Mixtape Ghost N
Siena Santana
Sander Lorraine | Marcus Howell
πππ‘π₯. π, ππππ / / πππΈβππβ πΌππ€π₯ / / πΎπ£π π¦ππ β€ππ£π / / ππππ‘
Collab with @Baklava @RedDusk @Chasers115 @PapiTan
Marcus slowly made his way down the ladder, as carefully as he could without losing his one-armed grip and tumbling into the darkness below. It was an awkward movement, an almost-hop down each rung as the sunlight grew dimmer even in the short distance between him and the sewer ground. The smell hit him almost immediately; it was some sort of terrible amalgamation of sewage, dank air, and some godawful addition. Basically, exactly how he expected a super old sewer to smell like. The sudden, dull clang of metal told him that his feet had reached the walkway, and he let go of the ladder, evaluating his situation.
Beyond the circle of light that beamed down into the subbterranian pit, he couldn't see a damn thing.
He muttered angrily to himself as he fished around in his pockets. Pulling out his brand new phone, he fiddled with it for just a brief moment, before a moderately sized cone of light erupted, and he swung it around the chamber, evaluating his surroundings with the addition of much needed light. Corridors seemed to branch off in every concievable direction, while a cesspool of muck sat slightly lower than the walkway he was currently on. After looking down the available routes, he picked the one directly in front of him and started walking; his light brightening up every corner in his slightly fearful state.
Goddammit. Of all the places that they could have hidden this kid, they chose the maze-like underground sewage system? He was gonna be pissed if he actually found the healer down here; but not quite as pissed as he'd be if he didn't. The image of him wandering around lost, only to come back up and find that Kusari and Siena had wiped everyone on his team sprang to his mind. Another image of him wandering around in the dark only to come face to face with Kusari and immediately get drowned in the shit river also sprang to mind. He shivered slightly, not knowing whether the sudden chill was from that little mental scenario, or the drop in temperature.
Thank god. Another source of light. He wandered over to the shaft that shone brightly into the room, looking up to see if-
He walked in a giant circle. Double goddammit.
BAMF!
She was acutely aware of the fact that she was falling, and though her inertia had yet to start, it would soon. Quickly, Siena sent her eyes around, left, right, and then strai--
'Marcus?!!!'
She hadn't counted on the boy still being exactly where he'd started from. Oh no.
"W-w-waaaaah!" The sound came out planted firmly between a high pitched trill that might have been mistaken for a bird and an equally high pitched squeak that was not unlike a Pika. It was unfortunate for both parties, really, that Siena's instinct won out over her mind, making her original plan to teleport to ground level a moot point.
Marcus nearly jumped out of his skin as something within the twisting tunnels shrieked loudly at him. Some sort of horrible monster that would surely be feasting on- oh no wait, it was just Siena.
'Siena!?'
He looked straight up just in time to see her crashing down upon him. There really wasn't any time to do anything except for return her yell with his own yelp of surprise, quickly followed by a yelp of pain as they both went tumbling to the ground. He heard another crunch from his arm - it hadn't completely broken again, but something had definitely come un-set. The electricty fired through the offending limb one more time, and Marcus shuddered from his position on the ground. He could feel a heavy object resting on top of him, and it wouldn't take a genius to figure out what it was.
"Oh hey Siena...just dropping in?" he said, his words strained through his teeth and followed with a painful chuckle. Said chuckle was interrupted by a softer, more obviously-in-pain tone. "Please get off of me."
Again with the pain of crashing into something. Twice in less than five minutes? Maybe she shouldn't have been going wild with the teleportation thing. On the one hand, at least she hadn't smashed her face into something solid like concrete, but on the other hand...
"S-Sorry!" A pause as she glanced down. Did she break his arm?! Terror seeped into the girl's expression as she sprang to her feet, her mind suddenly alight as though Marcus had thrown gasoline into every crevice before haphazardly dropping a lit cigarette to the ground. Oh god, oh shit she didn't mean to break his arm. That wasn't supposed to happen, oh geeze. Her next words were barely separated, and if not for the shallow breathing, probably wouldn't have been. "Oh no, oh geeze, I didn't mean to b-break your--Ch-Christmas can fix that, right? Oh shit, oh shit...!" BAMF.
"Oh no...that was already like that actually." Marcus started to say, wiggling slghtly hoping that Siena would get the message and stand up. "Your little friend Kus-"
Panic rampaged like a wildebeest being hunted as Siena started making jumps as quickly as her body would let her. Just to the edge of her vision. BAMF. Land. Look. BAMF. If one closed their eyes, it might have sounded like the steady beat of a clubbing song. With her own senses being acutely amped up by the sudden rush of adrenaline, Siena blindly tried to follow the wisps of the tracking sense she had borrowed. He would leave soon, shit, shit, shit. She needed to find Christmas to fix Marcus's arm! Or at least...something like that.
"-ariHOLYSHIT" Marcus said, his statement interrupted by the girl's frantic teleporting. The world around them changed at a ridiculous speed, accompanied by an acrid smell that he couldn't place. Not that the sewers needed anymore acrid smells, but it was an assualt against the senses nonetheless.
Just as he was about to open his mouth and tell Siena to stop freaking out, the world changed again. This time, he was absolutely ecstatic that the girl had franctically teleported before he could say anything, as the world around him suddenly turned foul.
SPLOOSH
Honestly, a lot of things crossed his mind. First being repulsion, second being the absoulte determination to not open his eyes or mouth for anything less than DC politely asking (and even then he might tell the 'god' where to shove his suggestion), and third being the realization that he was about to literally drown in shit. He panicked, trying to throw Siena off of him with his good arm so he could get his head above water, and the world changed again.
BAMF!
This time, they were back on dry land. Though that didn't help Marcus's situation at all.
"Oh no, uh...um..." Too many walkways and now only a fading trace that she could barely hold onto. [i}Where was he[/i]? "Okay, wait...calm down, Siena..." Breathe. Her voice came soft. One breath, two. Honing in on the tones she sought, the brunette released a shaky breath. She should have stolen the flags off of Marcus. Maybe they would have given him medical attention if he wasn't involved in the match.
'Find Christmas. Hide him. Refresh the names.' How was she supposed to do all that? Certainly someone on the opposing team had a way of tracking her healer down if they'd known to go for the sewers.
"Ugh...Christmas, where are you...?"
BAMF!
When Siena teleported the last time, Marcus had managed to squirm out from underneath her. As she disappeared into thin air, he was left on the metal railing, covered in sewage, with the only light being the murky beam that came from his phone, which he had kept a death grip on during the entire exchange.
He lay there for just a moment, contemplating all the decisions that had got him to this point. He had expected a nice, friendly game of superpowered Capture the Flag, and less than five minutes in, this: His arm was broken, his nose was also broken, he was covered in sewage, and he was most certainly about to lose that enchilada he had paid for.
This might have been the lowest point in his life.
He slid himself backwards to the wall after expelling his lunch, and just sat there. Maybe he'd just stay here until someone came down to find him. He looked down at the ankle cuff, where Fred was definitely laughing his ass off, and grumbled.
"Freddie. This dry cleaning is going on your tab. And I'm gonna request the most expensive goddamn soap they can get.
The cuff beeped once in reply, but, unlike last time, several seconds of staticy silence passed before it ended the transmission with another beep. A third beep immediately sounded after that, followed by an almost mockingly grave Fredric, "Sorry, Mr. Howe--" Beep. The transmission cut out before he finished. Beep. "Sorry, Mr. Howell. Try not to--" a muffled wheeze could be heard on the other end, "--open your mouth too much, alright? Hang in there."
The trail began at an open manhole. The pungent stench of wastes was not easy on his enhanced senses, so he focused on the alluring scent of coffee instead. Forgoing the metal ladder, Sander hopped into the manhole, landing with a thud on the concrete beneath. Another delectable aroma assaulted his nostrils, threatening his control, so he did the only reasonable thing: he dashed forward, leaving the source of the smell behind.
With distance between himself and the smell of spring onions, Sander could focus on his target again. He once again barrelled down the path, sprinting as fast as he could.
'Someone's coming?!' The sound of footsteps echoed, the speed of their approach too fast for any normal person. With her team being largely incapable of tracking, Siena could only assume that meant it was someone from the other team. Gritting her teeth, she dared not glance back. Not yet. Keep moving, even if her heartbeats were thundering like a stampede of hooves against her ribs.
The tracking sense flickered further.
'No, nonono, stay. Stay...! Stay!' It was like trying to hold onto a greased rope, with each returning surge being nowhere near its previous strength.
'Why, Miss Santana. Don't you know a Santana doesn't simply give up?'
A familiar voice. One that Siena had heard go from gentle and soft to stern and rigid in the blink of an eye countless times before. Maya was right though--Siena had watched her mother on television, in parties...that woman was relentless. It wasn't something Siena had thought could be appreciated until that moment.
So Siena pushed herself a little harder in response to the steady supply of adrenaline being pumped through her veins.
BAMF!
Christmas hadn't moved at all in the last few minutes, eyes naturally sliding towards the bright beam of light from the flashlight in his hands--hands that were still wrapped firmly around his stomach as much to quell their shaking as it was to hold himself together in some sad way. To go from blacking out in the middle of a battlefield to sitting in the depths of a rancid sewer was probably poetic justic.
He'd consider it appropriate. Like throwing away trash. The knowledge that it was just a game hardly helped the sinking resignation that no one would come for him all the way down here. As an afterthought, to assure himself he wasn't just being wholly selfish, he appended a hope that the soldiers had placed the other girl somewhere better.
It didn't make him feel better about himself.
Luckily a faint scream cut through the near-absolute silence of the sewers, distracting him from his pathetic self-pity. But the way it echoed, he couldn't tell where it had come from. It was validating in a shameful way how much he had wanted someone to come for him, but at the same time it had been a scream. He had seen how dark and dangerous the maze of a sewer system was, having nearly stumbled several times despite an escort leading. What if something had happened to whoever had come for him?
Then they wouldn't be able to find me, his thoughts veered towards himself again as he once more affixed concern about why they had screamed.
Did the order to stay hidden still apply if someone was actually in danger? It was just a game, and Daisy had mentioned it was supposed to be non-lethal. He shifted his feet inside his shoes, feeling the resistance of the filmy sludge layer on the floor.
He was supposed to help. That was the thing "good boys" did. Adhering to a definition of behavior was at least something he could do, even if he wasn't quite sure how good of a person he actually was.
No, he was sure. He wasn't.
But his muck-stained shoes left filthy footprints behind him anyway as he stepped onto the small set of stairs leading into the nearest passageway, towards the scream (he hoped). A reminder that he had heard before--something about staying in one place if you were lost--fell to the wayside as he moved on the manufactured impulse of being a good person.
Not ten steps into his ill-advised attempt to convince himself he wasn't entirely self-serving, he caught a repeating staccato of an echoing explosion--or something that sounded like small pockets of air detonating. The way the sound reverberated and layered on each successive burst while getting louder made him think it was perhaps a better idea to just run in the opposite direction, attempts at goodwill be damned. He hadn't heard the scream again for some time, so this should be fine, right? The person was probably...fine. Or dead. And either way, he wouldn't be needed--
No, please, he cut his reflexive thoughts off before they could convince him to just retreat.
The ringing of the strange sound's echoes had stopped, and Christmas strained his ears to catch anything else, only to realize in the cacophony that was the louder noise, he had missed what sounded faintly like rapid footsteps. And they were getting closer.
Sanderβs shoulder brushed the dusty wall as he made a sharp turn, heading straight for the prize. His eyes could make out the shape of the walls ahead, so he did what came most naturally. He pulled an arm back, then slammed his fist into the wall with everything he had. His hand went clean through, a deafening crash echoing through the darken halls. Sander didnβt seem to notice, his mind locked onto the destruction ahead of him as he brought his fists down again and again.
The first thunder of sound against the concrete wall to his right made Christmas jump with a sharp shout. Then the jackhammering of something on the other side breaking through the wall and the spreading cracks made blacker in the beam of the flashlight finalized the decision for him. He turned to the stairs on the opposite side and ran, nearly tripping over his own feet to get away.
It occurred to Siena that trying to see in the dark was counterproductive. Shoving a hand into her pocket, she double tapped the screen of her phone to light it up, flicking down and immediately making use of the flashlight icon. A beam of white light escaped from the back of her phone, illuminating her path just in time to hear the sound of a boom.
What. The actual. Hell?
Quickly, she moved herself to the new edge of her vision, heart racing and mind numb. The second rumble came even louder when she reappeared. She was getting closer to the sound? Bad. Bad, bad, bad. She turned the corner away from the sound, barely even having time to completely take in the end point of her next jump before the rapid succession of sound of her telltale teleportation began to fill the room.
She landed again. That rumbling really hadn't sounded good.
"Christmas?! We've gotta get out of here, wherever the hell you are!"
A female voice rang out in the distance, but between the deafening impacts against the wall and the echoes of the strange explosion noises again, Christmas couldn't make out the words. His thoughts were focused on escaping whatever was obliterating a wall to get to him. Though he had wanted someone to come find him, he hadn't meant for them to kill him.
As the last of the debris bounced harmlessly off him, Sander launched himself into the room through the opening he had created. He turned his head toward the scent, resuming his inhuman dash.
Christmas had rounded the corner of the adjacent room just as the sound of shattering cement eased into the crumbling of rubble and then ceased completely. Whoever it was had broken through. He didn't turn around, taking the path of least resistance towards another short set of stairs that led back into one of the large sewer conduits. With no time to think, he dashed towards the right.
A figure cut through into the beam of light Siena was using for light. Too sudden for her to get a good look. No time to check, hopefully that was Christmas, or at least whatever was breaking down walls in the sewers. Siena threw herself through the motions of a sprinting start, one arm outstretched towards the figure coming straight at her as she sent herself a short distance forward, blinking out of sight in a puff of smoke only to reappear closer to her hopeful mark with her makeshift flashlight.
"Grab on if you want out!" The shout was about as commanding as a frightened sixteen year old girl could muster, but hopefully it would be enough.
Christmas crashed into a person just as he turned back to check if he was being chased, dropping his flashlight in the collision. The impact wasn't as rough as his cry of surprise, but he also distinctly noticed that this was a girl thanks to two particular sensations where his torso collided with hers. Before he could reel back, she had grabbed him and the space around him vanished instantly.
Sander rounded the corner just in time to catch a flash of light and a female voice. As well as his roommateβs turned back. He leapt forward, barely an arm length away from that head of blond hair.
Then they vanished. His momentum launched him forward, right into the unforgiving embrace of the concrete walkway. He landed heavily with a resounding thud, but with the blood high still activated, he could still shrug off the impact. Pushing himself to his feet, he sniffed the air again, catching the faint scent of coffee still lingering in the air. And something else, sweeter. Like fruit. Jam. With an angry grunt deep in his throat, he turned, heading back to the entrance of the manhole.
He had to get to them. The flame in his chest flickered and dwindled, heralding an end to the blood mageβs rampage.
