Behold A Pale Horse - Part 7
Jan. 7th, 2024 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_dominion posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWarren and Bobbi help evacuate residents of District X to varying degrees of frustration and gratefulness.
Even two hundred meters over the streets, it was still chaos. A news helicopter had buzzed perilously close before having to make an emergency landing blocks away at the nearest hospital.
"Arcangel, you are in range again. Status check." Marie-Ange was leaning up against a wall in an alley, long spear in one hand, still blooded from the last Clan Akkaba member who had seen her and thought she would make a soft target. "You have possible hostiles in range, Cypher reported movement heading towards Sixth."
Warren knew what Arcangel meant but had no idea why he was being called that. Regardless, now wasn't the time, not when they were working hard to corral people and get them off the roof. With his mask firmly in place, and wings stretched out, he hoped his angelic look would work to his favour. "Listen," he said to the oldest human being ever, "I hear you, I do, but lady -- a record is not a valid reason to go back. There are bad guys coming. Bad guys who want to do horrible things to you." He waved at Bobbi to get the rest of the group organized while he tried to reason with this grandma. "What's more important?? A record or your life?"
"It was Harold's," the old woman moaned, tears starting to spill out of her eyes. "We danced to it at our wedding, 70 years ago."
"70 years? Jesus, how old are you?"
"Warren!" Bobbi yelled from the other side of the roof, after helping a couple clip into a harness that'd let them rappel down to the ground below. "Less talk and more helping me get people down and out of here, please," she said, shaking her head as she jogged back to assist a man and his child who were next to be lowered down. "And less blasphemy too would be nice," she added, smiling at the woman even if she wouldn't be surprised if her next words were 'it's been 84 years.'
"It's fine, dear. I like the word 'fuck' just as much as anyone else."
Warren looked at the old woman in surprise before grinning. "Okay, I like you. What record? Mockingbird, I trust you can handle this?" People were starting to file in a more orderly fashion, which helped the escape. He spoke to the old lady (who was adorably named Petunia) and figured out which was her apartment. A few minutes (that they didn't have) later, he was back, records in hand. More people were off the roof but Petunia was still there. He gave Bobbi a look . "Why is she still here?" he hissed at her.
Bobbi turned to him once he spoke, her eyes a little watery. "W-Warren," she said, holding onto dear Petunia's hand with both of hers, "she was just telling me how she has those same records on CD, that her grandkids bought them for her so she could still listen to them on her computer... a-and Harold wrote the loveliest letter to her and stuck it inside the liner notes," she said with a sniffle. "You have to go back and get them too," she declared, patting Petunia's hand.
"And my Johnny Mathis CDs," Petunia added.
"And her Johnny Mathis CDs," repeated Bobbi. "Go on, scoot," she said, waving him off as she reluctantly let go of the older woman's hand and went to help a pair of younger woman who were holding up another young lady to get towards the roof for evacuation. "Go go go!"
There didn't seem to be any room for arguing, although that's what Warren wanted to do. He rolled his shoulders back, and cracked his neck before sighing heavily. "Are you fucking kidding me...." Bobbi wasn't there to hear it though, and he'd been shooed away (him! Warren Worthington the Third! The Au-DA-city). But duty called and so he went to do it.... back to the apartment that smelled like old newspapers, cats and possibly root beer. The last one, he hadn't quite deciphered and didn't think he'd be spending more time in there.
Rushing, he grabbed a bag at random, and threw in the CDs, a few pictures from the shelf and at the last minute, a bag of knitting. This time he was determined NOT to go back.
"M-A, how much longer do we have?"
"I recommend urgency." Marie-Ange's voice came with the clatter of boots, as she climbed a fire escape. "Clan Akkaba is moving in, all towards a centre. Warren, finish evacuating, I need you in the air. What are they headed towards?"
Death’s race with Kurt turns out to be a ruse to lure him to Jubilee and Amanda.
They’d gotten some notice but not more than the time it took Jubilee to raid Darcy’s snack stash in the office and what she’d been able to find in Betty’s downstairs.
The baseline humans had already run for the hills, smart of them Jubilee thought as she tore off a hunk of bread and downed it with a gulp of soda as she ran.
She’d build power as she went, and hopefully arrive at Tompkins Square Park with enough juice to stagger Death. Gods knew she’d have to find more food along the way to fuel it but she’d figure something out.
As if someone had heard her thought, the sidewalk tilted slightly and a pretzel cart rolled into the path ahead of her. Several cans of Coke rolled along after it, apparently escaping from one of the stores or possibly the cart itself.
"If that's you, Amanda, you're gonna get like, a massive sloppy kiss next time I see ya," Jubilee said before scooping up one of the cans and grabbing several large pretzels on her way past. She'd already finished the bread she'd taken and pulled the tab of one of the cans to start gulping down the sugary goodness as she ran. It wasn't easy both running and trying to keep from getting soda all over herself but honestly getting a bit sticky was the least of her worries right now. "See if you can give me an easy run to the park, yeah? Don't think waiting on crosswalk lights is gonna be the best use of my time right now."
***
Kurt teleported the pair of them back up into the air yet again, a little further away from their last landing. His tail wound tightly around Death's ankles, one hand clutching his opponent's wrist and the other the back of his neck. "I can do this as long as need be."
"What a coincidence," said Death. His wrist and legs were still encased in armor, but his neck was not. It was only because of the disorientation from X-Man's rapid-fire teleporting that when the nape of the Horseman's neck shifted from smooth plate to sharpened ridges that the flesh of Kurt's hand was only torn, not sliced to ribbons.
Death snaked his free hand across his body to seize Kurt by the other wrist.
"Though I could use a mid-flight meal."
Kurt twisted around in Death's grip, sliding his arm through sharp fingers until only sleeve was under the other man's hand. "I think not if it is all the same to you."
"No great loss. Your power would be a bit redundant, being my template and that." Death closed his hand on the empty sleeve, fingers briefly flexing into blades to shred the leather as he did. Now the two men were anchored only by the tail wrapped around the Horseman's legs. Death lurched forward to grab Kurt by the front of his uniform. "Incidentally, apologies I've not kept in touch. One does get busy. You know how it is."
Kurt jumped them another few feet forward as he brought them back up, and again, and again, aiming to keep him off balance. "I suppose I do. And once again, you are no longer yourself."
The Horseman wrenched Kurt closer, then engaged his own teleportation. The direction was random, careless, intended only to inflict the same disorientation on Kurt as the older man sought to impose on him. Death's exoskeleton rendered him impervious to impact. Kurt, though, was all too human.
"People change," said Death, "myself in particular. Change, or die. That was the lesson I learned when your power twisted on me. In that sense, you helped make me the man I am today."
The death's head grinned back at him, and in its sunken orbits burned amber eyes a mockery of Kurt's own.
"Cheers."
****
Jubilee had known academically that New York was one of the most densely packed places in America, but it hadn’t been quite so obvious as it was when she was trying to move against the flow of human traffic away from the danger. She’d gone from a dead run to a dart and scramble to keep moving forward.
She’d managed to finish off the pretzels and the cans of soda and was currently munching her way through Twizzlers as she ducked out of the way of a particularly large group of people.
“Amanda, feel like playing Google maps for me and getting me out of this crowd? Maybe a hotdog or some fried chicken too? I’ll like, totally take you to that new fusion Ethiopian restaurant that just opened later, like, pinkie swear.”
The reply wasn't verbal - Amanda wasn't able to talk when she was submerged completely in a city - but came in the form of a suddenly flashing red neon arrow emerging from the side of the building ahead of her, pointing down a small alleyway that she would have passed without noticing. It was the back alley to a row of restaurants and as Jubilee ran down the narrow space, doors flew open, releasing the smells of fried chicken and Chinese food.
“I fucking love you,” Jubilee breathed and darted inside to pick up a box of takeout that had been left when everyone dashed to evacuate.
Taking a moment to look around she noticed the back stairs that should lead to the roof and hopefully a slightly easier path. She’d still have to come down to street level to pick up food but it’d be an easier process.
“Alright, time to get my parkour on. Let’s see how fast I can eat and run.”
***
Kurt pulled himself out of the younger man's grip, staring at him unflinching as he started to fall, and then teleported again, allowing velocity to assist as he aimed a kick at the unprotected face. "Then I will have to attend to my mistakes."
A warped shadow of the other man's power could not replicate the spatial awareness gained from decades of teleportation and acrobatics. Death struck the ground like a meteorite, carving a long furrow in the pavement of Tompkins Square Park before coming to a stop beside the central fountain.
The Horseman levered himself out of the pavement, unfazed.
"You lot keep trying this," he remarked. "You'll need to throw something at me other than gravity."
"Oh, we are", Kurt retorted, standing over him. "I was just bringing you to the place we chose." Then he was gone.
There was a metallic creak and then the rails of the fence surrounding the park tore themselves from their places and hurtled towards the Horseman. Black iron staves knocked him back down again and pinned him against the fountain, some wrapping around and over him, others piercing his body and driving deep into the concrete below.
Death's cry was more shock than pain. Muscles clenched as his body began to shift to slow the already minimal bleeding.
"Who's that now, Polaris?" Death grunted. Metal rods began to shriek as the injured tissue began to warp and sharpen, already beginning to shear through his bonds. "Do you know . . . how many times . . . I've been tied down like a wild animal?"
The rigid death's head contorted in a snarl.
"I don't like it."
The response came in a funnel of wind pushing down on him, the precursor to a blast of pure New York as a blonde head emerged from the pavement nearby, followed by the rest of Amanda Sefton. "You're not welcome here," was all she said and her voice was an odd buzz of a thousand other voices before she raised her hand and blasted him with the spirit of Tompkins Square Park. There was a reason they'd chosen this place for this - its history was long and full of conflict and for a moment all of that was flung into the pinned Horseman, cries of beaten protestors and police whistles, the smell of burning shanties and gunpowder, flashes of National Guard uniforms, Hare Krishna robes, drag queens, jazz musicians, chess players, children... It was an overwhelming amount of stimulus, coming straight from the city itself through the witch whose powers had made her the city's guardian.
Batons striking flesh, soles striking pavement, throats full of laughter and chants and screams. Urban conflict and urban joy poured over him in equal measure, one after the other and all at once. As Death's efforts dissolved in the torrent of sensory overload, he finally realised what he'd been dealing with from the start:
The witch--
"Kid, you're gonna just fucking hate this then."
Jubilee had been running non-stop since she started at the Snow Valley offices but for this last part she had to walk, and it wasn't so much the colours that announced her presence, although there were those, a coruscating light show that engulfed her entire body in brilliant colours. No, what announced her most at this moment was the level of heat being generated around her, and the sizzle and crack of both melting snow and melting ground as steam billowed from the very air around her.
She smiled at Death, once known as Marius and lifted her hands skyward as she...exploded.
The sound seemed to bypass the ears completely to leave only the memory of its passage. Windows shattered in the resulting shockwave, weeping glass into the streets as car alarms blared.
But more than that was the light. Light that danced and streamed, that would have blinded him if not for the same nictitating membranes that protected his eyes when he passed Between. Light that burned so hot snow vaporised instantly to steam and any trees caught in the blast withered and burned.
Death lay in the rubble of the fountain on pavement that still glowed and popped with heat. What remained of the bars that had impaled him were an agony of superheated slag, but his body was already working them out. His cells reprioritized repair in favour of armour, and he let the exoskeleton and death's head mask slide while his battered body made more vital adjustments. When he looked back to Jubilee it was with the same face that had once passed her in the halls all those years ago.
Painfully, inexorably, Death stood. When his breath hissed through his teeth it streamed out not as vapor, but sparks.
"I eat energy, too, you know," said the Horseman.
It was a pity that Jubilee had already passed out from the rapid expenditure of energy, or she might have made a crack about how it wasn’t eating the energy that was the thing, it was the controlling it afterwards. Unfortunately, she was currently passed out, and so didn’t say a word.
The pavement next to Jubilee stirred slightly as Amanda slowly reappeared. She was smeared with ash and charcoal, her clothes seared by the intense heat she'd shared through her link with the city. And she was white and panting, nose slightly bleeding, exhausted from the effort of shielding the rest of the city from Jubilee's explosion with a combination of magic and clustering the surrounding buildings around the epicentre. But still she placed herself between Marius and the unconscious Jubilee with all the protective ferocity in her eyes of a mother raccoon protecting her kits from a bear.
"That's all yer gunna eat," she rasped at him, accent reverting back to the old South London without her even noticing. "I told you, yer not wanted 'ere."
Death wiped the sweat from his eyes, trying to focus through the heat haze. Jubilee and Amanda, he noticed, were at the centre of a perfectly untouched circle of concrete. "You all assume you're so appetising, as if I spend time contemplating a suitable wine pairing. How refined a palate would you say your palm has? I know I make my little jokes, but it's only ever been about survival." He raised a hand, and a flash of plasma danced in his palm just above the mouth. "Besides, after that display I've got all the energy I could've wanted. She's already done herself in, no need to finish her off."
The space where the Horseman had been was suddenly empty, and just to Amanda's left the pavement hummed with the abrupt presence of booted feet.
"That said, you've both been quite irritating."
Only the fact she'd been bonded with the city for several hours saved her from the razor-sharp claws swiping at her neck, looking to decapitate her. As it was, all the city could manage after the explosion was a slight shift of the pavement under her feet which moved her slightly to the left. The claws swiped across her upper arm, shredding leather jacket, flannel shirt, t-shirt and flesh indiscriminately. Amanda cried out and curled away, shielding the arm. But as he raised his hand to finish the job, she looked up with an almost apologetic expression, sorrow for the awkward boy who had made her feel normal for the space of a brief conversation before she'd left the mansion - for good, she'd thought at the time.
The handgun which she'd drawn from under her jacket with her good hand was pressed against his forehead and there was no tremble, no hesitation.
*BANG*
Death's neck snapped back as the bullet struck him right between the eyes -- and stayed there.
Slowly, the Horseman tilted his head forward until he was bowed over his own collarbone. The flattened bullet clinked to the ground, spent without even leaving a mark. From beneath his heavy brows amber eyes flicked up to fix on the witch.
"That," he hissed directly into Amanda's face, "is going to be a headache."
There was a burst of displaced air and strong arms wrapped around him tightly from behind. "I am afraid you will just have to live with that."
Kyle, Kurt and April are able to bring Marius to a halt, but not to put him down, as he initiates the beginning of the end.
The Horseman hit the ground hard. His instinctive slash at where Kurt should have been found only empty air. Death spun around, lips curled back in a snarl.
"You thought that would be enough?" asked the Horseman. "After all I've survived, surely you didn't think I'd be done in by that."
Death swept the sweat-soaked hair from his eyes and threw his arms wide in invitation.
"Go on, then," he called, "who's next?"
There was the slightest rustle of leaves ahead, and then a crackle of branch as Kyle dropped down from a tree branch lightly, and took a casual step towards the Horseman. "I called dibs. On account of our long history and personal friendship. " Another step forward, but still quite out of punching range, and he tilted his head inquisitively. "Well, no dreadlocks this time. Outfit's worse though."
The Horseman turned at the noise. One thick eyebrow arched.
"Kyle?" A quick scan for reinforcements revealed none. Death turned his attention back to his former teammate, unimpressed. "Well. We're really to the bottom of the barrel now, aren't we? No offence, obviously."
"Maybe a little offense." Kyle let claws slide in and out of his fingers, and rolled his neck to crack it. He glanced over one shoulder, and skitter-stepped backwards. "I know your powers dick is bigger than mine but I just explained, man. I called dibs. Can we talk, catch up? It's been a while, you never text anymore, I had no idea what to get you for Christmas."
"Apologies, but I've no interest in monologuing. Things to do, you know." The Horseman's fingers flexed in a mirror of Kyle's, thinning to blades. His stance shifted to one of readiness. "But, in deference to our long history and personal friendship, you're welcome to avoid the valiant but inevitably hopeless brawl and depart. The current estimates are quite sufficient -- one mutant more or less makes no difference."
The comm in Kyle's ear crackled once and he tapped it. "Yeah, he's just completely nuts." His voice was just the littlest bit pitched up to be better heard. "I tried to get him to monologue, but I think he's more Syndrome, less Megamind. Armor's dumb, confirmed he's charging some nonsense. Something about estimates." He gave Marius a steady look, tapped the comm again, glanced off towards an alleyway and the flash of traffic light on bumper chrome, yellow, caution, yellow, go slow, then green - and lunged shoulder forward for a tackle. "Can't afford to have any more friends be evil, Marius."
"Now that's just hurtful."
There was a wash of sulphur, and a blur. Something hit Kyle's kidneys from behind like an aluminum baseball bat, slamming the X-Man into the pavement.
"Surely you can find a more creative insult," continued Death as he lowered his arm. "You might as well go off on a forester for cutting out the dead undergrowth. I'd expect that kind of baseless accusation from Laurie, but not you. How's that going, incidentally? Still running those simulations? Can't say that sounded healthy to me, but I suppose that's between you and your therapist."
"Bruh," Kyle grunted before his face left the ground. "'m guessing." He pushed up, shook off the pain from the scrape now running down the entire side of his face, and spat a tooth. "She doesn't know you're also evil." He got his feet under him, barely and stumbled towards the street, using a wrecked car to steady his legs for a moment - and then cocked his head, listening for a moment, and then tapped his comm again. "Jennie. Jen. Pick up your fucking comm." He muttered, glancing at Marius to check for a reaction. "Jennie, maybe you can get through to him, I can't." Another glance, and Kyle pushed all the way up. "Nothing man? Just, not even gonna blink at that?" He leapt again, rolled into a tumble, and went for Marius' knees.
"Why would I? It's not as if I can disappoint her any further."
Another whiff of sulphur. A boot came down on Kyle's spine to slam him ribs-first into the concrete. Death leaned forward, pressing his full weight against the feral.
"You're stalling, of course," said the Horseman, amber eyes cold, scorn dripping from every syllable. "We were team together -- your tricks are duly noted. Right now you have my indulgence because it makes no difference. Whatever you bring against me, I can adapt. It's what I'm built for, after all."
Kyle spat the blood in his mouth from biting his tongue, and shook off the haze of concussion. "Yeah, and I lied, I don't even have her new number. Haven't talked to Jennie in a year." He slowly turned his head, fighting against an undertow of pain as his ribs and sternum started healing. "Come on man, you think I'm stalling? I thought you knew me. I'm not fucking stalling, I'm trying to distract you. We were team together, remember?" He pulled his arm out from under himself, scraping leather armor and skin against the road, and thumped the rumbling manhole cover he'd landed next to.
It screamed, metal against metal and hot steam and the rage of a city, and jetted open.
150 lbs of solid steel took Death under the jaw with enough force to snap a normal man's neck. The Horseman was knocked from Kyle's back and onto the pavement, making a horrible strangled noise as he clutched at his throat.
The Horseman wheezed as muscles and tendons jumped, working around the damage as he heaved himself onto all fours. When he met Kyle's gaze again there was murder in his eyes.
"Your lot are still alive because it's not you I'm here for," Death rasped. "I'm here for the city. It makes no difference how many pigeons or manhole covers it throws at me, I will wring the life from it. I'll bleed it dry. And since you insist, I'll start with you."
Then, rattlesnake-quick, Death seized Kyle by the wrists and began to feed.
Despite howling in pain from the gouges in his wrists, Kyle still arched his back and kicked up, planting both feet in Marius' armored stomach, and pushed. It tore the ceramic edged fingers from his arms, leaving blood coating the hands of both men. Kyle panted, open mouthed and face streaming with sweat and tears, and grabbed at his own ear. He left streaks of gore on his face fumbling far too long with numb fingers, but still hit his comm.
Hazel eyes met amber, unblinking. "I lied. I was stalling. Mayhem, you're up."
April had started running towards the edge of the roof as soon as she saw Kyle gripped by the wrists, and she took a flying leap off the edge into a swan dive as black and blue swirls washed over and around her body, enclosing her with just enough time to shoot out webs and attach to the arms of the guy – Death, Marius, whoever he was, here to kill her city, no fucking thanks – before she was slamming into his back knees first and driving him into the pavement. "HI." she rumbled against the guy's ear, snapping her teeth sharply. "FRIEND IS NOT FOOD. BAD BOY. NO TREAT." Her tendrils were wrapping around him as she scolded, and she was content to sit there for a moment and hold him in place.
Her eyes turned to Kyle, the wide whites unblinking as they took in the blood and gore. "WILD. O-K?"
Kyle's face was slack under the streaks of his own blood until he shook himself head to toe, and skittered back, grunting at the pain of his bleeding wrists. "No, but I'll heal." Eventually. He could feel broken ribs not knitting back together in the way they just had been seconds before. These injuries were not budging, he might have to heal the long way.
He fumbled at the comm again. “Death is webbed. Bring in containment" He said, watching the prone and struggling form of his friend - former friend - carefully, and glancing once at April, with an apologetic expression and eyes that glanced from the wounds in his wrists back to her.
One of Mayhem's hands stretched into a flat paddle, thwacking into Death's shoulder with repeated thunks. "HURT TEAM. RUDE BOY."
The paddle came down again, but suddenly found only empty air.
"Interrupted my meal. Rude girl."
Abruptly, Death was behind her. His arms shot out, spraying armour and snarls of webbing as he thinned his arms to blades and back again. The man rolled his shoulders as he tore the last of his ruined armour from his chest and shoulders, fully exposing the livid brand of Akkaba carved across his muscles as he did. He scanned the newcomer with a predator's eye.
"I was right," he remarked, underwhelmed by her power signature. "You are down to the dregs. You want a turn at hand-to-hand as well? Ask Kyle how that's likely to go."
Mayhem rolled into a crouch, ready to pounce forward and grateful her emotions mostly didn't roll over in this form as her cheeks burned. Whyyyyyyy was this guy now half-naked? What the hell was that on... right, the leech mouths. Weird, weird, she really couldn't say anything because hello, herself, but also her hands had webbing and spinnerets, not mouths. That she snacked on mutants with.
All of this flew through her mind as she cocked her head sideways at his taunt. Dregs? DREGS? Excuse him. She snapped her teeth and growled. "YES" she replied finally, launching towards him head on. Her tendrils unfurled ahead of her in the hopes of either grasping or being grasped, Kyle's theory in the back of her mind.
"If you like." Death stepped to the side and disappeared, only to reappear beside her. His raking talons found only air as April's intuition allowed her to leap clear before he could make contact. Viciously he pressed the attack: one rake, then another, each swing powerful enough to slice her head from her shoulders, and each time the X-Man evaded him. He paused, appraising her.
"Slippery," he remarked, cocking his head with reptilian interest. He seemed to consider something, then shook his head.
"Alas, I suppose this is no time to play with my food."
He blurred, and suddenly he was on top of her.
April snapped at the fingers going for her face instinctively, teeth stopping with a scrape instead of biting cleanly through. Huh. She tested it again. SNAP. Scrape. A fading bit of red on the skin. Awkward, but... she lunged forward, chomping more firmly and holding on, legs hooking around his knees and tendrils wrapping around his torso. A little wiggling, a little leverage – this was like sparring with Colossus, but smaller. She managed to flip them with a heave of motion, Death landing flat on his back and staring up at her, tendrils firmly in his hands and.
Oh.
That... that was weird. She let her tongue loll out, drool dripping onto his face. "PINNED," she gloated briefly, the weird numb-pain of her tendrils being snacked on sending both euphoria and nausea through her system. If this dude was gonna snack on her and hurt her team, then he deserved all the weird she could throw at him. She licked a stripe over his oddly greyed skin with her tongue, letting out a growly laugh.
There was no revulsion, no shock. Instead hands merely tightened around her tendrils. "Indeed?" the Horseman asked mildly as the mouths churned against her skin. "Didn't Kyle tell you it's unhealthy to get too close to--"
The Horseman froze.
"What--" His eyes went wide, and for the first time the discrepancy between her power signature and the ink-black form that straddled seemed to dawn on him. He stared at her in growing horror.
"You -- you're not a--"
Death's body spasmed beneath her. With a strangled noise he tore himself, free, but it was too late: April's genetic material was in his system. There was a crackle as tiny balls of plasma began to flash around him.
“SORRY not sorry,” April quipped as her form started to shrink back. Her body was still mostly in the Mayhem form, but she’d pulled her own face mostly forward, hair and ears and neck still covered but eyes, nose, and mouth back to their human form. She kept shrinking a few inches past her normal height, smaller and lighter – easier for Kyle and Kurt to bundle and grab.
"Nightcrawler! NOW!" Kyle had an ampule of smelling salts broken on his fingers, and was onto his feet as the tiniest of plasmoids crackled around Marius.
They grew, doubling in size and then again, the air permeated with the smell of ozone and saltpeter. Kyle swatted one out of his eyes, and hissed as it burned. In a fluid motion, he pulled a rapidly expanding sheet from his jacket, the heatproof silver metal blanket unfolding over and over and then he was atop April, and wrapped both of them clumsily in the material.
The fireworks flashed, bright and searing, orange blue pink yellow green red and black behind Kyle's eyes, and there was ozone and acrid smoke and pressure and the reek of sulphur, and the blessed familiar sound of Kurt's teleportation.
Blue arms wrapped around the blanketed bundle, careful to make contact with both Kyle and April from what he could feel, and then all three of them were gone.
Death was burning. Whatever that girl was, it wasn't a mutant -- it was something alien, something toxic. He could feel it crawling through him like venom. He needed to purge it.
But it was already in his system, mingling with the stolen luck, the healing factor, and there was no way to void it. It was tangled with the rest and now the energy absorbed from Jubilee was churning in his guts and seeping through his pores--
Boiling over.
The explosion shook what was left of the windows for blocks around.
The rooftop that Kurt had left Kyle and April on shook. The older man had deposited them both, and teleported right back out, leaving the usual lingering haze. Kyle hadn't even bothered to unwrap the blanket, he hurt, his face was bleeding, one eye swollen shut from the beginnings of the explosion, and for the first time he could remember, it was not healing over. He watched as smoke rose, and gnawed on a claw. His hastily concocted plan had worked. Death - Marius - had taken the bait, fed off a mutant with partially inhuman blood while riding out an overdose of energy projector.
In the epicentre of the explosion was either his friend, protected by Kyle's own healing factor, or whatever remained of him, and the uncertainty hurt more than the broken ribs and bleeding wounds in his wrists.
Death shuddered in the midst of the crater, plasma still sizzling around him as his muscles jumped and seized. His throat was thick with the stink of his own seared flesh. He could feel the alien DNA still crawling through his veins even as his body struggled for repair. The corruption continued to circulate, iterating upon itself.
No way to purge it. No way to escape it. The damage was catastrophic.
He had to laugh. In the end, it was his own body that was taking him apart -- just like always.
But still a terrible will drove him on.
Death forced himself to his knees, coughing blood.
Don't stop.
Never stop.
The Horseman sank his fingers into concrete as if seizing the flesh of the city itself.
"I am Death," he hissed. "No man excels me. No man escapes me. I am Death, and the grave follows behind me."
There. It had been building since the moment he'd set foot in New York City. Power, bleak and all-consuming, clawing up his throat like a scream. Power he'd carried as it metastasised like a tumour, waiting for the right time to release it.
Waiting for now.
Meat twisting around his bones, body weeping streams of plasma, Death triggered his final attack.
***
"Spot, Conduit, cover the District X centre." Marie-Ange's voice broke over the comms. "Archangel spotted Death, there is an interception plan." Her voice was tight, and worryingly, Garrison had dropped off the comms. "Key points to your phone, Conduit. Cover those individuals."
"Heard." Darcy sent out a few threads of consciousness, one weaving through a nearby cell tower and the other curling through Warren's communicator. She wouldn't get everything like this, but the minor boost would make it easier for connections to happen.
Even two hundred meters over the streets, it was still chaos. A news helicopter had buzzed perilously close before having to make an emergency landing blocks away at the nearest hospital.
"Arcangel, you are in range again. Status check." Marie-Ange was leaning up against a wall in an alley, long spear in one hand, still blooded from the last Clan Akkaba member who had seen her and thought she would make a soft target. "You have possible hostiles in range, Cypher reported movement heading towards Sixth."
Warren knew what Arcangel meant but had no idea why he was being called that. Regardless, now wasn't the time, not when they were working hard to corral people and get them off the roof. With his mask firmly in place, and wings stretched out, he hoped his angelic look would work to his favour. "Listen," he said to the oldest human being ever, "I hear you, I do, but lady -- a record is not a valid reason to go back. There are bad guys coming. Bad guys who want to do horrible things to you." He waved at Bobbi to get the rest of the group organized while he tried to reason with this grandma. "What's more important?? A record or your life?"
"It was Harold's," the old woman moaned, tears starting to spill out of her eyes. "We danced to it at our wedding, 70 years ago."
"70 years? Jesus, how old are you?"
"Warren!" Bobbi yelled from the other side of the roof, after helping a couple clip into a harness that'd let them rappel down to the ground below. "Less talk and more helping me get people down and out of here, please," she said, shaking her head as she jogged back to assist a man and his child who were next to be lowered down. "And less blasphemy too would be nice," she added, smiling at the woman even if she wouldn't be surprised if her next words were 'it's been 84 years.'
"It's fine, dear. I like the word 'fuck' just as much as anyone else."
Warren looked at the old woman in surprise before grinning. "Okay, I like you. What record? Mockingbird, I trust you can handle this?" People were starting to file in a more orderly fashion, which helped the escape. He spoke to the old lady (who was adorably named Petunia) and figured out which was her apartment. A few minutes (that they didn't have) later, he was back, records in hand. More people were off the roof but Petunia was still there. He gave Bobbi a look . "Why is she still here?" he hissed at her.
Bobbi turned to him once he spoke, her eyes a little watery. "W-Warren," she said, holding onto dear Petunia's hand with both of hers, "she was just telling me how she has those same records on CD, that her grandkids bought them for her so she could still listen to them on her computer... a-and Harold wrote the loveliest letter to her and stuck it inside the liner notes," she said with a sniffle. "You have to go back and get them too," she declared, patting Petunia's hand.
"And my Johnny Mathis CDs," Petunia added.
"And her Johnny Mathis CDs," repeated Bobbi. "Go on, scoot," she said, waving him off as she reluctantly let go of the older woman's hand and went to help a pair of younger woman who were holding up another young lady to get towards the roof for evacuation. "Go go go!"
There didn't seem to be any room for arguing, although that's what Warren wanted to do. He rolled his shoulders back, and cracked his neck before sighing heavily. "Are you fucking kidding me...." Bobbi wasn't there to hear it though, and he'd been shooed away (him! Warren Worthington the Third! The Au-DA-city). But duty called and so he went to do it.... back to the apartment that smelled like old newspapers, cats and possibly root beer. The last one, he hadn't quite deciphered and didn't think he'd be spending more time in there.
Rushing, he grabbed a bag at random, and threw in the CDs, a few pictures from the shelf and at the last minute, a bag of knitting. This time he was determined NOT to go back.
"M-A, how much longer do we have?"
"I recommend urgency." Marie-Ange's voice came with the clatter of boots, as she climbed a fire escape. "Clan Akkaba is moving in, all towards a centre. Warren, finish evacuating, I need you in the air. What are they headed towards?"
Death’s race with Kurt turns out to be a ruse to lure him to Jubilee and Amanda.
They’d gotten some notice but not more than the time it took Jubilee to raid Darcy’s snack stash in the office and what she’d been able to find in Betty’s downstairs.
The baseline humans had already run for the hills, smart of them Jubilee thought as she tore off a hunk of bread and downed it with a gulp of soda as she ran.
She’d build power as she went, and hopefully arrive at Tompkins Square Park with enough juice to stagger Death. Gods knew she’d have to find more food along the way to fuel it but she’d figure something out.
As if someone had heard her thought, the sidewalk tilted slightly and a pretzel cart rolled into the path ahead of her. Several cans of Coke rolled along after it, apparently escaping from one of the stores or possibly the cart itself.
"If that's you, Amanda, you're gonna get like, a massive sloppy kiss next time I see ya," Jubilee said before scooping up one of the cans and grabbing several large pretzels on her way past. She'd already finished the bread she'd taken and pulled the tab of one of the cans to start gulping down the sugary goodness as she ran. It wasn't easy both running and trying to keep from getting soda all over herself but honestly getting a bit sticky was the least of her worries right now. "See if you can give me an easy run to the park, yeah? Don't think waiting on crosswalk lights is gonna be the best use of my time right now."
***
Kurt teleported the pair of them back up into the air yet again, a little further away from their last landing. His tail wound tightly around Death's ankles, one hand clutching his opponent's wrist and the other the back of his neck. "I can do this as long as need be."
"What a coincidence," said Death. His wrist and legs were still encased in armor, but his neck was not. It was only because of the disorientation from X-Man's rapid-fire teleporting that when the nape of the Horseman's neck shifted from smooth plate to sharpened ridges that the flesh of Kurt's hand was only torn, not sliced to ribbons.
Death snaked his free hand across his body to seize Kurt by the other wrist.
"Though I could use a mid-flight meal."
Kurt twisted around in Death's grip, sliding his arm through sharp fingers until only sleeve was under the other man's hand. "I think not if it is all the same to you."
"No great loss. Your power would be a bit redundant, being my template and that." Death closed his hand on the empty sleeve, fingers briefly flexing into blades to shred the leather as he did. Now the two men were anchored only by the tail wrapped around the Horseman's legs. Death lurched forward to grab Kurt by the front of his uniform. "Incidentally, apologies I've not kept in touch. One does get busy. You know how it is."
Kurt jumped them another few feet forward as he brought them back up, and again, and again, aiming to keep him off balance. "I suppose I do. And once again, you are no longer yourself."
The Horseman wrenched Kurt closer, then engaged his own teleportation. The direction was random, careless, intended only to inflict the same disorientation on Kurt as the older man sought to impose on him. Death's exoskeleton rendered him impervious to impact. Kurt, though, was all too human.
"People change," said Death, "myself in particular. Change, or die. That was the lesson I learned when your power twisted on me. In that sense, you helped make me the man I am today."
The death's head grinned back at him, and in its sunken orbits burned amber eyes a mockery of Kurt's own.
"Cheers."
****
Jubilee had known academically that New York was one of the most densely packed places in America, but it hadn’t been quite so obvious as it was when she was trying to move against the flow of human traffic away from the danger. She’d gone from a dead run to a dart and scramble to keep moving forward.
She’d managed to finish off the pretzels and the cans of soda and was currently munching her way through Twizzlers as she ducked out of the way of a particularly large group of people.
“Amanda, feel like playing Google maps for me and getting me out of this crowd? Maybe a hotdog or some fried chicken too? I’ll like, totally take you to that new fusion Ethiopian restaurant that just opened later, like, pinkie swear.”
The reply wasn't verbal - Amanda wasn't able to talk when she was submerged completely in a city - but came in the form of a suddenly flashing red neon arrow emerging from the side of the building ahead of her, pointing down a small alleyway that she would have passed without noticing. It was the back alley to a row of restaurants and as Jubilee ran down the narrow space, doors flew open, releasing the smells of fried chicken and Chinese food.
“I fucking love you,” Jubilee breathed and darted inside to pick up a box of takeout that had been left when everyone dashed to evacuate.
Taking a moment to look around she noticed the back stairs that should lead to the roof and hopefully a slightly easier path. She’d still have to come down to street level to pick up food but it’d be an easier process.
“Alright, time to get my parkour on. Let’s see how fast I can eat and run.”
***
Kurt pulled himself out of the younger man's grip, staring at him unflinching as he started to fall, and then teleported again, allowing velocity to assist as he aimed a kick at the unprotected face. "Then I will have to attend to my mistakes."
A warped shadow of the other man's power could not replicate the spatial awareness gained from decades of teleportation and acrobatics. Death struck the ground like a meteorite, carving a long furrow in the pavement of Tompkins Square Park before coming to a stop beside the central fountain.
The Horseman levered himself out of the pavement, unfazed.
"You lot keep trying this," he remarked. "You'll need to throw something at me other than gravity."
"Oh, we are", Kurt retorted, standing over him. "I was just bringing you to the place we chose." Then he was gone.
There was a metallic creak and then the rails of the fence surrounding the park tore themselves from their places and hurtled towards the Horseman. Black iron staves knocked him back down again and pinned him against the fountain, some wrapping around and over him, others piercing his body and driving deep into the concrete below.
Death's cry was more shock than pain. Muscles clenched as his body began to shift to slow the already minimal bleeding.
"Who's that now, Polaris?" Death grunted. Metal rods began to shriek as the injured tissue began to warp and sharpen, already beginning to shear through his bonds. "Do you know . . . how many times . . . I've been tied down like a wild animal?"
The rigid death's head contorted in a snarl.
"I don't like it."
The response came in a funnel of wind pushing down on him, the precursor to a blast of pure New York as a blonde head emerged from the pavement nearby, followed by the rest of Amanda Sefton. "You're not welcome here," was all she said and her voice was an odd buzz of a thousand other voices before she raised her hand and blasted him with the spirit of Tompkins Square Park. There was a reason they'd chosen this place for this - its history was long and full of conflict and for a moment all of that was flung into the pinned Horseman, cries of beaten protestors and police whistles, the smell of burning shanties and gunpowder, flashes of National Guard uniforms, Hare Krishna robes, drag queens, jazz musicians, chess players, children... It was an overwhelming amount of stimulus, coming straight from the city itself through the witch whose powers had made her the city's guardian.
Batons striking flesh, soles striking pavement, throats full of laughter and chants and screams. Urban conflict and urban joy poured over him in equal measure, one after the other and all at once. As Death's efforts dissolved in the torrent of sensory overload, he finally realised what he'd been dealing with from the start:
The witch--
"Kid, you're gonna just fucking hate this then."
Jubilee had been running non-stop since she started at the Snow Valley offices but for this last part she had to walk, and it wasn't so much the colours that announced her presence, although there were those, a coruscating light show that engulfed her entire body in brilliant colours. No, what announced her most at this moment was the level of heat being generated around her, and the sizzle and crack of both melting snow and melting ground as steam billowed from the very air around her.
She smiled at Death, once known as Marius and lifted her hands skyward as she...exploded.
The sound seemed to bypass the ears completely to leave only the memory of its passage. Windows shattered in the resulting shockwave, weeping glass into the streets as car alarms blared.
But more than that was the light. Light that danced and streamed, that would have blinded him if not for the same nictitating membranes that protected his eyes when he passed Between. Light that burned so hot snow vaporised instantly to steam and any trees caught in the blast withered and burned.
Death lay in the rubble of the fountain on pavement that still glowed and popped with heat. What remained of the bars that had impaled him were an agony of superheated slag, but his body was already working them out. His cells reprioritized repair in favour of armour, and he let the exoskeleton and death's head mask slide while his battered body made more vital adjustments. When he looked back to Jubilee it was with the same face that had once passed her in the halls all those years ago.
Painfully, inexorably, Death stood. When his breath hissed through his teeth it streamed out not as vapor, but sparks.
"I eat energy, too, you know," said the Horseman.
It was a pity that Jubilee had already passed out from the rapid expenditure of energy, or she might have made a crack about how it wasn’t eating the energy that was the thing, it was the controlling it afterwards. Unfortunately, she was currently passed out, and so didn’t say a word.
The pavement next to Jubilee stirred slightly as Amanda slowly reappeared. She was smeared with ash and charcoal, her clothes seared by the intense heat she'd shared through her link with the city. And she was white and panting, nose slightly bleeding, exhausted from the effort of shielding the rest of the city from Jubilee's explosion with a combination of magic and clustering the surrounding buildings around the epicentre. But still she placed herself between Marius and the unconscious Jubilee with all the protective ferocity in her eyes of a mother raccoon protecting her kits from a bear.
"That's all yer gunna eat," she rasped at him, accent reverting back to the old South London without her even noticing. "I told you, yer not wanted 'ere."
Death wiped the sweat from his eyes, trying to focus through the heat haze. Jubilee and Amanda, he noticed, were at the centre of a perfectly untouched circle of concrete. "You all assume you're so appetising, as if I spend time contemplating a suitable wine pairing. How refined a palate would you say your palm has? I know I make my little jokes, but it's only ever been about survival." He raised a hand, and a flash of plasma danced in his palm just above the mouth. "Besides, after that display I've got all the energy I could've wanted. She's already done herself in, no need to finish her off."
The space where the Horseman had been was suddenly empty, and just to Amanda's left the pavement hummed with the abrupt presence of booted feet.
"That said, you've both been quite irritating."
Only the fact she'd been bonded with the city for several hours saved her from the razor-sharp claws swiping at her neck, looking to decapitate her. As it was, all the city could manage after the explosion was a slight shift of the pavement under her feet which moved her slightly to the left. The claws swiped across her upper arm, shredding leather jacket, flannel shirt, t-shirt and flesh indiscriminately. Amanda cried out and curled away, shielding the arm. But as he raised his hand to finish the job, she looked up with an almost apologetic expression, sorrow for the awkward boy who had made her feel normal for the space of a brief conversation before she'd left the mansion - for good, she'd thought at the time.
The handgun which she'd drawn from under her jacket with her good hand was pressed against his forehead and there was no tremble, no hesitation.
*BANG*
Death's neck snapped back as the bullet struck him right between the eyes -- and stayed there.
Slowly, the Horseman tilted his head forward until he was bowed over his own collarbone. The flattened bullet clinked to the ground, spent without even leaving a mark. From beneath his heavy brows amber eyes flicked up to fix on the witch.
"That," he hissed directly into Amanda's face, "is going to be a headache."
There was a burst of displaced air and strong arms wrapped around him tightly from behind. "I am afraid you will just have to live with that."
Kyle, Kurt and April are able to bring Marius to a halt, but not to put him down, as he initiates the beginning of the end.
The Horseman hit the ground hard. His instinctive slash at where Kurt should have been found only empty air. Death spun around, lips curled back in a snarl.
"You thought that would be enough?" asked the Horseman. "After all I've survived, surely you didn't think I'd be done in by that."
Death swept the sweat-soaked hair from his eyes and threw his arms wide in invitation.
"Go on, then," he called, "who's next?"
There was the slightest rustle of leaves ahead, and then a crackle of branch as Kyle dropped down from a tree branch lightly, and took a casual step towards the Horseman. "I called dibs. On account of our long history and personal friendship. " Another step forward, but still quite out of punching range, and he tilted his head inquisitively. "Well, no dreadlocks this time. Outfit's worse though."
The Horseman turned at the noise. One thick eyebrow arched.
"Kyle?" A quick scan for reinforcements revealed none. Death turned his attention back to his former teammate, unimpressed. "Well. We're really to the bottom of the barrel now, aren't we? No offence, obviously."
"Maybe a little offense." Kyle let claws slide in and out of his fingers, and rolled his neck to crack it. He glanced over one shoulder, and skitter-stepped backwards. "I know your powers dick is bigger than mine but I just explained, man. I called dibs. Can we talk, catch up? It's been a while, you never text anymore, I had no idea what to get you for Christmas."
"Apologies, but I've no interest in monologuing. Things to do, you know." The Horseman's fingers flexed in a mirror of Kyle's, thinning to blades. His stance shifted to one of readiness. "But, in deference to our long history and personal friendship, you're welcome to avoid the valiant but inevitably hopeless brawl and depart. The current estimates are quite sufficient -- one mutant more or less makes no difference."
The comm in Kyle's ear crackled once and he tapped it. "Yeah, he's just completely nuts." His voice was just the littlest bit pitched up to be better heard. "I tried to get him to monologue, but I think he's more Syndrome, less Megamind. Armor's dumb, confirmed he's charging some nonsense. Something about estimates." He gave Marius a steady look, tapped the comm again, glanced off towards an alleyway and the flash of traffic light on bumper chrome, yellow, caution, yellow, go slow, then green - and lunged shoulder forward for a tackle. "Can't afford to have any more friends be evil, Marius."
"Now that's just hurtful."
There was a wash of sulphur, and a blur. Something hit Kyle's kidneys from behind like an aluminum baseball bat, slamming the X-Man into the pavement.
"Surely you can find a more creative insult," continued Death as he lowered his arm. "You might as well go off on a forester for cutting out the dead undergrowth. I'd expect that kind of baseless accusation from Laurie, but not you. How's that going, incidentally? Still running those simulations? Can't say that sounded healthy to me, but I suppose that's between you and your therapist."
"Bruh," Kyle grunted before his face left the ground. "'m guessing." He pushed up, shook off the pain from the scrape now running down the entire side of his face, and spat a tooth. "She doesn't know you're also evil." He got his feet under him, barely and stumbled towards the street, using a wrecked car to steady his legs for a moment - and then cocked his head, listening for a moment, and then tapped his comm again. "Jennie. Jen. Pick up your fucking comm." He muttered, glancing at Marius to check for a reaction. "Jennie, maybe you can get through to him, I can't." Another glance, and Kyle pushed all the way up. "Nothing man? Just, not even gonna blink at that?" He leapt again, rolled into a tumble, and went for Marius' knees.
"Why would I? It's not as if I can disappoint her any further."
Another whiff of sulphur. A boot came down on Kyle's spine to slam him ribs-first into the concrete. Death leaned forward, pressing his full weight against the feral.
"You're stalling, of course," said the Horseman, amber eyes cold, scorn dripping from every syllable. "We were team together -- your tricks are duly noted. Right now you have my indulgence because it makes no difference. Whatever you bring against me, I can adapt. It's what I'm built for, after all."
Kyle spat the blood in his mouth from biting his tongue, and shook off the haze of concussion. "Yeah, and I lied, I don't even have her new number. Haven't talked to Jennie in a year." He slowly turned his head, fighting against an undertow of pain as his ribs and sternum started healing. "Come on man, you think I'm stalling? I thought you knew me. I'm not fucking stalling, I'm trying to distract you. We were team together, remember?" He pulled his arm out from under himself, scraping leather armor and skin against the road, and thumped the rumbling manhole cover he'd landed next to.
It screamed, metal against metal and hot steam and the rage of a city, and jetted open.
150 lbs of solid steel took Death under the jaw with enough force to snap a normal man's neck. The Horseman was knocked from Kyle's back and onto the pavement, making a horrible strangled noise as he clutched at his throat.
The Horseman wheezed as muscles and tendons jumped, working around the damage as he heaved himself onto all fours. When he met Kyle's gaze again there was murder in his eyes.
"Your lot are still alive because it's not you I'm here for," Death rasped. "I'm here for the city. It makes no difference how many pigeons or manhole covers it throws at me, I will wring the life from it. I'll bleed it dry. And since you insist, I'll start with you."
Then, rattlesnake-quick, Death seized Kyle by the wrists and began to feed.
Despite howling in pain from the gouges in his wrists, Kyle still arched his back and kicked up, planting both feet in Marius' armored stomach, and pushed. It tore the ceramic edged fingers from his arms, leaving blood coating the hands of both men. Kyle panted, open mouthed and face streaming with sweat and tears, and grabbed at his own ear. He left streaks of gore on his face fumbling far too long with numb fingers, but still hit his comm.
Hazel eyes met amber, unblinking. "I lied. I was stalling. Mayhem, you're up."
April had started running towards the edge of the roof as soon as she saw Kyle gripped by the wrists, and she took a flying leap off the edge into a swan dive as black and blue swirls washed over and around her body, enclosing her with just enough time to shoot out webs and attach to the arms of the guy – Death, Marius, whoever he was, here to kill her city, no fucking thanks – before she was slamming into his back knees first and driving him into the pavement. "HI." she rumbled against the guy's ear, snapping her teeth sharply. "FRIEND IS NOT FOOD. BAD BOY. NO TREAT." Her tendrils were wrapping around him as she scolded, and she was content to sit there for a moment and hold him in place.
Her eyes turned to Kyle, the wide whites unblinking as they took in the blood and gore. "WILD. O-K?"
Kyle's face was slack under the streaks of his own blood until he shook himself head to toe, and skittered back, grunting at the pain of his bleeding wrists. "No, but I'll heal." Eventually. He could feel broken ribs not knitting back together in the way they just had been seconds before. These injuries were not budging, he might have to heal the long way.
He fumbled at the comm again. “Death is webbed. Bring in containment" He said, watching the prone and struggling form of his friend - former friend - carefully, and glancing once at April, with an apologetic expression and eyes that glanced from the wounds in his wrists back to her.
One of Mayhem's hands stretched into a flat paddle, thwacking into Death's shoulder with repeated thunks. "HURT TEAM. RUDE BOY."
The paddle came down again, but suddenly found only empty air.
"Interrupted my meal. Rude girl."
Abruptly, Death was behind her. His arms shot out, spraying armour and snarls of webbing as he thinned his arms to blades and back again. The man rolled his shoulders as he tore the last of his ruined armour from his chest and shoulders, fully exposing the livid brand of Akkaba carved across his muscles as he did. He scanned the newcomer with a predator's eye.
"I was right," he remarked, underwhelmed by her power signature. "You are down to the dregs. You want a turn at hand-to-hand as well? Ask Kyle how that's likely to go."
Mayhem rolled into a crouch, ready to pounce forward and grateful her emotions mostly didn't roll over in this form as her cheeks burned. Whyyyyyyy was this guy now half-naked? What the hell was that on... right, the leech mouths. Weird, weird, she really couldn't say anything because hello, herself, but also her hands had webbing and spinnerets, not mouths. That she snacked on mutants with.
All of this flew through her mind as she cocked her head sideways at his taunt. Dregs? DREGS? Excuse him. She snapped her teeth and growled. "YES" she replied finally, launching towards him head on. Her tendrils unfurled ahead of her in the hopes of either grasping or being grasped, Kyle's theory in the back of her mind.
"If you like." Death stepped to the side and disappeared, only to reappear beside her. His raking talons found only air as April's intuition allowed her to leap clear before he could make contact. Viciously he pressed the attack: one rake, then another, each swing powerful enough to slice her head from her shoulders, and each time the X-Man evaded him. He paused, appraising her.
"Slippery," he remarked, cocking his head with reptilian interest. He seemed to consider something, then shook his head.
"Alas, I suppose this is no time to play with my food."
He blurred, and suddenly he was on top of her.
April snapped at the fingers going for her face instinctively, teeth stopping with a scrape instead of biting cleanly through. Huh. She tested it again. SNAP. Scrape. A fading bit of red on the skin. Awkward, but... she lunged forward, chomping more firmly and holding on, legs hooking around his knees and tendrils wrapping around his torso. A little wiggling, a little leverage – this was like sparring with Colossus, but smaller. She managed to flip them with a heave of motion, Death landing flat on his back and staring up at her, tendrils firmly in his hands and.
Oh.
That... that was weird. She let her tongue loll out, drool dripping onto his face. "PINNED," she gloated briefly, the weird numb-pain of her tendrils being snacked on sending both euphoria and nausea through her system. If this dude was gonna snack on her and hurt her team, then he deserved all the weird she could throw at him. She licked a stripe over his oddly greyed skin with her tongue, letting out a growly laugh.
There was no revulsion, no shock. Instead hands merely tightened around her tendrils. "Indeed?" the Horseman asked mildly as the mouths churned against her skin. "Didn't Kyle tell you it's unhealthy to get too close to--"
The Horseman froze.
"What--" His eyes went wide, and for the first time the discrepancy between her power signature and the ink-black form that straddled seemed to dawn on him. He stared at her in growing horror.
"You -- you're not a--"
Death's body spasmed beneath her. With a strangled noise he tore himself, free, but it was too late: April's genetic material was in his system. There was a crackle as tiny balls of plasma began to flash around him.
“SORRY not sorry,” April quipped as her form started to shrink back. Her body was still mostly in the Mayhem form, but she’d pulled her own face mostly forward, hair and ears and neck still covered but eyes, nose, and mouth back to their human form. She kept shrinking a few inches past her normal height, smaller and lighter – easier for Kyle and Kurt to bundle and grab.
"Nightcrawler! NOW!" Kyle had an ampule of smelling salts broken on his fingers, and was onto his feet as the tiniest of plasmoids crackled around Marius.
They grew, doubling in size and then again, the air permeated with the smell of ozone and saltpeter. Kyle swatted one out of his eyes, and hissed as it burned. In a fluid motion, he pulled a rapidly expanding sheet from his jacket, the heatproof silver metal blanket unfolding over and over and then he was atop April, and wrapped both of them clumsily in the material.
The fireworks flashed, bright and searing, orange blue pink yellow green red and black behind Kyle's eyes, and there was ozone and acrid smoke and pressure and the reek of sulphur, and the blessed familiar sound of Kurt's teleportation.
Blue arms wrapped around the blanketed bundle, careful to make contact with both Kyle and April from what he could feel, and then all three of them were gone.
Death was burning. Whatever that girl was, it wasn't a mutant -- it was something alien, something toxic. He could feel it crawling through him like venom. He needed to purge it.
But it was already in his system, mingling with the stolen luck, the healing factor, and there was no way to void it. It was tangled with the rest and now the energy absorbed from Jubilee was churning in his guts and seeping through his pores--
Boiling over.
The explosion shook what was left of the windows for blocks around.
The rooftop that Kurt had left Kyle and April on shook. The older man had deposited them both, and teleported right back out, leaving the usual lingering haze. Kyle hadn't even bothered to unwrap the blanket, he hurt, his face was bleeding, one eye swollen shut from the beginnings of the explosion, and for the first time he could remember, it was not healing over. He watched as smoke rose, and gnawed on a claw. His hastily concocted plan had worked. Death - Marius - had taken the bait, fed off a mutant with partially inhuman blood while riding out an overdose of energy projector.
In the epicentre of the explosion was either his friend, protected by Kyle's own healing factor, or whatever remained of him, and the uncertainty hurt more than the broken ribs and bleeding wounds in his wrists.
Death shuddered in the midst of the crater, plasma still sizzling around him as his muscles jumped and seized. His throat was thick with the stink of his own seared flesh. He could feel the alien DNA still crawling through his veins even as his body struggled for repair. The corruption continued to circulate, iterating upon itself.
No way to purge it. No way to escape it. The damage was catastrophic.
He had to laugh. In the end, it was his own body that was taking him apart -- just like always.
But still a terrible will drove him on.
Death forced himself to his knees, coughing blood.
Don't stop.
Never stop.
The Horseman sank his fingers into concrete as if seizing the flesh of the city itself.
"I am Death," he hissed. "No man excels me. No man escapes me. I am Death, and the grave follows behind me."
There. It had been building since the moment he'd set foot in New York City. Power, bleak and all-consuming, clawing up his throat like a scream. Power he'd carried as it metastasised like a tumour, waiting for the right time to release it.
Waiting for now.
Meat twisting around his bones, body weeping streams of plasma, Death triggered his final attack.
***
"Spot, Conduit, cover the District X centre." Marie-Ange's voice broke over the comms. "Archangel spotted Death, there is an interception plan." Her voice was tight, and worryingly, Garrison had dropped off the comms. "Key points to your phone, Conduit. Cover those individuals."
"Heard." Darcy sent out a few threads of consciousness, one weaving through a nearby cell tower and the other curling through Warren's communicator. She wouldn't get everything like this, but the minor boost would make it easier for connections to happen.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-08 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-09 03:32 am (UTC)