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Cecilia's simple, transparent platforms held aloft ten Animi bundled up in thick jackets to combat the stinging cold of a harsh December night. Chicago's famous Millennium Park stretched out below them in the bright moonlight of a clear night, the trees lining the park bedecked in the yearly Christmas lights that twinkled like terrestrial stars from where the group perched. Everything was made just a bit brighter by the layers of snow blanketing the city.
Had they arrived under different circumstances, Nico would have loved the monochrome of color that the sheet of white cast over the bustling metropolis.
He gazed at the stretched reflections of light on the iconic Cloud Gate sculpture, a beautifully metallic (and massive) work of art that Nico had always called "the shiny kidney bean." This could be the last time he'd ever see it in all its glory.
"It's not too late to find another way," Donovan muttered beside him, breath condensing into white wisps.
"There is no other way," Nico's measured response was automatic now--calm now. They had argued over this for too long.
"We could get help--tell someone--""They'll drag us off to their special prisons long before they ever believe us.""Fuck, man. We haven't even tried--""They've killed our type for less.""Nico," Donovan gripped his friend's shoulder with a firm hand,
"There's no going back once we do this.""Then we'll do it right. No holding back."Nico gasped again, clutching at the throbbing mark across his neck, another grating pulse thrumming against and through his entire body. The rest of the group reacted similarly, wincing and grunting in varying degrees.
The pulses had been brief and almost undetectable before, but now they almost knocked the wind out of him. He knew the feeling. Soon, even breathing would be difficult.
And that would be the time to strike.
The entire group had misgivings about the strategy, Nico included, but the final argument that had won out in the end was the potential for their actions to maybe fix a little of what was going wrong in the world. They way they had been living until now wasn't sustainable--not with the world now slowly mobilizing against mages who weren't locked up in USARILNs. It was now a matter of doing what they could before they were killed or captured. Because only they could do this.
Now they stood on the precipice of disaster, regardless of success or failure.
Nico pulled out a tiny notepad from his pocket, the pages filled with hopes and dreams, memories and wishes. The first few pages were little memories of his brothers, scattering across the timeline of his life in no particular order.
10th birthday: Elliot bought a giant carrot cake that we couldn't finish. Mom and Dad had to bring the extra to work so it wouldn't go to waste.
That day Lucien and Elliot yelled at each other so long they both had sore throats. Something about Elliot hiding all of Lucien's pens. But this was because Lucien kept tripping him the week before.
Elliot's used us all as pillows more often than I can remember. He always complained that Donovan and Whisper were shitty pillows.
Lucien's really bad fever one time. He wouldn't let us into his room because he was afraid we'd catch it, so Don and Whisper broke the door down. We really pissed him off.
Elliot really liked the giant friendship bracelet I made for him. He kept calling it the GFB whenever I told him to just say "scarf."
Further bits and pieces of life before the Primordial filled up several dozen more pages. Beyond that, the thoughts finally veered into fragments that weren't fixated on the dead. Something like moving on, he supposed. There was only so long he could grieve when there was nothing left of Elliot and Lucien after the disaster. Nothing to keep gouging open the wounds of losing them. So time and distance had scabbed over the injuries.
But Nico hadn't considered moving forward until a month ago. He had been content to keep running away with the vague hope that maybe the world would just fix itself and they'd have a place to return to once everything had blown over. But that was a flimsy ambition at best and he didn't need the reminder of the Primordial to realize wishes alone never accomplished anything. So he had decided to do something, and he had dragged everyone else into the mire with him under the fake banner of "a greater good." That was
a goal of the current venture, but it certainly wasn't
his goal.
Nico flipped to another page, reading the last line there before tucking the notebook back into his pocket. "We'll fix this or die trying." A conviction as uncertain as a prayer.
Then the choking surge of power crashed into him like a storm and his own power flashed alive in response.
He didn't need to tell them anything. They had gone through this.
Donovan scattered the people in the area they were aiming for, sending everyone within a 150-meter radius of the location screaming away. Lights flickered on in tall-rise buildings nearby as people fled, an inexplicable fear pushing all their actions to the extreme.
When the area had been cleared, the bright light on Donovan's chest dimmed and Vanessa skated down on a gentle slope of Scaffold's platforms, landing at the edge of the park and facing the direction of the target, her power coalescing at full force, bolstered to new heights by Nico's magic.
The buildings within three blocks of her vaporized along with several meters of foundation and asphalt. Clearing the view.
And there. The target. Still alive. Still inexplicably alive. Unharmed. Uncaring.
Whisper fired shot after shot of sound through Vanessa's heat, the sound blasts sharp enough and powerful enough to tear through blast doors like butter.
Nothing.
Seiji dropped down next, taking Cecilia's platforms as hard drops, descending behind Vanessa. Under Nico's boost, Maaya was a monstrosity as thick as seven city buses across and roughly as long as a thirty-story building. It undulated through the air for a moment before Seiji sent it straight towards their opponent. Vanessa's power had no effect on its lightning-fast movement as it crashed into the figure and piled its massive body onto and around the target.
Erica and Rhian remained in the air with the group, waiting for the results, both girls' powers useless in the face of Vanessa's heat. Even so, they were already preparing, with Erica breathing out and directing a steady flow of her golden smog slowly and precisely around the perimeter of the meteoric crater Maaya had formed in its churning bodyslam. Rhian had already sprouted her razor-sharp wings and long antennae, hovering in place behind Erica while scanning through almost all the arthropods in the entire city before picking out a brown recluse and a black widow, slowly ballooning up the two selections. They would be roughly half as large as the current Maaya by the time she was done.
Their target wouldn't be so easy to kill, even with all their firepower.
And then the crippling surge of power lifted. Of its own volition.
Failure.
"NO!" Nico almost lost his focus on his power as he realized what had happened.
"NO! DONOVAN CHECK FOR--JUST CHECK!"The young man beside him was quiet for a moment.
"The Animus, it's..." Donovan swallowed.
"It's still there. Nico, it's still alive!""NO! FUCK!""Maybe we can recruit--" Rhian spoke up only to be interrupted by Donovan, his voice hard.
"No. It's completely gone. There's no human left in it.""Get back. Cece, get them out of there," Nico said, eyes wide. His voice was calm again, even as his knuckles gripped his jacket so hard they were paper white.
Garrett whistled loudly, the sound cutting through the night. With anyone entering the effect radius of Donovan's power sent turning back around and away in sheer terror, the fight's opening salvo had been disturbingly silent.
An inhuman howl broke the atmosphere's quiet spell and an echoing rumble resounded from where the giant Maaya had piled its body. Something bulky tore through Maaya's body, immune to the effect of the creature's consumption, though parts of its body seemed to be melting from Vanessa's heat. Seiji's pet writhed in pain, unable to follow its master's mental orders in its agony.
The Animus was as tall as a regular Maaya--30 meters--a swaying mound of roiling human parts that fattened out at the base in some terrifying mockery of a dress. It had no head. Only a female torso with the distinctive X across the base of her throat, profusely bleeding and barely resembling a human, perched on top of the turbulent mass of limbs, eyes, mouths, ears, and anything inbetween. Parts of its body had been eaten away, revealing that Maaya hadn't been entirely ineffective against it. Then the missing parts regenerated as fast as a snap of the fingers and it quickly became clear how the new monster had overcome Maaya's devouring ability.
Where Vanessa's heat had melted off chunks of its body, it regrew those as well with astonishing speed, charging at the obvious, glowing target first. Cecilia had already rigged a series of panels, however, and Vanessa took them like stairs, leaping up to safety as she turned off her power, leaving behind an obliterated section of city. Whatever else this new Animus was, it was no flyer. And no thinker either as the multitude of hands, arms, and legs reached after Vanessa.
Garrett whistled again, snapping Seiji out of his shock as he watched Maaya spasm on the ground, its body flipping and twitching without control, eating chunks of buildings nearby and further devouring a large hole into the ground. At the reminder to retreat, he also dashed up Cecilia's scaffolding, the older woman recycling the lower steps into upper steps to hasten the formation of her platforms without needing to waste time generating completely new panels.
The Animus looked up at them--as best as a torso devoid of any limbs and a head could "look" anyway. The grasping limbs and eyes that made up its small hill of a body was the clearer indicator that it was attempting to reach them.
It shuffled forward a bit further, walking straight into the dense ring of gold mist that Erica had set up. Convulsions wracked its body and the amplified smog's effects began eating away at the newly regenerated flesh at a deadly speed.
Nico hadn't looked away the entire time and even now he stared at the creature. Once upon a time, it had been human. Now? Even if there was something there, they couldn't save it.
"Do you think it's working?" Erica asked quietly, power still trailing out from her mouth as she condensed her ring of airborne poison into an almost solid cloud around the Animus.
The monster itself answered her question, crawling away on fresh limbs even as it lost dozens in the movement. It was regenerating as fast as she could poison it. Maybe even faster. Its movements were no longer as rough and uncoordinated as it had been on initial contact with Erica's smog.
Like it was building a resistance.
Nico sucked in a breath and turned off his power.
Maaya dropped down to a small fraction of its previous size, the wound remaining, though its body was slowly closing up the gaping hole as it wobbled back towards Seiji, hovering weakly above the ground before raising itself towards its master. Erica's smog dropped in density from "near liquid" to "gas" and she immediately dissipated it on realizing Nico's boost was gone.
"Cece, get me closer to it," he started to say.
"Spread the panels--"With another roar that was a medley of animal noises and human screams, the new Animus dashed--
fucking dashed--away from them, its speed and accelaration leaving cracks in the cement where its myriad of legs pounded in tandem.
"After it!" Nico called out, already putting one foot forward as he boosted only Cecilia. She complied immediately and the group ran after the monstrosity, following it from the air while Maaya dropped back to the ground, slithering along with them in parallel motion.
"Nico!" Donovan gasped out while running,
"Military will be getting here real fucking soon!"Nico was already faltering, silently cursing his poor stamina. It had only marginally improved in the four years they had been on the run.
"We should leave!" Jonathan called out, having remained silent and ready the entire time.
"No! We did this. We have to finish it," Nico shot back, gasping for breath.
"Cece, put me down.""What?" the scarred woman looked at him incredulously.
"Sweetheart, what are you even say--""I can't keep up!" he shouted.
"There are no people here, so you guys chase it down. Drive it back here. To me."Whisper grabbed Nico's arm as the frail boy stopped moving, his chest heaving.
"Let me go, Whisper. You have to drive it back to me and I can't stay running in the air with you guys."Whisper swallowed and shook his head. Nico wrenched his arm away, though the gesture was only for emotional effect. Whisper's hand still remained clamped on Nico's wrist.
"Chase it back here. I can cut off its power. Its regeneration. I think," he took a step down as Cecilia created more stairs. "And I don't think you can stop it from running into people. So...be ready."Whisper shook his head again, refusing to let go.
"I'm telling you to kill people who might get in the way, Whisper," Nico looked away, his voice quiet.
"Now let go."At that, Whisper's grip loosened, the shock in his expression mirroring that of Donovan's. The two had been aware of it--a colder side to their otherwise fussy worrywart of a brother. But those moments had been few and far in between. And certainly never as callous as this.
"I'll stay with him in case anything happens," Garrett offered, his usual levity nowhere to be found.
"Let go, Whisper. There's no time for this.""If we're meeting back here, then I'll stay behind, too," Jonathan spoke up.
"It'll give me time to pick out a different set of waypoints. Somewhere outside of civilization. Go already, Whisper."Reluctantly, Whisper obeyed, eyes never leaving Nico's face.
Nico didn't look at them, instead hurrying down the steps and standing near a partially destroyed building; the result of Maaya's thrashing. Garrett and Jonathan took up posts nearby, though they wisely gave Nico space.
With a shout of frustration that smashed open a nearby building, Whisper turned around and pursued the Animus, the group's heavy hitters moving swiftly on Cecilia's platforms. They had grown accustomed to putting one foot in front of the other without hesitation, knowing that she formed smaller platforms far more rapidly than larger ones. With the sheer amount of the transparent, glass-like material she had generated so far, Cecilia was having no trouble keeping up with their movements, breaking down older panels as they moved along at a hectic speed.
Rhian flew ahead of them, her wings faster than their run. They had discussed this, at least, even if they hadn't wanted to broach the details. She would be the one in charge of handling things if plans went awry, since her power allowed her to easily single out a target with minimal collateral damage. A really fucking disgusting target, in this case.
Even with her antennae in play, wIthout Nico's boost, she had to cover more ground to make up for the loss of range. Still, she managed to pick up all the arthropods she could find and amass them into a swarm so thick they blocked out the night sky, accompanied by the deafening symphony of wings buzzing. Any other time, any other circumstance less serious, and someone would have made some Biblical joke about the seven plagues. Now, though, it was looking like they'd be raining a part of that exact hell on the unsuspecting city of Chicago.
She banked around a tall building, eyes still on the Animus as it moved towards the end of the "safe zone" that Donovan had previously cleared for them with his power. At the same time, Rhian sent a swarm of bugs to help direct the group on Cecilia's platforms, leading them on a different route to catch up with the Animus while Rhian did her best to steer it around.
Attack, she thought to her army of bugs, numbering in the millions now from the horde she had been preparing while under Nico's boost. The skyful of bugs and insects descended on the Animus, completely encasing its entire body as the vermin bit and stung at every opening. Layer upon layer of arthropods completely covered the towering Animus, obscuring it completely from sight just as it crashed past the rough border of the civilian-free zone. To the rest of the world, it simply looked like Rhian had constructed a hulking cloud of nightmares, raining the occasional wagonfull of dead or injured insects upon the masses as the Animus trudged forward with no regard for surrounding structures.
A cloud that was now rampaging through downtown Chicago, crushing people into mush underfoot and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. It roared again, the sound causing lights to flicker on in windows and people to emerge from their houses. Those unfortunate enough to be in its path were snatched up by its grasping, deformed arms and torn apart, the monster's strength allowing it to smash through buildings like paper.
Rhian's unused spiders from before had finished enlarging. She had been moving them slowly towards the Animus's original location while she had been increasing their size, but now the three-story spiders were tramping through the city at full speed, chasing after the Animus. By all accounts of physics, the creatures should not have been able to move with that speed, but by all accounts of physics none of this should be happening in the first place. Whatever powered them all broke those laws as easily as a child would tear off an insect's wings and legs.
The giant black widow and brown recluse slammed into the Animus, charging at it from opposite directions. They set to gnashing and piercing it with their fangs, flaying chunks of its body off only for the remaining effects of Erica's power to decompose the piles of flesh to sludge. Now the spiders' venoms were inside its body, too, in copious amounts. It only seemed slightly hampered by the spiders, reacting with initial uncoordinated flailing before its mass of arms elongated and wrapped around the cephalothorax of each spider, squeezing them until they burst across the pavement and nearby houses. Their long legs retracted sharply as they rapidly returned to their original sizes, falling pitifully to the ground with the rest of the dead.
Rhian's brow furrowed, but she never stopped amassing her horde. In the time the Animus took to destroy her spiders, she had directed another million onto its already beleaguered body. She would be running out of insects at this rate. Had it not been for the amount she picked up in preparation hours beforehand, she would have been woefully ill-prepared for this turn of events. And even those resources were wearing thin.
The group caught up to the Animus as it veered wildly left and right, blinded and trying to rid itself of the bugs sheathing its entire form. Without direction, its speed was fairly meaningless, and the group was content to keep up with it at a slightly more relaxed pace while waiting for any mishaps. Whisper, Seiji, and Vanessa held back while Rhian worked, ready to move in should she fail in some way, but careful not to interfere without her say-so. Their powers did not complement hers, and killing her bugs would be a waste of her efforts, with no certain effect on their part. Especially with the weakened Maaya still recovering from the earlier wound. Seiji kept the snake-like pet following behind the Animus, but his white-knuckled fists and tense jaw displayed his hesitation to deploy Maaya again after the shock of losing control earlier.
Donovan was doing his best to clear people out ahead of time, but he couldn't exactly send out detailed evacuation plans. He swore loudly as several people tripped over each other in their fear-induced panic, watching helplessly as the Animus ran over them, leaving a chunky smear behind.
On the periphery of his power, soldiers were starting to track them down from the reports of destruction and Donovan hoped the military would focus on evacuating the city first.
With a scream of exertion, Rhian enlarged a fraction of the bugs on the Animus right side, each of them blowing up to ten times their natural size. Falling several meters from her height until she slowly righted herself, she used these bugs to shove the Animus towards the direction they wanted: a U-turn back towards Millennium Park. At least, what was left of the leveled, cratered field that had been Millennium Park not an hour ago.
It worked slightly, and through the senses of her bugs Rhian could feel the creature's body convulse. The same convulsions that had coursed through it earlier under Erica's smog.
"Erica! I think your poison's still working on it!" she called to the group on the platforms.
"That's great, but I can't do anything more with your nasty bugs all over it--unless you want me killing the little shits you spent hours collecting!" Erica shouted back.
"Oh, come on! You can make a big ass circle but you can't sneak your stupid fog in without killing all my bugs?""Do you know how detailed that control is, you fucking bimbo?! It takes a fucking assload of precision!""Stop being such a fucking diva, Erica! Can you do it or not?!" Rhian snapped back.
Whisper tapped Erica's arm as they ran, glaring at her. Try.
Even for their fitness, the group on the platform wasn't going to be able to keep up the chase in case the creature refused to be persuaded back to its original spawn point.
She groaned loudly, letting the golden smog trail from lips, condensing it into a thin stream that she directed at the moving mass of flesh and bugs. Doing her best to kill as little of Rhian's precious nasties as she could possibly manage, Erica picked a random area and shot the stream in like a hypodermic needle, not even a little sorry when a thin tunnel's worth of bugs and insects died in response. Fuck precision.
At least with a pathway cleared, she focused more of her smog into it, the concentration looking like a giant string that flowed from her mouth into the creature. It didn't seem to be having any effect, but at least the monster was curving slowly back towards the park where Nico was waiting.
"Have I mentioned I hate regenerators?" she muttered as she emitted more smog.
That's when the armed helicopters arrived, the vanguard of military retaliation while the ground troops worked their way through the streets. Donovan felt them first on the periphery of his power's range.
"Rhian! Two military helis coming!" he pointed in the general direction of the green, red, and white pinpricks from the helicopters' anti-collision lights, knowing Rhian could find the rest from her bugs.
"Can you take them down before they get a clear bead on us?""Stall for me! I need to grow some flyers!" she continued nudging the Animus through the streets as best she could, wincing as it ran through another building and emerged with furniture, wiring, and screaming people in its grasps, barreling through another building immediately afterwards. Those same screaming people met quick deaths in their high-speed collision with cinderblock.
But there was nothing to be done about it now. Getting it back to Nico in the shortest amount of time was the only option to avoid more deaths and collateral damage, so Rhian took a deep breath and steered it through several more buildings, watching as those same buildings practically crumbled in on themselves, no doubt with people and livelihoods still inside.
It surprised her that she was having an easier time forcing it to move. Like it was at least weakening or tiring now.
Either Erica's powers were really showing its effects or the creature wasn't as powerful as it had initially appeared.
Donovan, meanwhile, had been seeping uncertainty and confusion into the helicopter pilots' minds, doing his best to stall their advance and hoping Rhian would find a way to stop them without killing them. Worst came to worst, Whisper could shoot the helicopters down easily, but they were trying to avoid having to kill people if they could help it.
No such luck. He felt their fear and panic as Rhian sent giant flies, moths, and mosquitoes at the helicopters, the insects as large as the helicopters and far more mobile. The pilots, refusing to be deterred by the wall of giant flying insects, engaged combat. Some of the flyers were shot down by the machine guns on the helicopters, but Rhian had sent more than enough for the job.
The insects slammed into the helicopters, several of them perching on the pilot's windshield before moving upwards towards the whirling propeller blades and eviscerating themselves all over the plexiglass, obscuring sight.
This, in tandem with Donovan's emotional manipulation, caused several of the helicopters to dip dangerously as the pilots slowly succumbed to the mental pressure. Rhian slammed a giant moth, already fat originally, against one of the helicopters, pushing it closer to the other. Between insect guts obscuring their vision, giant flying insects assaulting them, and a pervading sense of doom and disorientation, the pilots didn't realize their respective rotorcrafts had now neared each other.
With a combined slam from the moth, another giant fly, and two giant bumblebees, the helicopters crashed into one another, propeller blades shattering in the collision while the tail of one helicopter partially snapped off. Pinpointing the targets now from the flashes of gunfire in the distance, Whisper fired off two torpedoes of sound, practically disintegrating the helicopters before they could crash to the ground and potentially injure others. The bloody mists that were the pilots could barely be seen in the night sky. Donovan had to stop himself from screaming out loud.
The Animus was almost there now. Back in the original area they had cleared for the fight. It was slower, stumbling more. No longer the unstoppable force it had originally been. Small victories. Erica's constant stream of poison was definitely affecting it now. People would never live long enough to need repeated applications, but Erica's toxins did have compounded effects the longer something was exposed to it. The Animus was surely feeling it now, high-speed regeneration or not.
Now the question of stopping it came.
It was still moving quickly--at least 64 km/hour--and nothing had seemed effective enough before.
Whisper was already on the ball. He eyed a spot far in front of the Animus, gauging its haphazard direction before sucking in a deep breath and releasing a howl that smashed a jagged trench into the ground a hundred meters ahead of the monster. He screamed again, deepening and widening the trench as Rhian pushed the mindless monster towards the trap. It obliged, careening torso-first into the chasm where it crushed a number of the bugs on its body.
Rhian removed the rest of her bugs, sending them upwards in a veritable mushroom cloud explosion of arthropods. There was no point trying to hide anymore. She exhaled as the throbbing in her head subsided, releasing the majority of her bugs from her control. If she needed them again, they wouldn't be too far. She hung on to a good several thousand, however, and swept them through the surrounding area, checking for approaching ground troops. None, yet, not that Donovan would have missed them. She just had a better detection range for physicalities.
Once the bugs were cleared from the line of fire, Whisper fired at the Animus, again and again, hammering it back down every time it tried to climb back up. Every shot was powerful enough to almost tear it half, but the creature was nothing if not tenacious. Screaming a volley of precise shots, Whisper punched holes in the parts of its body it was using to try and climb up. Flicking Vanessa a thumbs up, he gave her a quick directive, pointing both his index fingers at the fissure in a forward motion.
Go.She went, Cecilia forming a slide with her panels that Vanessa skated down until she stood within range of the monster. Whisper's attacks shook the ground every time he shoved the monster back down. When Vanessa started her cast, Erica dissipated her magic, most of the golden stream dispersing before the rest was burned up by the mounting heat.
Nico came running now, the commotion and Rhian's makeshift explosion signal of bugs having directed his movements. Garrett and Jonathan stood nearby, hanging back from the battle. Garrett turned to Jonathan with a quick nod and the teleporter closed his eyes, pruning through the potential locations one last time before settling on five and tearing open a portal in preparation.
Vanessa was already starting to heat up the area and Nico scrambled to get as close as he could to the Animus. He settled behind Vanessa, the red rings on his left hand flaring to life vividly. The next time the Animus crawled back up and right before Whisper shot it down again, equally vivid red rings had appeared on half of the hands making up its body. Nico didn't let himself tremble at the sight, gulping down his fear.
At peak power, Vanessa nodded towards Whisper who was still firing from Cecilia's platform. He caught the motion and backed off, breathing hard. Cecilia rubbed his back as comfortingly as she could, the woman's eyes betraying her consternation. For all that she had remained calm and focused throughout the chase, she had not been able to shake the lingering images of destruction from her mind. Her own life had been turned upside down by a similar event, albeit on a smaller scale. To be the cause of one, however indirectly, made her ashamed of herself. She was old enough to see past the basic reactions and realize what they were doing served a greater purpose than small lives thrown to the wind, but that was no salve for the raw wounds--no salve for the slaughter they had caused.
The Animus crawled up one last time, Nico's power having stunted its regeneration, as he suspected. Its body, naturally sturdy, was slowly melting down in Vanessa's heat, revealing black, spidery veins throbbing and pulsing under the layer of protective outer flesh. Erica's poison. The inside wasn't as tough as the outside after all.
It was making strange and terrible mewling noises now, choking and dying as it stumbled towards Vanessa. A shot from Whisper blasted off another hunk of flesh and shoved it back.
Maaya had fully recovered by now, its sluggish movements replaced by the customary whirling and spinning that the group was used to. Seiji sent it in immediately, and it ate up any parts on the ground, first, before working its way up from the Animus's base. The mewling noises turned to agonized screeches as Maaya continued spiraling around the abomination.
The screams stopped when Maaya finished eating the last of the mouths.
Then it was a slow silence punctuated by the sound of squelching and bubbling as the creature finally melted down into nothing, with Maaya cleaning up the remains until nothing was left behind but Whisper's gorge and the areas of flattened, smooth ground from Vanessa's heat. They would take no chances with the Animus.
Nico collapsed to the ground when his sigil flickered off on its own, the intended target no longer in existence for his magic to find and mitigate.
He took several shaky breaths as Garrett ran up to the group, checking for any injuries while Cecilia lowered everyone to the ground. Miraculously, none of them had taken damage.
"Military coming!" Donovan called out. He had noticed them coming a while ago, but the Animus's death had taken priority over everything.
The warning came only a minute in advance.
Around forty soldiers entered the radius, rapidly centering on their open location, Rhian's explosion of bugs having drawn them near. She had directed her bugs to sting and bite as many of them as she could, and another fifty or so soldiers were far in the back, writhing in agony on the ground. More of her bugs congregated around the approaching military trucks and soldiers in the distance, holding them at bay for now. The forty in front of them were the lucky ones who had slipped her notice. Rhian made a mental note to get better at catching details for the future, hovering slightly above the group and sending the nearby bugs crawling up the soldiers' legs, looking for openings to invade.
She didn't need to worry, after all.
Donovan managed to get a hold on all of them, ready to do whatever it took to protect the team. He breathed deeply and began transmitting. Fear was too unstable. Soldiers knew fear. The most elite managed it better than how Donovan could throw it at them. When it came to fight or flight it was always fight, which was absolutely not an option. So Donovan used the deadliest weapon in his arsenal: crushing despair. The kind that drove sane and happy people off building ledges. The kind that drove mothers to drown their own children in bathtubs and hang themselves afterwards--as a mercy.
Immediately, he saw the soldiers closest to him lower their weapons. Some fell to their knees while others openly wept. Either way they all had the same expression of hopelessness and raw anguish in their eyes, their brains filling in the gaps between the forced emotion and their current mindset by dredging up thoughts worse than death. Where simpler minds couldn't bridge that connection, the individuals went still and silent instead, eyes as lifeless as a doll's. A bead of sweat rolled down Donovan's temple. He wouldn't be able to hold such a powerful effect on so many people for much longer. But the moment he released his hold would be the moment his friends would be shot to pieces. He turned to Nico to call for a boost but the expression on his companion's face made it clear how his request would be answered. The time for remorse had long since passed; the half-ruined city in their wake was proof enough of that.
Gritting his teeth until his jaw ached, Donovan clamped his eyes shut. It had to be done. As he willed the tears welling up to go away, Donovan transmitted a single word to every soldier in his radius after mentally urging them to aim at themselves. Shoot. The disjointed rhythm of gunshots rang through the air, only coming to a stop after a full thirty seconds. As soon as it was over Donovan shuddered, struggling to stay on his feet. He tried to tell himself that his exertion was from the use of his power. He couldn't be weak now.
Backup would be here soon. This squadron had only been the first wave. Nico stood up shakily and walked towards the grisly semicricle in front of the group, face blank, eyes impassive.
A pool of blood spread slowly towards his feet, merging with the other sources where one trickle of lost lives met another. He bent down to look at it, quiet and solemn in a way that befitted a funeral. Before anyone could remind him to leave, Nico dipped the corner of the friendship bracelet on his wrist into the thick liquid, staining a fifth of the band a dark red. This wasn't an apology--he wasn't allowed to give one now.
He stood up then, nodding to Jonathan. The Precursors would be on their way, if they weren't already.
"We're monsters now," he announced calmly to the group, that unruffled demeanor still hiding his emotions.
"All according to plan, Nico?" Donovan asked weakly, almost accusingly.
"Do you hate me now?" he took a breath, shaking his head immediately.
"Don't answer that."Nico turned to Seiji, a sharp stab of guilt finally making its way across his mental barriers when he saw the Japanese boy's face drawn and haggard from the ordeal.
"Seiji, let them know Cat's Cradle caused this.""What? Why?" Seiji's confusion cracked a bit of Nico's veneer.
"Because we're taking responsibility for this, so write the fucking name.""Isn't this your fault?" Seiji shot back.
"Why don't we just leave you behind instead?""Then why don't you!"The group was silent following Nico's outburst and the usually placid young man was breathing in short gasps, fighting back an emotion none of them wanted to name.
"Not the fucking time for this," Donovan growled,
"and we're not leaving anyone behind.""Knowing what we do, Seiji, this was bound to happen," Cecilia walked up to Seiji, patting him on the shoulder. Her movements were stiff, the comfort out of place so near the massacre, but it was something she felt she needed to do--if for no other reason than just her own sanity. Seiji shrugged her off.
"Just write the name. It's not such a big deal, is it? ...Compared to everything else.""It means we're stuck with him," Seiji pointed at Nico, who faked a cold smile in return.
"You think I'm fucking stupid, Nico? I write Cat's Cradle and all ten of us are stuck together until we're dead or worse.""What, you think they can't piece our group together from traffic cameras and phone videos?" Nico's heart was beating a mile a minute, his mouth dry as he tried to hold it all together while Seiji was laying his motivations bare to the group. He hated the kid, but not because Seiji pissed him off. Nico just hated what Seiji always saw in him--the kid had better emotional intelligence than even Donovan's power.
"We're not a 'group' until we start tagging like that. You don't want us to take responsibility, you just don't want any of us to run away.""Fine," Nico relented, the composed mask fixing itself as he crossed his arms across his chest.
"You win. I don't want any of you getting away from this. From me. You want to leave now? Go. You want to leave me behind? Do it. Whatever you do, choose quickly. There's only so many soldiers we can keep killing before they win on sheer numbers. Then there's the Precursors.""We leave you behind and you out the rest of us," Seiji snorted.
"Wouldn't matter if I did. I doubt they'd be able to track Jon.""So you're agreeing to being left behind? Bullshit. You never let me win an argument unless there's some way for you to win in the long run.""Now you're just being paranoid," Nico smirked, hiding his shaking body to the best of his ability. He needed the upper hand in this argument or Seiji would never back down. The guy was too perceptive for his own good, immaturity aside. He was right, after all. Nico was willing to lose this fight to win the war.
"No, I'm not," Seiji turned around, finally acquiescing to the initial request. He directed Maaya towards the expanse of clear ground nearby. The pet scrawled the group's name hastily across the ground, the lettering jagged and broken where Seiji and his horrible handwriting had attempted to fine-control his pet's movements. He had never used his power to write before and the experience was new to both him and Maaya.
Nico refused to display his surprise. It had to look like he intended this, or at least had considered it would happen.
"But you always mean well, you piece of shit, even if you're fucking selfish and never really honest," Seiji muttered as he walked past Nico, stepping through Jonathan's portal first. The abrupt end to the argument was his usual way of ending a conversation.
After a moment of silence, the rest of the group followed suit. The person breathing the biggest mental sigh of relief was Nico.
Jonathan was last, still looking at the damage they had wrought. It took him a few seconds to tear his eyes away from it all.
A memory came to mind as he placed one foot into the absolute darkness beyond the portal.
"This team name is kind of stupid. Why don't you pick something else?" he had asked Nico a year ago.
"I like it," Nico had responded then, shrugging as he dangled his feet above the floor, the bar counter stool too high for him to look anything but childish.
"But why?"
Nico had turned away, looking around the patronless bar. The group had scared everyone away a few minutes ago and the others were busy grabbing as much food and alcohol as they could hold.
"...Because we're 'nothing but a bunch of Xβs between somebodyβs hands,' maybe?" he had finally responded after a while
"What?" Jonathan had looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and confusion. "Where did that even come from?"
Nico had laughed and apologized, changing the topic back to questions about Jonathan's pre-mage life.
He glanced back to where the mindless Animus had been annihilated until literally nothing remained. The line had been some quote from a book, apparently. Nico had mentioned the name, but Jonathan had been too uninterested to care then.
Maybe he would ask later.
The portal closed instantly behind him as he stepped through
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1x Thank
