The Last Picture Show [IC]

[Electra]

"If Harrier says fire is the best way, I say we listen to him," Wander said, now growing impatient. "He's the one who would know. And it's not like landmarks don't get destroyed pretty often around here anyway. Hopefully when this one gets built up again, it'll be fine. But before we get too deep into the destruction talk, we've got a sweep to do." Spinning her bat to its palm-sized configuration but holding it ready, she walked up the aisle to go check out the rest of the building.

She stopped abruptly just as she neared the door, opening her bat as quickly as she closed it. "Something's out there," she murmured, just loud enough for the others to hear. "I'm going to check it out." She ducked through the door, flattening herself against the wall to make herself less of a target for whatever might have come in.

[trollthumper]

"Yeah, I hear it, too," Nick said. "Let's go see if Creepy McBrokenangel's come back for a second round."

The lights in the lobby seemed slightly brighter now, perhaps as a result of the waning influence of the Wrackhand. As the group emerged from the theater, they could see the projectionist standing in the center of the lobby, his head tilted towards the ground and his hands balled up in fists.

"They could try making the traps a little less obvious," he muttered. He looked over to the projectionist. "You okay? I thought you'd left."

"I tried," he said. "I tried. I ran, and I ran, but... I couldn't move. I heard the song."

Nick nodded to the others, as if to say, "Get ready." "Song's over. Concert's over entirely, I think. Good night Freedom, no encore."

"You don't understand," he said. "It won't leave. It's pounding... screaming... rising..."

He raised his head to look at the heroes. His eyes had turned entirely black.

"Can't you hear it? It's calling us home!"

Outside, gunshots erupted as bodies slammed against the doors of the theater. Again, and again, and again...

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier's power pike screamed like a damned soul as it charged with unholy Terminus energy, his shoulders hunching as he stood facing the crowd of innocents corrupted by the entropic fires of the Terminus. Despite his fear and disgust, despite all the other emotions stirring inside him, he forced himself to act: action was all that could save them now. Don't think. Don't feel. Just act. They know nothing of this save that it is a horror. Help them.

"You and you!" he said, pointing to Jack of all Blades and Gabriel, "you must keep the mindless ones out of the building as long as you can. Wound them if you must. Bruises and blood and broken ear drums are nothing before the incineration of the soul in the ever-burning lightless flame of Entropy." To Nick, he said, "Come with me. Let us see if the sorcery of the dead can defeat the power of what lies beyond death." To Wander, sensing, if not a kindred spirit, at least someone who knew this was more than just a frightening day. "We can save these people. Come destroy what the Termius has wrought." And with that, he raised his pike high, charging it with power, and drove it deep into the heart of the theater floor. "We must go below to the heart of the building!"

[Electra]

Wander stared intently at the door, using old instincts to suss out the number of combatants, where they were, and the best trajectory to take them out as fast as possible. They were people, she reminded herself, they were mind controlled, but they were still living, thinking, feeling beings. For now, anyway, and they would stay that way if she did her job and helped stop what was controlling them. Turning to Harrier, she gave a curt nod, then jumped down into the hole he'd ripped into the floor.

[KnightDisciple]

Before they found the projection room operator, Gabriel was speaking softly with the others.

"I'm not saying fire's not an option. Just that we need to be careful, so we don't burn half the city down or something. I understand what-"

He stopped as they came upon the possessed man, his eyes narrowing a bit as he saw the effects of the Terminus energies on an innocent man. When Harrier called out instructions, he gave a terse nod. Without waiting for Jack, he hovered over to the glass doors, even as he gathered energy for what he was about to do.

When he arrived there, he gave solemn look to the people outside, banging on the doors.

"For what it's worth, sorry about the headache."

Then he inhaled a deep breath, before giving out a mighty yell that likely broke some glass, and hopefully knocked at least some of the mind-controlled people out of the fight for the foreseeable future. However, his cautious approach, intended to not hit anyone who wasn't enthralled (such as the police) meant there were still some of the Terminus thralls left standing.

[Gizmo]

Grimacing slightly at the idea of fighting untrained civilians, Jack nevertheless raised no objections to following Harrier's directions; after all, the freed Omegadrone was the expert on all things Terminus. Sprinting forward after the hovering Gabriel, the fencer followed the wave of sonic force forward, slipping through the broken glass of the theater doors feet first, fractions of a second after it shattered. Landing in a three point crouch among sparkling fragments, he sprang forward, darting from mind controlled figure to figure. For once he was silently, focusing all of his attention on the pinpoint precision which was his art form's hallmark. Nearly as quickly as Gabriel's voice had downed the bulk of the horde, those remaining toppled to the group before Jack's flashing rapier.

[trollthumper]

Nick dropped down into the basement of the theater, following in Harrier's footsteps. He pulled out his flashlight, scanning the dim but well-kept corridors below. When he was sure nothing was going to jump out at him, he lowered the light slightly. "All right," Nick said. "Dealt with a few haunted theaters before; just... never like this. Basement makes a good staging point for whatever cleansing we do -- has connotations of casting the offending force down. Mind you, I'd hate to see what happens if the Terminus gets into Hell..."

If it was a joke, it lacked any sense of levity. "We should be right under the center of the Victorian in ten steps," Nick said. "Fire will probably do the job. It tends to purify spiritual taint... but the Terminus stuff is radiation, too, physical and spiritual. That'd complicate things. The best way to handle it would be..."

Nick paused suddenly. "...if we could kill it at the root. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we could call up the energy that's in the building -- and then tear it to pieces."

[Avenger Assembled]

I'd hate to see what happens if the Terminus gets into Hell..."

"The logistics are difficult," answered Harrier flatly. "Generally magical para-dimensions are collapsed into the larger universal well as it plunges into the Coil." Firing up his pike, he said, "Wander and I will endeavor to destroy the material component of the energy when it materializes. If that fails," he added, looking straight at Wander and the others. "The building must be destroyed and its material components reduced to their basic atoms. There is no safer way to ensure the safety of this dimension from the growing threat of the Terminus."

[trollthumper]

"Okay," Nick said. "Let's see if I can actually do this..." He opened his mind, feeling the flow of entropy throughout the building. The pulse had returned, now beating a steady drumbeat... but where there was a pulse, there were veins. Nick could trace out strong strands of death, creating the whole of Terminus energy that was permeating the building. "Gotcha."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a penknife. He drove it into the wall, nailing what he thought was a vein. He could feel the energy in the area twitching, like it had faintly registered the blow. "By the energy of death, you are. By the blessing of death, am I." He took the penknife and, after some reluctance, ran it across his palm. "By flesh and blood, am I. By corpus and will, you shall be. Come! By blood you are called, by flesh you are bound!"

He looked unsure at first; it seemed the words had started slipping out of his mouth by the end. But... something responded. The building gave a massive sigh as the shadows around Nick, Harrier and Wander grew more solid. The sheer flow of necrotic energy was giving Nick a splitting headache...

...and outside, Jack could feel the rise in the Terminus energy, as the lights in the lobby began to flicker.

The building began to shake as something tore its way out of the walls. Timbers split and the floor cracked as something began to form in the shadows. It was a large, serpentine body, stretching from the basement to the floor above, possibly running throughout the entirety of the Victorian. Off of its body split a hundred tendrils formed from solid shadow, reaching out for something, anything. As far as Nick could tell, it had no eyes and no mouth. But it could still scream, as something hollow and horrible split the air.

"It's corporeal and bound! That means it can be slain!" The shadows grew darker around Nick. "Let's show this apocalyptic bitch how we do things downtown!"

[Gizmo]

Feeling his stomach roil in protest at the surge of dark forces back in the theater, Jack spun on his foot leapt back through the broken window, hacking at a writhing tendril of shadowy substance. "I know what you're thinking," he shouted as he pressed forward down the corridor, slicing away at the seething, howling mass. "'I'm a horrid, nearly formless entity beyond human comprehension from outside the very walls of life and being itself! How is this guy totally stabbing the hell outta me?'" Leaping over a slithering tentacle that suddenly shot out at him, the fencer skewered it neatly as he came back down, pinning it to the floor. "Well here's something for your Hot Topic diary, you bloated, melodramatic blob of rancid rice pudding: I'm Jack of all Blades, and I! Can stab! Anything!"

[Electra]

Wander, who'd been spoiling for a fight ever since the bodies started hitting the doors, needed no further encouragement. Silently, and with a fixed look of enraged concentration on her face, she flipped over a set of disused railings, coming down practically on top of the monster. Her bat whirled like a helicopter blade, almost too fast to see as she smashed it into the monster again and again. "Don't you use her ever again" she grated, too softly for most ears to hear, even as she brought the end of her bat around and drove it into the mass.

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier studied the monster with impassive, mechanical stillness as his pike whined with repressed power, the energies within lashing out against the embodiment of terror and destruction before him as he studied it for a weak spot. When he'd finished, he shouted over the thing's ungodly howls, trying to reach through the hole he'd blasted in the floor above their heads, "STRIKE FOR ITS CENTRAL CORE! THE APPENDAGES ARE TOOLS TO DISTRACT THE UNWARY!" And with that, he charged forward into the heart of the beast, thrusting the shrieking tip of his pike into its midsection. "BACK TO THE PIT THAT SPAWNED YOU, FIEND!" And in his mind, he was sitting on a park bench by Heroes Knoll with January, watching a child play. "NEVER AGAIN! NEVER!" He struck again, feeling the shock of impact shoot up his arms.

[trollthumper]

The entity quivered and convulsed under the blows from Harrier's pike, eventually rousing itself into some form of coherency. Several of the tentacles in the basement swerved towards Nick, but as he moved to block the attack, he realized too late they weren't striking at him.

They were staring at him.

And then it hit. It wasn't a scream; it was the complete death of sound, stripping out the very concept from his mind. He couldn't even hear himself think. And then there was the detonation -- the crashing cacophony that filled the void, making him feel like his skull was going to split open. This happened again, and again, and again, with the vacuum rushing in and giving way to the titanic explosion that made him pray for silence.

And then it was over. The floor slid under him, and he felt something wet running from his ears -- likely blood. But he was still up. "Nice drum section," he said as ectoplasm coated his hands, thickening into claws. He took a swipe at the behemoth, but the trauma to his inner ear must've been greater than he thought, as the strike went wild. "Got... anything louder?"

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel turned as Jack knocked out the last of the brainwashed crowd. He was unhappy that he'd had to resort to such measures, but they'd have nothing worse than a bit of ringing in their ears for a couple of hours, and headaches for a day or so. It irked him it had to happen at all. Gabriel turned...and witnessed a nightmare being given form.

He gazed with raw disgust at the sickening black thing in front of them. Even as the others struck telling blows against the collected essence of corruption, death, and entropy, Gabriel slowly started to gather more and more sonic energy around his arms. He waited while Wander tore into its not-flesh. He waited while Harrier drover further into its being, and told them how best to strike it. He waited while Nick attempted to further wound it, only to be lashed back by the wave of sound-death.

Now, he waited no longer. He took a single step forward, and raised first his left arm. When he spoke, his voice rung with unnatural clarity, purity, hope, and determination.

" We cast you out unclean spirit! You satanic power, you onslaught of the infernal adversary, in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We command you, begone and fly far from this place, from the souls made by God in His image ! No longer dare, cunning serpent, to deceive the human race, to strike God's elect and to sift them as wheat. For the Most High God commands you! God the Father commands you. The Son of God commands you! God the Holy Ghost commands you! Christ, the eternal Word of God made flesh, commands you! The sacred mystery of the cross commands you! The exalted Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, commands you, who in her lowliness crushed your proud head from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception! The faith of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and the other apostles commands you! The blood of martyrs and the devout prayers of all holy men and women command you!"

As he spoke, a blast of sonic energy tore free from his upraised arm. It lashed against the beast, looking to strike deep into its flank and further damage it.

But Gabriel wasn't done speaking or acting.

" Therefore, accursed dragon and every diabolical legion, we adjure you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God to cease deluding human creatures and filling them with the poison of everlasting damnation! Begone! Bow down before God's mighty hand, tremble and flee as we call on the holy and awesome name of Jesus, before whom the denizens of hell cower, to whom the heavenly Virtues and Powers and Dominations are subject, whom the Cherubim and Seraphim praise with unending cries as they sing: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. BEGONE!"

With that, his right arm raised itself to point at the creature, and then loosed a second terrible blast, the ringing, thundering noises adding onto each other even as it screamed towards virtually the same spot on the creature's hide.

[Gizmo]

Gabriel's thunderous blasts of sonic force ripped a path through the undulating mass of darkness, and Jack sprinted down the cleared corridor, weaving through the remaining twisting tendrils until he'd reached the point Harrier had indicated with his two handed thrust. With a humourless smirk, the swordsman's momentum shifted direction as he halted his run with a boot planted atop the heart of the Terminus beast and swung forward with his whole body to bring his rapier down into the stunned abomination's core. The tip of the crackling energy construct cut deep, and the blade continued down like a pin being slid into an inflated balloon.

[trollthumper]

Jack's blade found home, cutting through necrotic mass and corrosive energy. The form began to lose coherency, unfurling like a popped balloon. What was left whole writhed, trying to grasp for some purpose in what seemed like a futile attempt to tear the building apart. The Terminus energy convulsed and went rigid, and complete silence filled the theater, like entering vacuum. Then -- as if the universe itself was trying to catch up to the sight -- a terrible scream ripped through the Victorian, shattering glass and breaking light bulbs. The entity fell limp and dissolved into nothingness, leaving not even a stain to mark its presence.

Once he lifted his hands from his ears, Nick dared to open his senses again, trying to grasp the flow of death. "...nothing," he said. "It's like it was never here. God help me, I think we killed it."

[Avenger Assembled]

"The building is unmarred?" Harrier's glowing, shrieking pike was still pointed at one of the building's superstructures, and Nick had absolutely no doubt that Harrier would indeed bring the entire structure down on all their heads if the mystic called for it. When Nick signaled that it was, Harrier flew up through the hole he'd blasted in the floor, hovering amongst the other heroes as his jetpack screamed behind him. He was the only thing left of the Terminus in the building. The faceless thing looked up at the ceiling overhead, and then, as if making a conscious choice, landed; his armor stilling itself behind him. "Thank you." he said simply. "Thank you."

[Gizmo]

"Argh, can't just go quietly, can you?!" Jack shouted as he followed Harrier back up into the theater's main floor with his grappling line, letting his energy sword dissipate and rubbing one of his ringing ears with his free hand. "So that got it, right?!" he asked the group, realizing belatedly that he was speaking much more loudly than was necessary. At least his hearing was the only sense being assaulted; the nauseating jangling nerves that went along with Terminus energy were rapidly settling, though the fencer didn't expect he'd feel like eating any time soon.

[Electra]

Even after the apparition dissipated, Wander stayed in the basement, scrutinizing the place where it had been for any trace of its passage. With the light bulbs blown and dark, she pulled a pair of red sunglasses from a holder at her belt and slid them over her eyes, investigating the whole area until she had satisfied herself that the danger was actually past and not merely hiding. It wasn't that she didn't trust the super-senses of those who had them, but she still trusted her own senses a lot more. The Terminus was not anything to take chances with. Besides, staying in the basement gave the crowd plenty of time to dissipate upstairs before she had to go up there.

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel winces as he settles to the ground, rubbing his throat a big. The discomfort doesn't seem to be long-lasting, though. He gives the others a smile as he speaks.

"Well. That went fairly well, in the end. Whew."

He put his arms up and hands behind his head in the classic pose of an athlete cooling off after a hard race. Clearly his powers exerted some effort on his part.

"Half the time I felt like I could barely breath or hear in this place!"

His expression grew more serious.

"That said, I'm glad we cleansed such an unholy thing from this place. Without having to burn down part of the neighborhood."

He closed his eyes and spoke softly, so the others may or may not be able to hear him.

"Thank you for giving us the strength to stop this threat, Lord. May You continue to grant us that strength. Amen."

[trollthumper]

Outside, the audience was coming to. They remembered nothing of their desire to get back into the theater, save for feeling like a "pleasant drone" was going through their head the entire time. To both Jack and Nick, the building seemed devoid of the energies of death or the Terminus; if they were hiding, they were hiding extremely deep, as the building seemed to both what it had been before -- antique, venerated, and standing tall. Nick answered questions for the police, mentioning a "spectral disturbance" without getting too deep into the details within. The activity out front was a "possession en masse," an attempt to drag the citizens into one of the nether realms and feed on their vitality. Well. Technically, it was true.

But as the plaudits and the accounts took up the night, something kept biting at the back of Nick's mind. I shouldn't have been able to do that, he thought. Okay, so the Terminus is the big death, oblivion, Mu, nothing. It's in my wheelhouse, I guess. But... that thing just bent way too easily. I've dealt with mortal death before -- its aftermath, its stains, its power. That wasn't anything like what I've touched. And I was able to make it manifest with some blood and a chant. Am I supposed to believe it was really that hungry?

Just what the hell happened in there?

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier made sure to leave his contact information with the other heroes before departing, turning himself into Caradoc and then turning himself invisible before he roared off into the night sky to collect his thoughts. The ghosts of the past had risen up tonight in more ways than one, and the experience had been a deeply unsettling one. He flew for hours, higher and higher, until finally he could look below and see the curvature of the Earth below. How many times had he gazed below at burning planets and burning cities, and known only joy at Omega's will? I am no longer what I was. He thought, reminding himself of that over and over again. I am my own man, my own thing. But the ghosts of the past are not as quiet as I might have hoped. I can only hope I can be as strong next time.