That's Rough, Buddy

[Gizmo]

There was a heavy silence as Midnight retrieved his throwing disks and tucked them back away into his belt before rising back up to his full height. He'd have towered over Iyar even without the evident strain of her captivity writ across her face and frame but she didn't blink as the emotionless red lenses of his mask looked down at her. Perhaps that was why he took another moment, considering her question in earnest before answering. When he answered his voice was low, deliberately clear despite the grating gravel of his mask's filter. "Inexorable." It was no boast or threat but a solemn promise: no matter what forces were arrayed against them liberty had come to Ifrit and it would not be denied. Without another word he turned and headed downward.

[Avenger Assembled]

Monsoon leaped into the air, her blade drawn and singing in her hand, and kicked off the ceiling, landing behind her ice-wrapped brother before he could turn around. "It did not have to be this way!" she spat before she raised her free hand and blasted him off his feet with a swirling vortex of hydrokinetic power, sending Farida, Alththalj, spinning across the room and landing near the entrance where she'd come. The looming face of their father illuminated her as she faced her brother down, knowing that a moment's hesitation would bring him down on her. 

 

"How can you be like this, Alththalj?" she demanded of him, using his warrior's name as she tried again, this time missing his ice covered form as he rolled away. "Why me, of all of us?" 

"Because..." said Alththalj as he pulled himself to his feet. "Better you than anyone else. Especially Father." 

 

-

 

Midnight and Iyar, who seemed comfortable enough with the blaster pistol she'd retrieved, made their way down the shaft to the heavily guarded prison level - the Socotran woman proving nimble enough despite what turned out to be almost-too-mundane prison orange under her traditional Socotran dress. When the shaft doors opened with Iyar's hand on the emergency lever, they found two armored guards waiting for them - but the two men didn't stop to fight at the sight of the oncoming superhero, instead turning to flee down the opposite corridors towards another set of security doors some ten yards away! 

 

Iyar drew the pistol she'd taken from one of the guards above and opened fire, holding the weapon with both hands and falling into a practiced firing stance. But despite her best efforts, the heavy slugs skittered off the ceiling and richocheted away, leaving their targets still retreating down the metal corridor. 

[Avenger Assembled]

The fight upstairs ended in a flash - Nina knocked her brother to the ground, his icy body thumping as he hit the deck, and brought her sword to his neck, Not quite trusting the scimitar that her so-generous brother had gifted her, she kept her powers ready too, her free hand crackling with a black vortex of hydrokinetic energy. "You're beaten, Alththalj! Admit it!" 

 

"All right," he said, looking up at her, his ice-cold breath beginning to already frost the blade she held. "I'm beaten, mawsamia. Do it." He didn't weep - even now. "Better you than anyone else." 

 

"I...don't know what you're talking about," said Monsoon, not wanting to fall for one of her brother's tricks - even as she thought back to just how _few_ tricks her too-honorable brother had played on his little sister. "But you'll tell me how to free the rest of my women, or so help me I will cut off something you'll feel even if you are made of ice!" she promised him. 

 

"I know you would," said Alththalj, his voice tight as his sister let him sit up. "But it'll be the same for me either way, so I'm telling you that if you are my sister, you'll finish me now and not leave me to Father's justice when he finds me here!" 

 

"That's ridiculous, Farida," Nina fired back, even as she felt cold creep up her spine that had nothing to do with her brother's powers. "Father would never kill a prince of the blood, not for being beaten! How many times would he have killed Durian, or Morakot, if that were the case?" 

 

"Those were before the decree. You missed much when you joined the enemy, sister." Standing now, Farida let his icy armor retract, revealing the young dark-eyed man underneath. "Father has, at long last, declared that his heir will be the one "who is the best of us" - and with _you_ a traitor, has ended all the laws that once held us apart "so that the best might win". The older ones are out of the game - but you know what Pakhar would do for ambition, or Helen and Julian." He named two of their siblings - the twins who had been "ambassadors" to Atlantis, and Pakhar who had risen in State Security through sheer love of power. "They will kill me, or worse, to show father they are as ruthless as he wants them to be." 

 

"Then...then join me!" Nina yelled, forgetting all about stealth and whatever ears were listening, must be listening. "In the name of God, Farida, why do you fight for a man who would let you die for some sick power game? This is not our father! This is not the man who raised us! A man who could say such things is a monster in human guise!" 

 

"Because I am a prince of Socotra, Nina!" Farida shouted back. "I am a loyal son and brother, and I would rather die at my own sister's hand than be bitten in the back by the pack of vipers that is our family!" 

 

Nina stared at her brother and drew back her sword-arm - then suddenly hit him, knocking him backwards and over the room's desk, then ran as fast as she could, leaping through the sliding doors of the facility, making a beeline for the elevator shaft that Midnight and Iyar had taken below. 

[Gizmo]

By the time Iyar had taken aim and begun to squeeze the trigger Midnight was already a blur of motion, the shadow of every primal predator hardcoded into the psyche since the dawn of humanity, lunging forward toward its prey. One carbon fibre escrima stick lashed out followed immediately by a sweeping leg combination that left both fleeing guards insensate on the floor of the prison.

 

Still crouching he extended his focus outward, trying to determine if an alarm had been raised. A faint click of mechanism had him immediately surging back into motion somersaulting forward and launching himself off of the deck over over the lip of the security door as it began to iris closed. As it sealed itself shut with a secure thunk of metal plates locking into place he came up at the ready, the way back cut off.

[Avenger Assembled]

Iyar was right beside him, Nina's old friend proving her claims about being more than just a servant true - and letting Trevor save the "Martha Lucas" capsules that had been a standard part of Midnight's kit since the early days. It didn't take long for Midnight to realize the dangers of the situation they were in once he caught sight of the door sliding down in front of them - the trap had been designed to seal them in. Typhoon's guards were ruthless; the two men Midnight had knocked out were in there with them. As greenish-red gas began to spill from hidden vents along the place where the ceiling met the bulkheads, it occurred to Midnight's keen tactical brain that this trap had been built for a teleporter (his old friend Edge) - which meant that while unconventional escape might be difficult, conventional escape might be within the cards for both of them. As Iyar scrambled towards the fallen guards, coughing, Midnight heard a shunk behind him and saw the reddish-gold blade of a scimitar cutting through the door behind him. Someone was cutting through from back by the elevator, back the way they'd come.

[Gizmo]

Without stopping to explain his plan Midnight released mist from every pore at once, inky black tendrils seeping from the cuffs of his wetsuit in the moment before the cloud enveloped them and thrust Iyar into darkness. The mist was heavier than the gas being pumped into the trap, dense enough to displace some of it upward and buy him the seconds he required.

 

A leap took him up to the vent in the ceiling, muscles straining as he wedged himself in the corner of the vault to maintain the height. A two-handed crack with a reinforced escrima stick dented the fasteners on the grate enough to pry it off and toss a pair of aerosol pellets down the inch-wide tubing that presumably led back to the gas' tank. A third, pingpong ball sized capsule followed, catching in the mouth of the tube while he dropped down to the floor before exploding with a muffled pop. Its sticky contents disgorged themselves over the twisted grate, the quick-dry adhesive forming a hardened barrier almost instantly.

 

Iyar felt a hand on her shoulder as Midnight placed himself between her and the vent while pressing something cylindrical into her hand. Before she could determine that it was a collapsible rebreather a hiss sounded from above, growing louder. The chemicals he'd added to the gas mixed and pressure built up against the sealed tubing before the vault abruptly shook with a mighty explosion!

 

The cloud of mist began to dissipate through the way forward deeper into the prison, the mechanisms that had held the door shut scorched and ruined where the walls had been torn open from within. The bulkhead sat crookedly in its misshapen frame, the resulting gap more than large enough for a person to step through. Still crouching, Midnight calmly glanced over his shoulder to see how the cutting blade behind them was coming before looking to the fallen guard and asking simply, "Alive?"