What of the Hunting, Hunter Bold? - Grand Finale

[xp_catseye]

The triumphant return of Ulysses Bloodstone is interrupted, and then eclipsed by, the Alison Blaire Half Time Show.



In the end, Alison ended up letting Taylor the IT Tech go after JPC cleared out.  She watched, impassive, as the terrified woman fled away from the trailer and into the woods, thankfully away from the hedge maze.  By the time she calmed down and found help, they should be long gone.

"Thank god," Alison said to herself, listening to her footsteps disappear into the darkness, "It's just normal evil people bullshit instead of eldritch evil bullshit. I can handle normal evil people right now."  She had tried to face this mission with her usual good natured aplomb, but this... this sucked. And after the events of the previous week, everything that had built up and all her stress had led to... well, a terrified girl fleeing into the forest to get away from her.  One she'd deliberately set out to scare out of her wits, because it seemed like the most expedient way to get the answers she needed.  

She didn't feel good about that. 

There was a ladder, on the side of the mobile home, that led up onto the flat roof of the building. It was the tallest of all the very very flat points around, although significantly shorter than the surrounding trees and just about five feet shorter than the walls of the nearby hedge maze itself. 

It was the best she was going to find. 

There was an intercom system built into the site, and whoever had hooked up the speakers for it had taken the cheapest, fastest hookup they could and spliced it all together into an eyesore that hurt Alison's good taste. Removing one of them and tapping it into her phone only took a moment, but left her with a tannoy speaker with which to make this work. 

That just left the choice of music, and after a moment of reflection, it was no choice at all. If this whole thing wasn't just awful, she'd have thought it was the perfect parallel.  Using music to break an illusion that has left people trapped in a nightmare so that they can escape to freedom? 

There really was only one choice. 

It didn't go the hardest, and it wasn't the most energetic or *loud*, but sometimes the meanings behind the songs mattered more to their final results than Alison let on.  From the first note, the air directly above Alison's little perch on the trailer lit up.  Almost imperceptibly, the air seemed to... flex.  It looked to Alison like a soap film that shimmered but didn't move.  
A second, brighter flash had the soap film flex hader, lensing her view of the hedge maze as it warped.  

Alison frowned. This wasn't working.  

She'd already pressed the speakers as loud as they would go, and she wasn't quite willing to abandon this song for something poppier just yet. 
 
Around her, as her power flared into fireflies of blue light, Alison abruptly remembered the soundsparks from the Askew World.  They had been a physical representation of sound itself, a synesthesiac echo of waves of pressure.  And in that world, where physics were wrong and yet somehow echoed, she had pulled the ambient sound into a single point to create her sabers of light there towards the end.

She had pulled sound... 

It was like flexing a muscle she didn't actually have, but somewhere in the back of her mind that itch that she couldn't forget bounced back.  She couldn't quite phrase it into words, because there were no words for what she was feeling, but suddenly two things happened all at once.  

First, that hollow feeling from the Askew World overtook her as every drop of sound in the surrounding area ceased all at once.  The rivers of music and noise that kissed her skin were suddenly still, and the perfect silence rang in Alison's ears. 

Second, ribbons of light began to swirl around her, flowing like water into her clenched fist.  It slipped through the gaps between her fingers like water down a drain.  She could feel it as it gently built.

It was warm, and light, and felt like hope and determination in equal measure.  It kept building and then suddenly, Alison knew it was 'ready', although she couldn't say what 'it' was or what 'ready' meant.  

She threw her hand forward, forcing the light spiraling in her hand up to the skin.  For a moment, a brilliant four-pointed star shone above the hedge maze before collapsing in on itself. But it didn't fade out, as the illusion covering the hedge maze finally broke.  Growing like fire on a dry field, a ring of blue light almost gently consumed the sky as the magic was burnt away.
Alison sat down on the roof's edge, suddenly once-again able to hear her music as it bopped through the chorus.  The others could handle things for a while.  

Alison needed a minute.



With the illusion shredded, Bloodstone is forced to reconsider his current career path.



"This isn't right." Ulysses muttered. "This isn't right... Where is craft services? Where is the B footage people? Why... young man-" Bloodstone paused everyone with a hesitant gesture. "What do you think is happening?"

Scott rested a hand against the wall, steadying himself as he sucked a breath of air into his aching lungs as he glared across at Ulysses, a hand gesturing towards the hole in the shrubbery left by the beetle-man. "You're hunting people, mutants, actually living people. What do you think's going on?"

"Is this a method thing? Randy- RANDY, SHUT DOWN THE FUCKING CAMERA AND GET MEDICAL ON THIS! YOU TOO, CARL! CHET... BRING THIS MAN A YOOHOO. IT'S THE ONLY THING I TRUST YOU WITH!"

"Sorry about that. This is a television production, young man. This is theatre."

There was something off about this man, something that Scott couldn't quite put his finger on but that left him off-kilter, unable to totally grasp what was going through the man's head. Two fingers held up the dart before tossing it to the side. "Something tells me it really isn't."

"That prop? I remember when the squids would leave a two inch bruise." Bloodstone said with a laugh. "Randy, bring the footage!" The dark haired man walked his camera over and Bloodstone hit the playback. "Now, CGI will touch it up a bit but look at that angle on- wait." He shook his head. "RANDY, YOU BROUGHT THE WRONG FOOTAGE, YOU ADDLED SECONDARY NIPPLE ON A BATTERSEA STRAY!"

Randy quailed but rallied. "It's the only camera I have, Bloodstone. Look!"

"That... that is not what I was hunting."

The image on the preview screen revealed a far less imposing figure than the man-sized rhinoceros beetle Ulysses had been pursuing. It was smaller, more human, and distinctly more . . . urban.

As if on cue the sky above them erupted in light. The outline of the creature still cowering to the side wavered, then dissolved, leaving a form twin to the one on the camera. Insectile features remained, but they were those more akin to a cockroach, and while the quality of the Bloodstone's prey had fallen in recent years no Great Beast in history had ever made its final stand in a pair of cargo shorts.

"Randy, Chet, Carl. Gather your things. We're leaving now." He said and immediately caught the expression on Scott's face. "Young man, I am dealing with in the span of ten minutes my beloved being a twisted and diabolical thief, my comeback to be illusions, and worst of all, a great hunt so cheapened that even my most wretched ancestors would still spit on. me. You can try and stop me, but I warn you, I truly now am laid low. Why risk losing something to a man with nothing?"

There was a long pause and Bloodstone turned, and with his crew, stalked away into the darkness. 

Scott's eyes followed the men as they left, the darkness swallowing them up before his eyes cut to the side to stare at the cowering man, a softer look touching his eyes. "I'm going after them, but if you head off in that direction," his thumb jerked over his shoulder, "you should be able to get out of here safely."

Then he was gone, footsteps echoing as he followed the sound of the film crew in the distance.




As the illusion shreds Echo and Mayhem get a rude surprise, and someone realizes they've bitten off more than they can chew.
Warning: Graphic violence.



It was as if the sun had come up suddenly as a bright flash lit all around them as bright as daylight and Maya blinked against the sudden light, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the brilliance.

Maya had never been someone who shied from the realities of the world and for much of her life, especially these years, she was aware of just what can be done to the human body and have it still keep pumping blood and be what one might call 'alive'.

She had finally gotten a good look at the horned figure who she hadn’t been able to identify till just now.

"Shane," she whispered, reaching to cup a bruised cheek gently and bring his gaze to hers. "I'm so sorry, I didn’t know."

He’d been gone on a trip, something for college and so she hadn’t been concerned. But this, this was not what she imagined when she thought of seeing him again.

"Guess she's not with us," remarked the younger man, taking in the scene with some amusement. He seemed neither surprised nor bothered by his quarry's transformation from a heap of antler and bone into a perfectly normal, if horned, young man.

The Scotsman's attention was fixed on April. He no longer looked amused. His words came out in a growl.

"That was my favorite axe. Me mum gave it to me."

A man roughly the same dimensions as a bear should not have been able to move so quickly. Drawing two hatchets from either side of his belt, the hunter charged April like a freight train. To a person with normal reflexes the sight of the two weapons swinging for their knees might have been a lethal distraction from the blade of the katana swinging for their neck.

Some people were not very smart.

April didn't duck so much as she flowed around the trio of sharp objects aiming for her. Tendrils shot out, wrapping around the hands holding those two hatchets and squeezing until there was a satisfying crunch and howl. The katana missed. The hatchets dropped to the ground, useless. And the low whistle that signified a dart was missed in the mess of symbiote chuckle, howls of pain, and the cursing of a would-be ninja.

But the aim was spot on, and the tiny dart punctured April's neck with a barely-felt pinch.

Unfortunately for the hunters, April wasn't just a mutant. The woman turned with an enraged roar as the liquid in the dart hit her system, pushing her human brain down and bringing out the most primal, instinctive part of her DNA. And... some of Mayhem's more unique cravings.

She wrapped a black, claw-tipped hand around the younger man, hoisting him upwards while she grinned. "WHAT. NOBODY WANTS TO EAT YOUR EYES, SPORT. WE'RE NOT UNREASONABLE." Her tongue left a trail of green behind as it licked a swipe across the man's face, and she tilted her head sideways at his disgusted expression. "I ONLY WANT TO EAT YOUR BRAINS." His eyes had just seconds to go wide before teeth chomped down, crunching the whole thing like a satisfying one-bite snack while tossing the body carelessly to the side.

A squawk of fear had her turning back towards the Scotsman. Her neck elongated, stretching until her face was right in his. "WHERE DID YOU TAKE MY CAT, THIEF."

The remaining hunter went white under the blank expanse of April's eyes. Dropping his gaze even a fraction would have shown him the gore dripping from her chin.

"Stole nothing," he  gulped, beard bobbing in desperation. "Just hired for the hunt. Beasts were already here."

A talon-like claw tipped his chin back. "YOU CHOSE YOUR HUNT POORLY." The milky whites stared at him without blinking, even as the claw pressed hard enough to break skin. Green drool dripped onto his face. The rumbling noise that came from the monster was decidedly displeased as it continued to stare down. "LAST TIME: WHERE. IS. MY. CAT."

"I don't know any fucking cat! Where's that backup, you fucking roasters?" the man howled, but there was no response from the private security. The batons and cattle prods they carried would have put them within reach of a mass of teeth and shadow that had terminally decreased their party by one.

"NRRRNHT. WRONG ANSWER." The claw dragged a line up and around the chin, then tapped thoughtfully, eyes on his nose ring as that one claw pressed almost delicately in the divot under his lip. He whimpered at the pain as claw tore flesh, hit teeth, and deflected to press against the gumline. "FREE LABRET AND TATTOO. YOU ARE WELCOME, BAD HUNT."

At this point, she was playing with her food. Or not food, maybe. The acrid scent of urine made her wrinkle her nose, but her claws were still tracing lightly over his face, woad and blood mixing together in a way that was possibly very unhealthy for the man. She didn't care about that. Two of the mansion's own had been stolen and this man thought that it was fun to hunt people for sport. Her brain said he would be good protein, but a noise had her pulling her head back, neck shrinking as her eyes fell on Maya.

"DEER FRIEND LEAD US TO CAT. OTHERS?" She waited patiently for the response, claws leaving tiny, bloody imprints on the Scotsman's face with each flex of her hand.

“No, he’s too injured for that.”

Maya had spent the time April used to play with the hunters looking over Shane’s injuries and performing initial triage on them. Gauze pads for deep cuts, a sling for the broken arm, she’d sewn up the deep slash at the top of his leg, but he’d need help getting out of here and while she wouldn’t normally leave a teammate without backup.

She turned to face the hunter, and April, pulling a comm unit from a pouch on her belt before she pushed it into her ear and tapped out a command on its surface.

“Cyclops, Echo and Mayhem reporting in. We have a situation, I need to extract civilians.”

The reply was almost immediate. "That sounds less than...ok, get them out. We're dealing with a little situation here too and I've found myself having to deal with it without powers. Any help you can send this way would be appreciated."

"COMING."

April tilted her head in Maya's direction, nodded once, and let a web fly into the Scotsman's face before shifting into the form of a large cat and bounding towards Cyclops. Maya would get the injured out. She would continue the Mayhem that embodied her call sign.



Wildchild and Bevatron arrive to save the kids in the nick of time.
Warning: Graphic violence

Sweat and grass and liver snacks and fur and blood and fear, once Kyle had the scents in his nose they were stained there, screeching at him. He barked something he couldn't remember at Scott, and took off at a frantic run. Clawed hands and feet tore dirt clods out of the ground as he took a sharp corner down a pathway.  He ignored the flash of lasers in the corner of his eye - the hedges retreated in a kind of heat wave that he would later recognize, and in the moment only saw that the hedges were - less solid.

Still a tight weave of wood and leaf, just a fraction less, enough for a man to burst through in a cloud of plant matter and anger and leap atop a white-armored figure, clocking her in the jaw with a bleeding fist.

The woman was knocked back with a sharp kkcht of indrawn breath. The sudden light threw her features into sharp relief -- and those of the figure she'd been astride.

It took her a split second to realize the attack had stopped, but through the stench of sweat and terror and her own blood Sharon recognized a familiar smell. She lowered her arms to reveal a battered, blood-streaked face.

"K-Kyle?"

The affirmative answer came as a snappish "Yeah" as he pulled the white-armored woman off Sharon.

The white armor and fur trim made her pop against backgrounds, made her the easy focus of the eye on camera, helped her stand out in a sea of boring, drab -men-.  The grab and throw had caught her off guard, but long experience and instinct turned what would have been an uncontrolled fall into a tight roll, popping up into a crouch facing the man who had laid hands on her.  She brushed a bit of dirt off her fur epaulets, and when her hands dropped down to her sides, a pair of daggers slid into her hands from their wrist sheathes, a very practiced move that always tested well with audiences.  "I've always got time for one more," she said huskily to Kyle.

Never miss an opportunity to drop your catchphrase.

The air was all blood and fear and dirt. The woman in white was not nearly as important as the bleeding and injured teens, he had two - no three, Sharon, bruised and bleeding, Liam holding his knee and fighting tears and noises of pain and a girl curled on the ground holding the side of her head.  Liam probably couldn't stand, he'd need help. The girl he didn't know, but Sharon was moving, talking - get her stable, and then Sharon could assist Liam or the bleeding other girl. Kyle took a single step towards Sharon, hands already going to his jacket to pull stashed bandages from the pockets and then his leg screamed pain. He spun as his vision went gray for a moment and sprung, leaping atop the white-clad woman and taking her to the ground, claws at her throat.

The Achilles was always a good opener.  Hamper the prey's movement, and if he was going to wear pants that were practically capris, and ignore her like that, then she had no issue with striking a foe while their back was turned.  This was her element.

That was the point where everything stopped going by the script in her head, though, as her target had wheeled far too quickly on her than he should have been able to with a sliced tendon.  As he bore her to the ground, years of training and reaction took over, and she swept her arm up and out, striking the man's elbow to collapse the arm pushing claws at her throat.  Pulling one knee upward to create some space between them, she sliced with the dagger in her other hand across the chest region of the gray T-shirt he was wearing under his reinforced jacket.  A good target of opportunity, and a cut in that spot would bleed noticeably, staining the shirt.

Blood, like sex, sells.

Kyle's claws bloodied his opponent's face as his grip broke, leaving shallow ragged tears down her throat and neck. He slapped the other hand to his chest and snarled, bearing down on her with his entire weight. Her knife slashed again across his ribs and arm. If she had been hoping for some kind of theatrical roar though, she would remain disappointed. Kyle hissed, and his arm snapped up to grab her wrist.  The slice on this back of his arm was already healing, skin knitting itself back together as he twisted.  Inch long claws tore her wrist open, exposing tendon and slender white bone that disappeared as blood welled up. Her open-mouthed cry of pain was met with fangs that snapped at her face, and hot breath as Kyle roared at her in fury.

Liam couldn't do more than lay there and whimper, watching with wide, horrified eyes. He couldn't take his eyes off the sight of Mr. Gibney practically cutting the woman's arm into ribbons, documenting everything. His knee throbbed vaguely in the background, injuries forgotten in light of his English teacher ripping people open.

The open mouth roar was an absolute gift of an opportunity.  She might be injured, but she could still fight - and the prey getting a few licks in made for a better fight anyway - the audience got bored if it looked too easy, after all.  The wrist would need attention afterward, and she didn't think it would let her grip very well, so she dropped her other dagger, and with her good hand plucked a canister of bear spray from a slim semi-hidden pocket, and unloaded it right into Kyle's open mouth.

Whatever she had expected, it couldn't have been a sudden glut of bile and saliva diluted bear spray vomited back at her, splattering her neck and face and hair. Kyle's face was red, his eyes and nose streaming tears and snot, and he bared stained teeth at her and struck. He dug both sets of claws into her cheeks and dragged down, tearing long ragged wounds into her face from the ears down to her chin and then slammed her head against the ground.

In the back and forth between Kyle and the female hunter, it had almost felt like everyone else had fallen into the background - including the two guards who had been keeping the 'prisoners' corralled.  But with the feral interloper seemingly getting the better of one of their superiors, the pair shook off their hesitance to act (in fear of being punished for 'interfering' with the hunt).  As one drew his pistol loaded with tranquilizer darts, the other unlimbered a heavy electric cattleprod from a loop at his hip.  He didn't want to be any closer to this than he absolutely had to, seeing the way those claws had ripped through skin and tendon and bone.

As he raised the prod in preparation to strike at Kyle's unprotected back, though, the tableau was broken by the entrance of another figure in black leathers, launching himself forward to cover Kyle's back.  The guard, startled, reflexively shoved the prod forward to discharge against the new target.  Several thousand volts coursed into the man's chest...

And the only reaction it caused was a narrowing of an already hardened expression.

"Electricity?  A poor choice."  Allowing the electricity he had gathered and augmented to show along his arms, Bevatron drew it back toward the point of impact, and then, grasping the prod, he shoved it back toward the guard.  When the handle touched against the other man's torso, Jean-Phillipe let the charge reverse its course, slamming into the flic and arcing to his compatriot, the air gap between them meaning that while the first was blown backward a few feet by the discharge, the second -only- crumpled to the ground and dropped his weapon as his nerves refused to obey his brain.

"Connards."

There was another howl -- not from the guard, but Sharon.

As Kyle was rising from his crouch the girl leapt at the half-blind hunter, claws out. She took the staggered woman at an angle, blindly aiming for the vitals without registering the claw-breaking body armor that wrapped the woman's torso. The woman hit the ground hard under Sharon's full weight and lay there on the pavement, stunned, as the girl began to scream with every swipe:

"I will kill you! I will kill you!"

Everything was the rush of his own heartbeat in his ears and the smell of iron and flesh and sweat and fear and ozone.  Blood splattered Kyle's face, hot and wet and he jerked himself back to attention.  "No!"  He wasn't even sure he had yelled anything, as he grabbed Sharon by the waist and neck and pulled her off and away from the now unconscious hunter. The younger feral struggled and hissed and spat and he had to put his entire bodyweight into the grab, hauling her away even as she clawed at any exposed skin.

He pulled and rolled both of them over, tackling Sharon and then grabbed at her wrists and caught them tightly with one hand, holding on despite her claws digging into his skin.

"Get off!" Sharon thrashed in Kyle's grip, trying to free arms slick with her own blood. His arrival had swept away her terror, leaving behind rage -- and humiliation. That she had not been able to protect Liam, that she had been helpless against the hunter, that she, who had always, always, been able to protect herself, to protect everyone else, had needed to be saved. In an instant all that fear and failure and ugliness focused into a blind fury that could be released only by turning it outward.

Kyle's eyes still burned, and his mouth and nose too, but it was pain, just pain and no longer spiced with rage.  He wiped at his eyes with his free hand.  "Can't. We're not killing anyone."  Between blinks, he watched - Liam on the ground, still holding his knee, the other teen crying and holding her face, Bevatron checking the pulse of a guard...   Kyle let out a long and slow breath, and gently pried Sharon's claws from his skin.  "No murder. Not for this."

The girl struggled again, but Kyle was more than twice her size. He didn't even have to move to keep her pinned. It made her feel small and helpless. Furious, Sharon realized her eyes were starting to sting with tears. 

The fight went out of her. Sharon turned her face away, not towards the fallen hunter, but towards her friend. 

"I will stop," she whispered. "Help . . . now you help Liam."

"Already done," Jean-Phillipe assured Catseye as he assisted Liam to his feet.  Seeing the way the younger feral's knee buckled as he did so, the Frenchman pulled Liam's arm over his shoulders to better help him keep weight off the injured leg.  He jerked his head toward the third captive, huddled as far back as she could.  "Wildchild, we need to get these three to triage..."

Sharon was angry and Kyle could almost smell the shame coming off her. Liam was handled, Bevatron had him upright, and the girl - she was still on the ground, crying.  Kyle let Sharon go, and further ruined his shirt by wiping blood off his hands. "You too. Go help Liam walk."

The third teen was slight and one long blonde-furred ear was twitching furiously as she cried and keened in pain, and Kyle couldn't see the other. He knelt down next to her, claws pulled into his fingers, and spoke softly, nothing phrases of assurance - and then felt a tap to his arm - the barest little knock and whirled, all thoughts of calmness swept away as he spotted the dart sticking out of his jacket.

The second guard had pushed himself back up, unsteady and leaning on the hedge walls for support and was now aiming a dart-tipped rifle at Sharon, and Kyle pulled the dart from his own armored leathers, and charged. In a pounce, he had the man on the ground, one big hand on the guard's neck.  "Those are my kids you're trying to kill."  He tossed the rifle away, and then spotted the golden fur tucked into the buckle of body armor.  The flash of rage was hot and thick and wet, Kyle's face snapping teeth close to the guard's mask-covered mouth and nose, and then he had an ear in his hand, bare and human and bloody. 

Watching over his shoulder as he and Jean- Philippe made their way slowly out, Liam's face contorted on a journey ending in what could best be described as 'euych!' Making a noise of protest and pain, Liam wanted it to stop, wanted it to be different, was this what he was going to become? He didn't want this!

Jean-Phillipe glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to his task with the smallest of shrugs from the shoulder not currently supporting Liam.  A sort of casual 'I did not see anything, I have no idea how that man's ear came to be detached from his face' reaction.  The world is an imperfect place, after all.  Sometimes things just happen.  Besides, if pressed he would say that the guard had it coming.

Before he stood, Kyle plucked the slice off ear from the guard's body armor. After he stood, he gave the man's knee a solid kick - he could chase them with a mangled ear, he probably couldn't with a broken knee - and then glanced at Sharon. She was up, tail limply dragging on the ground, shoulders hunched, but moving and heading to Liam. 

The roll of bandages had been almost crushed flat as he had fought, but was still on the ground, miraculously in the plastic packaging and Kyle scooped it up. One portion to wipe his hands, one to wrap the torn off ear in - and the third, gently wrapped around the lapinoid girl's head, before he lifted her off the ground. Her feet kicked, smacked against Kyle's arms.  

"We're here to help."




The failed pilot comes to a close, and the contract is dissolved due to Creative Differences.



Things were normal until they weren't.

The uncanniness crept upon them from all sides. It was subtle at first, like a silhouette that fooled the eye until you focused upon it; a glimpse of strangeness easily excused as a trick of the light. But with every step they took farther from the maze the more undeniable the changes became.

They'd passed a fleet of private security vehicles on their way in. Now the parking lot was littered with a series of crumbling monuments. The massive tents erected against the summer sun now looked to be nothing more than low hovels. Portable generators had become ivy-choked boulders.  It was as if some unseen force collected on every rock and leaf they passed, accreting against the familiar scenery of the Adirondacks until it grew into something ancient and wild. When they'd first begun their pursuit Ulysses had been headed for what appeared to be just another mobile home. Now it was a sprawling English country estate of coarse grey limestone. Centuries rolling back.

It felt like they had stepped back in time, or forward, into some dystopian future where the world they knew had been abandoned in favour of a return to some English nightmare. He could see the weeds and vines wrapping around recognizable structures, but beyond that it was empty. It felt a little foreboding, like something out of a movie or novel, though at least if that was the case then the good guys always won. The only problem was the quiet. He'd seen the cars, the trucks that had brought the private security here, but then where were they?

"Have I mentioned how much I hate magic sometimes?"

"No arguing here, Cyclops," Nica replied through the comms. She was gliding above the other two X-Men, outlined in dull red light as she used infra-red to look for potential ambushes. "This place is making my eyes water - I'm getting big scary Gothic manor with ordinary vision and a mobile trailer with anything else. So I'm betting someone's messing around with some kind of illusion?"

April's reply was a massive sneeze. As she was still mostly in the shape of a very large, menacing cat, it was fairly loud but not overly messy, but she still rumbled out a "SORRY" from where she was slinking along at Cyclops' side, slipping in and out of the shadows with ease only to come back, wind around the older man's legs, and disappear again for a few seconds. She hadn't tried to attack anything stationary, but now that Nica was mentioning things looking different the idea became very tempting. If she pounced a rock and it wasn't a rock, would the illusion hold? She eyed a moss-covered tree with a glint that foretold chaos.

"That would make sense, we're the only manor that's allowed around here." It was a very realistic illusion, he had to give them that much at least, if he didn't know better he'd have thought that they had somehow managed to transport everyone to some kind of old English countryside estate, but it wasn't. The man's head tilted to the side, glancing up at Nica, "Keep your eye out for any traps, I wouldn't put it past them to leave something unpleasant waiting hidden." Dark eyes cut to the side for a moment as he nodded at April, "Bless you." She was like a gigantic version of Desdemona, "Can you smell or sense anything else?"

"Can do, boss," was Nica's reply.

April butted her head lightly into Scott's hip, then bounded off, disappearing into the shadows and illusions before trotting back. "DEAD-NOT-DEAD," she reported dutifully, pointing a paw in the direction she'd disappeared. "RE–"

Her nose twitched, and she turned her head away from Scott and Nica in time to let out another big sneeze. She shook her head after, and a tendril reached out to scratch between her shoulders at the itch of wrongness. "RECENT. NOT ROT."

The man tilted his head to the side, exchanging a glance with Nica before he nodded at April, "Do you think you can take us there?" This whole area was topsy-turvy in the way only magic could make things...but at least this was a lead they could work with.

Whatever magic was at work distorted spatial awareness. Regardless of the building's actual dimensions, stepping within felt like entering a cavernous foyer, and the bodies inside were already cooling. Blood dried around strikes to kidneys and throats: viciously efficient blitz attacks conducted with minimal resistance. Most of them wore the uniform of private security. A young production assistant lay crumpled against one wall, bottle of sparkling water still clutched in her hand.

Red light throbbed like a heartbeat. There was a voice.

"We spill all blood for the hunt. For stone and creed, for those who forged our blade. To rid this land of its abominations. There is no peace without blood, and so it shall be. Your family's own words, yes, darling?"

At first it seemed as if the X-Men had encountered two lovers in an embrace: the woman's arms circling the man from behind as if in a loving caress. Then the woman moved, and the hand at Ulysses Bloodstone's throat gleamed with metal.

Vera bared her teeth, lips all but touching Ulysses' ear as she pressed the dagger to his throat.

"To think such a legacy ends with you."

"The one thing I have to admit is that I've never been the best with women." He said, huffing into his mustache. He shifted, shutter-quick and her dagger flipped through the air a dozen times before he caught it. "I know a few things. When a bet went wrong. When an idea failed. It hurts. A lot. But not as much as you. You hurt me, but I am a Bloodstone. And you gravely mistook what you face." He said, flinging her knife off and burying it to the hilt at the other end of the stage.

"On the contrary, I know exactly what I'm dealing with. He is . . . disappointing."

The woman took a step back from Ulysses, seeming to dissolve as she did, only to reappear several yards away.

"Even you, my dear, could find no words appalling enough to describe what an excruciating waste of potential you are. If you'd spent less time obsessed with your little armory perhaps you'd have realized your ancestors' most valuable assets were not hunks of metal, but something more -- subtle." Vera touched the ruby at her throat. It glowed like a dying star. "You sought ratings when true power was waiting for you all along. In a hatbox. Your family even left you record of the ritual, but I supposed the Travel Channel negotiations proved you never were much of a reader."

"That was below the belt, and not the fun below, Vera. There's also a reason some of the Bloodstone secrets remained hidden." Ulysses said cryptically, but still unsheathed his long bowie. "Oh, and I want a divorce. Thank gods for that pre-nup."

"There's that sense of humor I didn't marry you for. A suggestion for next time: when asked to speak words like 'What God has joined together, let no man separate', be sure to specify which god."  The woman's eyes never left Ulysses, but her bared teeth appeared in a slash of white against the darkness. "Oh, but I see we have that audience you crave. Would you like to share any last words? You are so good with them."

"I never intended to hunt man. No Bloodstone did, and that legacy you're trying to claim, you've already gone against it." Ulysess said. "Oh Vera, I might be a simple man, but I'm not a simpleton." He brought the knife to his forehead. "Ab Ipso cor," He said and smiled.

Vera touched her fingertips to her lips.

"And so it shall be," she said, and, with breath like smoke, blew a kiss.

The shadows boiled.

Shapes that had not been seen for centuries swarmed from the darkness. Grasping figures beheaded and buried beneath the crossroads, ghouls hanged and beaten and stabbed before being pressed into airless bogs, beasts that were bringers of plague and the plague themselves, all seethed to life to set upon the last scion of the house that had murdered them. Shadows of stripped bone and dried flesh clawed towards the living, keening like the grave.

Ulysses moved like a different man. He pivoted, junked and dove, his knife flickering out. Two burst into dust on his knife and the third as he pulled him up by the neck and shook him until his neck snapped. A second roared at him but found himself thrown across the room to be killed by the others. He smiled as he got close. "I'm sorry, wife, but this is my ground. My territory!" He said, just as he ran into her spells.

"Okay, enough of the dramatics." The voice was followed by a glowing figure appearing above the scene. Nica had been watching the scene unobserved and now she had the information required, she was acting. "Cyclops, Mayhem, cover your eyes," she instructed, before creating a sunburst of light that wiped out half of the shadow creatures Vera had summoned.

"Now, now, the wife and I are just having a domestic." Bloodstone said. He was reeling from Vera's betrayal, the loss of his grand return to fame, and that he might be part of a plot to actually kill people and not monsters. But he was a Bloodstone. Before him was a hunt, and nothing defined a Bloodstone more than the hunt.

"I'm sorry to hear that, I'm pretty sure though, if we leave both of you unconscious and tied up on the floor that should take care of that." Grievous Bodily Harm tended to trump just about every other worry, and at this point Scott was tired of dealing with this man and his delusions of self-grandeur. "Split up and flank him girls, but don't underestimate him, whatever else he is", and Scott had a few choice words, "he's been training at this his whole life. Like a worse version of me."

"Gotcha, boss." Careful not to turn solid - she'd learned from the incident with Deadpool - Nica floated over to Ulysses' left. "You know, you could just make this easier and come quietly," she said, not really expecting it to work, but it was always worth trying.

Her Spider-senses were haywire.

Illusions, not illusions, the loamy smell of forest, with rich earth and grass and old trees mixed with rot and viscera. April couldn't get a strong sense of who was where or what, but she could follow simple commands. Flank, don't underestimate. She slid into the bits of shadows they had, unaware that the stalker was also being stalked.

Cloaked in his mistress' illusion, Billy fingered the hilt of the knife in his hands as he circled around and behind the slick-looking black figure. He wasn't here for sport, rather as a last defense blocking the pathways to attack his mistress, and the blade was designed for it. It wasn't much longer than a 6" chef's knife, but it had tiny serrations down the length and a wicked back curve at the tip sporting a barb, specially designed for gutting and hurting.

April was unaware of him until it was much too late, the faint crack of glass not enough warning before something sharp and painful sank into her side. She let out an angry howl full of pain, reacting on instinct. Tendrils wrapped around the wound, she spun with her claws out and left her own gashes along his left hip, and her teeth clamped around his hand and the knife he carried with a vicious chomp.

There was no scream. Stiff as a clockwork soldier, the little man took a step back.  His eyes went not to April, not to the stump of his own wrist, but to the place his mistress had stood only moments before.

It was empty.

Stutter, stop. Stutter, stop. Billy Swan shuffled back, and the shadows swallowed him

The sound of the knife clattering as it fell to the floor echoed around the room, the wicked blade glinting in the light as Scott let his head fall to stare at the blade before looking up at the posturing Ulysses. "Ok, enough of this, take him."   Then he started forward, a hand reaching out to slap the man's wrist, knocking his arm to the side.

Enough was definitely enough. Nica came towards Ulysses' other side - not a little grateful the magic-using woman had left the scene so she didn't have to deal with that - her glow switching to the dull red of infra-red and the air around her heating up. "She's left you to take all the blame," she told the hunter simply, but firmly. "It's all over. Stand down or you can add some really nasty burns to this whole mess."

"The blame was already mine. Never trust a pretty face, child, even if she can do the reverse threaded pivot known only to the lost priests of ancient Kush." He said, "Well, then, it seems this debacle has finally wrapped. Aces on the f/x on your people, Chet, Karl, Randy, this is a wrap!"

"You still don't get it do you?"

There was a sadness to Scott's voice as he let go of Ulysses hand, taking a step back as he flung his hand out to gesture around, "None of this was special effects."

Perhaps Bloodstone did not appreciate the gravity of the situation, but the three men in his entourage understood the stakes. Overlooked as always, they had done what years of working in Bloodstone's employ had prepared them for: ignored self-preservation instincts and common sense to get the shot. The non-existent cell service and destroyed wifi didn't prevent the gathering of raw footage. On the night their employer had lost his marriage, his fortune, and, soon, his freedom, his crew had captured the ultimate prize. Proof of real magic was in their hands.

It was a responsibility with potentially dramatic consequences for both the world and future salary negotiations, and the three men were still debating what to do about it right up until the authorities arrived to confiscate the footage.