rapid descent down the side of the building more puzzled than alarmed.
He hit the pavement with both feet beneath him. Death flexed his talons back into fingers and looked up at the trail of ruin he'd left behind.
"Well," he said, "that was odd."
"What's odd is why you look like Sauron from Lord of the Rings with a car emblem on your chest now. What the heck happened, Marius?" Molly said. She and Gabe'd been scouting to find their target, and when he yeeted off the building it'd caught her attention.
Death turned to the young woman. She'd grown since last he'd seen her, but her mutagenic signature was unmistakable. His eyebrows lifted in recognition.
"Well," said the Horseman, "you lot got here fast, didn't you."
"Yeah," Gabriel said with a shrug, projecting arrogance that was far from what he felt. "I mean, you know. That's kind of my thing. And you made yourself pretty easy to find." He tried to assess the man. He hadn't known Marius particularly well, one of those things that was astonishingly easy in a mansion the size of a graduating class private school. But he knew enough of the other man's powers to know that he was a dangerous antagonist.
The former X-Man glanced at Gabriel and gave him a nod of equally vague acknowledgement, as if checking a name off an internal rolodex. "That's a bit unfortunate. I rather hoped I wouldn't run into anyone from the old world, endangered species that we are. Well, stay or go as you please. Makes no difference in the end."
As he spoke the Horseman's posture eased into something cold and predatory, and the man began to change. His skin was darkening against the ash grey of his armour, drinking light. The planes of his skull began to swell forward, shifting his features with the inexorable pressure of tectonic plates as it built extra layers of thickened bone. The transformation sheared his face of humanity until what looked back at them was nothing more than a skull.
"Well?" he said, sunken amber eyes falling on each of them in turn. "What's it to be, then -- stay, or go?"
Molly narrowed her eyebrows, steeling herself against Marius' new look and how familiar it was to an old red, spiky friend. "That's a neat trick. Did you go to the HR Giger school of creepy? Gotta say, you get dumber the more evil you become. Course we're staying. You on the other hand... I might punch into space if you think of hurting anyone," she said, folding her arms. "So how about go and torment the Nostromo for a bit? We'll pretend this never happened."
The Horseman sighed. "Ah, well. Violence it is."
The man whirled. With an explosive burst of speed he lunged, talons first -- towards Gabriel.
Gabriel, startled out of his disgust over Marius's alien-like form, took a split-second to sigh. Then he used his own powers to sprint several yards down the block, putting Marius between him and Molly. "You know," he called to Molly, "that is not really the de-escalation tactic we were looking for."
He bounced on the balls of his feet as he studied Marius's new form. "Not your best look," he said. "Neat trick, though."
The Horseman recovered quickly for a man who'd just found his hands full of nothing. Death turned towards the taunt to regard Gabriel with mild curiosity. "Yours as well," he remarked. "Maybe I should've made the effort to be a bit more social. I never was sure how to interpret your mutation, but it seemed gauche to ask."
"First rule of fight club, right?" It was ironic that Gabriel was now attempting to buy him and Molly some time. "And I'm more of a show-don't-tell kind of guy anyway. Mostly because all this is beyond my comprehension." He gave a casual shrug, as if they hadn't turned the streets of New York City into the site of a souped-up powers showdown.
Death gave him an appraising look. "Well, I've some time to kill yet, and as you might imagine mutations are something of a special interest of mine."
There was a sulfurous rush of air, and suddenly a hand cold as a corpse wrapped around Gabriel's neck.
"We'll just call this continuing education," Death said into his ear as something sharp began to prickle his skin.
Gabriel gave a small yelp at the pain. And the grasp triggered something else in him, something that had been lurking since Olivier. Rage took in. Using his powers, he jammed a speed-propelled elbow at the man's exposed neck to throw him off balance and knock the wind out of him.
Freed from the other man's grip, he sped back to where Marius had originally started. He was angry, now; it was clear from his eyes as he rubbed at his neck. "Not into choking, you sick fuck."
The blow sent Death staggering back a few paces, though it did not have the efficacy it would have on someone with normal anatomy. The Horseman was clearly armoured in more ways than one. He straightened, rolling his neck from side to side.
"Did I stoop to claiming it would be 'just a little prick'?" he asked mildly. "There's no need to sully a bit of light cannibalism with innuendo. The demonstration is helpful, however. As you said, show, not tell."
The man blurred again, and a leg like a steel bar scythed into Gabriel's ankles. As Gabriel went down, Death completed the arc and rose fluidly back to his feet.
Gabriel cried out in pain; he had not seen the blow coming, and even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to prevent it. Teleportation, if that's what this was, eluded his grasp. But he would not give Death the satisfaction he sought. "And what," he practically spat as he rose to his feet, assuming a kind of fighting stance, "did you learn?"
The Horseman cracked his knuckles, unhurried. "Power identification is a matter of experience. I've become quite good at it over the years, but every so often I come across a more exotic one that gives me pause. Practical application allows me to sort out what I see."
Another blur, but not to close distance yet -- now he was several yards to Gabriel's left, still sizing the younger man up.
"No markers for physical enhancement despite your apparent speed," Death continued, "and I sense nothing to indicate the ability to affect any sort of spatial distortion. But you've something in common with energy manipulation, so certainly you are moving something about. Based on the evidence I think I've just about got it figured. Let me know if I'm close."
Death finished flexing his fingers, and turned his open palm towards Gabriel. A ring of jagged teeth gaped obscenely back at him.
"Are you perhaps the sort of man who has developed a visceral hatred of 'Time in a Bottle'?" asked the Horseman.
A sound somewhere between a crackling and a humming noise was heard as two rounds of electricity belonging to a small drone shot at Death's side and lower back from overhead.
"Am I interrupting the golden oldies reminiscing?" came the voice from the drone, which sounded like Molly, who was nowhere to be found. "Good. Zap zap motherforker."
Death's muscles seized at the current. The shock was not organic in origin: nothing his mutation could absorb. Fortunately his other enhancements compensated for it, at least enough to allow him to teleport out of the drone's range. Barely missing a beat, the Horseman gouged a chunk of concrete from the curb and hurled it at the drone with pin-point accuracy. It exploded in a sad shower of metal and circuitry.
"Suppose I deserved that for neglecting you. My apologies, Molly. That was impolite of me." Death cast about for the drone's controller, orange eyes scanning the sidestreets.
Another electric zap erupted at him from another drone strategically hovering nearby.
"Don't worry about it," Molly said, this time right next to him, her eyes glowing purple as she cold-clocked him with a punch, using the zap as a distraction.
For all of Gabriel's time manipulation, his strength had still been that of a baseline human. Molly's was not. The blow sent Death flying into a storefront with an impact so great a piece of his ashen armour went spinning across the street.
"Nice shot," Death remarked, slowly extracting himself from the debris and climbing back to his feet. While he spoke to her, his eyes were now trained on the drone. "Those are new. Interesting."
He shifted out again, and suddenly one hand gripped Molly's forearm while the other clamped itself around her shoulder.
"But a bit less useful in close quarters, eh?" the Horseman continued. "No worries, you're a bit too tough to bite. But as your joints are still constrained by the normal range of motion--"
The hand gripping her arm jerked back, hard and at an unnatural angle, and Molly's shoulder popped -- followed by searing pain.
"Ah, good," said Death. "Wondered if that would work."
Molly let out a shriek, her knees buckling out from under her, her eyes blurring with agony and tears.
"Molly!" Gabe was stunned. He could not recall a time he had never seen Molly, who he thought of as being damn near invulnerable, in physical pain. In fact, he'd thought of launching her at Marius like a cannonball, the way he'd fastball specialed a diamond Emma. But there was little chance of that now.
He needed time to think. But the most immediate thing was to get Marius off Molly, and so he powered up with a whirl and tried to slide tackle Marius and sweep his legs out from under him.
The augment to Gabriel's speed did accomplish one thing: Death actually stumbled, releasing Molly in the process. Unfortunately it didn't do anything to alleviate the sensation that Gabriel had just swept his legs into a steel beam.
The Horseman righted himself, brushing away a curl of hair that had fallen over his sunken eyes. He regarded Gabriel and Molly in turn.
"Seems we could do this all day," Death said. "However, I really should be off. The offer still stands: you lot are free to stay or go as you please, I'll not stop you. If you choose the former, well . . . don't say you weren't warned."
Death bent at the waist in an ironic bow, and disappeared.
It'd been a long time since Molly had felt pain, and now she swam in it, crawling along a blurred street. The silence in Marius' absence was deafening. How long had he been able to do that? What would he do next?
Would they be able to stop him before he set out to do what he came to do?
After Gabriel and Molly distract Death, he runs across Arthur as well as the mansion’s newest resident.
It wasn't difficult to identify the mercenaries. Unlike members of the FOH or Sapiens League, the hired guns had a tendency to stick together in tight units that eschewed acts of vandalism or spouting violent rhetoric. Instead, they moved with a business-like purpose that was in some ways even worse. Hate was raw, visceral, and human. Wetwork was a business transaction. There was an extra layer of insult when the only value placed on a life was the number of zeros it added to their bank account.
The man sighting down his gun at the nearest civilian wasn't interested in such things. This was not the sort of job which attracted great philosophical thinkers, at least not in operatives of his level. Introspection interfered with a paycheck.
He squeezed the trigger.
"Oh, not today."
This was delivered by the sudden appearance of a 40-something blonde man in the shooter's scope. This was in and of itself enough to jar the mercenary's focus for a split second, but what made it even odder was the interloper's smile. It was a little remorseful, or sad — like a disappointed teacher or uncle. It was not the smile of someone stuck in the middle of a gunfight, or someone who was about to be shot. Which this man was about to be. Another target, another zero.
The shooter pulled the trigger. Nothing.
The blonde man sighed a little and began to advance slowly, but there was that disconnect again. The target moved like he didn't have a care in the world, like he was out for a casual stroll. He didn't have a single concern in the middle of a disaster zone. Mutant.
Pull, again. Nothing. Despite his better judgment and training, everything was just askew enough to circumvent years of procedure and honed instinct. The shooter looked down to check his gun. Nothing wrong.
It was at this moment that the blonde man closed the distance between the two of them. His concerned smile was the last thing the mercenary had the chance to blink at before the combatant snapped the shooter's own gun straight back up into his face, laying him flat. The force of the impact and the unlikely angle he hit ensured this man would be seeing nothing for a good minute.
Arthur sighed to himself. The take down prompted the rest of the mercenary's company to collectively lay their sights on the man sitting over their cohort. More guns were raised. Sights were locked. One individual tried to report in about a powered individual to a field commander, but all they could get was static. Arthur sighed again.
The next minute, if it was even a minute, was a blur of missed shots and the clatter of knives missing their targets only to land in highly inconvenient places such as allies' upper thighs or forearms. A few carefully aimed shots jammed or shot wild, hitting other militant hostiles. This tableau of failure was juxtaposed against the sight of the blonde man rolling, blocking, and parrying the company's response as a trail of yellow light trailed from his left eye.
He rolled to one knee, panting, as the mercenaries all lay behind him.
"Group on 4th neutralized," Arthur commented into a bluetooth headset feeding into the phone at his side. There weren't many witnesses to what had just happened, mostly if only because it was more logical to run away from the gunfire. A twinge of red hair in the fleeing crowd caught his attention briefly from the corner of his eyes, but then... a more pressing concern.
"There were reports of a..." There was a loud explosion as a gun backfired impressively, followed by the sight of a sniper falling from his perch to the city block below. "Nevermind."
The sight of a set of drones in the air did grab the man's attention, however, and he moved with renewed purpose to make sure the area was clear.
Something heavy scraped beneath his foot. It was a piece of plate armour, cracked, with a sickly grey-green sheen to it. Definitely not standard issue for paramilitary groups. Etched across it was a symbol of some kind — possibly an abstract eye. The dust and dents on its surface suggested it had traveled some distance before it came to rest.
Huh. Curious.
Arthur bent over, momentarily distracted, to examine the fallen object. His eye still shined like a beacon, an underscore to how he was overclocking his power continuously to shift probability. On the edge of his senses he imagined he could feel the effects like a phantom limb: fallen debris providing safety instead of hazard, shots going wide, doorways in alleys at just the right moment for fleeing civilians. His luck stretched wider and farther than he had ever tried to flex it before, and the effect both made his eye ache and his mind feel stretched to a point where he could almost see the threads tying everything together. Decision, reaction. Luck, misfortune. Jam a gun, block a line of sight, have a power line trip and spark. Trade it all for the safety of innocents.
Yet the self-conscious, immediately aware, Arthur Centino was focused on this thing that didn't belong. He blinked, squeezing his eyes tight, and emptied his mind. No thoughts, just the universe. And… spinning briefly, he opened his eyes to register a looming figure posed ominously on a nearby rooftop. A figure dressed in the same grey-green and with the same symbols.
“Tarot,” he pinged Marie-Ange like he was in an action movie, “I have a piece of Death’s armor. We could learn something. Cover me.”
Arthur’s bare hand had barely ghosted against the harsh gray-green metal of Death’s armor before he saw. He saw. Oh god, he saw.
*
*
The girl with the red hair stood in the street. She was always pale, but somehow the whipcord tension of her body made the contrast between her face and hair more prominent, tilted up toward the winter sky; the fists clenched at her sides with blanched knuckles.
She swallowed, her throat moving, and seemed to steel herself, eyes closing, reaching for something unseen.
When her eyes opened, light burst, and in the same moment, invisible forces moved: Not a wall, but a cube, crushing inward on itself with the man on the rooftop in the middle.
To no effect.
Death cocked his head as he felt something shudder through him: pressure, then release, like his ears popping at a high altitude. Someone had just tried something on him.
Slowly, the Horseman straightened.
The lack of any reaction - barely a twitch - and no sign of damage made the girl take a step back; ashamed, she planted her feet, her eyes fixed on the symbol on his chest.
(That wasn't everything. Not even close.)
The glow in her left eye grew brighter and more intense, and the buildings around the man rattled - glass shaking against windowpanes, fragments of concrete or brick tumbling down facades - as not a cube but something more like a telekinetic dodecahedron surrounded the man from all sides. Each face was a different strength and frequency, psionic energy adjusted on the fly to ensure that at least a few hit whatever was cancelling them out.
The world around him seemed to shiver with heat-haze. Death raised a hand to press against the invisible wall as it grew closer, letting the force gently propel it back towards his chest as it advanced. The air took on a close, almost muffled quality as the construct began to compress, then compress again -- only to once more disappear the instant it met the resistance of Death's body.
"Ah, telekinesis," he concluded.
The blaze from Hope's eye didn't disguise the pure fear on Hope's face as Death absorbed what she had thought would be an undodgeable attack - and, in fact, he hadn't dodged it, because he hadn't needed to. She swallowed again, convulsively, and her head swung around, trying to spot someone she knew - preferably someone with Omega-level powers of a different type. But there wasn't anyone; in her panic, she didn't even clock if there were mutants nearby. She jogged further down the street, trying to get a better vantage.
Her eyebrows creasing with effort, she tried again; but instead of pure telekinetic energy, this time the roof around Death roiled, cracking like rapid gunfire, and rolled upwards, rubble turned into projectile weaponry that shot at the lone figure with speed and precision.
He was not having good luck with rooftops today, Death thought as he leapt away from the epicenter. The shrapnel bounced harmlessly from the instinctive telekinetic shield -- far less polished than the dodecahedron that had attempted to crush him, but just as strong. Even without the borrowed power it would have been little more than a nuisance, but the unseen telekinetic seemed intent on pressing the point.
Death considered. His attacker was almost certainly somewhere with a direct sightline to the roof, likely facing towards the western wall if they had the right angle to see him from street level. He turned to scan the street and saw -- a light. And an aura.
The Horseman narrowed his eyes, and vanished.
Hope craned her neck, squinting, trying to see if it had worked - if it had had any effect at all. As she let the debris fall, she relaxed slightly; there was no sign of the Horseman still standing. He must be down.
There was a faint gust of sulfur, and a voice directly behind her said:
"Excuse me. Kindly desist."
The small girl whirled around, choking back a scream, and took an instinctive step back, throwing up a telekinetic shield between them just as instinctively. Her eyes were a little too bright, and she swallowed convulsively. The sound of cracking surrounded them.
Two chunks of concrete tore themselves from opposite ends of the street and slammed into Death, pinning him in the centre. Or such would have been the case had the Horseman not already teleported again, this time directly in front of Hope's shield.
"We don't know each other," said Death, wholly unbothered by the crash of concrete harmlessly clattering to the ground behind him. His orange eyes burned within the sunken ridges of his death's head. "And as such I am willing to attribute this to a bit of high spirits. I advise you to be on your way before you force me to break a personal rule and beat a literal child."
The shielding reassembled itself as the girl jerked back another few steps, tears now blatantly standing in her eyes - or at least the one visible, the other now a blaze of light. The girl had to swallow again before her voice would work; but in the background, rubble was beginning to float in a wide radius, and cracks not just in sidewalks but in the roadways were forming. “You’re going to end the world,” she said, her pitch wrong - afraid, not angry.
"This particular part of it, certainly. Nothing to be done for it. There's no harvest without the wheat." Telekinetic counter-eddies began to pulse against the floating debris, a perfectly opposing force. Death's eyes burned cold.
"If you insist on becoming one more stalk, on your own head be it."
Two things happened at once:
Cracks in the roadway tore outward like fault lines, and giant pieces of asphalt and concrete flew relentlessly inward toward Death.
A short rod hit Hope Summers' palm and telescoped out in both directions, seams lighting with the same glow that was now blazing from Hope's left eye, and in one motion she stabbed forward with the psi-staff, almost the full weight of her telekinesis behind the motion.
The staff and the concrete found only empty space. There was a shift in the air behind her, and a telekinetic blow slammed into her from behind. It joined her own momentum to hurl her face-first into the very storm she'd just created. Two colliding fronts of energy clashed as Hope was driven hard into the locus of debris, churning the rubble into a nightmare of stone and chalk that battered and tore from every side. No show of power, no show of skill, only a brutally efficient redirection of her own force.
"Well," Death said, two fingers genteelly massaging one temple as he regarded the remains, "if I must beat a child, at least I can honestly say I've yet to raise an actual hand against one."
Grit and pebbles crunched beneath his boots as the Horseman strode towards the settling heap. The peculiar staff protruded like a flagpole, marking the location of a dirty patch of red hair. The dust was so thick it was difficult to tell if she was moving.
A feeling of static hung in the air as Death casually closed the distance, a little hum as the world waited for what was about to unfold. The sunny sky illuminated the area in a brilliant light, leaving any attempt to hide or slink into the shadows extremely unlikely. The hum pitched upward, now a slight crackling. Unseen, static electricity arced between the rubble and debris. A tingling sensation washed over the Horseman, and the tumblers of reality began to spin.
There wasn't a true sound. Nothing but a sharp snap as a bolt of lightning struck Death on a cloudless day. The air was filled with the sudden, metallic taste of ozone and smell of chlorine.
It was like being struck by the drones again, but worse. Death's skull rang with a sensation that was half-blow, half-pressure as his muscles seized and heart stuttered. He stumbled to his knees, his mind spinning with one wild thought:
Storm?
A TWSSHH cut through the air as a few thrown daggers veered wide and scattered, just missing the prone Horseman. Another, singular knife followed in quick succession to hit Death in a grab of attention.
Longshot stood silhouetted against the bright sunlight without any of the easy charm that defined Arthur's normal body language. The sun bleached his hair near white, and the trailing starburst of golden light from his left eye washed away his own features.
"Leave her," he rumbled in a low tone.
In the rubble, the girl coughed and struggled to right herself; but when she managed, leaning on the staff and falling back once, and saw Arthur, her expression opened — fear erased. "Dad!"
The disorientation had passed. Death climbed back to his feet, absently prying the knife from one shoulder and tossing it aside. It bounced bloodlessly across the pavement.
"Dad?" The Horseman glanced from Hope to Arthur. "Ah," he said, recognizing the newcomer's power signature. "Apologies, Arthur. I wasn't aware she had any connexion to the mansion. I did offer her several opportunities to leave."
Hope's face dropped, confusion replacing relief with dark flush that spoke to a heart dropping like a stone in water. "Who's Arthur?"
The figure in the distance raised a finger to tap his earpiece. "Tarot," this wasn't the gruff tone from before, but a low whisper in the emergency line, "I've got eyes on the civilian. Death is on scene. I'm..." He sighed, rolling out his shoulders. "I have to save them."
An unusual profanity came through the earpiece, and then a pause. On the other side of the comm, a card came up the Page of Pentacles. Not Arthur's own card, which was in a box in the Snow Valley offices. "Go.” Another card, and then it was the Wheel of Fortune, arc deco art hand-drawn by Marie-Ange. Of course it was. "I will get you whatever coverage I can muster.”
He advanced.
"Marius," and the shift in tone could have caused whiplash as he resumed character. He strode forward, all Hollywood red carpet swagger. "I hear you're had some work done."
The Horseman made a sweeping gesture with both hands to encompass his armour. "Requirement of the job. Must we really do this? I'm trying to concentrate, yet you people persist in your interruptions."
"Amazing. You people," Arthur’s accent shifted with those words, trying on Marius’ parlance like a borrowed hat, "Yeeew people. Fear me mortals, I am Death. I am on a schedule."
The blonde man slowly circled in a perimeter around the Horseman, twirling another dagger between his fingers. He never broke the border of his previously scattered knives. The smell of chlorine was fading from the air, transitioning to something less sharp and more cloyingly sweet. Beyond that, there was a low, bassy shift of the earth as his power continued to build.
The man's eye was pulsing steadily. Unseen, the threads of probability tensed.
He let loose the dagger in a fluid flourish, and its handle bounced squarely off Death's forehead. Another lucky shot.
"Sorry," Arthur said. "I had trouble believing someone could be so melodramatic, and I figured you might not be real. Had to double check, you know?"
The dagger clattered to Death's feet as the Horseman simply stared at him, unimpressed.
"I take this to mean the two of you plan to persist until terminally prevented from doing so, then." With a heavy sigh, the Horseman rolled his neck and took a step forward. "Well, if we must, let's get it over w—"
Death’s intent was the final roll of the dice needed. The taught threads pulled tight, and Arthur’s eye flared.
One has a 1 in 15,300 chance of being hit by lightning.
A sharp boom interrupted the Horseman’s words, followed by a shrill approaching roar. Arthur picked up his pace as he crossed the distance to the fallen Hope.
Only 1 in 8 million people are struck by lightning twice in their lives.
His boots landed close to one of the few scattered knives that one actually struck true, somehow puncturing an intake to a discarded propane tank toppled in Hope’s show of telekinetic force. It hissed as it leaked vaporized gas.
Now, the chances of being in a building collapse are hard to quantify.
Were the swaying walls in the abandoned structure caused by lines of forces, or a result of neglect? Had the previous flooding underscored years of a weakening foundation? Either way, the cracking of concrete joined the building cacophony.
They say the chance of being hit by falling space debris is less than a billion to 1.
The roar crescendoed as everything happened at once. What has previously been only a streak in the sky above New York had steadily grown in size during Arthur’s stalling, the approaching remnant of a discarded rocket fuselage burning bright as it reentered the atmosphere. It struck right in the center of the improvised circle of knives. Right into Death.
At the same time, the gathering forces of stress finally broke the nearby derelict brownstone. Sheets of concrete and drywall fell as the building collapsed into its sinking foundation.
Another strike of lightning was the cherry on top, igniting the gas in a sonorous THWUM.
Arthur vaulted over reigning debris and rolled, scooping the redheaded girl into his arms to just miss being smashed by a slab of concrete. A slab that provided excellent cover for the small canister explosion.
The girl, dazed, blinked hard, dust shedding from her eyelashes. "You're really not him," she said, and for a moment, the devastation of that fact crossed her face; she blinked again, this time to banish tears.
Her answer was a sad smile. "I've only ever been me."
Longshot untucked Hope from his protective embrace, and was careful to make sure she could get her bearings before continuing.
"Now," he began, "Please listen. I just pissed off something way bigger than me, and I have to do this next part by myself. Take these." Arthur's earbuds and (newly cracked) phone were deposited into her shaky hands. "Go find Marie-A—"
An arm like a steel bar hooked itself around Arthur's throat while another snaked around him to sink clawed fingers into his chest.
"That's enough of that."
Death held the stuntman close, his intent quivering on the edge of a knife. In this moment killing and disabling were equally convenient, distinguished only by what particular twist of the muscle he favoured. A thought occurred to him, too, that he was currently holding a potential resource, but probability could be a tricky thing, and thus far he'd yet to encounter a situation his native augmentations couldn't counter with ease.
The future spun like a coin in the air.
Then, at just that moment, the Horseman felt something in the air twist. It had no obvious effect, but the sensation was sharp and intentional -- a message, like a shot across the bow. Something red and familiar.
Something chaotic.
His blood turned to ice.
The grimace of agony painted across Arthur's face twisted into his signature smile. "Good luck," he offered in a rasp.
Death jolted back to himself. He regarded the man in his arms and made a decision.
"I think I will."
The Horseman spun Arthur around and seized the man by the neck, teeth biting into the exposed skin. It was the work of a moment to take what he needed.
Finished, Death tossed the man aside like a discarded candy wrapper.
"No," Hope whispered, darting to Arthur's side; her dirty hands, dropping the comm headphones and the phone, nonetheless hesitated above him. He had hit the same wall they'd sheltered against and was bent at too many wrong angles. "No, no, no." Rather than further contaminate the bleeding wound, she used a firm press of telekinetic energy on his neck and his chest. A thin line of blood began to snake through the dust from her nose to her upper lip, and tears spilled over. "Arthur? Hey, Arthur. Are you — tell me what you need. Please." She threw a desperate look over her shoulder toward Death.
The Horseman didn't even bother acknowledging her. If the girl wasn't going to press the point there was no need to engage further. Really, had she only backed down the first time this entire dramatic tableau could have been avoided.
It didn't matter anymore. There was something else that needed his attention.
Death vanished.
"Miss Hope." Arthur's cracked phone came to life, unexpectedly, comms opening to a lightly accented voice. "This is Tarot. I am not certain what you and Arthur have done, but I just received a NORAD alert and we have Death's location again. If you still retain telekinesis, prepare for more debris. Scarlet Witch is engaging Death."
In search of a safe space, Liam gets drawn into action.
At a pace that could only be described as a scamper, Liam's head poked up over the side of the building from the fire escape. "I was told to come up here?" he said, trying not to panic. That was a riot down below. An actual riot. Holy shit. He was safe up here, right?
Well. There were worse things she could do than use one of the teens as eyes. Maybe. "Redhead with an eyepatch? That's Marie-Ange, she's one of my bosses and helping with coordination." Darcy was all business, but she tilted her head enough for Liam to see a small, hopefully reassuring smile. "Good. How are you with guns? Wait–" she held up a hand. "Bad wording. I could use a set of eyes to help me find targets and relay info to the adults on the ground. I have binoculars, but I can't use them and shoot at the same time. Are you able and willing to do that?"
Her face had settled into a frown as she talked, the enormity of asking one of the kids – Thor's sake, she hadn't even wanted to directly talk X-Force recruitment with Catseye, and she was older than Liam – to help her find targets, no matter how pretty she made the wording. "You can tell me no, because if you tell me yes, Liam, you'll be pointing out targets for me. You won't be directly taking a life, but you'll have informed my choices. Under more normal circumstances, I wouldn't even ask." Under more normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a potential world-ender. They wouldn't be scattered. There wouldn't be Death and magic cultists and bigots all converging in one spot. She wouldn't put that pressure on Liam. It would feel underhanded, and she was fond of the teen.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded, "I've been hunting, I know what spotting is, I've done it," Not hunting for people, but. He'd seen movies. "Just like in video games, right?" he quipped, trying hard to pretend it was okay. Nothing was okay. He was going to be picking people out to die. Even if he didn't pull the trigger, he was just as responsible. He knew that.
"No." Darcy's voice was sharp, and she gestured at Liam to come closer and have a seat. "We don't dehumanize people, not even just long enough to take the shot. It becomes too easy to become monsters ourselves if we do. We acknowledge that we are taking human life, and we don't do it indiscriminately. We think about the costs and the consequences, generally in advance." She sighed, tugging on the hem of her jacket. "You, Tiger, are too young to become a monster. So you will think of them as people, and I will divert to folks on the ground for non-fatal options where possible, and Marie-Ange and I will both trust you to tell me if there's someone that needs immediate help. Are you willing and able to do that? If not, say the word and you can just sit up here and listen to comms instead." And she would try not to smother him in blankets or be terribly overbearing, after, though she was definitely planning on making him cookies for even being in this situation. Maybe therapy, too, if he agreed. Regardless, he'd need an earpiece. She pulled a spare from the case and turned it on, then held it out.
Sitting with Darcy, he murmured, "'Handguns are made for killin, they ain't good for nothing else,'" a rhetorical phrase that clearly meant something to him, as he nodded, solemn and considering. "I can't use that," he indicated the ear piece made for a human- shaped ear, "but I can hear it fine."
Standing with feline grace, Liam wasn't panicked or energized like before. He stood serious, but clear eyed, "Which vantage point do you want me at?"
"You can clip it to your shirt. Tap the X to activate and talk. We'll... figure something out to accommodate your ears. Later." Pity Forge was gone, but Molly and Parker could probably figure something out. She reached out, giving Liam's ankle a squeeze before settling herself on the ground and taking a long look through her scope. Her tablet was on a stand, just in the line of her peripheral sight, blue dots blinking in a sea of heat patterns to indicate Xavier-tech. "I want you to sort of mirror what Doug is doing for Kevin," she said finally, gesturing with her arm to where the two of them had set up further down the roof. "And if you're not sure if something is in my blindspot, relay it to them instead. Kevin has... decades of experience doing this, I trust his shots more than my own."
Terry, Sam and Meggan look to help the wounded and trapped in District X
Driving in Manhattan was a nightmare at the best of times. In the midst of a near riot, it was utterly impossible. Which explained why the compact lost control swerving to escape a couple, hit the curb wrong and slid into the brick wall at an oblique angle and overturned.
Darcy heard the wreck more than she saw it, and the spare pair of binoculars she'd had Liam grab so she'd stop stealing his made another appearance. She cursed to herself, but connected to the radio in the overturned car. "You folks okay?" she questioned.
Her response was a set of groaning moans.
"Okay. I'm gonna send some people to try and safely get you out. Once I do, I'll have them tell you that Conduit sent them. That's me." She disconnected from the radio, eyes searching for people that might be able to help. Her roommate's red hair stood out in the crowd, fluttering in the wind. "Ter. Listen, there's a couple in an overturned car a few blocks away. Grab someone and please try to get them out for medical attention. Tell them Conduit sent you. Forward one block, then left two. You can't miss them, they hit one of the buildings."
Terry turned to look up at Darcy, gave her a thumbs up, then realised she could have just used the comm in her ear, but she wasn't actually used to wearing one. "These shite-suckers come into my -- our. Our home..." She couldn't stop her muttering, but she was focused on the car she could now see, already scanning the people around her for a friendly face. She found one, though it was partially obscured by at least three Friends of Humanity thugs. So, still not bothering to keep her seething commentary to herself, Terry took a deep breath, lined herself up with the arseholes, and pushed her hands forward as she sent a subsonic soundwave rushing toward them.
"Heya, love," Terry said, extending her hand to Meggan even as the last Friend of Humanity twit landed against a wall on top of the other two. "Care t'help me help some others? In the car over there?"
Meggan smiled despite the situation, pleased that that was taken care of for the better. She appreciated Terry’s action. She had managed to get a bit of kickboxing going and fended off one man, getting a good kick to the stomach with one particular move when his seedy friends had leaped into the fray. One had briefly shoved her against a building from behind before she’d quickly gotten her bearings again. She didn’t have to do anything else against them now, she could see that.
She accepted the helping hand, and nodded. “Thank you!” It was a chaotic mess out here, and she was willing to do whatever she could possibly do to help ease that even a fraction, wherever that happened to be. She took in the scene where Terry directed, and her eyes widened at the state of the vehicle. “Of course! Yeah, we’ve got to get them out of there!”
"Brilliant," Terry said. "Let's no' fly over, I'd like t'avoid any of these idjits tossin' shite at us." Stilling holding Meggan's hand, Terry began humming quietly, using the soundwaves she created as the base of a shield for herself and the younger mutant. That'd keep the crowds from getting too close to them and help clear a way to the vehicle. From there, they just had to figure out how to get the car open and the unconscious, injured people out.
Once they had mostly waded through the not much of a crush of people anymore, Meggan shook her head. “We might just need to smash the window, and then we’ll go from there,” she offered. With the state of the car, she doubted that the unlock button would even function correctly anymore. And if it did, well, that other door was a mess, and it probably couldn't respond if it did. Could they then just pull them out of the window, and hope they didn’t hurt them further in the process?
"Can we... try t'break the windscreen?" Terry asked, wincing as someone in the crowd around them slammed something solid soundly against her shield. That'd leave her with a headache tomorrow. "Might manage a bit more room to maneuver? I can break the glass, but it'll get all over the people inside. Have y'any other ideas? Cause I'm happy t'just help with the liftin' and the shieldin'."
“Maybe?” Meggan at last remembered another method of getting in that might just work here. Or so she hoped, since she’d never actually needed to do this trick before. “Yes! Find something nice and pointy, not blunt; we won’t need as much force to break through it. We might be able to hit it just right, probably in the corner, and then get the rest out without it hurting them.”
Looking around, her eyes came across a discarded and half broken ski pole. Who brought a ski pole, of all things, to a riot? Was that good enough?
The crowds on the street were growing thicker as more residents of District X poured out of their houses, but the fighting was most vicious several streets away from them, so while people started pressing against the shield she was keeping up, it wasn't until some of the Friends of Humanity realised how she was keeping people away from herself and Meggan as the younger woman picked up a ski pole that she ran into actual trouble. "I'll help as I'm able," Terry said, her brow furrowing as she shrank the circumference of her shield in an effort to thicken it. "I think we're about t'have some more trouble."
Indeed, a group of six Friends of Humanity members approached, extending their hands to touch the shield, leaning in to put pressure on it. She could hold it for now, so long as they didn't decide to start hammering on it with rocks or something else.
Meggan paused, understanding the urgency; she was monumentally grateful for the fact that Terry had her back. Time was likely growing shorter before they were overwhelmed. She approached the vehicle with alacrity, and really, really hoped this worked like she had read. She lifted the ski pole, supposing reassurances for those within could come once the action was complete, if it was a success.
Still, she couldn't just let them be frightened by the unexpected sight, if they were in a position to see it! "We're going to try something to help you," she called.
She got a better grip on the ski pole even as she positioned it. She would direct tiny blows toward the corner of the driver’s side of the windshield. Quickly, she struck the first time, and then two more times before she paused to see how far she was getting.
Terry heard the stress causing fractures through the glass, though she didn't look behind herself to see them. "Keep it up, love," she murmured, focusing until she'd bunched the soundwaves around them up so tightly nothing happening inside her shield could be heard outside it. "Once you've got the windscreen out, see about their belt buckles t'make sure they're unlatched. I'll swap places with y'so I can get them out, but I won't be able t'talk an' do that at the same time."
Meggan gave it one more whack, the fracture blossoming outward and encompassing the glass. There it went at the last with a loud crunch, and the tinkling of glass. She broke away further areas much easier, increasing the width of the circle around where they needed to be. She peered inside as she worked, having heard a groan. She wasn’t certain how well her words would even penetrate when it came to someone with a probable head injury, but she still tried. “You’ll be somewhere much safer soon. Please hold on.”
When she felt like that was taken care of, she checked it over again quickly, glancing back once to see how Terry was doing; she nodded once at the instructions. She ripped off one jutting shard that would only cause further grievous injury if anyone was dragged across. She brushed away smaller crumbled pieces as best as she could, and stretched in her arm to feel around for the buckle for the first person. There was a click, as she got the first person, then moved toward the second. She hurried to her feet.
“Okay, all’s ready,” she called back.
Terry nodded briefly, checking over her shoulder to see Meggan. She tapped her comm to get Darcy and said, "Alright, Conduit-love. Meggan and I've got a group of Friends of Humanity people surroundin' us. I'm holdin' 'em off for now, but I'm off comms for a bit t'get the injured ones outta the car."
"I've got your group covered for immediate threats," Darcy replied, focusing on her roommate through the scope. There was a brief flash of movement, and she readjusted, sighted the gun pointed at the woman among the crowd of hostiles being held back, and took a slow, deep breath before squeezing the trigger. "Not on my watch, asshole," she muttered, voice just barely loud enough to be heard over the comms.
Meggan gasped, startled as the person went down; she’d tamped down a surprised cry at the last second, but still hadn’t expected that to happen at all. She was trying to focus on the situation surrounding them, but even then, something dangerous could always slip through the cracks. And it almost had, with a person with a gun able to blend in with a crowd of these people so seamlessly.
She shook her head in horror at what might have happened; then, she steadied herself, and glanced over to see how Terry fared with the injured people.
Terry didn't see the impact of the bullet or the man and his gun both falling to the ground, too focused on being as gentle as she could be with the injured pair in the car while removing them, but she did hear it all. Still, she maintained the shield around them even as the crowd pushed closer to it, finally beginning to do what she'd feared they might from the beginning -- beat their blunt-force weapons against it. She winced, hiding the reaction from Meggan as well as the crowd. She'd held shields up longer in the Danger Room while being bombarded with various objects, but this was a bit more concentrated than she'd worked up to and her priorities were split between the delicate job of rescuing people and holding the shield steady.
She switched her priorities from keeping what she and Meggan might say silenced to shoring up the shield protecting them from the violence of the riot. "A little more help here, love," Terry called, reaching to physically steady the first rescuee.
“On it,” Meggan replied. She immediately moved to assist when that first person swayed a bit, and threatened to fall over. When she was reasonably certain the person wouldn’t slump over and get hurt further, she was with Terry to help her with the other one. They just needed to get them out of this situation as carefully as they could.
Sam had been hunting enough times in his life to know the sound of a gunshot, and the quiet that followed when one hit its mark, but in District X - a gunshot typically meant that someone needed help. He fought every instinct in his body telling him to run the other way to follow the sound, and sighed when he saw the riot. "Perfect," he grumbled. "Just what we needed."
As he pressed closer he saw two familiar figures from the mansion in the middle of the crowd. In an instant he used his powers to propel himself towards them, landing just behind the redheaded woman. "Want some help pushin' 'em back?"
Sparing a moment to glance over her shoulder, Terry saw Sam standing at the edge of her shield and gave him a strained smile, allowing Meggan to finish helping the second wreck victim from the car. "Please," she nodded, noticeably pale even considering her natural coloring. The bats and pipes and crowbars banging against her shield had given her a tension headache already.
“There you go, carefully now; we’ve got you,” Meggan whispered. While Terry had been helping out the first person, Meggan had at last finished extricating the second. She helped them gently settle back down onto the street before she did whatever else she could for them. Any relief at all was good to have, especially if it meant eventually getting by the worst of the rioters, and probably getting these poor people into a hospital that much sooner.
Sam pushed himself in front of Terry gently, he took a deep breath and held his arms out allowing his power to grow before pushing it outward, forming his own shield against the rioters. The force of his blast knocked those closest to them backwards. "If we can get the rioters back I can fly out with them, but I ain't leavin' 'til I know y'all have a way out."
“I think we ought to be able to make it over the building just there; we should be able to get away from them, then,” Meggan suggested. Once that was accomplished, if they needed to, they could get wherever else they had to go next. She knew that she could reasonably dodge the worst of the things being flung at her if she was at a good height when she flew, and see who else needed assistance once the two of them had evaded this part of the group.
Sam glanced at Meggan, then at Terry. "You two get one of them and I'll get the other. Y'all look exhausted, don't try to take both. I'll meet you there. Promise."
Meggan gazed over at Terry. Now that she wasn’t so busy, she did notice her paleness. She didn’t like having to put any more strain on her, but at least they weren’t dragging the two around by the ankles as they fled from danger, or something terrible like that. “I think we’d be okay taking her, don’t you? I can get her legs,” she offered as she neared the smaller of the two survivors.
"Aye," Terry murmured, nodding a little dully. She'd let her own shield fall a little when Sam buffered them, relief zinging between her temples in the moment before he and Meggan settled on the plan to move the victims. "Actually, if you'll steady her upper body, I'll just lift from the bottom and if you're flyin' as well, I can keep the shield beneath all of us to block anything they might throw." She considered their situation, then wished she'd been involved in something that involved screaming and flinging things around. She could keep that up for hours without getting tired. Flying was nearly second nature at this point, and at least she'd had plenty of practise flying with Kyle. It was maintaining the shield whilst doing everything else that might do her in. But not until after she'd gotten this woman somewhere safe. "Let's get goin', loves."
Sam waited until he was sure that Terry and Meggan were far enough up that they wouldn't be hit before grabbing the other passenger from the car. He dropped his shield and then allowed the blasts to come from his feet, propelling him and his passenger through the air and after the others. As soon as they were all landed, he glanced between the women. "Everyone alright?"
“I think so? Yes,” Meggan confirmed as they landed with their cargo as carefully as possible. When it came to her, she mostly just had a few scratches from some of the broken glass when she was wielding the ski pole, but it was nothing major, and could easily be taken care of in a little while. Aside from that, she was doing okay. “Terry?”
"Mm... aye," Terry agreed, swaying a little on her feet. She sat down rather abruptly, still maintaining the soundwave keeping the woman from the crash floating just a bit. "Och. Maybe no'," she murmured, accent thickening. "I'll just stay here a mo'."
Sam kept an eye on Terry, hoping that she'd be good enough to fly out of here. "What else can I do? I'm not as tired as you two yet. How can I help?"
Meggan wasn’t sure what she could do for Terry, but she did still want to help; she crouched near the other woman. “Just let me know when you need an extra shoulder, and I’ll be right here for you to lean on.” If she went down, then Meggan wasn’t sure who to break the fall of, between Terry and the levitating crash lady—while she estimated it wasn’t that far of a drop for the latter, she couldn’t say what the effect of a sudden extra shock might do.
She shook her head in response to Sam’s question. Could just being there be enough? “I’m not sure. I half want to go back for the ski pole, or find something else that’s strong enough from the debris, so we can fashion a makeshift stretcher for her, and let Terry rest her powers.”
"You two," Terry said, waving her hand toward Sam and Meggan. "Y'go on. Help others. I'll keep watch o'er these ones here. I'll be fine, now I'm sittin'. Y'shouldn't waste time wi' me. I'll jus' call someone for a pick up."
Sam nodded, and helped the person in his arms lay down gently on the ground. Turning to Meggan he nodded his head slightly, deferring to her directions. “Lead the way.”
Meggan spared another concerned look at Terry before they started off. "If you're sure," she began, before she stopped. She didn't want to just leave her in this state.
Once this was done, she vowed that she would come back in a little while and make sure that someone had come to collect Terry. Meggan signaled to Sam that she was ready, and began to point a few things out. She had spotted a discarded baseball bat and assorted long items on the scene that could be put to good work. And if several people had torn off their shirts in the heat of things, then they could be tied together, just as she had said.
Terry waved the two of them off, watching as they took flight. Pulling her mobile from her pocket, she considered who she might be able to call for assistance - certainly none of the usual suspects, as they were all out helping people in the district. She shook herself a little, finally laying the woman she had hovering to the ground. The other passenger came to tend to her, so Terry let her powers rest a moment, once again feeling that immediate release of tension between her temples. She'd developed a certain sense of throbbing behind that, a sharp thing that almost seemed to stab at the backs of her eyes.
She was fine, though. It wasn't until she hit 'call' for one of her friends from the Community Centre that she felt the tell-tale trickle coming from her nose. Touching it out of pure, simple habit, Terry wasn't surprised to see blood on her fingers. "Shite," she muttered.
Sue and Madin provide a crowd of Akkaba loyalists with an astonishingly bad day.
Clan Akkaba had lost most of their front line shock troops at the hands of multiple losses against the Marauders over the last year. It had forced their magi into the field; a dangerous but necessary risk in order to finally bring back their Morning Lord.
Darcy had grabbed the binoculars from Liam, spinning and pinpointing the small but imposing group in robes clearing their way down the street, people flying, falling, and otherwise scrambling out of their path. There were too many for just snipers to deal with. Shit. Her comm sprang to life at a thought. "Invisible Girl. There's a group of those Akkaba magicians making their way to the center of the District. They're about a block and a half out. Grab—hmm, that Madin person's at the corner of the block, grab them and ask if they'd like to go apeshit on some mutant killers. Rooftop will provide cover as we can. They cannot be allowed to keep making progress towards whatever is happening."
The blonde lifted her hands in a jaunty salute, spinning on a foot for a moment to face the woman on the roof before lowering her hand as she finished the spin vanishing from view as she let her forcefield snap up around her. It wasn't unusual for her to activate a forcefield when she didn't want to be bothered, though this was a very different set-up compared to her usual escapades. It took a little dancing and weaving through the screaming crowd for her to appear crouched at Madin's side, blue eyes flicking around the street.
"I come bearing orders from on high, you know I should really be Angel and not well Angel." A grin touched her lips for a moment before a more somber look replaced it. "Look like we've got a bunch of those magical hooligan people heading over that way. Wanna go jump ‘em with me? I mean, you think they'd know there isn't a game on today, this level of hooliganism is just rude."
Sue talked a lot, Madin noted absently. They were crouched in the lee of a car, snow melt and slush soaking into the knees of their jeans. "Yeah," they said. "Let's fuck some shit up." Madin sent two plasma bolts down the street using the space under the car to shoot from cover.
The blonde tilted her head to the side for a moment before she grinned, a hand dropping to tap Madin on the shoulder, gesturing to the side, "Let's head in that direction, I'll cover us, just tap me on the shoulder before you fire and I'll drop the forcefield for a second."
"Sure." Madin nodded then pointed to a spot halfway down the street, where a dumpster and abandoned car provided a triangle of cover. "Head there. Regroup. Work from that point, if they don't have a sharpshooter up high. I would but I haven't seen anything yet... " They remained crouched and said "On my mark. One. Two." A sheet of plasma went rippling down the road at knee height. "Go! Go!" They stepped out from behind the car, sprinting the fifty feet to cover, feet slipping in the slush and sliding in behind the dumpster as shots rang out.
The blonde watched Madin racing into cover before she calmly stepped out behind him, completely ignoring the angry magicians running rampant before her as she ambled after him checking her nails. Everything about her motion, about her attitude was designed to aggravate and annoy them, not even looking up till she heard their attacks racing towards her, a forcefield snapping up between them. Blue eyes finally glanced up, waving a finger at them as she grinned. "Naughty naughty." slowly she reached up the brush imaginary dust off her top as she took a step forward, her voice a whisper only her comm could pick up. "I'll distract them and hold them off you, you pick them off."
She was insane, Madin though, absolutely stunned. Completely shit nuts insane. "Kettle them. We need to limit their ability to retreat and take the next block over," Madin said. "Can you block the road behind them?"
The blonde grinned, two fingers coming up in a jaunty salute before she vanished, the magicians' bolts burning through the air where she'd once stood. It was an easy mistake to make, staying in the same spot once you turned invisible and one that Sue had made before when she was much younger, almost getting caught by bullet fire when she'd tried to vanish. The blonde might have been cocky, but she had learned a few tricks. Ducking behind the care she held out a hand, brow furrowing in concentration as her invisibility flickered, a forcefield swirling to life around the magicians, its slowly thinning field pressing them together.
A pair of civilians came around the corner, at the far end of the street. Madin swore and hurled plasma at the road in front of them. "Get out of here!" They ran, thankfully. On that, their cover blown, Madin stepped out from behind the dumpster, running at the magicians, plasma knives arcing out of each hand.
The fight close up was a brawl, plasma knives versus magic and physical weapons. Where they had numbers - Madin fell to their knees as something hit them in the back and they stabbed up and back, getting a scream in response - Madin and Sue had power on their side.
The blonde was happy to let Madin act as the hammer, her slowly pressing forcefield acting as an anvil, constantly pressing forward, the pressure from the invisible wall constantly keeping the magicians off balance as Madin tore through their ranks.She tried to watch Madin's back where possible, smaller buckler-like forcefield flaring to life for a moment in intercept a bolt of magic or a weapon's strike where she could see them, the melee was just too chaotic for her to provide more cover and maintaining the wall plus covering her partner was almost too much as she sank to her knees, barely able to focus on the world around her as she tried to maintain multiple fields and stop them from just fizzling out.
The forcefields were invisible but the men's movement made it clear they were there. Madin got back to their feet, and swept a plasma blade in front of themself as a shield. Two of the original six were badly injured. One was possibly dead. That left three and Madin was getting tired. Sue, wherever she was, wouldn't be able to contain this for much longer, either. They swung the blade, hitting the nearest man's arms, plasma searing through flesh.
Darcy caught just the edge of a light show as she turned away from helping Sharon, and repositioned just in time to see plasma sear through flesh. "Ouch," she murmured to herself as she tapped her earpiece. "Madin? Please duck." She watched them obey with a drop and roll, pulling the trigger as soon as they were in motion. Seared hands got a hit that was just off center in the torso. She'd probably clipped a lung. As he fell she squeezed the trigger again, catching one of the hooded magic users in the throat as they raised their hands.
"One more left. If you'll drive up with your knives but stay low, I'll take the last shot. Sue's got you covered nicely."
Madin didn't reply but lunged forward, driving up with their knives, trusting to Sue.
The blonde's head was bowed, eyes staring up through the hair falling over her face as she lifted a hand, giving a thumbs-up to the air, not entirely sure where Darcy was through the pounding headache that was threatening to split her head in two. "Go get them!" She sounded drawn, less ebullient than usual, her hands still outstretched as she pressed her forcefields tighter around the remaining magician and Madin. "Though...do it fast maybe?"
Madin swung left, ducked right, slicing through the man's leg. He fell, screaming. They stopped, gasping, adrenaline and fatigue mixing. He was down but not out of the game. "Overwatch? I can... I can... Do you need me to execute him?" Madin sounded very young as they spoke. "I've. I don't want to but he's..." Energy pulsed around the man's hands. God, please let someone else deal with this.
Darcy was already primed to take the shot and did so without hesitating, letting out a woosh of breath when the energy around the man's hands faded. When she spoke, her voice was kind. "No, hon, we're not going to make you kill people. You two have the clear. I'll cover you just in case, if you want to fall back to the community center."
The blonde picked herself up, dusting off her jeans before looking up at the carnage around them before lifting her gaze to look up at Darcy., "Do you need us anywhere else? I'm good to go if you still need us to keep fighting, otherwise I could really do with a bottle of water and some advil."
"No, you're good to fall back. I'm sending some first aid kits over to the community center for small patch-ups, just look for Cypher."
The sounds of combat were mixing with those of panic as the district was caught between those looking to fight and those trying to flee. Atop the Fabian Building, they had a bird's eye view of the surrounding blocks.
First things first, communications. Darcy set the case containing the rifle she'd been practicing with carefully on the concrete of the roof, then made sure her comms were clipped into place comfortably and securely under her noise-muffling headphones. She caught the muffled end of what might've been Angie's voice as they turned on, and she focused inward for a minute, sending a sliver of consciousness into the device until voices were sharp and clear. "Conduit reporting in," she finally broadcast. "In place and getting set up."
That done, she turned to the case, letting the chatter wash through her mind in the background as she focused on assembly and getting into the right headspace to actually shoot people, not targets. No pressure to take her first shots in a loud, chaotic environment where she'd be protecting some of her own. Nope. Worry and panic were buried deep, locked away for the smooth clarity and cold logic she needed in battle.
Her scope didn't need adjusting, and her sightlines were good. No spotter, but they were spread thin. She'd make do, but "Tarot, if you get a chance to send one of ours up, I could use a second set of eyes with a mouth to relay things."
Death enters the battle for the first time.
Amber eyes watched a clot of men vandalizing the window of a respectable local business that just so happened to cater to a clientele in need of clothing somewhat more specialized than merely Big and Tall. Ah, the Friends of Humanity -- or possibly the Sapiens League, he couldn't be bothered to keep them straight. Those would be a loss to no one, although they certainly came in useful at the moment. Clan Akkaba itself didn't have the numbers to kettle the residents of an entire neighbourhood. Bigots, on the other hand, were never in short supply. You didn't even have to pay them to show up.
The man who had been Marius Laverne shook his head. It was all so small.
Death stood with one foot braced on the ledge of the roof, elbow propped on his knee to observe the streets below as the wind whipped at his dark hair. It had been a long time since he'd been to District X; community had never really been his scene, and he'd never been wholly comfortable amidst dense concentrations of mutants. He'd once told Jennie he avoided the place for much the same reason an alcoholic might avoid bars. Now looking down upon it was like being a god gazing upon an anthill.
Such were his thoughts when the ledge gave way.
Taloned fingers gouged deep into the brick. Shards of stone and mortar rained around him as the Horseman twisted in mid-fall, a second arm flashing out to bury itself next to the first to slow him. Armoured as he was, he spent his rapid descent down the side of the building more puzzled than alarmed.
He hit the pavement with both feet beneath him. Death flexed his talons back into fingers and looked up at the trail of ruin he'd left behind.
"Well," he said, "that was odd."
"What's odd is why you look like Sauron from Lord of the Rings with a car emblem on your chest now. What the heck happened, Marius?" Molly said. She and Gabe'd been scouting to find their target, and when he yeeted off the building it'd caught her attention.
Death turned to the young woman. She'd grown since last he'd seen her, but her mutagenic signature was unmistakable. His eyebrows lifted in recognition.
"Well," said the Horseman, "you lot got here fast, didn't you."
"Yeah," Gabriel said with a shrug, projecting arrogance that was far from what he felt. "I mean, you know. That's kind of my thing. And you made yourself pretty easy to find." He tried to assess the man. He hadn't known Marius particularly well, one of those things that was astonishingly easy in a mansion the size of a graduating class private school. But he knew enough of the other man's powers to know that he was a dangerous antagonist.
The former X-Man glanced at Gabriel and gave him a nod of equally vague acknowledgement, as if checking a name off an internal rolodex. "That's a bit unfortunate. I rather hoped I wouldn't run into anyone from the old world, endangered species that we are. Well, stay or go as you please. Makes no difference in the end."
As he spoke the Horseman's posture eased into something cold and predatory, and the man began to change. His skin was darkening against the ash grey of his armour, drinking light. The planes of his skull began to swell forward, shifting his features with the inexorable pressure of tectonic plates as it built extra layers of thickened bone. The transformation sheared his face of humanity until what looked back at them was nothing more than a skull.
"Well?" he said, sunken amber eyes falling on each of them in turn. "What's it to be, then -- stay, or go?"
Molly narrowed her eyebrows, steeling herself against Marius' new look and how familiar it was to an old red, spiky friend. "That's a neat trick. Did you go to the HR Giger school of creepy? Gotta say, you get dumber the more evil you become. Course we're staying. You on the other hand... I might punch into space if you think of hurting anyone," she said, folding her arms. "So how about go and torment the Nostromo for a bit? We'll pretend this never happened."
The Horseman sighed. "Ah, well. Violence it is."
The man whirled. With an explosive burst of speed he lunged, talons first -- towards Gabriel.
Gabriel, startled out of his disgust over Marius's alien-like form, took a split-second to sigh. Then he used his own powers to sprint several yards down the block, putting Marius between him and Molly. "You know," he called to Molly, "that is not really the de-escalation tactic we were looking for."
He bounced on the balls of his feet as he studied Marius's new form. "Not your best look," he said. "Neat trick, though."
The Horseman recovered quickly for a man who'd just found his hands full of nothing. Death turned towards the taunt to regard Gabriel with mild curiosity. "Yours as well," he remarked. "Maybe I should've made the effort to be a bit more social. I never was sure how to interpret your mutation, but it seemed gauche to ask."
"First rule of fight club, right?" It was ironic that Gabriel was now attempting to buy him and Molly some time. "And I'm more of a show-don't-tell kind of guy anyway. Mostly because all this is beyond my comprehension." He gave a casual shrug, as if they hadn't turned the streets of New York City into the site of a souped-up powers showdown.
Death gave him an appraising look. "Well, I've some time to kill yet, and as you might imagine mutations are something of a special interest of mine."
There was a sulfurous rush of air, and suddenly a hand cold as a corpse wrapped around Gabriel's neck.
"We'll just call this continuing education," Death said into his ear as something sharp began to prickle his skin.
Gabriel gave a small yelp at the pain. And the grasp triggered something else in him, something that had been lurking since Olivier. Rage took in. Using his powers, he jammed a speed-propelled elbow at the man's exposed neck to throw him off balance and knock the wind out of him.
Freed from the other man's grip, he sped back to where Marius had originally started. He was angry, now; it was clear from his eyes as he rubbed at his neck. "Not into choking, you sick fuck."
The blow sent Death staggering back a few paces, though it did not have the efficacy it would have on someone with normal anatomy. The Horseman was clearly armoured in more ways than one. He straightened, rolling his neck from side to side.
"Did I stoop to claiming it would be 'just a little prick'?" he asked mildly. "There's no need to sully a bit of light cannibalism with innuendo. The demonstration is helpful, however. As you said, show, not tell."
The man blurred again, and a leg like a steel bar scythed into Gabriel's ankles. As Gabriel went down, Death completed the arc and rose fluidly back to his feet.
Gabriel cried out in pain; he had not seen the blow coming, and even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to prevent it. Teleportation, if that's what this was, eluded his grasp. But he would not give Death the satisfaction he sought. "And what," he practically spat as he rose to his feet, assuming a kind of fighting stance, "did you learn?"
The Horseman cracked his knuckles, unhurried. "Power identification is a matter of experience. I've become quite good at it over the years, but every so often I come across a more exotic one that gives me pause. Practical application allows me to sort out what I see."
Another blur, but not to close distance yet -- now he was several yards to Gabriel's left, still sizing the younger man up.
"No markers for physical enhancement despite your apparent speed," Death continued, "and I sense nothing to indicate the ability to affect any sort of spatial distortion. But you've something in common with energy manipulation, so certainly you are moving something about. Based on the evidence I think I've just about got it figured. Let me know if I'm close."
Death finished flexing his fingers, and turned his open palm towards Gabriel. A ring of jagged teeth gaped obscenely back at him.
"Are you perhaps the sort of man who has developed a visceral hatred of 'Time in a Bottle'?" asked the Horseman.
A sound somewhere between a crackling and a humming noise was heard as two rounds of electricity belonging to a small drone shot at Death's side and lower back from overhead.
"Am I interrupting the golden oldies reminiscing?" came the voice from the drone, which sounded like Molly, who was nowhere to be found. "Good. Zap zap motherforker."
Death's muscles seized at the current. The shock was not organic in origin: nothing his mutation could absorb. Fortunately his other enhancements compensated for it, at least enough to allow him to teleport out of the drone's range. Barely missing a beat, the Horseman gouged a chunk of concrete from the curb and hurled it at the drone with pin-point accuracy. It exploded in a sad shower of metal and circuitry.
"Suppose I deserved that for neglecting you. My apologies, Molly. That was impolite of me." Death cast about for the drone's controller, orange eyes scanning the sidestreets.
Another electric zap erupted at him from another drone strategically hovering nearby.
"Don't worry about it," Molly said, this time right next to him, her eyes glowing purple as she cold-clocked him with a punch, using the zap as a distraction.
For all of Gabriel's time manipulation, his strength had still been that of a baseline human. Molly's was not. The blow sent Death flying into a storefront with an impact so great a piece of his ashen armour went spinning across the street.
"Nice shot," Death remarked, slowly extracting himself from the debris and climbing back to his feet. While he spoke to her, his eyes were now trained on the drone. "Those are new. Interesting."
He shifted out again, and suddenly one hand gripped Molly's forearm while the other clamped itself around her shoulder.
"But a bit less useful in close quarters, eh?" the Horseman continued. "No worries, you're a bit too tough to bite. But as your joints are still constrained by the normal range of motion--"
The hand gripping her arm jerked back, hard and at an unnatural angle, and Molly's shoulder popped -- followed by searing pain.
"Ah, good," said Death. "Wondered if that would work."
Molly let out a shriek, her knees buckling out from under her, her eyes blurring with agony and tears.
"Molly!" Gabe was stunned. He could not recall a time he had never seen Molly, who he thought of as being damn near invulnerable, in physical pain. In fact, he'd thought of launching her at Marius like a cannonball, the way he'd fastball specialed a diamond Emma. But there was little chance of that now.
He needed time to think. But the most immediate thing was to get Marius off Molly, and so he powered up with a whirl and tried to slide tackle Marius and sweep his legs out from under him.
The augment to Gabriel's speed did accomplish one thing: Death actually stumbled, releasing Molly in the process. Unfortunately it didn't do anything to alleviate the sensation that Gabriel had just swept his legs into a steel beam.
The Horseman righted himself, brushing away a curl of hair that had fallen over his sunken eyes. He regarded Gabriel and Molly in turn.
"Seems we could do this all day," Death said. "However, I really should be off. The offer still stands: you lot are free to stay or go as you please, I'll not stop you. If you choose the former, well . . . don't say you weren't warned."
Death bent at the waist in an ironic bow, and disappeared.
It'd been a long time since Molly had felt pain, and now she swam in it, crawling along a blurred street. The silence in Marius' absence was deafening. How long had he been able to do that? What would he do next?
Would they be able to stop him before he set out to do what he came to do?
After Gabriel and Molly distract Death, he runs across Arthur as well as the mansion’s newest resident.
It wasn't difficult to identify the mercenaries. Unlike members of the FOH or Sapiens League, the hired guns had a tendency to stick together in tight units that eschewed acts of vandalism or spouting violent rhetoric. Instead, they moved with a business-like purpose that was in some ways even worse. Hate was raw, visceral, and human. Wetwork was a business transaction. There was an extra layer of insult when the only value placed on a life was the number of zeros it added to their bank account.
The man sighting down his gun at the nearest civilian wasn't interested in such things. This was not the sort of job which attracted great philosophical thinkers, at least not in operatives of his level. Introspection interfered with a paycheck.
He squeezed the trigger.
"Oh, not today."
This was delivered by the sudden appearance of a 40-something blonde man in the shooter's scope. This was in and of itself enough to jar the mercenary's focus for a split second, but what made it even odder was the interloper's smile. It was a little remorseful, or sad — like a disappointed teacher or uncle. It was not the smile of someone stuck in the middle of a gunfight, or someone who was about to be shot. Which this man was about to be. Another target, another zero.
The shooter pulled the trigger. Nothing.
The blonde man sighed a little and began to advance slowly, but there was that disconnect again. The target moved like he didn't have a care in the world, like he was out for a casual stroll. He didn't have a single concern in the middle of a disaster zone. Mutant.
Pull, again. Nothing. Despite his better judgment and training, everything was just askew enough to circumvent years of procedure and honed instinct. The shooter looked down to check his gun. Nothing wrong.
It was at this moment that the blonde man closed the distance between the two of them. His concerned smile was the last thing the mercenary had the chance to blink at before the combatant snapped the shooter's own gun straight back up into his face, laying him flat. The force of the impact and the unlikely angle he hit ensured this man would be seeing nothing for a good minute.
Arthur sighed to himself. The take down prompted the rest of the mercenary's company to collectively lay their sights on the man sitting over their cohort. More guns were raised. Sights were locked. One individual tried to report in about a powered individual to a field commander, but all they could get was static. Arthur sighed again.
The next minute, if it was even a minute, was a blur of missed shots and the clatter of knives missing their targets only to land in highly inconvenient places such as allies' upper thighs or forearms. A few carefully aimed shots jammed or shot wild, hitting other militant hostiles. This tableau of failure was juxtaposed against the sight of the blonde man rolling, blocking, and parrying the company's response as a trail of yellow light trailed from his left eye.
He rolled to one knee, panting, as the mercenaries all lay behind him.
"Group on 4th neutralized," Arthur commented into a bluetooth headset feeding into the phone at his side. There weren't many witnesses to what had just happened, mostly if only because it was more logical to run away from the gunfire. A twinge of red hair in the fleeing crowd caught his attention briefly from the corner of his eyes, but then... a more pressing concern.
"There were reports of a..." There was a loud explosion as a gun backfired impressively, followed by the sight of a sniper falling from his perch to the city block below. "Nevermind."
The sight of a set of drones in the air did grab the man's attention, however, and he moved with renewed purpose to make sure the area was clear.
Something heavy scraped beneath his foot. It was a piece of plate armour, cracked, with a sickly grey-green sheen to it. Definitely not standard issue for paramilitary groups. Etched across it was a symbol of some kind — possibly an abstract eye. The dust and dents on its surface suggested it had traveled some distance before it came to rest.
Huh. Curious.
Arthur bent over, momentarily distracted, to examine the fallen object. His eye still shined like a beacon, an underscore to how he was overclocking his power continuously to shift probability. On the edge of his senses he imagined he could feel the effects like a phantom limb: fallen debris providing safety instead of hazard, shots going wide, doorways in alleys at just the right moment for fleeing civilians. His luck stretched wider and farther than he had ever tried to flex it before, and the effect both made his eye ache and his mind feel stretched to a point where he could almost see the threads tying everything together. Decision, reaction. Luck, misfortune. Jam a gun, block a line of sight, have a power line trip and spark. Trade it all for the safety of innocents.
Yet the self-conscious, immediately aware, Arthur Centino was focused on this thing that didn't belong. He blinked, squeezing his eyes tight, and emptied his mind. No thoughts, just the universe. And… spinning briefly, he opened his eyes to register a looming figure posed ominously on a nearby rooftop. A figure dressed in the same grey-green and with the same symbols.
“Tarot,” he pinged Marie-Ange like he was in an action movie, “I have a piece of Death’s armor. We could learn something. Cover me.”
Arthur’s bare hand had barely ghosted against the harsh gray-green metal of Death’s armor before he saw. He saw. Oh god, he saw.
*
District X, the ongoing battle, the gunfire… it all faded. Extinguished. The world unfolded into an endless black expanse, but it wasn’t silent. The chanting drone of many distant voices rippled across the featureless ocean. Older than time, a primordial chaos.
Light the flame, sharpen the blade.
The words grew in fever as a brief light grew in the darkness, revealing rough slabstone worn flat by time. He was on a path inscribed with golden symbols not left to living memory. The walls twisted and led only forward. A labyrinth beckoning onward.
Weave in and out, all his bidding.
Magical symbols ignited on the walls. The air was dark smoke — incense, cloying and ritual. A combination of scent and repetitive sound to break down the sense of self. A shrill and piercing scream trilled in the distance, but that was part of this too.
Akkaba. Akkaba. Akkaba.
They moved forward. A hand grazed his shoulder, and it was only then that he realized he wasn’t alone. Turning did not help, however. His companions were all masked. Featureless. A bell tolled in a deep bass, beckoning. Onward.
All for you, our father.
An altar sat at the heart of it all. The masked figures fanned out around the inner circle prescribed by the symbols on the floor. Everything led here. There was no other destination.
An obsidian dagger was slowly drawn like a prayer. The magical light fell across its merciless blade to illuminate the same single eye symbol that had been engraved on a fragment of armor from another time. The light sheared as the dagger fell, plun —
No.
Arthur floated back in the expanse. Adrift. A look of stubborn determination crossed his face as concentrated, and his power flared in response. He was a guiding star in the endless dark. A filter. A lens. Below him, his light revealed a single path. All missteps of intent, all turbulent paths of choice, all paths proved untrue — all consumed.
An unfathomable titan rose over it all, taking all paths through into himself.
Yet.
Arthur pivoted, focusing backward. Every path consumed had a beginning in this ocean. He dove.
“Oh,” Arthur said to no one in an astonished stage whisper. “I see.”
This finally got the looming figure’s attention. The titan shifted its black, all-consuming gaze toward Arthur and snuffed the connection.
*
The girl with the red hair stood in the street. She was always pale, but somehow the whipcord tension of her body made the contrast between her face and hair more prominent, tilted up toward the winter sky; the fists clenched at her sides with blanched knuckles.
She swallowed, her throat moving, and seemed to steel herself, eyes closing, reaching for something unseen.
When her eyes opened, light burst, and in the same moment, invisible forces moved: Not a wall, but a cube, crushing inward on itself with the man on the rooftop in the middle.
To no effect.
Death cocked his head as he felt something shudder through him: pressure, then release, like his ears popping at a high altitude. Someone had just tried something on him.
Slowly, the Horseman straightened.
The lack of any reaction - barely a twitch - and no sign of damage made the girl take a step back; ashamed, she planted her feet, her eyes fixed on the symbol on his chest.
(That wasn't everything. Not even close.)
The glow in her left eye grew brighter and more intense, and the buildings around the man rattled - glass shaking against windowpanes, fragments of concrete or brick tumbling down facades - as not a cube but something more like a telekinetic dodecahedron surrounded the man from all sides. Each face was a different strength and frequency, psionic energy adjusted on the fly to ensure that at least a few hit whatever was cancelling them out.
The world around him seemed to shiver with heat-haze. Death raised a hand to press against the invisible wall as it grew closer, letting the force gently propel it back towards his chest as it advanced. The air took on a close, almost muffled quality as the construct began to compress, then compress again -- only to once more disappear the instant it met the resistance of Death's body.
"Ah, telekinesis," he concluded.
The blaze from Hope's eye didn't disguise the pure fear on Hope's face as Death absorbed what she had thought would be an undodgeable attack - and, in fact, he hadn't dodged it, because he hadn't needed to. She swallowed again, convulsively, and her head swung around, trying to spot someone she knew - preferably someone with Omega-level powers of a different type. But there wasn't anyone; in her panic, she didn't even clock if there were mutants nearby. She jogged further down the street, trying to get a better vantage.
Her eyebrows creasing with effort, she tried again; but instead of pure telekinetic energy, this time the roof around Death roiled, cracking like rapid gunfire, and rolled upwards, rubble turned into projectile weaponry that shot at the lone figure with speed and precision.
He was not having good luck with rooftops today, Death thought as he leapt away from the epicenter. The shrapnel bounced harmlessly from the instinctive telekinetic shield -- far less polished than the dodecahedron that had attempted to crush him, but just as strong. Even without the borrowed power it would have been little more than a nuisance, but the unseen telekinetic seemed intent on pressing the point.
Death considered. His attacker was almost certainly somewhere with a direct sightline to the roof, likely facing towards the western wall if they had the right angle to see him from street level. He turned to scan the street and saw -- a light. And an aura.
The Horseman narrowed his eyes, and vanished.
Hope craned her neck, squinting, trying to see if it had worked - if it had had any effect at all. As she let the debris fall, she relaxed slightly; there was no sign of the Horseman still standing. He must be down.
There was a faint gust of sulfur, and a voice directly behind her said:
"Excuse me. Kindly desist."
The small girl whirled around, choking back a scream, and took an instinctive step back, throwing up a telekinetic shield between them just as instinctively. Her eyes were a little too bright, and she swallowed convulsively. The sound of cracking surrounded them.
Two chunks of concrete tore themselves from opposite ends of the street and slammed into Death, pinning him in the centre. Or such would have been the case had the Horseman not already teleported again, this time directly in front of Hope's shield.
"We don't know each other," said Death, wholly unbothered by the crash of concrete harmlessly clattering to the ground behind him. His orange eyes burned within the sunken ridges of his death's head. "And as such I am willing to attribute this to a bit of high spirits. I advise you to be on your way before you force me to break a personal rule and beat a literal child."
The shielding reassembled itself as the girl jerked back another few steps, tears now blatantly standing in her eyes - or at least the one visible, the other now a blaze of light. The girl had to swallow again before her voice would work; but in the background, rubble was beginning to float in a wide radius, and cracks not just in sidewalks but in the roadways were forming. “You’re going to end the world,” she said, her pitch wrong - afraid, not angry.
"This particular part of it, certainly. Nothing to be done for it. There's no harvest without the wheat." Telekinetic counter-eddies began to pulse against the floating debris, a perfectly opposing force. Death's eyes burned cold.
"If you insist on becoming one more stalk, on your own head be it."
Two things happened at once:
Cracks in the roadway tore outward like fault lines, and giant pieces of asphalt and concrete flew relentlessly inward toward Death.
A short rod hit Hope Summers' palm and telescoped out in both directions, seams lighting with the same glow that was now blazing from Hope's left eye, and in one motion she stabbed forward with the psi-staff, almost the full weight of her telekinesis behind the motion.
The staff and the concrete found only empty space. There was a shift in the air behind her, and a telekinetic blow slammed into her from behind. It joined her own momentum to hurl her face-first into the very storm she'd just created. Two colliding fronts of energy clashed as Hope was driven hard into the locus of debris, churning the rubble into a nightmare of stone and chalk that battered and tore from every side. No show of power, no show of skill, only a brutally efficient redirection of her own force.
"Well," Death said, two fingers genteelly massaging one temple as he regarded the remains, "if I must beat a child, at least I can honestly say I've yet to raise an actual hand against one."
Grit and pebbles crunched beneath his boots as the Horseman strode towards the settling heap. The peculiar staff protruded like a flagpole, marking the location of a dirty patch of red hair. The dust was so thick it was difficult to tell if she was moving.
A feeling of static hung in the air as Death casually closed the distance, a little hum as the world waited for what was about to unfold. The sunny sky illuminated the area in a brilliant light, leaving any attempt to hide or slink into the shadows extremely unlikely. The hum pitched upward, now a slight crackling. Unseen, static electricity arced between the rubble and debris. A tingling sensation washed over the Horseman, and the tumblers of reality began to spin.
There wasn't a true sound. Nothing but a sharp snap as a bolt of lightning struck Death on a cloudless day. The air was filled with the sudden, metallic taste of ozone and smell of chlorine.
It was like being struck by the drones again, but worse. Death's skull rang with a sensation that was half-blow, half-pressure as his muscles seized and heart stuttered. He stumbled to his knees, his mind spinning with one wild thought:
Storm?
A TWSSHH cut through the air as a few thrown daggers veered wide and scattered, just missing the prone Horseman. Another, singular knife followed in quick succession to hit Death in a grab of attention.
Longshot stood silhouetted against the bright sunlight without any of the easy charm that defined Arthur's normal body language. The sun bleached his hair near white, and the trailing starburst of golden light from his left eye washed away his own features.
"Leave her," he rumbled in a low tone.
In the rubble, the girl coughed and struggled to right herself; but when she managed, leaning on the staff and falling back once, and saw Arthur, her expression opened — fear erased. "Dad!"
The disorientation had passed. Death climbed back to his feet, absently prying the knife from one shoulder and tossing it aside. It bounced bloodlessly across the pavement.
"Dad?" The Horseman glanced from Hope to Arthur. "Ah," he said, recognizing the newcomer's power signature. "Apologies, Arthur. I wasn't aware she had any connexion to the mansion. I did offer her several opportunities to leave."
Hope's face dropped, confusion replacing relief with dark flush that spoke to a heart dropping like a stone in water. "Who's Arthur?"
The figure in the distance raised a finger to tap his earpiece. "Tarot," this wasn't the gruff tone from before, but a low whisper in the emergency line, "I've got eyes on the civilian. Death is on scene. I'm..." He sighed, rolling out his shoulders. "I have to save them."
An unusual profanity came through the earpiece, and then a pause. On the other side of the comm, a card came up the Page of Pentacles. Not Arthur's own card, which was in a box in the Snow Valley offices. "Go.” Another card, and then it was the Wheel of Fortune, arc deco art hand-drawn by Marie-Ange. Of course it was. "I will get you whatever coverage I can muster.”
He advanced.
"Marius," and the shift in tone could have caused whiplash as he resumed character. He strode forward, all Hollywood red carpet swagger. "I hear you're had some work done."
The Horseman made a sweeping gesture with both hands to encompass his armour. "Requirement of the job. Must we really do this? I'm trying to concentrate, yet you people persist in your interruptions."
"Amazing. You people," Arthur’s accent shifted with those words, trying on Marius’ parlance like a borrowed hat, "Yeeew people. Fear me mortals, I am Death. I am on a schedule."
The blonde man slowly circled in a perimeter around the Horseman, twirling another dagger between his fingers. He never broke the border of his previously scattered knives. The smell of chlorine was fading from the air, transitioning to something less sharp and more cloyingly sweet. Beyond that, there was a low, bassy shift of the earth as his power continued to build.
The man's eye was pulsing steadily. Unseen, the threads of probability tensed.
He let loose the dagger in a fluid flourish, and its handle bounced squarely off Death's forehead. Another lucky shot.
"Sorry," Arthur said. "I had trouble believing someone could be so melodramatic, and I figured you might not be real. Had to double check, you know?"
The dagger clattered to Death's feet as the Horseman simply stared at him, unimpressed.
"I take this to mean the two of you plan to persist until terminally prevented from doing so, then." With a heavy sigh, the Horseman rolled his neck and took a step forward. "Well, if we must, let's get it over w—"
Death’s intent was the final roll of the dice needed. The taught threads pulled tight, and Arthur’s eye flared.
One has a 1 in 15,300 chance of being hit by lightning.
A sharp boom interrupted the Horseman’s words, followed by a shrill approaching roar. Arthur picked up his pace as he crossed the distance to the fallen Hope.
Only 1 in 8 million people are struck by lightning twice in their lives.
His boots landed close to one of the few scattered knives that one actually struck true, somehow puncturing an intake to a discarded propane tank toppled in Hope’s show of telekinetic force. It hissed as it leaked vaporized gas.
Now, the chances of being in a building collapse are hard to quantify.
Were the swaying walls in the abandoned structure caused by lines of forces, or a result of neglect? Had the previous flooding underscored years of a weakening foundation? Either way, the cracking of concrete joined the building cacophony.
They say the chance of being hit by falling space debris is less than a billion to 1.
The roar crescendoed as everything happened at once. What has previously been only a streak in the sky above New York had steadily grown in size during Arthur’s stalling, the approaching remnant of a discarded rocket fuselage burning bright as it reentered the atmosphere. It struck right in the center of the improvised circle of knives. Right into Death.
At the same time, the gathering forces of stress finally broke the nearby derelict brownstone. Sheets of concrete and drywall fell as the building collapsed into its sinking foundation.
Another strike of lightning was the cherry on top, igniting the gas in a sonorous THWUM.
Arthur vaulted over reigning debris and rolled, scooping the redheaded girl into his arms to just miss being smashed by a slab of concrete. A slab that provided excellent cover for the small canister explosion.
The girl, dazed, blinked hard, dust shedding from her eyelashes. "You're really not him," she said, and for a moment, the devastation of that fact crossed her face; she blinked again, this time to banish tears.
Her answer was a sad smile. "I've only ever been me."
Longshot untucked Hope from his protective embrace, and was careful to make sure she could get her bearings before continuing.
"Now," he began, "Please listen. I just pissed off something way bigger than me, and I have to do this next part by myself. Take these." Arthur's earbuds and (newly cracked) phone were deposited into her shaky hands. "Go find Marie-A—"
An arm like a steel bar hooked itself around Arthur's throat while another snaked around him to sink clawed fingers into his chest.
"That's enough of that."
Death held the stuntman close, his intent quivering on the edge of a knife. In this moment killing and disabling were equally convenient, distinguished only by what particular twist of the muscle he favoured. A thought occurred to him, too, that he was currently holding a potential resource, but probability could be a tricky thing, and thus far he'd yet to encounter a situation his native augmentations couldn't counter with ease.
The future spun like a coin in the air.
Then, at just that moment, the Horseman felt something in the air twist. It had no obvious effect, but the sensation was sharp and intentional -- a message, like a shot across the bow. Something red and familiar.
Something chaotic.
His blood turned to ice.
The grimace of agony painted across Arthur's face twisted into his signature smile. "Good luck," he offered in a rasp.
Death jolted back to himself. He regarded the man in his arms and made a decision.
"I think I will."
The Horseman spun Arthur around and seized the man by the neck, teeth biting into the exposed skin. It was the work of a moment to take what he needed.
Finished, Death tossed the man aside like a discarded candy wrapper.
"No," Hope whispered, darting to Arthur's side; her dirty hands, dropping the comm headphones and the phone, nonetheless hesitated above him. He had hit the same wall they'd sheltered against and was bent at too many wrong angles. "No, no, no." Rather than further contaminate the bleeding wound, she used a firm press of telekinetic energy on his neck and his chest. A thin line of blood began to snake through the dust from her nose to her upper lip, and tears spilled over. "Arthur? Hey, Arthur. Are you — tell me what you need. Please." She threw a desperate look over her shoulder toward Death.
The Horseman didn't even bother acknowledging her. If the girl wasn't going to press the point there was no need to engage further. Really, had she only backed down the first time this entire dramatic tableau could have been avoided.
It didn't matter anymore. There was something else that needed his attention.
Death vanished.
"Miss Hope." Arthur's cracked phone came to life, unexpectedly, comms opening to a lightly accented voice. "This is Tarot. I am not certain what you and Arthur have done, but I just received a NORAD alert and we have Death's location again. If you still retain telekinesis, prepare for more debris. Scarlet Witch is engaging Death."
In search of a safe space, Liam gets drawn into action.
At a pace that could only be described as a scamper, Liam's head poked up over the side of the building from the fire escape. "I was told to come up here?" he said, trying not to panic. That was a riot down below. An actual riot. Holy shit. He was safe up here, right?
Well. There were worse things she could do than use one of the teens as eyes. Maybe. "Redhead with an eyepatch? That's Marie-Ange, she's one of my bosses and helping with coordination." Darcy was all business, but she tilted her head enough for Liam to see a small, hopefully reassuring smile. "Good. How are you with guns? Wait–" she held up a hand. "Bad wording. I could use a set of eyes to help me find targets and relay info to the adults on the ground. I have binoculars, but I can't use them and shoot at the same time. Are you able and willing to do that?"
Her face had settled into a frown as she talked, the enormity of asking one of the kids – Thor's sake, she hadn't even wanted to directly talk X-Force recruitment with Catseye, and she was older than Liam – to help her find targets, no matter how pretty she made the wording. "You can tell me no, because if you tell me yes, Liam, you'll be pointing out targets for me. You won't be directly taking a life, but you'll have informed my choices. Under more normal circumstances, I wouldn't even ask." Under more normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a potential world-ender. They wouldn't be scattered. There wouldn't be Death and magic cultists and bigots all converging in one spot. She wouldn't put that pressure on Liam. It would feel underhanded, and she was fond of the teen.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded, "I've been hunting, I know what spotting is, I've done it," Not hunting for people, but. He'd seen movies. "Just like in video games, right?" he quipped, trying hard to pretend it was okay. Nothing was okay. He was going to be picking people out to die. Even if he didn't pull the trigger, he was just as responsible. He knew that.
"No." Darcy's voice was sharp, and she gestured at Liam to come closer and have a seat. "We don't dehumanize people, not even just long enough to take the shot. It becomes too easy to become monsters ourselves if we do. We acknowledge that we are taking human life, and we don't do it indiscriminately. We think about the costs and the consequences, generally in advance." She sighed, tugging on the hem of her jacket. "You, Tiger, are too young to become a monster. So you will think of them as people, and I will divert to folks on the ground for non-fatal options where possible, and Marie-Ange and I will both trust you to tell me if there's someone that needs immediate help. Are you willing and able to do that? If not, say the word and you can just sit up here and listen to comms instead." And she would try not to smother him in blankets or be terribly overbearing, after, though she was definitely planning on making him cookies for even being in this situation. Maybe therapy, too, if he agreed. Regardless, he'd need an earpiece. She pulled a spare from the case and turned it on, then held it out.
Sitting with Darcy, he murmured, "'Handguns are made for killin, they ain't good for nothing else,'" a rhetorical phrase that clearly meant something to him, as he nodded, solemn and considering. "I can't use that," he indicated the ear piece made for a human- shaped ear, "but I can hear it fine."
Standing with feline grace, Liam wasn't panicked or energized like before. He stood serious, but clear eyed, "Which vantage point do you want me at?"
"You can clip it to your shirt. Tap the X to activate and talk. We'll... figure something out to accommodate your ears. Later." Pity Forge was gone, but Molly and Parker could probably figure something out. She reached out, giving Liam's ankle a squeeze before settling herself on the ground and taking a long look through her scope. Her tablet was on a stand, just in the line of her peripheral sight, blue dots blinking in a sea of heat patterns to indicate Xavier-tech. "I want you to sort of mirror what Doug is doing for Kevin," she said finally, gesturing with her arm to where the two of them had set up further down the roof. "And if you're not sure if something is in my blindspot, relay it to them instead. Kevin has... decades of experience doing this, I trust his shots more than my own."
Terry, Sam and Meggan look to help the wounded and trapped in District X
Driving in Manhattan was a nightmare at the best of times. In the midst of a near riot, it was utterly impossible. Which explained why the compact lost control swerving to escape a couple, hit the curb wrong and slid into the brick wall at an oblique angle and overturned.
Darcy heard the wreck more than she saw it, and the spare pair of binoculars she'd had Liam grab so she'd stop stealing his made another appearance. She cursed to herself, but connected to the radio in the overturned car. "You folks okay?" she questioned.
Her response was a set of groaning moans.
"Okay. I'm gonna send some people to try and safely get you out. Once I do, I'll have them tell you that Conduit sent them. That's me." She disconnected from the radio, eyes searching for people that might be able to help. Her roommate's red hair stood out in the crowd, fluttering in the wind. "Ter. Listen, there's a couple in an overturned car a few blocks away. Grab someone and please try to get them out for medical attention. Tell them Conduit sent you. Forward one block, then left two. You can't miss them, they hit one of the buildings."
Terry turned to look up at Darcy, gave her a thumbs up, then realised she could have just used the comm in her ear, but she wasn't actually used to wearing one. "These shite-suckers come into my -- our. Our home..." She couldn't stop her muttering, but she was focused on the car she could now see, already scanning the people around her for a friendly face. She found one, though it was partially obscured by at least three Friends of Humanity thugs. So, still not bothering to keep her seething commentary to herself, Terry took a deep breath, lined herself up with the arseholes, and pushed her hands forward as she sent a subsonic soundwave rushing toward them.
"Heya, love," Terry said, extending her hand to Meggan even as the last Friend of Humanity twit landed against a wall on top of the other two. "Care t'help me help some others? In the car over there?"
Meggan smiled despite the situation, pleased that that was taken care of for the better. She appreciated Terry’s action. She had managed to get a bit of kickboxing going and fended off one man, getting a good kick to the stomach with one particular move when his seedy friends had leaped into the fray. One had briefly shoved her against a building from behind before she’d quickly gotten her bearings again. She didn’t have to do anything else against them now, she could see that.
She accepted the helping hand, and nodded. “Thank you!” It was a chaotic mess out here, and she was willing to do whatever she could possibly do to help ease that even a fraction, wherever that happened to be. She took in the scene where Terry directed, and her eyes widened at the state of the vehicle. “Of course! Yeah, we’ve got to get them out of there!”
"Brilliant," Terry said. "Let's no' fly over, I'd like t'avoid any of these idjits tossin' shite at us." Stilling holding Meggan's hand, Terry began humming quietly, using the soundwaves she created as the base of a shield for herself and the younger mutant. That'd keep the crowds from getting too close to them and help clear a way to the vehicle. From there, they just had to figure out how to get the car open and the unconscious, injured people out.
Once they had mostly waded through the not much of a crush of people anymore, Meggan shook her head. “We might just need to smash the window, and then we’ll go from there,” she offered. With the state of the car, she doubted that the unlock button would even function correctly anymore. And if it did, well, that other door was a mess, and it probably couldn't respond if it did. Could they then just pull them out of the window, and hope they didn’t hurt them further in the process?
"Can we... try t'break the windscreen?" Terry asked, wincing as someone in the crowd around them slammed something solid soundly against her shield. That'd leave her with a headache tomorrow. "Might manage a bit more room to maneuver? I can break the glass, but it'll get all over the people inside. Have y'any other ideas? Cause I'm happy t'just help with the liftin' and the shieldin'."
“Maybe?” Meggan at last remembered another method of getting in that might just work here. Or so she hoped, since she’d never actually needed to do this trick before. “Yes! Find something nice and pointy, not blunt; we won’t need as much force to break through it. We might be able to hit it just right, probably in the corner, and then get the rest out without it hurting them.”
Looking around, her eyes came across a discarded and half broken ski pole. Who brought a ski pole, of all things, to a riot? Was that good enough?
The crowds on the street were growing thicker as more residents of District X poured out of their houses, but the fighting was most vicious several streets away from them, so while people started pressing against the shield she was keeping up, it wasn't until some of the Friends of Humanity realised how she was keeping people away from herself and Meggan as the younger woman picked up a ski pole that she ran into actual trouble. "I'll help as I'm able," Terry said, her brow furrowing as she shrank the circumference of her shield in an effort to thicken it. "I think we're about t'have some more trouble."
Indeed, a group of six Friends of Humanity members approached, extending their hands to touch the shield, leaning in to put pressure on it. She could hold it for now, so long as they didn't decide to start hammering on it with rocks or something else.
Meggan paused, understanding the urgency; she was monumentally grateful for the fact that Terry had her back. Time was likely growing shorter before they were overwhelmed. She approached the vehicle with alacrity, and really, really hoped this worked like she had read. She lifted the ski pole, supposing reassurances for those within could come once the action was complete, if it was a success.
Still, she couldn't just let them be frightened by the unexpected sight, if they were in a position to see it! "We're going to try something to help you," she called.
She got a better grip on the ski pole even as she positioned it. She would direct tiny blows toward the corner of the driver’s side of the windshield. Quickly, she struck the first time, and then two more times before she paused to see how far she was getting.
Terry heard the stress causing fractures through the glass, though she didn't look behind herself to see them. "Keep it up, love," she murmured, focusing until she'd bunched the soundwaves around them up so tightly nothing happening inside her shield could be heard outside it. "Once you've got the windscreen out, see about their belt buckles t'make sure they're unlatched. I'll swap places with y'so I can get them out, but I won't be able t'talk an' do that at the same time."
Meggan gave it one more whack, the fracture blossoming outward and encompassing the glass. There it went at the last with a loud crunch, and the tinkling of glass. She broke away further areas much easier, increasing the width of the circle around where they needed to be. She peered inside as she worked, having heard a groan. She wasn’t certain how well her words would even penetrate when it came to someone with a probable head injury, but she still tried. “You’ll be somewhere much safer soon. Please hold on.”
When she felt like that was taken care of, she checked it over again quickly, glancing back once to see how Terry was doing; she nodded once at the instructions. She ripped off one jutting shard that would only cause further grievous injury if anyone was dragged across. She brushed away smaller crumbled pieces as best as she could, and stretched in her arm to feel around for the buckle for the first person. There was a click, as she got the first person, then moved toward the second. She hurried to her feet.
“Okay, all’s ready,” she called back.
Terry nodded briefly, checking over her shoulder to see Meggan. She tapped her comm to get Darcy and said, "Alright, Conduit-love. Meggan and I've got a group of Friends of Humanity people surroundin' us. I'm holdin' 'em off for now, but I'm off comms for a bit t'get the injured ones outta the car."
"I've got your group covered for immediate threats," Darcy replied, focusing on her roommate through the scope. There was a brief flash of movement, and she readjusted, sighted the gun pointed at the woman among the crowd of hostiles being held back, and took a slow, deep breath before squeezing the trigger. "Not on my watch, asshole," she muttered, voice just barely loud enough to be heard over the comms.
Meggan gasped, startled as the person went down; she’d tamped down a surprised cry at the last second, but still hadn’t expected that to happen at all. She was trying to focus on the situation surrounding them, but even then, something dangerous could always slip through the cracks. And it almost had, with a person with a gun able to blend in with a crowd of these people so seamlessly.
She shook her head in horror at what might have happened; then, she steadied herself, and glanced over to see how Terry fared with the injured people.
Terry didn't see the impact of the bullet or the man and his gun both falling to the ground, too focused on being as gentle as she could be with the injured pair in the car while removing them, but she did hear it all. Still, she maintained the shield around them even as the crowd pushed closer to it, finally beginning to do what she'd feared they might from the beginning -- beat their blunt-force weapons against it. She winced, hiding the reaction from Meggan as well as the crowd. She'd held shields up longer in the Danger Room while being bombarded with various objects, but this was a bit more concentrated than she'd worked up to and her priorities were split between the delicate job of rescuing people and holding the shield steady.
She switched her priorities from keeping what she and Meggan might say silenced to shoring up the shield protecting them from the violence of the riot. "A little more help here, love," Terry called, reaching to physically steady the first rescuee.
“On it,” Meggan replied. She immediately moved to assist when that first person swayed a bit, and threatened to fall over. When she was reasonably certain the person wouldn’t slump over and get hurt further, she was with Terry to help her with the other one. They just needed to get them out of this situation as carefully as they could.
Sam had been hunting enough times in his life to know the sound of a gunshot, and the quiet that followed when one hit its mark, but in District X - a gunshot typically meant that someone needed help. He fought every instinct in his body telling him to run the other way to follow the sound, and sighed when he saw the riot. "Perfect," he grumbled. "Just what we needed."
As he pressed closer he saw two familiar figures from the mansion in the middle of the crowd. In an instant he used his powers to propel himself towards them, landing just behind the redheaded woman. "Want some help pushin' 'em back?"
Sparing a moment to glance over her shoulder, Terry saw Sam standing at the edge of her shield and gave him a strained smile, allowing Meggan to finish helping the second wreck victim from the car. "Please," she nodded, noticeably pale even considering her natural coloring. The bats and pipes and crowbars banging against her shield had given her a tension headache already.
“There you go, carefully now; we’ve got you,” Meggan whispered. While Terry had been helping out the first person, Meggan had at last finished extricating the second. She helped them gently settle back down onto the street before she did whatever else she could for them. Any relief at all was good to have, especially if it meant eventually getting by the worst of the rioters, and probably getting these poor people into a hospital that much sooner.
Sam pushed himself in front of Terry gently, he took a deep breath and held his arms out allowing his power to grow before pushing it outward, forming his own shield against the rioters. The force of his blast knocked those closest to them backwards. "If we can get the rioters back I can fly out with them, but I ain't leavin' 'til I know y'all have a way out."
“I think we ought to be able to make it over the building just there; we should be able to get away from them, then,” Meggan suggested. Once that was accomplished, if they needed to, they could get wherever else they had to go next. She knew that she could reasonably dodge the worst of the things being flung at her if she was at a good height when she flew, and see who else needed assistance once the two of them had evaded this part of the group.
Sam glanced at Meggan, then at Terry. "You two get one of them and I'll get the other. Y'all look exhausted, don't try to take both. I'll meet you there. Promise."
Meggan gazed over at Terry. Now that she wasn’t so busy, she did notice her paleness. She didn’t like having to put any more strain on her, but at least they weren’t dragging the two around by the ankles as they fled from danger, or something terrible like that. “I think we’d be okay taking her, don’t you? I can get her legs,” she offered as she neared the smaller of the two survivors.
"Aye," Terry murmured, nodding a little dully. She'd let her own shield fall a little when Sam buffered them, relief zinging between her temples in the moment before he and Meggan settled on the plan to move the victims. "Actually, if you'll steady her upper body, I'll just lift from the bottom and if you're flyin' as well, I can keep the shield beneath all of us to block anything they might throw." She considered their situation, then wished she'd been involved in something that involved screaming and flinging things around. She could keep that up for hours without getting tired. Flying was nearly second nature at this point, and at least she'd had plenty of practise flying with Kyle. It was maintaining the shield whilst doing everything else that might do her in. But not until after she'd gotten this woman somewhere safe. "Let's get goin', loves."
Sam waited until he was sure that Terry and Meggan were far enough up that they wouldn't be hit before grabbing the other passenger from the car. He dropped his shield and then allowed the blasts to come from his feet, propelling him and his passenger through the air and after the others. As soon as they were all landed, he glanced between the women. "Everyone alright?"
“I think so? Yes,” Meggan confirmed as they landed with their cargo as carefully as possible. When it came to her, she mostly just had a few scratches from some of the broken glass when she was wielding the ski pole, but it was nothing major, and could easily be taken care of in a little while. Aside from that, she was doing okay. “Terry?”
"Mm... aye," Terry agreed, swaying a little on her feet. She sat down rather abruptly, still maintaining the soundwave keeping the woman from the crash floating just a bit. "Och. Maybe no'," she murmured, accent thickening. "I'll just stay here a mo'."
Sam kept an eye on Terry, hoping that she'd be good enough to fly out of here. "What else can I do? I'm not as tired as you two yet. How can I help?"
Meggan wasn’t sure what she could do for Terry, but she did still want to help; she crouched near the other woman. “Just let me know when you need an extra shoulder, and I’ll be right here for you to lean on.” If she went down, then Meggan wasn’t sure who to break the fall of, between Terry and the levitating crash lady—while she estimated it wasn’t that far of a drop for the latter, she couldn’t say what the effect of a sudden extra shock might do.
She shook her head in response to Sam’s question. Could just being there be enough? “I’m not sure. I half want to go back for the ski pole, or find something else that’s strong enough from the debris, so we can fashion a makeshift stretcher for her, and let Terry rest her powers.”
"You two," Terry said, waving her hand toward Sam and Meggan. "Y'go on. Help others. I'll keep watch o'er these ones here. I'll be fine, now I'm sittin'. Y'shouldn't waste time wi' me. I'll jus' call someone for a pick up."
Sam nodded, and helped the person in his arms lay down gently on the ground. Turning to Meggan he nodded his head slightly, deferring to her directions. “Lead the way.”
Meggan spared another concerned look at Terry before they started off. "If you're sure," she began, before she stopped. She didn't want to just leave her in this state.
Once this was done, she vowed that she would come back in a little while and make sure that someone had come to collect Terry. Meggan signaled to Sam that she was ready, and began to point a few things out. She had spotted a discarded baseball bat and assorted long items on the scene that could be put to good work. And if several people had torn off their shirts in the heat of things, then they could be tied together, just as she had said.
Terry waved the two of them off, watching as they took flight. Pulling her mobile from her pocket, she considered who she might be able to call for assistance - certainly none of the usual suspects, as they were all out helping people in the district. She shook herself a little, finally laying the woman she had hovering to the ground. The other passenger came to tend to her, so Terry let her powers rest a moment, once again feeling that immediate release of tension between her temples. She'd developed a certain sense of throbbing behind that, a sharp thing that almost seemed to stab at the backs of her eyes.
She was fine, though. It wasn't until she hit 'call' for one of her friends from the Community Centre that she felt the tell-tale trickle coming from her nose. Touching it out of pure, simple habit, Terry wasn't surprised to see blood on her fingers. "Shite," she muttered.
Sue and Madin provide a crowd of Akkaba loyalists with an astonishingly bad day.
Clan Akkaba had lost most of their front line shock troops at the hands of multiple losses against the Marauders over the last year. It had forced their magi into the field; a dangerous but necessary risk in order to finally bring back their Morning Lord.
Darcy had grabbed the binoculars from Liam, spinning and pinpointing the small but imposing group in robes clearing their way down the street, people flying, falling, and otherwise scrambling out of their path. There were too many for just snipers to deal with. Shit. Her comm sprang to life at a thought. "Invisible Girl. There's a group of those Akkaba magicians making their way to the center of the District. They're about a block and a half out. Grab—hmm, that Madin person's at the corner of the block, grab them and ask if they'd like to go apeshit on some mutant killers. Rooftop will provide cover as we can. They cannot be allowed to keep making progress towards whatever is happening."
The blonde lifted her hands in a jaunty salute, spinning on a foot for a moment to face the woman on the roof before lowering her hand as she finished the spin vanishing from view as she let her forcefield snap up around her. It wasn't unusual for her to activate a forcefield when she didn't want to be bothered, though this was a very different set-up compared to her usual escapades. It took a little dancing and weaving through the screaming crowd for her to appear crouched at Madin's side, blue eyes flicking around the street.
"I come bearing orders from on high, you know I should really be Angel and not well Angel." A grin touched her lips for a moment before a more somber look replaced it. "Look like we've got a bunch of those magical hooligan people heading over that way. Wanna go jump ‘em with me? I mean, you think they'd know there isn't a game on today, this level of hooliganism is just rude."
Sue talked a lot, Madin noted absently. They were crouched in the lee of a car, snow melt and slush soaking into the knees of their jeans. "Yeah," they said. "Let's fuck some shit up." Madin sent two plasma bolts down the street using the space under the car to shoot from cover.
The blonde tilted her head to the side for a moment before she grinned, a hand dropping to tap Madin on the shoulder, gesturing to the side, "Let's head in that direction, I'll cover us, just tap me on the shoulder before you fire and I'll drop the forcefield for a second."
"Sure." Madin nodded then pointed to a spot halfway down the street, where a dumpster and abandoned car provided a triangle of cover. "Head there. Regroup. Work from that point, if they don't have a sharpshooter up high. I would but I haven't seen anything yet... " They remained crouched and said "On my mark. One. Two." A sheet of plasma went rippling down the road at knee height. "Go! Go!" They stepped out from behind the car, sprinting the fifty feet to cover, feet slipping in the slush and sliding in behind the dumpster as shots rang out.
The blonde watched Madin racing into cover before she calmly stepped out behind him, completely ignoring the angry magicians running rampant before her as she ambled after him checking her nails. Everything about her motion, about her attitude was designed to aggravate and annoy them, not even looking up till she heard their attacks racing towards her, a forcefield snapping up between them. Blue eyes finally glanced up, waving a finger at them as she grinned. "Naughty naughty." slowly she reached up the brush imaginary dust off her top as she took a step forward, her voice a whisper only her comm could pick up. "I'll distract them and hold them off you, you pick them off."
She was insane, Madin though, absolutely stunned. Completely shit nuts insane. "Kettle them. We need to limit their ability to retreat and take the next block over," Madin said. "Can you block the road behind them?"
The blonde grinned, two fingers coming up in a jaunty salute before she vanished, the magicians' bolts burning through the air where she'd once stood. It was an easy mistake to make, staying in the same spot once you turned invisible and one that Sue had made before when she was much younger, almost getting caught by bullet fire when she'd tried to vanish. The blonde might have been cocky, but she had learned a few tricks. Ducking behind the care she held out a hand, brow furrowing in concentration as her invisibility flickered, a forcefield swirling to life around the magicians, its slowly thinning field pressing them together.
A pair of civilians came around the corner, at the far end of the street. Madin swore and hurled plasma at the road in front of them. "Get out of here!" They ran, thankfully. On that, their cover blown, Madin stepped out from behind the dumpster, running at the magicians, plasma knives arcing out of each hand.
The fight close up was a brawl, plasma knives versus magic and physical weapons. Where they had numbers - Madin fell to their knees as something hit them in the back and they stabbed up and back, getting a scream in response - Madin and Sue had power on their side.
The blonde was happy to let Madin act as the hammer, her slowly pressing forcefield acting as an anvil, constantly pressing forward, the pressure from the invisible wall constantly keeping the magicians off balance as Madin tore through their ranks.She tried to watch Madin's back where possible, smaller buckler-like forcefield flaring to life for a moment in intercept a bolt of magic or a weapon's strike where she could see them, the melee was just too chaotic for her to provide more cover and maintaining the wall plus covering her partner was almost too much as she sank to her knees, barely able to focus on the world around her as she tried to maintain multiple fields and stop them from just fizzling out.
The forcefields were invisible but the men's movement made it clear they were there. Madin got back to their feet, and swept a plasma blade in front of themself as a shield. Two of the original six were badly injured. One was possibly dead. That left three and Madin was getting tired. Sue, wherever she was, wouldn't be able to contain this for much longer, either. They swung the blade, hitting the nearest man's arms, plasma searing through flesh.
Darcy caught just the edge of a light show as she turned away from helping Sharon, and repositioned just in time to see plasma sear through flesh. "Ouch," she murmured to herself as she tapped her earpiece. "Madin? Please duck." She watched them obey with a drop and roll, pulling the trigger as soon as they were in motion. Seared hands got a hit that was just off center in the torso. She'd probably clipped a lung. As he fell she squeezed the trigger again, catching one of the hooded magic users in the throat as they raised their hands.
"One more left. If you'll drive up with your knives but stay low, I'll take the last shot. Sue's got you covered nicely."
Madin didn't reply but lunged forward, driving up with their knives, trusting to Sue.
The blonde's head was bowed, eyes staring up through the hair falling over her face as she lifted a hand, giving a thumbs-up to the air, not entirely sure where Darcy was through the pounding headache that was threatening to split her head in two. "Go get them!" She sounded drawn, less ebullient than usual, her hands still outstretched as she pressed her forcefields tighter around the remaining magician and Madin. "Though...do it fast maybe?"
Madin swung left, ducked right, slicing through the man's leg. He fell, screaming. They stopped, gasping, adrenaline and fatigue mixing. He was down but not out of the game. "Overwatch? I can... I can... Do you need me to execute him?" Madin sounded very young as they spoke. "I've. I don't want to but he's..." Energy pulsed around the man's hands. God, please let someone else deal with this.
Darcy was already primed to take the shot and did so without hesitating, letting out a woosh of breath when the energy around the man's hands faded. When she spoke, her voice was kind. "No, hon, we're not going to make you kill people. You two have the clear. I'll cover you just in case, if you want to fall back to the community center."
The blonde picked herself up, dusting off her jeans before looking up at the carnage around them before lifting her gaze to look up at Darcy., "Do you need us anywhere else? I'm good to go if you still need us to keep fighting, otherwise I could really do with a bottle of water and some advil."
"No, you're good to fall back. I'm sending some first aid kits over to the community center for small patch-ups, just look for Cypher."
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Date: 2024-01-07 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-08 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-08 05:35 am (UTC)I love everything about the Hope and Arthur bit, but especially the bits about probability. <3
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Date: 2024-01-08 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-09 03:29 am (UTC)