ic Interceptors: Terrance and Emily

[April]

The kopesh wielder left scorch marks across Willow's armor but the attacks failed to penetrate and even that damage was rapidly healed over with new growth.  The dryad kept silent momentarily evaluating her attacker though in her peripheral vision she noticed one of their assailants left vulnerable, but she was hesitant to follow up on it since doing so would leave a path open to the barrier she erected.  She snapped out a quick feint with her left hand, a misdirection that allowed her to land a devastating right.  To add further insult to injury Willow took a fist of his hair in her right hand and brought his face into her rising knee, only to kick him backward.

 

Then, slowly and deliberately, she planted her feet right back where they started.

[Gizmo]

Electricity sparked violently where Willow's knee connected with her attacker's face, released along with a spurt of blood as the kopesh wielder stumbled backward and landed awkwardly on the hall's weathered stones. Where that blood fell it was thicker than it should have been, a viscous red-black laced with oil-slick splotches of virulent green. The dryad's intention to stand firm in place was apparently lost on the swinging loudmouth with the hook swords who launched himself from a pillar to take a swipe at her with his free blade before arcing back out of reach. She felt the blow but remained undaunted, her own convictions outweighing whatever grievances this group from the House of Swords imagined themselves to have.

[Gizmo]

In front of Min Erik turned his focus to the musclebound juggernaut of their adversaries. If she had been his only opponent the swashbuckler might have been content to dance about her for some time, letting her wear herself out but harried and outnumbered he didn't want to risk a lucky hit from those dagger-tipped fists. With a sharp, taunting whistle he drew the katar wielder's attention the surged to the left and into a powerful leap. Spinning in the air he planted his free hand on the behemoth's shoulder and vaulted behind her. The strike he landed with his flaming sword had no time for delicacy, the energy slicing through combat armour and unnaturally thick hide alike. Lips pressed into a thin line, Jack of all Blades willed the sword to diffuse just enough that it didn't draw blood, instead leaving a darkened scorch mark where the heat alone had done its work. Grunting, the strongest of the group toppled to her knees before collapsing face first to the floor.

 

"NO!" the six armed teenager cried out, face contorted in fury. As Jack rose from his crouch she pressed the momentary advantage, her half-dozen butterfly swords creating a whirlwind of merciless steel between them. He slid back a step, momentarily surprised by the skill with which she coordinated so many attacks. A half-step to the right avoided one strike, his sword parried two more but the next caught the flat of his shoulder, pushing him off balance enough for a crossing slash across his chest.

 

Jack reeled backward with a strangled note of disbelief only to abruptly throw himself forward into a somersault. A fraction of an instant later the shadow wreathed fifth attacker reappeared out of nowhere, striking lightning quick with something thin and metallic that was quickly drawn back into the darkness. "How...?" the indistinct figure questioned, moving in a wide arc toward its ally, voice distorted and gravelly. "You couldn't have sensed me."

 

Springing back up to his feet closed to the collapsed entranceway so that all of the swordsmen were now between himself and Willow Jack managed a cocky smirk. "Couldn't have, huh? Guess I must just be magic." Inwardly his thoughts were darker. He hadn't sensed a thing, at least not with his metamagi awareness of energies and magics. Either the shadowy fighter was something else entirely or adequately cloaked against his own abilities. Neither option was particularly comforting. Only his mundane combat experience had saved him from what would have been a strike right through the heart, a change in the air the caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. He wasn't sure he'd be able to replicate the feat.

[April]

Tendrils grew from Willow's armor and lashed themselves around the man who, on account of his weapon, she had mentally named Khopesh.  In Khopesh's battered state he couldn't easily resist the grab of the tendrils and the ancient weapon hauled him upright for a moment, armor peeling back from her face to favor him with a disapproving frown.

 

It was the obvious corruption that bothered Willow and a part of her was irritated at the concern she felt for her attackers.  With a snarl she crushed that concern and by the time the armor resealed itself around her face Khopesh was flung through the air toward Hooks.  She was a little off the mark, sadly, but Khopesh didn't get back up from where he fell.

[Avenger Assembled]

Things were not going well. 

 

Talya, ever the professional, had suggested the leather strap from Dimitri's bag to silence any involuntary cries that might distract their defenders at a critical moment. That decision had proved particularly wise - because there had been more cries than needed. "They have not turned. They are bound together." Dimitri looked at Talya for permission, finding it on her sweat-covered face, and reached into his bag for his scalpel - and the anesthetic. 

 

It was a strong dose - enough that even Talya's perceptions faded under the ether. But he knew how fast she would recover, even from a dose so high. He was out of options. 

 

He had precious little time to prepare, even as his grip on the scalpel nearly rimed it over with ice, killing any bacteria or virii on it. 

 

He thought first - God forgive me. 

 

And then in an order from his youth, when immortality and the world were new. 

 

Ni shagu nazad!

 

And he brought the blade down and he cut. 

[alderwitch]

I did ask to be unconscious.

 

Her teeth had left indents in the thick leather and she'd known, without needing to be told or see the look on his face that it was all going wrong. In her heart of hearts, Talya had both expected and dreaded something of the sort. It had been a long time ago - a lifetime, even for her - when she'd been a frightened child at her mother's bedside at her siblings birth. It had been a miracle that they'd all lived, really. Today, though, they didn't need a miracle - not really. Dimitri just had to save two lives.

 

Talya would probably - probably - bounce back from death again. And if not, well, it wasn't as if the twins would lack for love and attention.

 

Grimly, her pale features white and drawn, she'd let Dimitri dose her. Talya murmured no prayers, neither aloud nor in her thoughts. She had no trust in God. Instead, she put that faith entirely in the three people left to fight as the world fell away.

[Gizmo]

Swinging hurriedly out of the way with a clatter of chains the swordsman overhead shouted a number of things at Willow which Jack of all Blades certainly wasn't about to translate. He was focused on the remaining pair from the House of Swords anyway. He didn't know how the shadow wreathed figure had disappeared entirely from his senses - even the stench of corruption had abruptly stopped when they'd disappeared - but mulling that over only made him think of Talya and her own vanishing act.

 

His target seemed to notice the hard look that entered his eyes, taking half a step back as though retreating into their own shadows but they were an instant too late. Erik's sword lashed out at the apex of his lunge, a smell like hot coals being pressed into waterlogged wood rising into the air as flame cut through smoke. The figure was solid enough to make a sound when they hit the ground with a grunt. A hand stuck out from the darkness, scrambling for purchase against the uneven stone but the pale flesh, riddled with dark veins, faded in and out of view erratically. "N-no...! Can't... can't..."

 

"Tomás!" the red-haired young woman cried, a note of panic cracking through her focused demeanour. Whatever was going on in her head she'd obviously trained to the point where it didn't affect her body's ability to react. She defended on Erik's turned back with a vengeance, striking hard at his shoulder before he could hastily spin about and fend off her other five blades. "I won't let you hurt him!"

 

"Are you --hff-- @#$%ing kidding me?" the older fencer shot back, steadying his breathing with some effort and ignoring the throbbing from his new wound. He'd have been impressed by her bladework if he hadn't been so angry. "You came at mi familia, chica. How did you think this was going to go?"

 

"You don't understand anything!" the man with the hook blade snarled as he swung overhead, launching himself toward Min like a human missile. "We've sacrificed for this! We've earned this!" He came down in a brutal two handed strike with all the added power afforded by gravity in a blow that would have sheared through meat. Unfortunately for him the arm the dryad raised to block the attack wasn't encased in meat. The curved tips of his weapons caught in preternaturally hard wood, catching but doing no real damage.

[April]

"You've earned what, exactly?" Willow finally asked in a voice that could freeze the sun.  She used the sword Hooks had embedded in her armor against him, jerking her arm back and forcing him off balance.  In one fluid motion the ancient guardian stepped into her attacker, grabbed his clothing and executing a hip throw slamming him into the ground.  Hook's arm was held firmly in one of Willow's hands and held at an awkward and uncomfortable angle while her armor encased knee was planted firmly into his back.

 

"Was it pain and torment?," she continued almost conversationally, "That is something I can provide in abundance.  I won't kill you, out of respect for my loves, but I will ensure you can't take up arms against anyone ever again."
 

[Avenger Assembled]

The worst part was that Hel was watching him, sitting on her throne and smiling. She approved of his actions - and that was never good. 

 

Wait, no, the worst part was Talya, laying there almost-certainly-dead from an ether overdose, her abdomen split open as he felt around inside it. If Dimitri was honest with himself, it was not the first time he'd found himself in this situation, but it was a hard thing to do it to his best friend in the world, especially when so much was riding on these children. "All right, there you are..." The girl screamed and screamed again as he cut her free, small and vigorous in his arms with the eerie animal cries of a newborn. Things had been hard before - but he knew there were two in there! 

 

The girl's brother came easier, too easily. Dimitri Peshkov had held dead babies in his hands before and he wasn't going to let that happen again - he stared down at the small quiet boy with the glowing eye and willed - he was never quite sure if that was what raised that single, feeble cry and the slow movement of breath. Remembering that striking a child to make them cry was no longer recommended by medicine, he cut the children completely free of the mother, then wrapped them up, waiting for Talya's wounds to begin to heal. "Ssh, ssh, children..." He placed them alongside Talya, letting her residual bodyheat give them what he could not. 

 

"Soon all will be well!" He said with a bright smile. 

[Gizmo]

"You don't get to talk about family!" the six-armed girl shouted, blades whirling in a cyclone of steel as she worked to press her momentary advantage. "We know the truth--"

 

She was interrupted by a sound like sludge being sloughed off a car's bumper followed by a clang of metal on stone. Jack's sword burned acetylene torch bright over the ruined stump of the weapon in her topmost left hand, his eyes flint hard. "You want truth?" Faster than his opponent could react to the sudden shift in the fight two more butterfly swords had dropped to the ground, two fingers stinging and singed and the wrist at the end of another arm at least sprained. "I really don't care." She stubbled back from the furious assault and in the momentary gap a roundhouse kick caught her under the chin without enough force to lift her off of her feet. The swordswoman hit the stone floor awkwardly, trying to coordinate her eight limbs to push herself back into the fray but slipping in her panicked daze.

[April]

The sound of the babies crying actually brought a brief smile to Willow's face, though movement from Hooks brought her attention back to the moment.  A smooth application of pressure on his arm reminded him that she could, easily, tear his limb from out of its socket and it was only her kind and gentle nature that kept her from doing so.

 

Shifting her knee off of Hooks back, she grabbed him by the waist with her other hand, hauled him up into the air and slammed him back into the ground.

[Gizmo]

Willow's opponent was unconscious the moment he struck the stone floor, slumping into an ungainly heap as she released him. Blood that looked like the spilled contents of a broken glowstick dripped from the corner of his mouth, sizzling against the stone and wafting the sickly sweet smell of rotten fruit into the air.

 

Erik's head turned at the unmistakable sound of wailing from behind the protective barrier of plants, even his mundane hearing pricking up along with his racing heartbeat. Behind him the figure wreathed in shadows rose haltingly but silently to their feet and summoned the last of the energy to lunge forward in the moment of distraction. Halfway there, however, they collapsed against the floor instead as though they'd somehow misjudged their own weight. "Ah... Aah!" An outstretched hand, defined enough to see fingers, began to loose coherence, looking less like obscured anatomy and more like a dissipating cloud. The cries of pain were distorted, fading in and out of an audible range as the attacker themselves began to fade out of view.

 

Fiery sword raised defensively Erik turned to face the shouting before his attention was pulled by similar sounds of agony from the six-armed teenager. Toxic green seeped from beneath her fingernails as her arms spasmed out of control, joints twisting unnaturally despite the sickening sounds of protecting bone and sinew. Varicose veins in the same sickly colour pulsed across her exposed skin, her remaining weapons clattering forgotten to the ground. "N-no! It hurts! It hurts!"

 

Letting his own blade vanish the Jack of all Blades rushed over to her without a second through, trying to hold her down before she could hurt herself any further. With only two hands however it proved frustratingly futile and the sobs quickly turned to hacking coughs with more of the same poisoned blood flecking her lips. "C'mon kid, you're a fighter, stay with me! I need you to tell me what's happening to you, what did you do to yourselves?" He tried to keep his voice level and reassuring but was sure he failed, grunting as he tried to pin a wrist under his knee.

 

Tears in her eyes the young swordswoman managed to grate out, "Sh-she-- she s-said-- hkk!" Eyes rolling back in her head, the spasms increased twofold.

[Avenger Assembled]

The boy-child was silent, but the girl wailed still, the thin, eerie cry of a newborn. She wanted warmth from a living mother, she wanted things that the undead Dimitri Peshkov was long since unable to give. She would just have to weep until Talya's injuries began to heal. If they began to heal. 

 

"A pleasant sound." Across the room, Dimitri's patron was looking quite pleased with this turn of events. "The Espadas children were born amid death and pain - with betrayal and loss just outside the door." Hel smiled at Dimitri as the braziers on either side of her began to fade, casting her first into darkness, then into invisibility. "You have done well, my servant..." 

 

As Hel faded, Dimitri moved forward and picked up the girl, holding her wrapped in his parka, thick enough that he would not immediately leach away her inner warmth. Children died of such things. He had seen it happen. "Sssh...sssh...." 

[alderwitch]

The magic that had left Talya blessed - or cursed - with her particular brand of immortality had been blood magic of the darkest kind. Pale and unmoving, it likely seemed like far longer than it was before with a sudden intake of breath, her chest began to move. Her heart hiccuped once, the beats slow and unsteady as they were forced with ancient magic into unwilling rhythm. The first few moments were always the worst, as if the regeneration had to pick up a certain amount of momentum.

 

Natalya Browning had not been born a fighter, but her long life had shaped her into one. Decades of training kept her silent as her body pulled itself back together, shedding the ether and mending flesh with equal alacrity. Even only barely clinging to consciousness, Talya made no noise. Too many times, she'd come back to life in a place where betraying her survival before she was able to move was far too dangerous to risk. 

 

It was only when she was aware enough to recognize the reedy cry of an infant did Talya shift, her eyes fluttering long before she'd have forced herself into movement otherwise. Instinctively, she curled towards the infant that Dimitri had tucked against her side to shield the baby as her hand skittered over the ground as if groping for a weapon.

[April]

Min looked back toward the alcove that held Dimitri, Talya and two babies and allowed the barrier to start slowly unraveling itself while she turned her attention back toward the young woman her husband was attempting to subdue.  Sparing a glance at Kopesh, she left the spot was she guarding to kneel beside her husband.

 

"We must accept that we might not be able to save them," she said in a quiet but earnest tone that was the polar opposite of the one she used moments before when she was contemplating literally disarming the people she now wanted to help.  "I lack the strength to sculpt flesh, but I could try to stabilize them.. or at least lessen the pain."

[Gizmo]

"Stabilize. Right, yeah," Jack of all Blades repeated as he looked over his shoulder to face Min, latching onto the idea. "We just need to keep them going until Fleur fixes her portal flower then mi hemanita can--" He stopped abruptly as the thrashing against his pinning knee and hands slowed noticeably. "...kid? No, c'mon, don't do this!" Despite his protests the girl sagged and went terribly still, ichor pooling on the stone floor as it dripped from the corner of her slack mouth.

 

The stricken look on his face made Erik look years older. "Dammit. Dammit!" Pushing himself to his feet, he looked around the room, looking somehow lost. "Ah, Dios, Talya! Florecita, can you... can you try to help the rest of them? I'll make sure everything's alright with the twins." There was a note of apology in his voice as he asked her to delay meeting the children but it was clear their attackers couldn't afford a lost moment.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Thank you, Lady Hel," murmured Dimitri in perfect sincerity in the moment or two before Erik forced the door.

 

When the swordsman did, he found Dr. Dimitri Peshkov to be all smiles - despite the icy chill in the air, the frozen patches of what looked to have been a tremendous amount of blood, far more than he remembered from the previous childbirths he'd seen. "Behold, no one is dead! I am finest doctor to graduate from Moscow State Academy of-well, we talk about that later." Dimitri declared, looking terribly pleased with himself. "You will not give Talya hypothermia," he declared, "so you have at it with warmth," he said, pointing firmly. "All are healthy. What goes on out there - what do we need to do before League arrives?" 

[alderwitch]

Talya shivered, her breath frosting in the air as she pulled the as-yet unnamed boy into her arms. Except for her clothes, Talya was perhaps disconcertingly pristine as the blood magic that brought her immortality had reset her form once more. The flesh that showed through where her dress had been cut away was smooth and unmarked. Cuddling the baby closer against the chill, Talya's attention was focused entirely on ensuring there were the proper fingers and toes but before her tally could even get that far, she paused with a faint noise of dismay.

 

"His eye... Dimitri, what's wrong with his eyes?" Talya wanted to know, her tone tense and tight. She looked up at the swordsman's entrance, relief briefly flickering across her aristocratic features before her gaze flicked to the door, "Min?" She wanted to know immediately, shifting as if to stand. How much had she missed while she was unconscious. What had happened?

[April]

Min was busy at that moment trying to save the lives of people who had just moments before tried to take hers.  Kneeling down next to Kopesh Min put her plants to work drawing the four that still lived toward her, for Butterfly there was nothing she could do so there was she left to lay.  The dryad spared the young woman a look of sorrow and regret before getting to work.

 

The armor encasing the dryad peeled off her torso, twisted and reshaped itself into a dozen thick tendrils, and then crawled across the floor to the four still living rogues.  There the tendrils burrowed into the four and it was only then, when she tried to draw out what was mutating and killing them, that Min began to understand the depths of their corruption.  It was familiar, a level of manipulation not unlike her own re-purposing of plant life, and when she tried to draw it out the corruption repulsed her efforts.

 

Repulsed and then subverted.

 

It was Min's surprise at the familiarity of the manipulation that the corruption inside the four was able to briefly seize control of her plants, but that brief window was enough and with an agonized and short lived scream Shadows lost the ability to hold herself together.  Shocked, then furious the dryad regained control and then promptly killed her plants.  She had to, she could hear their agony as they too became corrupted.

 

"I can't save them," Min said quietly.  She didn't know if Erik could hear her, probably not since he was occupied.  She looked at Katar, whose breathing had stopped, the womans lungs unable to support her massive frame as the corruption tore through her.  "I'm sorry."

[Gizmo]

"She's fine," Erik was quick to reassure Talya. "They weren't-- They did something to themselves, powered themselves up to fight me. 'Us', I guess." The swordsman looked back over his shoulder with a pained expression as he stepped over the remnants of the wooden barrier. "It's killing them. Min's doing what she can."

 

He hurried to take the wailing newborn from Dimitri, pausing just long enough to place an appreciative hand on the other man's shoulder, ignoring the cold that immediately leeched the warmth from his fingers. "Hey niña, look at you!" he cooed, rocking her back and forth as he knelt down next to Talya, silently encouraging her to remain seated with his body language. He gave the quieter twin a tired smile, doing his best to be reassuring. "And check out this tough customer, huh? Going to let tu hermanna do all the talking?"

 

Erik looked up to the Russian with a note of hesitation, about to reiterate Talya's question about the child's eye before stopping himself. It wasn't as if Frost was in a position to do a real examination just then and worrying over guesswork did them no good. "Listen, I-- I don't think there's anything to be done but can you go try to help Min? They're idiots but nobody deserves whatever's happening to them." Turning back to the blonde he asked, "How you holding up? Not exactly how we were planning to do this."

[Avenger Assembled]

Dimitri answered Talya's question first - with anyone else, he might have taken this opportunity to defend himself. "Is, ah, magical discharge effect. Not uncommon with newborns born amid magic." And death and pain and blood - yes, thank you, Lady Hel, I remember well enough. "Let me just see..." He stepped outside and looked over the corpses, or near-corpses, of the fallen, the expression on his face falling from friendly and warm to flat, distant, and downright - cold. 

 

He walked from one to the other, his boots crunching in the faint coating of ice that he left behind him with every step. By the time he reached Min's side, his presence was chilly indeed. "There is nothing you can do for these unfortunates, Willow," he told her, his voice largely (but not entirely) free of his Russian accent. "Go see your family. I will handle situation." 

[alderwitch]

Talya's brow remained creased at Dimitri's response and her fingertips lightly ghosted over the baby's cheek, under the eye that glowed a disconcerting white. The fact that Min was well beyond the wall, that did relax Talya's shoulder's slightly but she couldn't help frowning at the infant's scrunched face. She couldn't make out iris or pupil; just white that glowed faintly. "It doesn't matter." She murmured, perhaps to the room or maybe herself, but mostly to her infant son, "You're perfect. You're perfect just the way you are."

 

"Spasibo bratishka," It was a whisper of sound as Dimitri left. Except for shivering against the chill, Talya was largely recovered thanks to her unnatural metabolism. She paused for a moment, smiling faintly at Erik and his question, "I'm remarkably resilient. I'm fine," she assured him before tipping her head slightly at him. It might not have been a true statement five minutes ago but it was now and there was no need to go into the difficulties of the unplanned for c-section-by-blade-and-ether. "... That's Emily. She's been quite cross about the entire affair. Reasonably enough. This isn't what any of us had in mind, I know." She paused and then lifted the little boy a little higher, " Do you want to hold your son too?" 

[April]

Frowning Min looked one last time on those dying around her before shifting her gaze to Dimitri and nodding once.  "Very well," she said as she rose to her feet.  "Show mercy."

 

A few moments later she joined her husband and, for lack of a better word, wife.  Though the sight of the children did bring a smile to her face from the look in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders Erik and Talya knew something was troubling the dryad.

 

"One of my sisters is alive," she said, her voice flat.

[Gizmo]

Even without his medical expertise Dimitri would have been able to tell with a glance that the first two of their ambushers were well beyond saving, bones broken from within by unnaturally spasming muscles.. The last remnants of that shadow cloaked fighter were unrecognizable as anything that had once been human but a strangled grunt of effort drew the Russian's attention to the kopesh wielder. The weathered man was trying to force himself up off of the ground even as sparks of electricity jumped across his body, leaving burns trailing across his face and limbs, accompanied by a scent like rotted flowers. With a sound that wanted to be a scream but lacked the power he opened his eye long enough to take in the bodies draped about the castle ruins. "No..." he croaked, collapsing back down to the stones. "A fool. Dead fool, now..."

 

"I can see how she might be," Erik agreed as he took the second of the twins into his arms. "Buddy, you are going to be so outnumbered..." The swordsman looked like he was about to break out into laughter until her turned about as Min entered. At her revelation he blinked rapidly in surprise, most of his attention going toward keeping from dropping the newborns. "What?! Like the giant head one?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Fate is cruel, yes," said Dimitri flatly as he knelt by the fallen man's side, his red-rimmed eyes cool as a Siberian winter. "Is very unlikely you will survive - but you have time yet." He put his hand on the stones next to the man's head and looked into his eyes. "Who sent you? Tell me the truth and we shall give them your regards. Otherwise..." He made a little gesture with his hand, perhaps a shrug. There was no need to say what he was thinking - the hard reality that the man would die slowly, in pain, and for no purpose if he didn't tell them who had sent them to that place. "Time is wasting."