Rapture, Even Later Saturday Evening (NFB)
Joker
"Time to wrap it up, folks! We can have a good and proper reunion when you're safely onboard, 'kay? Company's coming, and they brought friends!"
He frowned at the screen. "Wait, no, that's... um, these people read as normal. And there's a LOT of them. Better go see what they want, but maybe tone down the fireworks? Just FYI, I'm okay with doing ferry duty for a while, if that's what happens."
Raven
"Normal people?" Raven frowned, idly passing the book from hand to hand. "What sort of normal people would be coming here in mass?"
Joker
"What kind of normal people are down here?" Joker asked.
Jono
//Mostly the kind we don't want anything to do with,// Jono noted, wrinkling his nose. //Or a few people who've gotten sick of being the kind we'd want nothing to do with. Even odds, I'd say.//
Raven
"I'm definitely assuming they're not the nice guys," Raven said. "But if they're not those crazy splicers, we probably shouldn't just round them up and set them on fire."
She kind of wanted to round them up and set them on fire.
Eleanor
Eleanor was stalling, because she wanted to be wrong. Please, let her be wrong.
She approached one of the windows, carefully, and leaned out to see ... a throng of people. Lighting candles. Singing hymns.
Why couldn't she be wrong?
"It's Mother's cult," Eleanor said darkly. "They're here for me. I'm all right with setting them on fire."
Grace
"Don't you say things like that, even if you don't mean 'em," Grace said. "They may be here for you, but they ain't gonna get you."
Anders
"Of course not," Anders said. "We're going to stop them. Possibly with fire."
He was already getting the staff off his back.
Joker
"Ooooh, I like her," Joker said with a grin.
"...Even though I disagree. Set 'em all on fire."
Raven
"Your mom's cult," Raven said thoughtfully. "So . . . they follow your mom's words." She looked down at the book and traced the butterfly cover with her finger. "She tells them what to do?"
Jono
//Somebody just say the word, and I'll be the first one out that door.//
Maybe, with any luck, Louise's parents were in that crowd somewhere. Jonothon had a bone to pick with them.
Celia
"I'm all right with setting them on fire," Celia contributed helpfully.
Where was all of that morality that she'd insisted upon back in the sub? It had been lost somewhere between their makeshift funeral at Fort Frolic, and fighting the Big Daddy.
Sometimes people deserved to die. Sometimes it was a mercy.
"Who wants first shot? I mean, it's not like we don't have three of you who could do it...."
Raven
"Hang on," Raven said, frowning at the others. "I know we all want to set them on fire," and when had her first reaction to people become 'set them on fire'? "but we could maybe try to just make them go away, first? They're not splicers or the big suit guys. And I have an idea."
She'd learned down here that she was actually okay with killing, something she hadn't expected. But there was something else she was really good at, something she'd been using to solve problems her whole life, and frankly, impersonating other people was fun.
She held up Sofia's book. "They're her mom's followers. We can use that. I can use that."
Jono
Jono might have even been slightly more shamefaced when Raven suggested a non-violent solution, if it hadn't been for Lou. As it stood, he took a moment to consider the book, and Raven's powers (and by extension, who that most certainly made her, though that seemed irrelevant down here and in the wake of all of that), and he nodded, once. Briskly.
//Tell them to take a long walk off a short pier then,// he replied. //Let's see if we can get out of this without more bloodshed.//
Even if he really, really wanted to just set them on fire. Apparently he needed the timeout anyway.
Joker
"To be honest, I didn't really mean you should set them on fire," Joker admitted. "I just wanted you to. We'll all sleep better if you go nonlethal."
Anders
"Raven's onto something," Anders agreed reluctantly. His hand came away from his staff. "If they can be redeemed, we should give them them that chance. Or at least let them back off if they're willing to."
And if more peaceful means didn't work -- which would not surprise Anders in the least -- then they could light the cultists on fire!
Eleanor
It was a good idea. No, a brilliant idea. Eleanor was ashamed to admit that most of her reluctance stemmed from the fact that she didn't want to see her big sister turn into her mother.
She cleared her throat. "It may be dangerous," she said. "They follow Mother, they worship her, but they're not in the least stable. They're the worst kind of religious zealots. They're not above violence if it suits their needs. I can't imagine they'd attack her, but I wouldn't put anything past them."
Grace
"No sense you risking yourself," Grace insisted. She wasn't sure why they thought this one girl could quote Dr. Lamb's words at them and that'd help, but she was a child, and Grace was the adult, here. "Let me go talk to 'em. I'll give them a piece of my mind. A few pieces."
Starting with how the group had gone south while she was watching Pauper's Drop, and had been perfectly okay with taking little girls from the Surface and bringing 'em here to make 'em into monsters. What sort of group thought that kind of thing was okay?! What kind of people believed salvation could be found on the backs of the innocent? Salvation was something you worked for yourself, and you prayed to God that He lead you the right direction.
Raven
Raven flashed a smile at Grace and let her shape flicker, altering her outfit and hair color for a few seconds before swapping back. "Not me," she said. "I thought Sofia herself might talk to them."
Grace
Grace was staring. Finally, she shook her head.
"I never seen a plasmid do that before," she said, shaking her head. "That's mighty useful. You sure you can change into Dr. Lamb?"
Raven
"That's because I'm not a plasmid," Raven said. "I could look like you, if I had to."
Grace
"All right, then," Grace said, nodding slowly. "Ain't never met a girl could do what you do, neither."
She'd like to ask questions, but there wasn't time. Maybe later, after they got those damn-fool cultists to scatter.
"Now you go out there an' see if those people'll listen to Doc Lamb."
Raven
Raven took one last look at the picture in the book, then shifted. She had to fill in a fair amount of gaps -- mostly in regards to her body frame, height, and clothing style. She glanced over at Eleanor. She hated having to make her friend see the mother who caused her so much pain, but hopefully, she could let Raven know if she got anything glaringly wrong.
"Well?" she asked, marvelling a little at her new voice. "Shall I go remind them of the perils of individualism and following their genes?"
Eleanor
Eleanor stared, the color draining from her face. It was one thing to see her big sister turn into people she had never met before. It was another to see Mother, staring back at her from those cold, alien eyes of hers.
"Bloody hell," she managed.
Celia
"Eerie," Celia contributed, looking to Eleanor and back to Raven again. "You look just like her."
Even more accurately than the version Celia herself had conjured, weeks prior. She wasn't jealous, per se, but...admiring, in a strange way.
Grace
Grace took a few steps closer so she could look at this fake Dr. Lamb up close.
Finally, she nodded. "You'd even have fooled me," she said. "Keep your back straight, and put your hands in front of you like this."
She clasped them, mimicking one of Sofia's favorite poses.
Eleanor
Eleanor needed to pull herself together. Raven was risking herself against the cult; she might need advice. And Eleanor knew her mother better than anyone.
"Don't get angry," she said. "Never be angry. You aren't capable of anger. You're -- you may be disappointed, like a mother whose child has misbehaved, but you are clinical, and detached. You insist that everything you do is an act of love. Everything you do is to promote the Greater Good, no matter how dire. You could suffocate your own daughter with a pillow and justify it to yourself as necessary. You are emotionless. The world's most long-suffering martyr, who will endure this madness in order to create the Utopia that only you can see our way to."
All right, she was bitter. But all of that might help, too.
Jono
Jono hesitated for only a moment, something in his heart bleeding out a little at Eleanor's description, before nodding once, himself.
//And the second anything looks like it might go haywire out there, if you don't feel as though you can speak to us without having the crowd turn on you, think loudly at me,// he intoned. //We'll be out there and on them before they can get to you.//
Raven
Raven nodded, making note of all their advice. She shifted her posture, assuming the most haughty expression she could, peering down at them through the base of her mimicked glasses. "Here goes."
She set the book down -- Sofia wouldn't be reading her own work, right? She'd just know it -- and tried the door.
"Rapture Family!" she called, oozing disappointment and exasperation. "What is the meaning of this?!"
Cultists
The crowd started murmuring in confusion. A few had the decency to look ashamed of themselves, but most grinned at "Sofia" with elation. "You're back!" they cried. "Doctor Lamb!" A grown man threw himself at Raven's feet, sobbing joyfully and trying to cling to her.
One of the women at the front of the crowd -- not the leader, because of course they didn't have a leader, but someone who still retained enough individuality to be capable of making decisions -- stepped forward and bowed graciously. "We have come for the Utopian, Doctor. We heard she had come back to save us! We didn't realize you had returned as well! This is a most glorious day!"
Raven
Raven shifted away from the man at her feet, giving him a disgusted look as though he were a slug trying to crawl over her toe. It wasn't hard. Everything about these people was gross. "The Utopian? You fools. You think if the Utopian were here I would not have brought her to the family?"
Cultists
The crowd murmured to each other at that. The man at Raven's feet reached out towards her desperately. The woman frowned at "Sofia". "But, surely... That is, we were told..."
"She is here!" cried a man, cutting the woman off as he stepped forward from the crowd. "She comes to save us! We will be One in Her!"
Raven
It took an effort, but Raven didn't step back. Rather she stood even straighter, elongating her neck just a tiny bit to increase how much she could look down on them. "Who has told you these lies?" she asked to the crowd at large. "They are a servant of the gene, out to undermine our family!"
She kind of wished she'd managed to read more of the book. She was going to run out of buzzwords.
Cultists
"She is our salvation!" the man continued. He didn't know who had told what to whom. Thanks to Doctor Lamb, he was only capable of thinking in buzzwords. "We will give ourselves to Her, and be reborn!"
The crowd murmured again. They weren't really following the argument, but both sides were making such good points! One guy in the middle of the crowd decided this was an appropriate time to call out, "My brain hurts, Doctor! I need another treatment!"
Stanley
After that silence hung in the air, until Stanley Poole pushed his way through the crowd. "I did, Doc," he announced, feeling brave enough with an entire crowd at his back. "I've seen her. Little Eleanor, back from the surface to save us all. Are you calling me a liar? She's here, she's going to take Grace and abandon us again, and her bitch friend stole my necklace!"
Eleanor
From inside the tavern, Eleanor narrowed her eyes.
"This time, let's kill him."
Celia
"...did he just sell Eleanor out and call me a bitch in the same breath?" Celia's eyes had widened, in contrast, and her jaw had set so sharply that her teeth were grinding together.
Yes, she'd tricked him, but it wasn't as though it was her fault that he was stupid enough to think that a sixteen year-old girl from the surface wanted to sleep with him and carried thousands of dollars' of jewels around with her.
Joker
"Okay, so the two of you can fight each other over who gets to kill him first," Joker said. "After we figure out how to get you past the crowd."
Raven
"Stanley." Raven's tone just dripped disappointment. "You sad, sorry little man. Why should anyone believe a word that you say?"
Poooooooooossibly a mistake. But the guy was just so odious. Raven couldn't help it.
Stanley
"Why should we believe what you say, huh? We were your flock" -- well, the crazies behind him had been, and he'd been pretending to be one of them in order to spy on them all, but why fuss over semantics? -- "and then you just up and abandoned us! And now sweet Eleanor's back, and you're trying to take her away again!" And if Sofia and Eleanor left, the crazies would never sell food to Stanley again.
Raven
Right, so this wasn't going as well as Raven would have hoped. What was it Eleanor had said? Ah, yes, Stanley bloody Poole.
Raven rather wanted to make him live up to his name.
Remembering Eleanor's advice about Sofia refusing to show anger, Raven swallowed down hers and just shook her head sadly at Stanley. "You've allowed your genes to steer you from the truth, Stanley," she said. "I have been preparing the Utopian. She must be perfect to save us all."
OKAY, she thought as loudly as she could towards Jono. IF THIS DOESN'T WORK, IT MIGHT BE TIME TO SET THEM ON FIRE.
Jono
Jonothon's eyelid twitched just a little. Maybe he should have specified that she didn't have to yell that directly into... his... head...
He blinked, as though something was just occurring to him, and then tried to get a good look outside without being... too noticeable. Not exactly an easy task for a man on fire.
//We're right inside the door, luv,// he said, waving a hand for the others to come closer, careful to keep his voice away from the cultists and Stanley, outside. //And if any one of them makes a threatening move toward you, I'll lay the entire front row of 'em flat on their arses before they can so much as lift their hands.//
Stanley
Stanley was a big man, with a crowd at his back. He was the one in charge, now. He was the one calling the shots. "So, you admit that you're hiding her in there? That I really did see her, and you're the one lying?" He snorted and turned to the psychos behind him. "You see that? She wants to take Eleanor away and keep her for herself! She doesn't care about us! She's just a cold-hearted bitch who's cranky because her twat is the driest place in this entire waterlogged dump!"
Raven
Raven punched him.
She didn't think about it. She just reacted, grabbing for his shoulder with one hand to turn him back around and then hauling off at his nose with her nice, big, bony fist with the other, her face twisted in an angry sneer, her eyes flashing brilliant gold.
It took until he staggered for her to realize just how thoroughly she'd just broken character. She cleared her throat, making a show of adjusting her glasses and straightening her skirt.
"Language, Mr. Poole."
Stanley
The crowd was murmuring again, but in a much more ominous way. Stanley had doubled over onto the floor from the pain, but his pathetic whimpering quickly turned to an evil chuckle. "Ohhhhh, I think I'll use any fucking language I fucking want," he sneered, as he ducked behind a few burly-looking crazies. "Because, bitch, I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you are, but you are NOT the glorious Doctor Lamb!!! IMPOSTER!!!"
Cultists
The woman at the front of the crowd stepped forward and brandished her candle in Raven's face. "As crude as he may be, our lost brother is right!" she announced. "Explain yourself!"
Jono
//Right, folks,// Jono said, wincing a little as he heard the crunch of Raven's fist hitting Stanley's nose. //I think that's our sign that the excrement has officially hit the air-conditioning.//
He... probably didn't actually need to kick the door open, but it was definitely fairly attention-grabbing. Which was good, because Jonothon would have hated for people to not be looking when he stepped out beside Raven and started announcing to the crowd at large,
//Alright, ladies and gents. You've seen all there is to see, here. And might I suggest, if you all care to live to see another day, that you take my advice, and--//
And that was that. His voice, at least so far as his companions could hear, cut out, just like that. But any cultist within his range, which was admittedly somewhat limited as he attempted to weed his allies out from the rest, would get a skull-rattling psionic howl directly into their brain, causing a few to gasp, and a few to whimper, and more than a couple to just fall to their knees with their noses bleeding, grabbing desperately at the sides of their heads.
//LEAVE!//
Stanley
Guess which category Stanley fell into.
"Don't leave, you idiots!" he howled desperately, from his pathetic fetal position on the floor. "Kill them!!!"
Raven
Now there was a nice trick.
Raven fell back behind Jono, letting all pretenses drop. As much as her natural form tended to inspire people to panic and attack, it also frequently got them to run away. Or at least back off in confusion.
"Psionic attack?" she guessed. "I'll have to suggest that one to Charles, sometime."
Joker
Joker couldn't help it. He whistled. "Nice ass! Blue and scaly looks good on you!"
Raven
Raven wiggled said ass a little for Joker.
And whomever was looking at it so Joker got a nice video feed of it.
Jono
//Psionic attack,// Jono agreed. //I've seen a variation of this so severe before that baseline human brains have been reduced to ash. Me, I'm mostly just aiming for a nasty headache.//
One that they would probably be nursing for the next month or so.
//C'mon, mates! I don't see you backing off quickly enough, yet!//
Hey, look. A few more bleeding noses out in the crowd. It wasn't quite so easy to manage as the straightforward approach with fire, but it was certainly the less lethal option. Jono was going to stick with this for a while.
Raven
"Turning brains to ash sounds exhausting," Raven said. "Let's make that 'plan C'."
Jono
//I was thinking at least 'plan D' or so,// Jonothon replied, raising a hand and pressing two fingers against his temple. He'd always wondered why other telepaths made the same gesture when they used their powers.
Now he was starting to suspect that it was at least in part because he was going to give his own damn self a headache if he had to keep screaming like this for much longer.
//Unless anybody here was especially keen on carrying me out of here while I nap.//
Joker
"How about we just skip the 'turning brains to mush' entirely?" Joker observed. "I mean, if any of those folks on the floor start bothering you, kick 'em in the head until they stop moving."
Jono
//I like these boots.//
The ones he'd ran through knee-deep saltwater in to get to everyone while they were fighting the Big Daddy, yes. These boots had already seen better days.
//But yes, Joker. I suppose if, at some point, I happen to feel so desperate as to want to painfully murder people by the score, kicking them in the head one at a time while they're already down will do nicely.//
Joker
"I meant, knock 'em unconscious," Joker insisted. "...Sheesh. Like I have any handle on how durable a normal skull is."
Anders
"We probably have killed enough for one day," Anders said. He was keeping himself busy with a bit of crowd control on any cultists dumb or deranged to still be sticking around.
And by "crowd control," we mean a burst of electricity straight through their bodies. But he wasn't setting them on fire, so he figured this would pass as gentle.
Eleanor
Eleanor conjured up a handful of flame as she emerged from the tavern behind Jono.
"I am not your bloody Messiah," she seethed. "I reject you. All of you. Get the hell out of here or we'll murder every last one of you!"
Cultists
Most of them did get out, or at least tried to. The ones who couldn't manage to run during Jono's attacks tried doing it between pulses. It was comical, although vaguely horrifying, the way that some of them keeled over mid-run when the next attack hit, ending up tumbling on the floor in the distance.
Not all of them ran, though. A few howled and began banging their heads on things, drawing blood while they tried to make the pain stop. One woman got up on her hands and knees, muttering "She will deliver us. We are one in Her." She placed her palms in the pool of blood that had streamed from her nose, and used it to make handprints on the floor -- one next to the other, so together they looked like a butterfly.
Careful not to smear this masterpiece, she began dragging herself across the floor toward Eleanor. "You are the Messiah," she insisted. "You must be! We have failed You, failed to shepherd You to your potential! Forgive us! Deliver us! Please, we're sorry! Take my blood, so I can be part of the One in You!"
Eleanor
Eleanor was fairly sure this was what going mad felt like, this sudden snap and the feeling of freefall after it.
"What is wrong with you?" she shouted. The woman was pitiful, bleeding there on the ground, but Eleanor could find no compassion for her. Just rage, feeding on itself in an endless fire. "Look at me. Look at me!"
She crouched down to grab the woman's upper arm, and yanked up, hard. The woman was forced to her knees, staring wide-eyed back at her.
"I'm a girl! I'm a bloody human being!" she screamed, inches away from the uncomprehending face. "If you need to be saved so badly, save your own bloody self!"
Cultists
The woman began to scream. Not a wail of agony, or pain, or terror, just one high drawn-out note that seemed to go on forever. Maybe she was trying to mimic what Jono had been doing to her mind. Maybe she just couldn't deal with what Eleanor had said.
Her free hand groped until it found Eleanor's, and she clasped Eleanor's forearm in a mirror of what their other hands were doing. And then she pulled, hard, impaling herself on Eleanor's needle-spike.
The screaming stopped, then. "I am One in You," she whispered.
Eleanor
Eleanor was screaming, but no sound came out.
She had been cruel to her. The woman had been desperate, despairing, in need of some kind of healing and she had screamed.
I reject you.
Her hand fell open, and the body slumped to the ground.
There was blood on her face.
Joker
Joker stared at his screen in horror. He'd almost become desensitized to the violence, by now, but this was whole levels more horrifying. And if it was this bad for him, who was only watching from Eleanor's point of view, then he couldn't imagine what she was going through. The woman -- not a splicer, not an attacker, not even armed -- had just killed herself on Eleanor. With Eleanor. Right in front of her. "Oh, shit," he whispered.
Raven
Raven stared. She just froze, hands over her mouth, and stared at Eleanor, and at the dead woman now lying at her feet.
She held her breath for a heartbeat. Two.
Then she was rushing forward, her teeth pressed together and bared in determination, and she moved to put herself bodily between Eleanor and the rest of the cultists. She shifted into the largest form she currently knew, the one she could only hope these people couldn't help but react to.
No one else was going to try to put their death on Eleanor's hands. Not if Raven had anything to say about it.
Cultists
It was a good thing she did, because one of the men trying to crack his skull open had seen the woman and decided she had a good idea. He lumbered toward Eleanor, with blood flowing over an old lobotomy scar. "The voices are back, Doctor Lamb! Make them stop! Make them -- OH!" He peered at Eleanor as if he'd just noticed her. "She is our salvation!!!" he cried. Big Daddy or no, he threw himself forward.
Jono
//Save your own bloody selves!// Jono couldn't clear quite so much space in time, and he certainly wasn't going to get between Raven and the lunatic that was throwing himself forward. But what he could do from where he was standing would hopefully keep any of the rest from getting the same idea.
This time, instead of a scream, he gave a push, trowing a mental suggestion toward anybody who thought they were going to get too close to Eleanor that she wasn't even there. The Messiah they all wanted was gone, she'd never been here at all.
If they wanted to see the one person who could save them, first they had to find a mirror.
Raven
Raven grabbed at the lobotomy guy's head with her hand, careful to exert only enough pressure to hold him back. She looked around, not sure what she should do next. Throw him for Jono to blast? He wasn't a splicer.
Even if he did sound a hell of a lot like the guy who's head she'd bashed in when they first got here, what seemed like weeks ago.
That was just what Rapture did to people, wasn't it. It twisted them. Made them worse then they were. That Eleanor had somehow gotten out as a girl who'd throw beach parties and talk about cute accessories was a goddamn miracle.
Cultists
Jono's push confused the poor cultist. He staggered a little, and then batted at the hand on his head. "Excuse me, I have to go. I'm late for my treatment. Doc Lamb will save my mind and Little Lamb will save my soul. But I have to wait for them." After a pause, he added "Thank-you-for-keeping-our-daughters-safe-kind-Protector." He'd memorized the sentence, and looked proud of himself for remembering it all.
Raven
O . . . kay. Raven let go of his head, ready to grab him again -- or just stab him -- if he tried anything funny.
Stanley
He might be a coward, and his army of cultists might have evaporated, but Stanley wasn't going anywhere. His righteous indignance overcame his natural weaselly self-preservation.
When the psychic attacks stopped -- well, a little while after that, actually, because he took some time to whimper and sob -- he stood up and leveled a finger at Eleanor. "YOU!" he sneered. "You parade around like a sweet, innocent little girl, but you're the same nasty, twisted freak you've always been! You're worse than your mother! You and your freak friends! I trusted you! I helped you! And what did you do? You lied to me! You used me, like the horrible monster that you are! You threw me away! You think you're SO much better than the rest of us, don't you! You and that fucked-up abomination you pretended was your father! You're soooo pleased with yourself that he showed me so-called 'mercy', but did you actually do a thing to help poor old Stanley, who loved you? NO! It was every man for himself and dog-eat-dog, the way it's always been! And ol' Stan, he's got himself a way to get through it with his skin on, but ohhhh, no, that's wrong! It's only okay when you do it! And you were gonna abandon me down here again, I know you were! You and your little cocktease WHORE friend, with her fake fucking diamonds! I can't believe I fell for that! You tricked me! You all tricked me! And you're all laughing at me! Oh, look at Uncle Stanley! Sure, he's a good guy, but guess what? We're going to leave him here! Because I'm a complete and total FUCKING BITCH, just like my mother!!!"
Eleanor
There was blood on her face.
There was blood on her face, and Eleanor was staring at Stanley, who was screaming at her. Stanley who had sold her to the orphanage. Stanley who had murdered Mother's followers (like she had, I reject you, and a dead woman at her feet).
They had lied to him. And used him. She'd never had any intention of rescuing him. Stanley didn't belong on the surface.
Neither did she. She was a monster, one of Rapture's freaks, and this nightmarish hellscape was her true home. Where she belonged.
"I ..."
Words wouldn't come.
Celia
Fortunately enough, they didn't have to.
Celia hadn't really registered what was happening until a window shattered somewhere behind her. She had been frozen in mute horror, her brain stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the associations she would have logically tried to make.
A woman was dead of her own hand, a desperate attempt to reconcile her faith and the unknown. A man was screaming, was swearing, was hurting --
No.
The tears on her face were drying, and Celia had forgotten them already. She heard the tinkle of breaking glass as a window shattered, but it barely registered. White-hot rage was fueling her, driving her past her exhaustion. One hand went out before her, and without thinking, she did what she knew would shut him up.
Celia sent a burst of magic to curl around Stanley's throat, tugging him upwards with it as though by an invisible noose, until his toes just grazed the floor.
"You do not speak to us like that," she snarled, her voice hoarse and unsteady. "You do not speak to Eleanor like that."
Stanley
Stanley's eyes grew wide in shock and his hands went to his throat, grasping frantically at the ethereal tendrils that held him. He let out a strangled gurgle, and drew in a raspy breath. "Fucking bitch!" he managed to choke out. He grew more and more frantic, kicking and flailing, and trying to find some way out of the invisible force holding him. After another labored breath, he was able to add "Put me down! I can't breathe!"
Raven
Big Daddy!Raven reeled, the panes currently serving as her eyes vibrating intensely. She had the feeling that if they'd been made of actual glass, they'd be as shattered as the window that just went.
Celia was powerful. Raven almost felt sorry for Stanley.
. . . No. Scratch that. She really, really didn't. She kind of wanted to cheer Celia on.
Celia
"I know." Celia pinched her fingers closer together, applying more pressure to his windpipe in the hopes it'd silence him. "I'd think you'd stop wasting that precious breath with insults, but then, I'm not you."
She was biting, acerbic. Long gone was the Celia who had pleaded for splicers' second chances and given people benefit of the doubt. Here, before her, was a man who epitomized everything she despised about this place, all in one neat little package.
It was too cathartic to ignore, too tempting to just take it all out on him. He'd sold Eleanor to an orphanage -- he'd sold them out to the cultists, and that was all before he'd berated the one person here who least deserved another word out of anyone. Eleanor had had more than enough Rapture to last a lifetime. Celia burned with the injustice of what this horrible, inconsequential little man had gotten away with, already.
"I have," she murmured, her voice catching slightly from overexertion as she approached on soft, slow footsteps, "a very special relationship with the creation and dissolution of matter, as you might have noticed. Which is to say that while I'd really think it'd be prudent to watch your tongue with me, if you so much as breathe in Eleanor's direction again, I will dissolve your brain and pull it out through your nostrils like an ancient Egyptian."
She flicked her fingers, and magic enclosed his sinuses -- not enough to do much other than apply pressure and hurt, but still. She was fairly sure her point was clear. Another smattering of breaking glass, this time much closer -- she was losing control, but she didn't care.
Grace
That friend of Eleanor's had been doing a nice job pretending to be Doc Lamb and talking to the Rapture Family, but when it got out of hand, Grace had done the logical thing: gone back inside for her shotgun. Never a bad idea to have a shotgun when people got crazy.
Shame she didn't walk fast like she used to, but if those kids really fought their way through Rapture, they probably didn't need the help.
Grace didn't expect the scene that confronted her when she came out. One of them big Tin Daddies was standing guard in front of Eleanor -- she wasn't gonna judge, not after the mistake she'd made last time -- and most of the Family was on the ground, mumbling and screaming.
Two things stood out, and needed her immediate attention. The first was Eleanor, standing and staring at the ground, where some woman was dead -- damn. Had she had to defend herself? Wasn't her baby girl's fault. She'd make that real clear.
The second was Stanley Poole, dangling in the air, scrabblin' at his neck, while one of her girl's new friends threatened to mangle him if he ever hurt her again.
Wasn't that Grace didn't admire the sentiment. Wasn't even that Stanley Poole deserved mercy, 'cause that piece of scum needed killin' if ever anybody did. But the girl looked real young, suddenly, and like even she was scared of what she was doing. She was real pale, and a little bit of blood was coming out her nose.
So Eleanor was gonna wait a minute while Grace handled this.
"Hey," she called out, real soft, in case the girl was gonna get jumpy. Didn't wanna risk putting a hand on her shoulder. "He's a real sorry excuse for a human being, but he ain't worth what it'll cost you."
Blood on your hands didn't come off.
Jono
//She's right, you know,// Jonothon intoned, his words a sort of calm trickle that he tried to pack as much compassion into as he had left to spare. //He's a worthless sack of shite, luv. He's not worthy of the air be breathes, and right now it might seem like absolutely the right thing to do. Might even seem like the only thing to do. But once you've done it, you can't take that back.//
There was a long pause, and then he added, mustering up undertones of all of the horrors they'd seen since they arrived here, //Besides, killing him now would be far too easy an out for him. Let him rot here in hell forever and suffer for it, knowing that the people he hates most are outside, in the sunshine and happy.//
Anders
Anders had been ready to help Celia send Stanley out of this world -- not that she seemed to need the help,but he was mad enough not to care.
He, too, backed down at Jono and Grace's word, taking a deep breath and moving his hands well away from his staff.
"I agree," he said. "It's what I said back at the ticket booth. He's too pathetic to waste your power on, let alone the guilt."
Raven
Raven, voice of reason not exactly a long time ago, stayed silent this time.
If anyone asked, she'd point out that her current shape didn't have a mouth. Never mind that she'd spoken in this shape before. Never mind that she could put a mouth on any damn bit of it she pleased.
Let's just hope no one asked.
Eleanor
There was glass shattering, and one of the nearby walls had sprung a leak. Then there were people shouting. The hub-bub reached Eleanor, in the midst of her stupor; she looked up from the corpse at her feet (I reject you) to the odd figures standing around her.
"... Celia?"
Celia
Celia wavered, her hands shaking in spite of herself, for a long few seconds before her shoulders finally slumped. As soon as the tension left her body, Stanley dropped unceremoniously out of the air.
Some unconscious, unacknowledged portion of her mind was screaming in horror at what she'd almost done; Celia was already feeling the guilt in every heartbeat. But she ignored it for now, instead turning around to face the group and wiping away the blood at her nose. Any other day, she would have been mortified to be so discomposed, and exposed, and vulnerable with an audience; today, she could hardly care.
No one here was going to hate Celia for what she'd almost done as much as she herself would, anyway.
She glanced over at the leak in the glass, and it knit itself back together, almost seamless. It wouldn't hold especially long, she worried, but hopefully long enough.
"Can we go home?" she asked, her voice suddenly very small.
Grace
She had a name, now. That helped. Grace reached out to put a hand against the small of Celia's back.
"We sure can," she said, reassuringly. "Let's all go home."
No need to worry about Stanley, lying on the ground and wheezing. He would get what was his sooner or later. It all came back around like that.
Jono
It really did all come back around, didn't it?
Jonothon waited until all of the others had started to move, turning a dark look down at Stanley, there on the ground. There were some poisons that the world would be better off without, even in a place as inherently toxic as Rapture itself. Some poisons that should never get a second chance to seep in and harm these kids again.
Jonothon was only a few steps behind the group, after they had started along their way. But not before leaving one message, one little suggestion, seared psionically into the very core of Stanley's mind.
Go and tell those folks who just left that you were the one who drove their Messiah away.
Make it good and convincing, would you kindly?
(Rapture Post #8, and the last for today. One more goes up in the morning (mostly aftermath); everyone will be back in Fandom by midday. Preplayed with the outstanding fly_so_serious, tigerundercover, furnaceface, not_every_mage, and pasunereveuse.
Warnings on this one: violence, religious cult activities, insanity, psionic violence, mind control, and NPC suicide. This one's dark, guys. NFI, NFB, but OOC is love.)