The Landen Village of Agio, Askavi, Kaeleer, Thursday Morning, [Fandom Time]
*There.* Prince Smoke eased out of the underbrush to greet Morton as soon as he stepped out of the Coach *That is the set of huts that the Lady and the others went to.* He whined a little in his throat. *There is a a bad-meat feeling there. But it comes and goes, like scent on a changing wind.*
After hearing from Beale that Prince Smoke had accompanied Lucivar and Jaenelle to Askavi, Morton had contacted the kindred wolf as soon as he'd landed the Coach in Askavi and his attempt to contact either Lucivar or Jaenelle had been fruitless. His relief at finding out that his wayward cousin had been following Jaenelle turned to concern when Smoke told him that the three humans had gone into a village and hadn't returned. It was the same village that Lady Tara's spell had pointed to; that much was certain. But knowing where Karla was didn't explain why they were there. Or why they couldn't come out.
That concern turned to decided unease as he stepped forward to examine the cozy-looking little village, a mile or so in the distance. A landen village, he thought, since he wasn't getting a hint of any Blood psychic scents in there. Which was damned odd, considering Smoke had tracked Karla and the others to this village and was certain they hadn't left. And now that Smoke mentioned it, Morton did notice a faint hint of corruption, like something flickering out of the corner of his eye. No sooner had he noticed it, it was gone again.
"Smoke, head back to Dhemlan and alert the High Lord," Morton said, still studying the sleepy village of Agio. Had he just felt the Ebon-Gray...? No, nothing. "Tell him to contact Khary and Aaron, too, and pass on everything you just told me. I don't like whatever's down there, and Karla, Jaenelle, and Lucivar are right in the middle of it."
With a quick Rrruff! and a small lick at Morton's hand, Smoke trotted back towards the Coach and vanished onto the White Wind. Even hopping onto the Purple Dusk back to Dhemlan and then having Aaron and the others ride the Green Wind from Glacia to Askavi, they were still looking at more than a handful of hours before help would arrive.
No use waiting, then. "Let's go," he said, turning to face the others. "Let's see what kind of trouble my cousin's landed herself in now."
From his tone, Morton was assuming it was trouble of the most dangerous kind.
Agio
The walk to the village was picturesque, even serene. There appeared to be no signs of trouble or disturbance; though a subtle sense of foulness haunted the more sensitive. Still, the only sign that all was not well was the fields standing empty in the middle of harvest-time.
As they walked closer to the village, even that subtle wrongness vanished away. If they had simply landed in the village, they never would have felt something wrong.
The quiet lasted until they had crossed the boundary into Agio proper. As soon as their feet touched the cobblestone walkway, the psychic witch storm closed up around them, sizzling like hot water in a pan as they encounted Morton's Rose shield around the group. All the ensnaring psychic threads flared like miniature bolts of lightning, visible even to those without Craft or magic.
As soon as the trapped snapped shut behind them and the illusion fell away, the sky turned dark with the bodies of hundreds, no, thousands of winged humanoids filled the air. Most of them were focused on a large, two-story building at the far end of the street, a shimmering Ebon-Gray shield enclosing it.
...Most of them. Not all.
Morton
"Hell's fire and Mother Night," Morton cursed, going even paler than his usual wont. "Jhinka. There must be...thousands of them. It's like someone called all the clans together."
Jonothon
//Well... there's definitely no shortage of them, is there?// Jono furrowed his eyebrows as he looked up at the... things that were swarming overhead. //Clans.//
Clans suggested sentience.
Sentience meant that Jono wouldn't be terribly keen on taking care of large numbers of them with one sweeping blast of flame. Still, one hand was creeping toward his bandages. Just to be ready.
Morton
"I've never even heard of this many in once place," Morton answered, looking more than a little worried.
Jono
//They don't look as though they've got anything good in mind,// Jono noted, glancing at Morton. It wasn't good when your guide looked worried. It was really, really not good when your guide looked worried. //Please, tell me they're not quick to attack.//
Wishful thinking, go.
Morton
Morton blinked. He looked at Jono, then over at the Jhinka, then back. "Um..." He was saved from having to come up with some sort of answer by, well, charging Jhinka.
"I think moving is a good plan for now!" he decided.
Jono
//I have to say, I'm definitely a fan of yer good plans,// Jonothon decided, picking up his pace without a second thought. He really wasn't anxious to find out what would happen if they caught up.
Ben
Out came Ben's lightsaber. "I'm guessing negotiating is out of the question?" he asked, reaching through the Force to check on Karla.
Morton
"It doesn't look like they're in a negotiating mood," Morton agreed. "Actually, I'm not sure Jhinka have a negotiating mood."
Ben
"But you said there's more of them than normal," Ben said, frowning. "They don't normally have this many fighting together?"
Morton
"They're normally just a nuisance. Not a..." Well, obviously a very serious threat.
Ben
"Kriffing mess," Ben said eloquently. "Any idea what set them off?"
Morton
"They're always aggressive and hostile, but not in numbers like these."
Ben
"Is asking why going to end me in a history lesson 50,000 years in the making?" he asked.
Morton
"Unfortunately, canon doesn't feel any need to explain this yeah."
Ben
Ben blew the hair out of his eyes with a annoyed breath. "Fantastic."
Morton
"Yeah." Morton shook his head. "We can talk later. Running time now, I think."
Cassidy
Cassidy shuddered slightly when the illusion fell away. She had never felt or seen such wrongness and pain as she was sensing now. She didn't know what the creatures were, but they were focused on causing pain.
"Why?" She whispered. "Why would someone call things like this to a village?"
Gabrielle
Gabrielle had asked Xena the same question, once; she looked over at Cassidy, her expression sympathetic.
"To break their spirits," she answered, hoping her answer was gentle enough to be less disheartening than Xena's had been. "That way, they've surrendered before they even realize it."
She could have been wrong, under the circumstances; it was just how things worked in her world.
Cassidy
Cassidy's eyes were filled with grief and horror over so many lives lost when she turned to look at Gabrielle.
"But they're landens," she whispered. "There is barely any Blood or power here. What point is there in breaking the spirits of many that can't fight back? What is the point of so much cruelty?"
Cassidy was still a little innocent about evil, even though she had heard stories and stories of evil were what caused her mother to send her away to school.
Gabrielle
"That's exactly the point," Gabrielle murmured. "It isn't supposed to be fair; it's supposed to demonstrate who's in power. I've seen it happen so many times." And heard about it in great, confessional detail by the light of countless campfires, but that was what happened when you traveled with a reformed warlord who'd -- how had she managed to do all that ten winters ago, anyway?
Cassidy
Cassidy shook her head, trying to swallow her horror and how sick all of this made her feel. "I'm sorry, then, that you have had to see something like this before," she managed to say. "No one should have to endure or see something as horrible as this."
Gabrielle
Gods, that sounded like her a couple of years ago. Gabrielle felt old all of a sudden; was this what Xena felt like around her most of the time? Did she feel like anything she'd said to Gabrielle was as useless as Gabrielle felt, trying to come up with something to say?
"No. No one should. But as long as the cycle of hate continues . . ."
(Yes, she really did say cheesy things like that. All the time.)
Cassidy
"I don't understand how someone can hate on this magnitude," Cassidy said softly, shaking her head. "It doesn't make sense for someone to be this destructive of life."
Gabrielle
Callisto's empty expression as she watched Xena stand in a village square and confess to the destruction of Cirra. Velasca's maniacally single-minded pursuit of her. Talmadeus, Mael, the Mitoans and Thessalians . . .
Gabrielle looked at her and smiled sadly. "It might be better if you never understand how."
Cassidy
Cassidy took a shuddering breath and shook her head. "I want to stop thing like this from happening. There's nothing that can grow in hate."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle could respect that -- it was what she wanted too, after all, and her smile firmed up a bit as she looked at Cassidy.
"Nothing at all," she agreed. "I want to break the cycle, and there's only one way to do that."
Cassidy
"We remove the ones that cause such hate and destruction?"
Gabrielle
It was what Xena would say, but Gabrielle -- even though her reaction was tempered somewhat by recent experience -- looked a bit horrified. "No, no! That only prolongs it. We stop them if we can, but the only way to truly overcome the cycle of hate is through love."
No amount of trauma in any world would ever get Gabrielle to stop believing that.
. . . or, sadly, get her to stop saying cheesy things like that.
Cassidy
She sighed and then looked at Gabrielle. "Do you think that's even possible when it gets this bad?"
Gabrielle
"It has to be," Gabrielle said fiercely. "I can't ever give up on trying."
Cassidy
"I hope so," Cassidy said finally. "I hate to think of a future that has only this."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle wanted to grip her staff so tightly her knuckles went white, but enough experience with it told her that would be a bad idea.
"Oh, gods," she breathed, staring up at the jhinka; the dryads had been more terrifying, but they'd never come in these numbers. "We can't fight all these . . ."
Dinah
"We really, really can't." Dinah felt sick, from whatever it was in the air or the area. "Running away after we get Karla and her friends sounds like a plan."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle was used to herding people along and yelling at them to run, luckily, and even Xena would tell them to do just that in this situation.
"I don't think we have any other choice," she agreed. Then, wryly: "Haven't you missed this?"
Dinah
Dinah almost stopped, then laughed very ruefully, sighing. "Oh yes. So much. The restrained panic moments. The clueless rush to disaster. I only get to to small-scale skirmishes in New Gotham. The buildings are too close together for anything else. You?"
Gabrielle
"Oh, you have been away," Gabrielle teased -- yes, even in a situation like this she could joke. "This is bigger than anything I've been involved with since Troy, though."
Dinah
"...the Troy?" Dinah had to ask. "What am I saying, it's you and Xena. Of course it was the Troy." She sighed. "Wish we had room to negotiate with the winged crazy people though. Somehow, I'm doubting it."
Gabrielle
"I get the feeling they're not in a negotiating mood," Gabrielle answered, sounding . . . awfully sorry about that, actually. "I don't know about you, but I don't tend to look at hordes of thousands bearing down like that and think they come to parley."
Okay, there had been that time with the Horde, but . . . no one here was screaming "Kaltaka!" And even if they were, what were the odds it meant "water" this time?
Dinah
Not as good that they were chanting blood blood blooood, probably.
"Me neither. I'm wishing there was a umpire or referee, and this was all a game." Dinah sighed. "Or that we could tell if they wanted anything other than our hides."
Gabrielle
"It's never a game," Gabrielle said softly. "No matter how much we wish it was."
Dinah
"Or other people treat it that way," Dinah concluded.
Gabrielle
Gabrielle's smile had just a hint of bitterness to it, but she was thinking of Velasca and couldn't help it. "And they will. But we won't get through this if we think of it that way."
Dinah
"No." Not as someone she'd want to be, anyway. She smiled tiredly at Gabrielle. "It's ... nice to have someone along, who gets that really well."
Gabrielle
"It's nice to have someone appreciate that," Gabrielle answered, bringing her staff up to bear. "I learned from the best, after all."
Bobby
Bobby bit down on the urge to announce that he wanted to go home. Instead, he just shook his head. "What'd I tell you?" he said to no one in particular. "Gonna be a fight."
Warren
"Yep," Warren agreed, pulling his wings tight to his back and ducking his head a little. "You sure told me."
Well, he had.
Jack
Jack glanced up grimly. He was carrying his pistol, but it struck him as being a bit like bringing a slingshot to a firefight. He might as well have saved himself the trouble.
"Doesn't look like they're open to diplomacy," he said, echoing Ben's sentiment.
Raven
"What are they?" Raven said, feeling sick from the violence and pain she was now sensing. "What do they want? Why are they attacking?"
Dinah
"Any bets it's not Karla and company?" Dinah asked, eyes fixed warily on the winged threats. "Crap. Crap. Crap." They were starting to circle, eyes fixing on the group which had just arrived.
Raven
Raven strengthened her shields, trying to steel herself for what was surely to come. "We must get through that," she said quietly. "I am not certain I can penetrate the shield if I teleport."
Ender
For a moment, Ender felt the pressure of this sudden force on him, claustrophobic and wrong. I shouldn't be here, he knew, fight-or-flight instincts flaring up in a way he didn't want, he really didn't want.
There was nothing he could fight here, though. Thankfully, flight won out, and he started moving faster.
Unlike the others, he was very, very quiet.
Emma
Emma's body responded to her will within a hundredth of a second, going from curves and blonde hair to cold hard diamond between one heartbeat and the next.
"I'm guessing that falls under the category of 'bad,'" she said, and if Emma moved half a step closer to Sookie, well, there was a reason she'd switched off her own telepathy in favor of her more durable form. She didn't want to hear this; she didn't want to know what was in the minds of those creatures.
Morton
Morton blinked in surprise. "Um... yes." His hand twitched, almost reaching out to touch her, but he resisted the urge.
Emma
Emma gave him a half-smirk from beneath the fall of her hair. "You Blood and your Jewels," she teased, wriggling her fingers at him.
"How much would it be worth to the circle if I did this to Prince Limpet the next time he starts to get on my nerves?" The reaction alone would be priceless.
Morton
"Sorry," Morton mumbled, flushing just a bit at getting caught.
"I can't speak for the entire Circle, but... I would, personally, be incredibly grateful." He'd owe her one. More than one if he got to be there to see it happen.
Sookie
Sookie's hands immediately flashed before her shields took over, her eyes scanning the sky as she paled beneath her tan. "What are they doing?" she asked softly, resisting the urge to simply drop out of speaking verbally for the time being. "And can we stop them?"
Morton
"Trying to break into the shield up ahead," Morton yelled, already moving forward. "With that many of them, they might manage it eventually, too."
Sookie
Sookie ran after him, her hands crackling already as her nerves picked up. "You didn't answer my second question," she yelled back, afraid of the answer.
Morton
"We have to."
That was an 'I don't know'. Except Morton couldn't say that. Not with Karla in there.
Agio
As the group ran for the building, it became very easy to see where that feeling of corruption and wrongness had come from. Bodies bestrew the street, hacked at and brutally maimed.
Few were armed. Many were children. Those who hadn't simply dropped where they stood had been dragged off and used for sport.
The houses all showed signs of violence as well, suggesting that only the building at the end provided any kind of safe haven. Fortunately, it was just a straight shot to the shielded building--it was hard to tell at the speed they were running at, but the side streets leading away seemed even more befouled than this.
Unfortunately, they were running towards the main body of the Jhinka. And the Jhinka were starting to notice.
Cassidy
"No. Oh Darkness, no," Cassidy whispered as she looked around at the bodies they were seeing everywhere. The children were the ones that pulled at her the most. For a moment she could could feel rage rising up within her about children being hurt, but then she reined it in. They needed to find Karla first.
Raven
All the death around them was having a profound affect on Raven, though she was doing her best to keep it controlled. At the sight of the bodies, however, she halted. She wasn't going to just run past them, whatever the danger. She had to see if there were any who still lived.
Dinah
Dinah reached down to grip her arm, tightly. "No," she whispered, sick. "Raven, no. We'll come back. If we can. It's not safe to do this. Come on."
Raven
Raven pulled against Dinah's grip. "I cannot just leave them!" she cried. "There may be those here who are not beyond my aid!"
Dinah
Dinah shook her head, eyes already shiny with tears, expression near-frantic. "We don't have time. Karla doesn't have time." Unfair, using that tactic, but she had to do it. "Those things are going to go after us any minute, when they really notice us and see where we're going. It takes you time to heal people. Even teleporting, you might not catch up fast enough."
Raven
"Karla," Raven breathed, looking back toward the building. She blinked back tears, torn. Karla needed her. But the people here needed her as well, if any of them even still lived.
Dinah
"Karla will want to help," Dinah said ruthlessly. "These are her people."
Dinah was very, very doubtful that any of them were still alive. The sight of the littlest bodies was especially difficult, and part of her wanted to spare Raven what she was sure was going to be an exercise in painful futility, even as she fought with the urge to be sick with tears. "We have to find out why she's not out here. We don't know enough. Please."
Raven
Raven stopped resisting Dinah's pull, allowing her friend to draw her toward the shielded building where Karla likely was. But her attention was still on the bodies around them. If she sensed any life, if she saw any movement, she knew she'd have to break away to try to save a life.
Jhinka
She didn't. The Jhinka had had three days to deal with any survivors outside the shield. And dealing with survivors was something they did very well.
They'd be happy to show you, in fact!
Raven
Raven caught sight of the Jhinka swooping down toward them. "Dinah!" she cried, pointing.
Dinah
Dinah turned, saw it, and sent a blast of TK straight at its middle, yanking Raven forward with her as she started to run. "Go go go go go!"
Jhinka
The first Jhinka tumbled over backwards in the air, slamming against the side of the house. Winded and sore, he struggled to the roof before leaping back into the air and diving back towards them.
His spear went arcing through the air, directly towards Raven.
Raven
Raven's Soul-Self emerged from her body, shielding both her and Dinah from the attack. She didn't try to absorb the spear, just deflect it harmlessly away.
Dinah
"Whew. Good. C'mon!"
Dinah followed up Raven's attack with another telekinetic punch toward that guy, and his friend, aimed at their wings. Cruel, maybe, but...
Jhinka
Karla would be happy to assure Dinah that, no, no, the Jhinka had it coming.
The TK slammed into their wings, shattering the tiny little support bones that supported the thin membrane. The first one screeched as he careened out of control, slamming into the ground with a sickening crunch. He didn't get back up.
His friend, however, had managed to work himself into a steep dive, his hands reaching out for Dinah's throat as he dove. "Bitch!" he howled.
Dinah
Oh, God, that guy was dead-- oh, crap, she was going to be dead here in a second too--
Dinah reached out and grabbed with her TK, hoping to lift the Jhinka very, very high.
And if that didn't work, she was punching his face in with an eskrima.
Raven
Raven wasn't waiting to see if it would work. Again, she called for her Soul-Self. This time she didn't try to deflect the attack; she flew between Dinah and the Jhinka and allowed it to fly right into herself, trapping the creature inside.
And then she took its emotions, pulling them away completely, everything but its fear.
Dinah
"What are you--" Dinah was still running, but turned to see what Raven was doing. "That can't feel normal-- keep moving, are you okay?"
Raven
Raven swept her Soul-Self back into herself, leaving the Jhinka sprawled on the ground, gibbering in fear. She didn't know what it had seen inside her, and she did not care. She wasn't proud of what she'd done, but it had been sheer instinct.
"I am all right," she said. "I would not let it harm you."
Dinah
"That's supposed to be my line," Dinah tried to joke, then gulped. "Thanks. Let's get in there."
Raven
Raven gave the Jhinka on the ground one last glance before nodding at Dinah. "Yes, inside," she murmured, following quickly after her friend.
Ben
Ben's face had lost all color, but he was focusing on walking straight ahead and not looking at any of the victims, instead concentrating on the jhinka.
His lightsaber was still out, serving as an unintentional beacon. "We have to move, guys."
Jhinka
Oh damn right it was. And some of the Jhinka had honed in on it.
Several of them separated off from the main group and began winging their way towards the group. They carried swords and spears and the nasty grins they wore suggested they were well-versed in how to use them.
Ben
"Stang," Ben cursed, stepping forward. "Okay, uglies, let's see what you've got."
Jhinka
What they had was speed and momentum on their side, for one. Also, strength in numbers, though the main horde continued to circle around the shielded building, like vultures around a dying man.
Three were heading towards Ben, the first coming in hard and fast directly in front of him, the other two breaking off to flank him from opposite sides.
Ben
Ben had faced off against assassination droids and walked away. Granted, none of them had been able to fly, but he was hoping after a few slashes with his lightsaber that these guys wouldn't be able to either. He waited until they were almost on top of him, listening to the Force for the moment to move, then twirled in a circle, aiming for necks, wings, and hamstrings.
Jhinka
He hit what he was aiming for. The Jhinka on his left never even knew what had hit him before he hit the ground, his throat a gaping ruin. There was no blood, of course, but the stink of burning meat lingered in the air. The middle Jhinka banked a little, turning to the left a little in an effort to avoid his brightly-colored death. The lightsaber sheared through his wings, taking off the back of his skull in its wake.
Ben's sweep ended in the thigh of the third, suddenly pale beneath his dusky skin. He swiped out with his sword, more out of panic than in a proper attack.
Ben
And Ben's lightsaber sliced down to sever the sword from the hand. "Stop that," he scolded.
Jhinka
The downed Jhinka screamed. "My hand! My hand! My hand!" He looked at his stump with mingled fascination and horror, and then finally dragged his eyes up to Ben.
"I'll kill you!"
Ben
"You won't," Ben said firmly, holding his lightsaber at the Jhinka's throat. "Why do you attack that building?"
There was no harm in asking, right?
Jhinka
"Ours!" He screamed. "It's ours! As soon as we clean the vermin out, it's ours! Mistress swore it so!"
Ben
"Mistress?" Ben repeated. "What's her name?" He pushed a bit with the Force, not knowing if the Jhinka would be susceptible to a Jedi mind-nudge. "Tell me!"
Jhinka
"Hek--aahhhhhhhhh!"
The Jhinka began screaming and not because of anything that Ben was doing. The psychic witch storm darted down and wreathed the Jhinka’s head in crackling energy. Flames erupted from inside his skull, smoke pouring out of his eyes and ears and nose.
And just as suddenly all was still.
Ben
Ben took a step back, nose wrinkling up. "Well, that was unhelpful."
Warren
Warren's head was spinning. To hell with the Jhinka. Warren didn't care about the Jhinka. He had no idea what state Karla was in, and he was surrounded by bodies. Children. Pieces of children.
He covered his mouth with both hands as he fought back the urge to gag, pulled in a few ragged breaths, and, once his legs stopped feeling like they'd been replaced with jelly, pushed himself onward.
Ben
Ben watched Warren for a moment before heading over to walk with him. He wasn't going to face Karla to tell her that her boyfriend had gotten hurt, well, ever, if he could avoid that kind of conversation.
"Breathe through your mouth," he offered softly, "and focus straight ahead."
Warren
"Straight ahead," Warren echoed, with a short, desperate sort of bob of his head as he turned his gaze mostly downward, mostly forward. "I can do that."
He could do that. If he moved his hands from over his mouth to the sides of his face, like blinders, of a sort...
It felt so cold to block those people from his sight like that. But he'd stop walking entirely if he let himself get another look.
Ben
"And move faster," Ben added, picking up his own pace. "They've noticed we're here."
At least that would be a distraction from the dead bodies?
Warren
Maybe not the most welcome distraction, granted. And here Warren was, stuck on his feet once again, wanting no more than to take to the sky and fly the rest of the way.
But the skies belonged to them.
His wings were twitching behind him as he picked up the pace, trying to find some happy medium between gritting his teeth and actually breathing.
Jhinka
No rest for the weary, unfortunately. Because yet another Jhinka had taken it upon himself to join the welcoming committee. This one dove at Warren, screaming shrilly. In his hand was a gleaming, wicked hook and he seemed intent on using it to carve Warren's face.
Ben
"Warren," Ben snapped (though he was pretty sure this would have pulled the other boy's attention from looking straight ahead), his hand reaching for his lightsaber. "You got this?
Warren
"I..." Think. Work, brain. Screaming person with hook, can't fly, can't think, can't move, surrounded by bodies...
God, it was like Rapture all over again.
His hands left the sides of his face and his legs were working without his mind actually telling them that they ought to, and he found himself ducking and running forward. It was nice, some vague voice in the back of his mind told him, to have enough flying practise to know exactly how steep a dive one could go into without risking a broken neck.
Which, at least, saved his face from the hook.
"I think so." He was unarmed, but he could heal. And quickly. That meant that he didn't have to stay unarmed for long.
Breathe.
Jhinka
"I'll wear your wings for a cloak!" the Jhinka screamed, wheeling about to come at Warren again. "Perhaps win my lady's favor with one for her, too!"
He climbed in the air and dove again.
Warren
This time, Warren turned to face his attacker head on. And this time, he wasn't going to move. This wasn't going to be the most pleasant way to disarm his opponent. He was well aware of that. And there were about a million ways that it could backfire, and he knew that, too.
"Keep going, Ben," he hissed, trying to shove everything else out of his mind for just that moment. "I've got this."
He didn't really want to get this, because getting this meant that he was spreading his wings and jumping up, going to meet that hook personally.
Ben
Ben had a bad feeling about this, but he didn't do anything to stop Warren's plan.
"Call out if you change your mind," he said instead.
Jhinka
How exciting to have prey coming to meet him for a change, instead of fleeing! Well, sad, because his meat-hook had a definite fondess for kidneys, but hey! There were probably lots of fun bits this way, too.
The Jhinka swung his arm in an arc, intending to embed that wicked hook right in Warren's eye.
Warren
Warren swerved. Not nearly enough for the hook to miss him entirely, but definitely enough to keep it from skewering his brain. He had no idea just how strong that healing factor of his was, after all.
It ended up buried deep in his shoulder, instead, catching underneath his collarbone.
... Right about the same time his knee came up, hard, for that area between the Jhinka's legs that he hoped some kind of otherworldly anatomy hadn't messed with.
He'd scream in a moment. Right now he was busy not dying, twisting about in mid-air in the hopes that this thing would let go of his weapon. But at least the pain in his shoulder was something searing and immediate and pressing, and it kept him from looking down. There were some things that he could live without a bird's-eye-view of.
Jhinka
Fortunately for Warren--in both this scenario and several possible others--Kaeleeran anatomy was pretty much identical to Terran. Which meant in this specific case--likely the only one he was really interested in right now--his knee connected with something soft and vulnerable.
The Jhinka gasped, doubling over in midair. He let go of his hook in favor of clutching his groin, wings working feebly as he began slowly wheeling back to the ground.
Warren
Warren, meanwhile, had managed to work the hook out of his flesh, and now he didn't have any choice but to look down. His shoulder burned even as the wound slowly stitched itself together again, his wing had gone numb, but somehow, he managed to pull himself into a dive, and this time he was wielding the hook.
He turned it around so that the blunt back of it was what came down against the back of the Jhinka's skull. Using his good arm, head spinning with fear and pain and adrenaline as it was, backed with the proportionate upper-body strength that came with having a set of wings, that couldn't possibly be a pleasant feeling.
Jhinka
The Jhinka went limp as Warren's hook crashed into the back of his skull. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he slumped forward. Rather than wheeling downward he began to freefall towards the ground.
His face hit first, a sickening crunch with a spatter of blood. The rest of his body hit next, with a noise like a wet sack falling from a great height--which, in effect, it was.
He did not move again.
Warren
Warren had been intending to catch the Jhinka, to keep him from falling, to keep that from happening, but the moment he'd fallen just a couple of feet, that was when the extent of the slaughter to the people of this town actually became apparent. He looked down. He'd had to look down. You can't catch a falling person without looking, after all.
And you can't land without looking, either.
By the time his feet hit the ground, he'd made most of the trip in free-fall himself, his wings flaring at the last second to keep him from meeting a similar fate to the corpse that was entirely too close for comfort. The hook was still in his hand. He didn't have the presence of mind to let go.
He just sank to his knees, and proceeded to throw up.
Ben
Ben's hand reached out for Warren's shoulder. "Feel better?" he asked.
Warren
It took a couple of shaky breaths before Warren managed a nod, and a few more still before he pulled himself to his feet. His hand and his wing were still pins and needles, but the wound to his shoulder was almost completely gone, now.
"We need to keep moving, right?"
Had to get to Karla. Had to get away from this. Had to remember to breathe.
Ben
"Right," Ben said, giving another worried look to the skies. "Not much further now."
Bobby
There are some who would associate cold and ice with a lack of emotion. However, when it came to Bobby Drake, nothing could be further from the truth. He'd seen plenty of death and destruction since first joining the X-Men... but never anything like this.
As he ran, his footprints left the slightest trace of frost on the cobblestones, and anyone who came too close was likely to catch something of a chill.
Jhinka
The two Jhinka flinging themselves at him from a nearby rooftop looked at if they thought a slight cold was worth the fun of decorating the road with some of Bobby's more inside bits.
Bobby
In your average fight, Bobby normally went for the encase-them-in-ice method. It was... kinder. Less painful, anyway.
The Jhinka didn't deserve kindness, so even as Bobby moved to duck out of the way, they would feel the heat in their bodies drain away, the blood flow to the brain getting slower and slower until it was almost nonexistent.
Jhinka
It took the Jhinka a few seconds to realize what was happening, even as they wheeled around to strike again.
At first, it was simply shivers. Then a feeling of grogginess and exhaustion, cutting through the battle-field rage. By the time they could no longer control their bodies and fell, spasming, towards the ground, they were unable to realize anything at all.
Sookie
Sookie wasn't trained for this. A life of telepathy, two years in Fandom, and knowledge of the horrors of Karla's world hadn't prepared her to be running through, past, and over the bodies of helpless people maimed and killed in the wake of this kind of destruction.
She resisted the urge to look, to stop or study the victims. The sounds of the dying in her brain were enough. It was as though their deaths surrounded her, children's cries pressing up against her brain as she ran.
Her body reacted for her, coupling with the overwhelming grief, and pain, and rage for what had been done to these people. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Sookie ran straight towards the jhinka in a sloppy line. Her hands weren't the only thing to glow, now -- her entire skin shone with a rosy, warm light, as she approached the slaughterers.
She was losing control. She didn't care.
Jhinka
Well, there were several Jhinka dive-bombing in to make her acquaintance. The warm, rosy light made for an excellent target, after all.
Hello, Sookie, how do you do? Time to die.
Sookie
Sookie smiled -- not happily, though. It was a wicked, twisted, angry smile, and as the Jhinka dove towards her, her hands flew up to meet them.
A bright blast burst from either hand, less lightning bolts and more dual explosions of violet light, leaving the air crackling and pushing Sookie's hair and clothes back with a gale's force. Her fury at the mangled victims propelled the light from her, and no Jhinka got within fifteen feet of her. They were shoved back through the air, sent hurtling towards the ground on fire, and Sookie didn't care where they landed or what became of them.
She wasn't thinking, or feeling, beyond how angry she was. She felt them in her wake, their pain a mild telepathic burn behind the victims' death rattles. This was vengeance. It felt good.
Bobby
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. He understood Sookie's fury, certainly couldn't blame her for it... but at the same time, he needed to stop her before she lost control any further. She might not feel remorse at the deaths of the Jhinka, but if her lightning arced out and accidentally hit one of their friends?
"Sookie!" he shouted, running towards her.
Sookie
"Kinda busy, baby," she yelled, not taking her eyes from the sky as yet another Jhinka's wings went up in smoky glow.
Jhinka
Another Jhinka dove down, this time claws outstretched for Bobby.
Bobby
Oh god, he really wanted to know how the hell to pull off that ice-form trick right about now. As it was, he brought his arms up to shield himself, a thick layer of ice forming around his upper arms.
Sookie
And with Bobby shielded, Sookie had absolutely no compunction about turning her anger on that Jhinka in particular. Now it wasn't just the strewn bits of random people. Now they were specifically targeting someone she loved, and it took very little effort for her to blast the Jhinka away in a smoldering purple flash.
With that, she returned her gaze to the sky, taking very little care with the aim of her attacks, nor the humanity of them. Her lips quirked up in a tiny, cold smile as she sent another three Jhinka falling to the ground, bathed in purple light and white fire.
Bobby
Well, okay, he certainly appreciated the whole not-being-hurt thing. But still... "Sookie, please!" he shouted. "You need to stop."
Sookie
Sookie was shaking now, her hands sparking and igniting in increasingly-large, panicked spurts.
"There are pieces of babies on the ground," Sookie managed, her voice wobbly and hoarse as she spared a glance for Bobby. "And you want me to stop? I can't."
Bobby
"You have to," Bobby insisted. "I know you're angry, I am too- but you are very close to being Out. Of. Control." He gritted those last few words out as he sent a tendril of ice creeping along the ground between them, up past her feet and encasing her hands, shorting out those sparks.
Sookie
Sookie still glowed faintly for a moment, her hands pulsing violet inside the ice for a moment before they -- along with the rest of her -- faded back to normal.
"Oh," she said after a moment, quiet and sad and suddenly very self-aware as she stared down at her hands in disbelief. It was like she'd returned to herself. Even if she'd been there the whole time, it was very literally a shock to her system, startling her out of her rage. "Oh, God, I -- we need to keep moving."
Because she couldn't bear to sit here much longer and think about what she'd just done, and what he'd had to do.
Bobby
"Yeah," Bobby nodded, closing the distance between them and reaching to take her hand in his own. Loss of control or not, he wanted her to know he still trusted her. "Let's go."
Sookie
Sookie was now kind of staring down at their hands in horror, afraid she might lose it and set him on fire. "Yeah," she mumbled after a beat, looking away and starting toward the building again. She didn't take her hand away, though. She just deliberately tried not to think about it, or what she'd done.
[Warnings in place for explicit violence and potentially disturbing imagery. NFI, NFB, OOC=love. Text adapted from Chapter Thirteen of Heir to the Shadows. Ish. Part one of several; the full list of previous entries can be found here.]
After hearing from Beale that Prince Smoke had accompanied Lucivar and Jaenelle to Askavi, Morton had contacted the kindred wolf as soon as he'd landed the Coach in Askavi and his attempt to contact either Lucivar or Jaenelle had been fruitless. His relief at finding out that his wayward cousin had been following Jaenelle turned to concern when Smoke told him that the three humans had gone into a village and hadn't returned. It was the same village that Lady Tara's spell had pointed to; that much was certain. But knowing where Karla was didn't explain why they were there. Or why they couldn't come out.
That concern turned to decided unease as he stepped forward to examine the cozy-looking little village, a mile or so in the distance. A landen village, he thought, since he wasn't getting a hint of any Blood psychic scents in there. Which was damned odd, considering Smoke had tracked Karla and the others to this village and was certain they hadn't left. And now that Smoke mentioned it, Morton did notice a faint hint of corruption, like something flickering out of the corner of his eye. No sooner had he noticed it, it was gone again.
"Smoke, head back to Dhemlan and alert the High Lord," Morton said, still studying the sleepy village of Agio. Had he just felt the Ebon-Gray...? No, nothing. "Tell him to contact Khary and Aaron, too, and pass on everything you just told me. I don't like whatever's down there, and Karla, Jaenelle, and Lucivar are right in the middle of it."
With a quick Rrruff! and a small lick at Morton's hand, Smoke trotted back towards the Coach and vanished onto the White Wind. Even hopping onto the Purple Dusk back to Dhemlan and then having Aaron and the others ride the Green Wind from Glacia to Askavi, they were still looking at more than a handful of hours before help would arrive.
No use waiting, then. "Let's go," he said, turning to face the others. "Let's see what kind of trouble my cousin's landed herself in now."
From his tone, Morton was assuming it was trouble of the most dangerous kind.
Agio
The walk to the village was picturesque, even serene. There appeared to be no signs of trouble or disturbance; though a subtle sense of foulness haunted the more sensitive. Still, the only sign that all was not well was the fields standing empty in the middle of harvest-time.
As they walked closer to the village, even that subtle wrongness vanished away. If they had simply landed in the village, they never would have felt something wrong.
The quiet lasted until they had crossed the boundary into Agio proper. As soon as their feet touched the cobblestone walkway, the psychic witch storm closed up around them, sizzling like hot water in a pan as they encounted Morton's Rose shield around the group. All the ensnaring psychic threads flared like miniature bolts of lightning, visible even to those without Craft or magic.
As soon as the trapped snapped shut behind them and the illusion fell away, the sky turned dark with the bodies of hundreds, no, thousands of winged humanoids filled the air. Most of them were focused on a large, two-story building at the far end of the street, a shimmering Ebon-Gray shield enclosing it.
...Most of them. Not all.
Morton
"Hell's fire and Mother Night," Morton cursed, going even paler than his usual wont. "Jhinka. There must be...thousands of them. It's like someone called all the clans together."
Jonothon
//Well... there's definitely no shortage of them, is there?// Jono furrowed his eyebrows as he looked up at the... things that were swarming overhead. //Clans.//
Clans suggested sentience.
Sentience meant that Jono wouldn't be terribly keen on taking care of large numbers of them with one sweeping blast of flame. Still, one hand was creeping toward his bandages. Just to be ready.
Morton
"I've never even heard of this many in once place," Morton answered, looking more than a little worried.
Jono
//They don't look as though they've got anything good in mind,// Jono noted, glancing at Morton. It wasn't good when your guide looked worried. It was really, really not good when your guide looked worried. //Please, tell me they're not quick to attack.//
Wishful thinking, go.
Morton
Morton blinked. He looked at Jono, then over at the Jhinka, then back. "Um..." He was saved from having to come up with some sort of answer by, well, charging Jhinka.
"I think moving is a good plan for now!" he decided.
Jono
//I have to say, I'm definitely a fan of yer good plans,// Jonothon decided, picking up his pace without a second thought. He really wasn't anxious to find out what would happen if they caught up.
Ben
Out came Ben's lightsaber. "I'm guessing negotiating is out of the question?" he asked, reaching through the Force to check on Karla.
Morton
"It doesn't look like they're in a negotiating mood," Morton agreed. "Actually, I'm not sure Jhinka have a negotiating mood."
Ben
"But you said there's more of them than normal," Ben said, frowning. "They don't normally have this many fighting together?"
Morton
"They're normally just a nuisance. Not a..." Well, obviously a very serious threat.
Ben
"Kriffing mess," Ben said eloquently. "Any idea what set them off?"
Morton
"They're always aggressive and hostile, but not in numbers like these."
Ben
"Is asking why going to end me in a history lesson 50,000 years in the making?" he asked.
Morton
"Unfortunately, canon doesn't feel any need to explain this yeah."
Ben
Ben blew the hair out of his eyes with a annoyed breath. "Fantastic."
Morton
"Yeah." Morton shook his head. "We can talk later. Running time now, I think."
Cassidy
Cassidy shuddered slightly when the illusion fell away. She had never felt or seen such wrongness and pain as she was sensing now. She didn't know what the creatures were, but they were focused on causing pain.
"Why?" She whispered. "Why would someone call things like this to a village?"
Gabrielle
Gabrielle had asked Xena the same question, once; she looked over at Cassidy, her expression sympathetic.
"To break their spirits," she answered, hoping her answer was gentle enough to be less disheartening than Xena's had been. "That way, they've surrendered before they even realize it."
She could have been wrong, under the circumstances; it was just how things worked in her world.
Cassidy
Cassidy's eyes were filled with grief and horror over so many lives lost when she turned to look at Gabrielle.
"But they're landens," she whispered. "There is barely any Blood or power here. What point is there in breaking the spirits of many that can't fight back? What is the point of so much cruelty?"
Cassidy was still a little innocent about evil, even though she had heard stories and stories of evil were what caused her mother to send her away to school.
Gabrielle
"That's exactly the point," Gabrielle murmured. "It isn't supposed to be fair; it's supposed to demonstrate who's in power. I've seen it happen so many times." And heard about it in great, confessional detail by the light of countless campfires, but that was what happened when you traveled with a reformed warlord who'd -- how had she managed to do all that ten winters ago, anyway?
Cassidy
Cassidy shook her head, trying to swallow her horror and how sick all of this made her feel. "I'm sorry, then, that you have had to see something like this before," she managed to say. "No one should have to endure or see something as horrible as this."
Gabrielle
Gods, that sounded like her a couple of years ago. Gabrielle felt old all of a sudden; was this what Xena felt like around her most of the time? Did she feel like anything she'd said to Gabrielle was as useless as Gabrielle felt, trying to come up with something to say?
"No. No one should. But as long as the cycle of hate continues . . ."
(Yes, she really did say cheesy things like that. All the time.)
Cassidy
"I don't understand how someone can hate on this magnitude," Cassidy said softly, shaking her head. "It doesn't make sense for someone to be this destructive of life."
Gabrielle
Callisto's empty expression as she watched Xena stand in a village square and confess to the destruction of Cirra. Velasca's maniacally single-minded pursuit of her. Talmadeus, Mael, the Mitoans and Thessalians . . .
Gabrielle looked at her and smiled sadly. "It might be better if you never understand how."
Cassidy
Cassidy took a shuddering breath and shook her head. "I want to stop thing like this from happening. There's nothing that can grow in hate."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle could respect that -- it was what she wanted too, after all, and her smile firmed up a bit as she looked at Cassidy.
"Nothing at all," she agreed. "I want to break the cycle, and there's only one way to do that."
Cassidy
"We remove the ones that cause such hate and destruction?"
Gabrielle
It was what Xena would say, but Gabrielle -- even though her reaction was tempered somewhat by recent experience -- looked a bit horrified. "No, no! That only prolongs it. We stop them if we can, but the only way to truly overcome the cycle of hate is through love."
No amount of trauma in any world would ever get Gabrielle to stop believing that.
. . . or, sadly, get her to stop saying cheesy things like that.
Cassidy
She sighed and then looked at Gabrielle. "Do you think that's even possible when it gets this bad?"
Gabrielle
"It has to be," Gabrielle said fiercely. "I can't ever give up on trying."
Cassidy
"I hope so," Cassidy said finally. "I hate to think of a future that has only this."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle wanted to grip her staff so tightly her knuckles went white, but enough experience with it told her that would be a bad idea.
"Oh, gods," she breathed, staring up at the jhinka; the dryads had been more terrifying, but they'd never come in these numbers. "We can't fight all these . . ."
Dinah
"We really, really can't." Dinah felt sick, from whatever it was in the air or the area. "Running away after we get Karla and her friends sounds like a plan."
Gabrielle
Gabrielle was used to herding people along and yelling at them to run, luckily, and even Xena would tell them to do just that in this situation.
"I don't think we have any other choice," she agreed. Then, wryly: "Haven't you missed this?"
Dinah
Dinah almost stopped, then laughed very ruefully, sighing. "Oh yes. So much. The restrained panic moments. The clueless rush to disaster. I only get to to small-scale skirmishes in New Gotham. The buildings are too close together for anything else. You?"
Gabrielle
"Oh, you have been away," Gabrielle teased -- yes, even in a situation like this she could joke. "This is bigger than anything I've been involved with since Troy, though."
Dinah
"...the Troy?" Dinah had to ask. "What am I saying, it's you and Xena. Of course it was the Troy." She sighed. "Wish we had room to negotiate with the winged crazy people though. Somehow, I'm doubting it."
Gabrielle
"I get the feeling they're not in a negotiating mood," Gabrielle answered, sounding . . . awfully sorry about that, actually. "I don't know about you, but I don't tend to look at hordes of thousands bearing down like that and think they come to parley."
Okay, there had been that time with the Horde, but . . . no one here was screaming "Kaltaka!" And even if they were, what were the odds it meant "water" this time?
Dinah
Not as good that they were chanting blood blood blooood, probably.
"Me neither. I'm wishing there was a umpire or referee, and this was all a game." Dinah sighed. "Or that we could tell if they wanted anything other than our hides."
Gabrielle
"It's never a game," Gabrielle said softly. "No matter how much we wish it was."
Dinah
"Or other people treat it that way," Dinah concluded.
Gabrielle
Gabrielle's smile had just a hint of bitterness to it, but she was thinking of Velasca and couldn't help it. "And they will. But we won't get through this if we think of it that way."
Dinah
"No." Not as someone she'd want to be, anyway. She smiled tiredly at Gabrielle. "It's ... nice to have someone along, who gets that really well."
Gabrielle
"It's nice to have someone appreciate that," Gabrielle answered, bringing her staff up to bear. "I learned from the best, after all."
Bobby
Bobby bit down on the urge to announce that he wanted to go home. Instead, he just shook his head. "What'd I tell you?" he said to no one in particular. "Gonna be a fight."
Warren
"Yep," Warren agreed, pulling his wings tight to his back and ducking his head a little. "You sure told me."
Well, he had.
Jack
Jack glanced up grimly. He was carrying his pistol, but it struck him as being a bit like bringing a slingshot to a firefight. He might as well have saved himself the trouble.
"Doesn't look like they're open to diplomacy," he said, echoing Ben's sentiment.
Raven
"What are they?" Raven said, feeling sick from the violence and pain she was now sensing. "What do they want? Why are they attacking?"
Dinah
"Any bets it's not Karla and company?" Dinah asked, eyes fixed warily on the winged threats. "Crap. Crap. Crap." They were starting to circle, eyes fixing on the group which had just arrived.
Raven
Raven strengthened her shields, trying to steel herself for what was surely to come. "We must get through that," she said quietly. "I am not certain I can penetrate the shield if I teleport."
Ender
For a moment, Ender felt the pressure of this sudden force on him, claustrophobic and wrong. I shouldn't be here, he knew, fight-or-flight instincts flaring up in a way he didn't want, he really didn't want.
There was nothing he could fight here, though. Thankfully, flight won out, and he started moving faster.
Unlike the others, he was very, very quiet.
Emma
Emma's body responded to her will within a hundredth of a second, going from curves and blonde hair to cold hard diamond between one heartbeat and the next.
"I'm guessing that falls under the category of 'bad,'" she said, and if Emma moved half a step closer to Sookie, well, there was a reason she'd switched off her own telepathy in favor of her more durable form. She didn't want to hear this; she didn't want to know what was in the minds of those creatures.
Morton
Morton blinked in surprise. "Um... yes." His hand twitched, almost reaching out to touch her, but he resisted the urge.
Emma
Emma gave him a half-smirk from beneath the fall of her hair. "You Blood and your Jewels," she teased, wriggling her fingers at him.
"How much would it be worth to the circle if I did this to Prince Limpet the next time he starts to get on my nerves?" The reaction alone would be priceless.
Morton
"Sorry," Morton mumbled, flushing just a bit at getting caught.
"I can't speak for the entire Circle, but... I would, personally, be incredibly grateful." He'd owe her one. More than one if he got to be there to see it happen.
Sookie
Sookie's hands immediately flashed before her shields took over, her eyes scanning the sky as she paled beneath her tan. "What are they doing?" she asked softly, resisting the urge to simply drop out of speaking verbally for the time being. "And can we stop them?"
Morton
"Trying to break into the shield up ahead," Morton yelled, already moving forward. "With that many of them, they might manage it eventually, too."
Sookie
Sookie ran after him, her hands crackling already as her nerves picked up. "You didn't answer my second question," she yelled back, afraid of the answer.
Morton
"We have to."
That was an 'I don't know'. Except Morton couldn't say that. Not with Karla in there.
Agio
As the group ran for the building, it became very easy to see where that feeling of corruption and wrongness had come from. Bodies bestrew the street, hacked at and brutally maimed.
Few were armed. Many were children. Those who hadn't simply dropped where they stood had been dragged off and used for sport.
The houses all showed signs of violence as well, suggesting that only the building at the end provided any kind of safe haven. Fortunately, it was just a straight shot to the shielded building--it was hard to tell at the speed they were running at, but the side streets leading away seemed even more befouled than this.
Unfortunately, they were running towards the main body of the Jhinka. And the Jhinka were starting to notice.
Cassidy
"No. Oh Darkness, no," Cassidy whispered as she looked around at the bodies they were seeing everywhere. The children were the ones that pulled at her the most. For a moment she could could feel rage rising up within her about children being hurt, but then she reined it in. They needed to find Karla first.
Raven
All the death around them was having a profound affect on Raven, though she was doing her best to keep it controlled. At the sight of the bodies, however, she halted. She wasn't going to just run past them, whatever the danger. She had to see if there were any who still lived.
Dinah
Dinah reached down to grip her arm, tightly. "No," she whispered, sick. "Raven, no. We'll come back. If we can. It's not safe to do this. Come on."
Raven
Raven pulled against Dinah's grip. "I cannot just leave them!" she cried. "There may be those here who are not beyond my aid!"
Dinah
Dinah shook her head, eyes already shiny with tears, expression near-frantic. "We don't have time. Karla doesn't have time." Unfair, using that tactic, but she had to do it. "Those things are going to go after us any minute, when they really notice us and see where we're going. It takes you time to heal people. Even teleporting, you might not catch up fast enough."
Raven
"Karla," Raven breathed, looking back toward the building. She blinked back tears, torn. Karla needed her. But the people here needed her as well, if any of them even still lived.
Dinah
"Karla will want to help," Dinah said ruthlessly. "These are her people."
Dinah was very, very doubtful that any of them were still alive. The sight of the littlest bodies was especially difficult, and part of her wanted to spare Raven what she was sure was going to be an exercise in painful futility, even as she fought with the urge to be sick with tears. "We have to find out why she's not out here. We don't know enough. Please."
Raven
Raven stopped resisting Dinah's pull, allowing her friend to draw her toward the shielded building where Karla likely was. But her attention was still on the bodies around them. If she sensed any life, if she saw any movement, she knew she'd have to break away to try to save a life.
Jhinka
She didn't. The Jhinka had had three days to deal with any survivors outside the shield. And dealing with survivors was something they did very well.
They'd be happy to show you, in fact!
Raven
Raven caught sight of the Jhinka swooping down toward them. "Dinah!" she cried, pointing.
Dinah
Dinah turned, saw it, and sent a blast of TK straight at its middle, yanking Raven forward with her as she started to run. "Go go go go go!"
Jhinka
The first Jhinka tumbled over backwards in the air, slamming against the side of the house. Winded and sore, he struggled to the roof before leaping back into the air and diving back towards them.
His spear went arcing through the air, directly towards Raven.
Raven
Raven's Soul-Self emerged from her body, shielding both her and Dinah from the attack. She didn't try to absorb the spear, just deflect it harmlessly away.
Dinah
"Whew. Good. C'mon!"
Dinah followed up Raven's attack with another telekinetic punch toward that guy, and his friend, aimed at their wings. Cruel, maybe, but...
Jhinka
Karla would be happy to assure Dinah that, no, no, the Jhinka had it coming.
The TK slammed into their wings, shattering the tiny little support bones that supported the thin membrane. The first one screeched as he careened out of control, slamming into the ground with a sickening crunch. He didn't get back up.
His friend, however, had managed to work himself into a steep dive, his hands reaching out for Dinah's throat as he dove. "Bitch!" he howled.
Dinah
Oh, God, that guy was dead-- oh, crap, she was going to be dead here in a second too--
Dinah reached out and grabbed with her TK, hoping to lift the Jhinka very, very high.
And if that didn't work, she was punching his face in with an eskrima.
Raven
Raven wasn't waiting to see if it would work. Again, she called for her Soul-Self. This time she didn't try to deflect the attack; she flew between Dinah and the Jhinka and allowed it to fly right into herself, trapping the creature inside.
And then she took its emotions, pulling them away completely, everything but its fear.
Dinah
"What are you--" Dinah was still running, but turned to see what Raven was doing. "That can't feel normal-- keep moving, are you okay?"
Raven
Raven swept her Soul-Self back into herself, leaving the Jhinka sprawled on the ground, gibbering in fear. She didn't know what it had seen inside her, and she did not care. She wasn't proud of what she'd done, but it had been sheer instinct.
"I am all right," she said. "I would not let it harm you."
Dinah
"That's supposed to be my line," Dinah tried to joke, then gulped. "Thanks. Let's get in there."
Raven
Raven gave the Jhinka on the ground one last glance before nodding at Dinah. "Yes, inside," she murmured, following quickly after her friend.
Ben
Ben's face had lost all color, but he was focusing on walking straight ahead and not looking at any of the victims, instead concentrating on the jhinka.
His lightsaber was still out, serving as an unintentional beacon. "We have to move, guys."
Jhinka
Oh damn right it was. And some of the Jhinka had honed in on it.
Several of them separated off from the main group and began winging their way towards the group. They carried swords and spears and the nasty grins they wore suggested they were well-versed in how to use them.
Ben
"Stang," Ben cursed, stepping forward. "Okay, uglies, let's see what you've got."
Jhinka
What they had was speed and momentum on their side, for one. Also, strength in numbers, though the main horde continued to circle around the shielded building, like vultures around a dying man.
Three were heading towards Ben, the first coming in hard and fast directly in front of him, the other two breaking off to flank him from opposite sides.
Ben
Ben had faced off against assassination droids and walked away. Granted, none of them had been able to fly, but he was hoping after a few slashes with his lightsaber that these guys wouldn't be able to either. He waited until they were almost on top of him, listening to the Force for the moment to move, then twirled in a circle, aiming for necks, wings, and hamstrings.
Jhinka
He hit what he was aiming for. The Jhinka on his left never even knew what had hit him before he hit the ground, his throat a gaping ruin. There was no blood, of course, but the stink of burning meat lingered in the air. The middle Jhinka banked a little, turning to the left a little in an effort to avoid his brightly-colored death. The lightsaber sheared through his wings, taking off the back of his skull in its wake.
Ben's sweep ended in the thigh of the third, suddenly pale beneath his dusky skin. He swiped out with his sword, more out of panic than in a proper attack.
Ben
And Ben's lightsaber sliced down to sever the sword from the hand. "Stop that," he scolded.
Jhinka
The downed Jhinka screamed. "My hand! My hand! My hand!" He looked at his stump with mingled fascination and horror, and then finally dragged his eyes up to Ben.
"I'll kill you!"
Ben
"You won't," Ben said firmly, holding his lightsaber at the Jhinka's throat. "Why do you attack that building?"
There was no harm in asking, right?
Jhinka
"Ours!" He screamed. "It's ours! As soon as we clean the vermin out, it's ours! Mistress swore it so!"
Ben
"Mistress?" Ben repeated. "What's her name?" He pushed a bit with the Force, not knowing if the Jhinka would be susceptible to a Jedi mind-nudge. "Tell me!"
Jhinka
"Hek--aahhhhhhhhh!"
The Jhinka began screaming and not because of anything that Ben was doing. The psychic witch storm darted down and wreathed the Jhinka’s head in crackling energy. Flames erupted from inside his skull, smoke pouring out of his eyes and ears and nose.
And just as suddenly all was still.
Ben
Ben took a step back, nose wrinkling up. "Well, that was unhelpful."
Warren
Warren's head was spinning. To hell with the Jhinka. Warren didn't care about the Jhinka. He had no idea what state Karla was in, and he was surrounded by bodies. Children. Pieces of children.
He covered his mouth with both hands as he fought back the urge to gag, pulled in a few ragged breaths, and, once his legs stopped feeling like they'd been replaced with jelly, pushed himself onward.
Ben
Ben watched Warren for a moment before heading over to walk with him. He wasn't going to face Karla to tell her that her boyfriend had gotten hurt, well, ever, if he could avoid that kind of conversation.
"Breathe through your mouth," he offered softly, "and focus straight ahead."
Warren
"Straight ahead," Warren echoed, with a short, desperate sort of bob of his head as he turned his gaze mostly downward, mostly forward. "I can do that."
He could do that. If he moved his hands from over his mouth to the sides of his face, like blinders, of a sort...
It felt so cold to block those people from his sight like that. But he'd stop walking entirely if he let himself get another look.
Ben
"And move faster," Ben added, picking up his own pace. "They've noticed we're here."
At least that would be a distraction from the dead bodies?
Warren
Maybe not the most welcome distraction, granted. And here Warren was, stuck on his feet once again, wanting no more than to take to the sky and fly the rest of the way.
But the skies belonged to them.
His wings were twitching behind him as he picked up the pace, trying to find some happy medium between gritting his teeth and actually breathing.
Jhinka
No rest for the weary, unfortunately. Because yet another Jhinka had taken it upon himself to join the welcoming committee. This one dove at Warren, screaming shrilly. In his hand was a gleaming, wicked hook and he seemed intent on using it to carve Warren's face.
Ben
"Warren," Ben snapped (though he was pretty sure this would have pulled the other boy's attention from looking straight ahead), his hand reaching for his lightsaber. "You got this?
Warren
"I..." Think. Work, brain. Screaming person with hook, can't fly, can't think, can't move, surrounded by bodies...
God, it was like Rapture all over again.
His hands left the sides of his face and his legs were working without his mind actually telling them that they ought to, and he found himself ducking and running forward. It was nice, some vague voice in the back of his mind told him, to have enough flying practise to know exactly how steep a dive one could go into without risking a broken neck.
Which, at least, saved his face from the hook.
"I think so." He was unarmed, but he could heal. And quickly. That meant that he didn't have to stay unarmed for long.
Breathe.
Jhinka
"I'll wear your wings for a cloak!" the Jhinka screamed, wheeling about to come at Warren again. "Perhaps win my lady's favor with one for her, too!"
He climbed in the air and dove again.
Warren
This time, Warren turned to face his attacker head on. And this time, he wasn't going to move. This wasn't going to be the most pleasant way to disarm his opponent. He was well aware of that. And there were about a million ways that it could backfire, and he knew that, too.
"Keep going, Ben," he hissed, trying to shove everything else out of his mind for just that moment. "I've got this."
He didn't really want to get this, because getting this meant that he was spreading his wings and jumping up, going to meet that hook personally.
Ben
Ben had a bad feeling about this, but he didn't do anything to stop Warren's plan.
"Call out if you change your mind," he said instead.
Jhinka
How exciting to have prey coming to meet him for a change, instead of fleeing! Well, sad, because his meat-hook had a definite fondess for kidneys, but hey! There were probably lots of fun bits this way, too.
The Jhinka swung his arm in an arc, intending to embed that wicked hook right in Warren's eye.
Warren
Warren swerved. Not nearly enough for the hook to miss him entirely, but definitely enough to keep it from skewering his brain. He had no idea just how strong that healing factor of his was, after all.
It ended up buried deep in his shoulder, instead, catching underneath his collarbone.
... Right about the same time his knee came up, hard, for that area between the Jhinka's legs that he hoped some kind of otherworldly anatomy hadn't messed with.
He'd scream in a moment. Right now he was busy not dying, twisting about in mid-air in the hopes that this thing would let go of his weapon. But at least the pain in his shoulder was something searing and immediate and pressing, and it kept him from looking down. There were some things that he could live without a bird's-eye-view of.
Jhinka
Fortunately for Warren--in both this scenario and several possible others--Kaeleeran anatomy was pretty much identical to Terran. Which meant in this specific case--likely the only one he was really interested in right now--his knee connected with something soft and vulnerable.
The Jhinka gasped, doubling over in midair. He let go of his hook in favor of clutching his groin, wings working feebly as he began slowly wheeling back to the ground.
Warren
Warren, meanwhile, had managed to work the hook out of his flesh, and now he didn't have any choice but to look down. His shoulder burned even as the wound slowly stitched itself together again, his wing had gone numb, but somehow, he managed to pull himself into a dive, and this time he was wielding the hook.
He turned it around so that the blunt back of it was what came down against the back of the Jhinka's skull. Using his good arm, head spinning with fear and pain and adrenaline as it was, backed with the proportionate upper-body strength that came with having a set of wings, that couldn't possibly be a pleasant feeling.
Jhinka
The Jhinka went limp as Warren's hook crashed into the back of his skull. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he slumped forward. Rather than wheeling downward he began to freefall towards the ground.
His face hit first, a sickening crunch with a spatter of blood. The rest of his body hit next, with a noise like a wet sack falling from a great height--which, in effect, it was.
He did not move again.
Warren
Warren had been intending to catch the Jhinka, to keep him from falling, to keep that from happening, but the moment he'd fallen just a couple of feet, that was when the extent of the slaughter to the people of this town actually became apparent. He looked down. He'd had to look down. You can't catch a falling person without looking, after all.
And you can't land without looking, either.
By the time his feet hit the ground, he'd made most of the trip in free-fall himself, his wings flaring at the last second to keep him from meeting a similar fate to the corpse that was entirely too close for comfort. The hook was still in his hand. He didn't have the presence of mind to let go.
He just sank to his knees, and proceeded to throw up.
Ben
Ben's hand reached out for Warren's shoulder. "Feel better?" he asked.
Warren
It took a couple of shaky breaths before Warren managed a nod, and a few more still before he pulled himself to his feet. His hand and his wing were still pins and needles, but the wound to his shoulder was almost completely gone, now.
"We need to keep moving, right?"
Had to get to Karla. Had to get away from this. Had to remember to breathe.
Ben
"Right," Ben said, giving another worried look to the skies. "Not much further now."
Bobby
There are some who would associate cold and ice with a lack of emotion. However, when it came to Bobby Drake, nothing could be further from the truth. He'd seen plenty of death and destruction since first joining the X-Men... but never anything like this.
As he ran, his footprints left the slightest trace of frost on the cobblestones, and anyone who came too close was likely to catch something of a chill.
Jhinka
The two Jhinka flinging themselves at him from a nearby rooftop looked at if they thought a slight cold was worth the fun of decorating the road with some of Bobby's more inside bits.
Bobby
In your average fight, Bobby normally went for the encase-them-in-ice method. It was... kinder. Less painful, anyway.
The Jhinka didn't deserve kindness, so even as Bobby moved to duck out of the way, they would feel the heat in their bodies drain away, the blood flow to the brain getting slower and slower until it was almost nonexistent.
Jhinka
It took the Jhinka a few seconds to realize what was happening, even as they wheeled around to strike again.
At first, it was simply shivers. Then a feeling of grogginess and exhaustion, cutting through the battle-field rage. By the time they could no longer control their bodies and fell, spasming, towards the ground, they were unable to realize anything at all.
Sookie
Sookie wasn't trained for this. A life of telepathy, two years in Fandom, and knowledge of the horrors of Karla's world hadn't prepared her to be running through, past, and over the bodies of helpless people maimed and killed in the wake of this kind of destruction.
She resisted the urge to look, to stop or study the victims. The sounds of the dying in her brain were enough. It was as though their deaths surrounded her, children's cries pressing up against her brain as she ran.
Her body reacted for her, coupling with the overwhelming grief, and pain, and rage for what had been done to these people. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Sookie ran straight towards the jhinka in a sloppy line. Her hands weren't the only thing to glow, now -- her entire skin shone with a rosy, warm light, as she approached the slaughterers.
She was losing control. She didn't care.
Jhinka
Well, there were several Jhinka dive-bombing in to make her acquaintance. The warm, rosy light made for an excellent target, after all.
Hello, Sookie, how do you do? Time to die.
Sookie
Sookie smiled -- not happily, though. It was a wicked, twisted, angry smile, and as the Jhinka dove towards her, her hands flew up to meet them.
A bright blast burst from either hand, less lightning bolts and more dual explosions of violet light, leaving the air crackling and pushing Sookie's hair and clothes back with a gale's force. Her fury at the mangled victims propelled the light from her, and no Jhinka got within fifteen feet of her. They were shoved back through the air, sent hurtling towards the ground on fire, and Sookie didn't care where they landed or what became of them.
She wasn't thinking, or feeling, beyond how angry she was. She felt them in her wake, their pain a mild telepathic burn behind the victims' death rattles. This was vengeance. It felt good.
Bobby
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. He understood Sookie's fury, certainly couldn't blame her for it... but at the same time, he needed to stop her before she lost control any further. She might not feel remorse at the deaths of the Jhinka, but if her lightning arced out and accidentally hit one of their friends?
"Sookie!" he shouted, running towards her.
Sookie
"Kinda busy, baby," she yelled, not taking her eyes from the sky as yet another Jhinka's wings went up in smoky glow.
Jhinka
Another Jhinka dove down, this time claws outstretched for Bobby.
Bobby
Oh god, he really wanted to know how the hell to pull off that ice-form trick right about now. As it was, he brought his arms up to shield himself, a thick layer of ice forming around his upper arms.
Sookie
And with Bobby shielded, Sookie had absolutely no compunction about turning her anger on that Jhinka in particular. Now it wasn't just the strewn bits of random people. Now they were specifically targeting someone she loved, and it took very little effort for her to blast the Jhinka away in a smoldering purple flash.
With that, she returned her gaze to the sky, taking very little care with the aim of her attacks, nor the humanity of them. Her lips quirked up in a tiny, cold smile as she sent another three Jhinka falling to the ground, bathed in purple light and white fire.
Bobby
Well, okay, he certainly appreciated the whole not-being-hurt thing. But still... "Sookie, please!" he shouted. "You need to stop."
Sookie
Sookie was shaking now, her hands sparking and igniting in increasingly-large, panicked spurts.
"There are pieces of babies on the ground," Sookie managed, her voice wobbly and hoarse as she spared a glance for Bobby. "And you want me to stop? I can't."
Bobby
"You have to," Bobby insisted. "I know you're angry, I am too- but you are very close to being Out. Of. Control." He gritted those last few words out as he sent a tendril of ice creeping along the ground between them, up past her feet and encasing her hands, shorting out those sparks.
Sookie
Sookie still glowed faintly for a moment, her hands pulsing violet inside the ice for a moment before they -- along with the rest of her -- faded back to normal.
"Oh," she said after a moment, quiet and sad and suddenly very self-aware as she stared down at her hands in disbelief. It was like she'd returned to herself. Even if she'd been there the whole time, it was very literally a shock to her system, startling her out of her rage. "Oh, God, I -- we need to keep moving."
Because she couldn't bear to sit here much longer and think about what she'd just done, and what he'd had to do.
Bobby
"Yeah," Bobby nodded, closing the distance between them and reaching to take her hand in his own. Loss of control or not, he wanted her to know he still trusted her. "Let's go."
Sookie
Sookie was now kind of staring down at their hands in horror, afraid she might lose it and set him on fire. "Yeah," she mumbled after a beat, looking away and starting toward the building again. She didn't take her hand away, though. She just deliberately tried not to think about it, or what she'd done.
[Warnings in place for explicit violence and potentially disturbing imagery. NFI, NFB, OOC=love. Text adapted from Chapter Thirteen of Heir to the Shadows. Ish. Part one of several; the full list of previous entries can be found here.]