Sory gents internet troubles in the hearthstead I'm borrowing a friend's wifi via laptop from my car right now
Mike was wholly amused by the reaction he got from Pain it was almost perfect. "I don't do anything. Anything that can feel it will, there's no rhyme or reason only feeling and feeling is the only thing there in nothingness."
"Innocent? Please tell me you are in no way that naive"
Nathan chuckled, moving his arm slowly in order to test its strength, stretching his fingers...
"We shouldn't have to prove anything. They didn't start by questioning us, they fired the first shot...and we'll fire the last. Urbis isn't my home, I'm looking for something to believe in again...and its obvious I won't find it in this dump of human pain and misery"
Nathan looked at his shoulder. His makeshift bandage was now plastered to his skin, his blood and sweat mixing together in a particularly nasty combination
Grimacing slightly Nathan nodded to the old lady, sitting on some nearby rubble
crap guess I did`nt see that, well I`l just put the post I should have put for the fight here instead
terrible looked upwards across through the massive holes his body created, at the image of 1W his slingshot pulled back and at the ready, terrible raised his hand and let off a flash of lightning giving him ample time to get out of the way of 1W's blast
Terrible maneuvered himself to 1w`s left flank he positioned himself on a nearby rooftop hiding himself under the ledge, he extended his hand out and aimed at 1W charging a ball of lightning in his hand.
"why do I always get stuck with the nigh invincible killing machines, I mean seriously first that silver thing a couple months back and now this asshole man, the other guys around here better feel lucky he is`nt coming after them" terrible whispered to himself as he fired sending a white ball of lightning straight at his target getting a clear hit and sending a surge of voltage through 1W, terrible then lept into the sky positioning himself in the air above 1W before coming straight down at him and bringing two fists down onto his head and roundhouse kicking him into a nearby broken section of wall.
"so 1W, mind if I ask, why now?, you could have showed up two years ago when the first outbreak happened and given what I`ve seen of you could probably handle about nine tenths of the supers there, but you did`nt, why?, what`s so special about this time?" terrible asked raising his fists preparing for 1W's inevitable counter attack.
"Urbis may not be your home, these are still people. As Miss Harbours" Reggie nodded his head at the old lady. "Has pointed out. Things here were peaceful before, there were few of us supers and we kept relatively underground. It isn't till recently that this witch-hunt has started here."
He sighed and look around him.
"This isn't the fault of the people, it's their government. This propaganda and lies. They cannot be blamed for the actions of others and nor can we." He moved closer to Nathan. "Don't you see? We can right their wrongs, we don't have to be like them."
It was unclear who he meant here, it could have been the dark-supers, it could have been the government or even the company.
"Words like that will lead me to putting a bullet in you head, sir" The voice of the driver appeared behind him. He had left the vehicle and now had a pistol aimed at Reggie.
"You have forgotten your place..." Reggie went to say but the driver cut over him.
"You were to help us defeat the super attacking the compound, that is your current mission. Not 'saving Urbis' or working with this scum" The driver mimicked Reggie's voice coldly. Anger had filled his eyes, he glared at the super.
"I joined you to protect Urbis from the supers that endangered it. Not kill all supers. I refuse to act so blindly" Reggie's hands were raised high as the driver still aimed down the sight at Reggie's head. "Don't be a fool boy."
At this the driver opened fire. Reggie's eyes flared and the bullets disintegrated in mind air. The gun the flew from the driver's hand and landed on the floor in front of Reggie.
"I don't want to hurt you.."
"Th-then d-don't." The driver began to cower as Reggie stepped towards him. He fell onto the ground, his helmet rolled off and to one side
"Run along." Said Reggie, stopping dead. The man got up and ran with all his might away from Reggie and the others.
Reggie turned back to face the others.
"Urbis, such a dramatic place." He said with a grin. "Miss Harbours, you're a Urbis native no? I guess your willing to give it all to protect our fair city? And Mr. Andrews, what say you?"
He began to brush down his dusty suit. The collapsing of the house had defiled it.
Hopefully, we will no longer be alone he said telepathically to Garth.
Cecia crawled the metallic vent, somehow able to fit in the right corridors. The metal was far warmer than she had expected it to be, and with each inch of progress made she burned the skin on her arms and legs, though it quickly shed and reformed. She was still rather unaware of why she had these abilities, what had caused the soldiers to fire at her, and where the hell she was, though she was more concerned about leaving the facility. Her teeth sunk into her lip as she she took another turn in the vent, attempting to distract herself from the pain.
After five minutes of crawling through the vent the area around her seemed to smell more smokey, and the noise of moving vehicles was to be heard. She was near some sort of garage. She looked down at the floor of the vent, trying to contemplate a way to get down. Suddenly her eyes widened as a few flashes of the slaughter she had committed unknowingly.
Broke bodies, covered in gashes and stab wounds. A chest ripped apart to reveal broken bones and slashed organs. A young man with a shank made of bone driven into his heart, whimpering in pain as the life faded from him...
She shook her head in dismissal and looked at her hand, slowly rehealing from the burn wound. If her body was able to do that without any command, what could it do with one? Curious, she gestured her hand forward, and it morphed into a fleshy, yet solid blade. It was painful to say the least, like having a hand broken by a baseball bat. Still, she pushed onward, and started cutting into the vent with the arm blade. Upon cutting a hole large enough for her to fit through she dropped down, and landed on the hard concrete floor of the garage.
"Fuck..." She cursed as she picked herself up from the ground. Her eyes settled on a garbage truck that appeared to be left unattended, and after some hesitation; she built up the courage to jump in. She landed amongst a pile of filth, smelling worse than anything she had experienced before. However, she was all too aware that this was a better option than getting captured by those who were perusing her, and dove into the garbage further. Soon the vehicle departed, headed to dump in Ubris.
Huzzah, I'm done with my intro mini-series. My next post will be Cecia jumping out of the truck and stumbling upon some random individual.
Side-Note I'm hoping it's not Pain, he(?) would have too much with someone who can survive anyting...
Pain did not respond to Mike's words, simply continuing to spin around him, licking the man and muttering inaudible things to himself once in a while. The surrounding goo bulged and rippled and shook, wobbling this way and that, till Mike was no longer standing, but rather suspended in mid air, large globs of the black stuff pushing him in different directions as the many faces of Pain circled around him.
And in the background, Mike would have sensed that they were moving. The dark space they occupied was descending at a rapid pace, weaving this way and that as it dropped further and further into the earth. Tiny tentacles of goo slid around his body, tugging at the edges of his clothing in a darkly playful manner.
"Welcome to my storage cavern." Pain's voice suddenly boomed into his ear, as the goo dissipated and they burst into a dark, rocky space. For a few seconds, Mike was left in complete darkness and silence, with nothing but the gently sloped stone beneath his feet to ground him. Then, a large flood light turned on high above, attached to a generator that was somehow latched to the ceiling.
The light revealed a large, rocky space that sloped gradually downwards. It was less a cavern, and more just a crack in the earth. A long, tall crack in the earth, which Mike stood at one end of. The actual space that could be walked on by a normal human was very limited, with about enough space across the chasm to stretch your arms out. The steep vertical walls soared nearly sixty feet into the air above, however, giving the place a lofty feeling.
"I require no actual physical space to move around." Pain said, emerging about halfway up the right hand wall, then slowly drifting down towards Mike. "But most of my past 'companions' have, so I found this convenient little place for them." He put a hand on Mike's back and gently but firmly pushed him forward, walking him down the length of the "cavern".
"It's safe and hidden from the pestering little ass-wipes that crawl around on the surface, and surprisingly free of poisonous gases. It did shift around a little bit once, when there was a minor earthquake down here. The walls moved a few inches closer together. That shouldn't be a problem though, I doubt that will ever happen again." He grinned as they reached the other end of the crack. "This'll be your new roommate."
There, at the bottom of the cave, lay Temica, her naked body laying in a rather uncomfortable looking position on a pile of rocks. The condensation and grime of her underground existence glistened across her skin like the slime of some amphibious creature, the bright light from above casting her shapes and curves in disturbingly beautiful detail. Her eyelids clenched and unclenched, her limbs moving in a jerking fashion every now and then as she suffered in some terrible nightmare.
Pain moved forward slowly, his blackness writhing along the walls and floor around him as he approached the girl with a wicked smile. Bending down, he leaned close to her and gently licked her face, as dark tendrils surrounded her body and once again began to crawl over it in a suggestively purposeful manner.
"Wake up, love, we have a visitor." Temica's eyes drifted open, simply staring at the stone next to her as her body stopped convulsing from her unconscious horrors. Then she slowly sat up, arms at her sides, without even the slightest of reactions or acknowledgements to the writhing tentacles of lust and mockery that defiled her.
"Clapping Man, meet love. Love, Clapping Man." Pain stepped aside with a grin, letting Mike take in the sight. She barely recognized the man's presence, only looking at him when Pain forced her chin up. Even then her eyes simply rested on the space Mike occupied. It was impossible to tell whether she actually saw him or not.
"You're not allowed to kill her, as I'm sure you'd like to, but feel free to do whatever else you want to her." Pain said in a suddenly absent tone, moving away from Temica and opening up a small grotto of goo in the nearby wall. "Just don't expect any reactions. She's a rather dull doll." He laughed, settling into a 'sitting' position, or whatever Pain's equivalent was, as a multitude of screens morphed into existence in front of him. Each showed different views of different parts of the city.
"Supers... supers..." he muttered to himself as he sifted through the various cameras. Rampaging inmates, marching Company soldiers, blood, chaos and suffering, were what filled the screens. He eventually stumbled upon a view of the small group of supers standing near the recent battleground. Reggie and the Metal Man stood there, along with another man he didn't recognize, and an old woman. A grin crossed his face, and a panel of oddly labeled buttons appeared before him. Waving a finger over them nonchalantly, he found the one he wanted and then pressed down.
The image on the screen vibrated as a nearby building erupted into flames and then toppled. He chuckled as a few of the supers ducked for cover, then the camera went to static as it was covered in debris.
"Heh. Well, that was exciting. Maybe I gave the old lady a heart attack." Pain said in a deep monotone, turning back to Mike as the screens and panel vanished, and the grotto disappeared. "Here's the light switch." he said, tossing Mike a small switch that would control the large light overhead. "I've got to go out somewhere. I'll be back in about an hour, then we can start finding out more about you. I think we could make very good friends, you and I."
And with that, Pain was gone, melting away into the stone wall. Temica sat on her rock nearby with a blank expression, her dead gaze drifting off in some random direction. The only noise that permeated the silence was the gentle dripping of condensation from the walls and ceiling, and the quiet hum of the flood light, which flickered every now and then.
Nathan looked up at the sun, shining brightly above them and then slowly drifted his gaze down to Reggie.
Amanda would have wanted him to help these people, she would have wanted him to look at the best they had to offer and fight for it, even if he himself didn't agree with what was going on.
But then she died. And that pretty, naive world he had lived in was shattered.
"No"
He said simply, looking Reggie dead in the eyes
"I cannot help you on this naive quest of heroism and stupidity. I am going to get out of this damned city and there is nothing you can do to stop me"
"Ok run, hide from what needs to be done. She would have wanted different." He said calmly watching the man's startled look.
Reggie's voice then blared through the man's head.
That's right, i'm not only here
Reggie motioned with his hand to the world around them. I'm also in here.
he then pointed to his head.
"Do you really care that much more for yourself then others? What lies for you outside the city?" He leaned towards Nathan as he asked this, inquisitive eyes stared at him.
If you insist, with such a strong thought at the fore-front of your mind, it was hard not to pick it up.
"Calm" Reggie said softly. "If you are that desperate not to do what's right then leave us. Maybe your companions will show more compassion toward Urbis and her people." He was now angry himself at the insolence of this man. He glared back at him as he growled.
"Miss Harbours, are you ready to do what's right? Garth, hop down there and find these friends of his, we could use some support." He ordered Garth calmly who nodded and jumped down the manhole.
Garth landed in the damp dank sewer below. His whole body and clothes had turned to metal.
Nathan shook his head as he continued to sit on his piece of rubble
"You invade my mind, look at my thoughts and then get angry when you don't get the results you want, but still prance around on your morale high ground"
He chuckled, a smirk growing on his face
"And then you demand me to leave? No I will not leave. I will stay as long as we are all heading in the same direction, but don't expect me to follow your lead"
"Well geez, make up your mind. One second you want to leave, next you want to stay, I mean am I the only one finding it hard to keep up with your ever changing mind. Speaking of minds, my mind's eye didn't choose to hear that memory, when taken my a certain emotion which is that strong, it leaves the mind. I simply picked it up." He said calmly with a shrug.
"As for moral high grounds, I'm doing the right thing here. Oh no, I overheard on of your thoughts." His tone changed to be quite patronising. "Oh cause my powers make me pick up people's thoughts i'm suddenly a bad guy when I'M the one trying to save Urbis. You my friend." He pointed at Nathan. "Are shallow." He retracted the finger and continued to talk while pacing around. "To moan over something so petty in amongst this chaos." He threw his arms into the air.
"That, my friend, is slightly pathetic don't you think? You have the power to change lives and yet you let it wither away on nothing and then argue with those ready to make a stand for what is right?" He had turned back to Nathan and now stood there with his head tilted at him.
"You, my friend, have some issues." He smiled oddly.
Wow, even I feel strange after that. When did I become so eccentric? Meh, up-bringing.
He shrugged off this thought and paced around more.
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