Matt skidded backwards, the smoking shield he held in front of him lowering to see his assailant; the winged creature known as Shagon. "Aww, is that it?" mocked Shagon. "I thought you'd be better than this Matthew."
"Better than you," replied Matt as he took off at him and leaped, swinging the sword he had in a powerful downward slash which Shagon blocked with his bracers. Metal screamed on metal as the pair fought back.
"I have the edge at this," sneered Shagon. "The skill, the power, oh the RAW POWER!" And yellow-green light blasted at Matt who was forced to block the attack again.
"You might have the power, but you're still a figment!" exclaimed Matt as he ducked in close and scored a hit across Shagon's exposed abs. "Heh, not so mighty now, are you?"
"You only delay the inevitable!" Yellow-green light blasted from Shagon's eyes and Matt held up his shield.
Forced to his knee, Matt held on as Shagon walked forward and raised his hands and struck the shield. And again. And again. And then the shield splintered and fell into pieces.
Matt threw his hand forward and magic erupted from the point of contact. "GAH!" cried out Shagon as he stumbled back. "So... the mouse has teeth."
"Enough teeth for ya?" said Matt as he charged forward and Shagon swooped down to meet him. They passed and Shagon fell to the ground a half second later.
Matt exhaled as he held his hand up to his shoulder, muttering a healing spell. When the Red Alert had started, he went immediately to the Lumia and removed several pieces of magic and infused it into his being. "This is going to take a while," sighed Matt as he picked up his sword and broken shield and charged into the darkness.
His greatest fear had always been never fitting in. But that seemed like a moot point here. No one fit in, and that was sort of the point.
So when the world shifted around him, so put him mack dab in the middle of his first war. The Superhero Civil War. The day his hero attacked. His eyes widened as he felt the ghost of fear stab him. The sky's opening up as a lightning bolt stuck the ground moments before a tall man landed.
"Oh shit.." He could hear the fight going on around him. Then watched as the lightning ripped through the chest of one of the heroes. His eyes however were on the blond man still fighting above them.
"Thor please.. stop this! This isn't you." But he got no answer. Instead he felt his own electrical energy spike as he dodged out of the way of the hammer that had swung at him. But he couldn't keep dodging. Every time he dodged another person on the ground was struck. Billy watched as the lastest bolt struck way to close to his friends.
His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the fight. They were loosing but Billy's powers could alter things. Like this fight. Billy's eyes glew and he looked down. Iron Man and Captain America. Together they could beat anyone. Including Thor.
Billy watched with a smirk, as the two heroes took down the god. As Billy neared the ground though, he watched the scene change. Then he felt something in his neck. He held up his hand and cursed, just as the darkness took over.
He woke up moments later, inside a cell. A man standing over him. Billy knew him and his heart froze in his chest.
"Not you... Anyone but you." As Billy jumped off the bed, he felt a rage build up inside of him. "You bastard! You fucking bastard!" He lashed out, but only hit an energy field. The man just smirked at him.
Billy jumped as the Skrull!Pym burst into flames. What the hell had just happened? He tilted his head towards Zuko and frowned. Stacy? Ship? He was in prison not on some ship.
He placed his hands on the door to his cell, and found that it wasn't there. He stepped out, confused and well completely lost. His eyes locked onto Zuko again and it hit him.
Stacy. The meat ship. The Nightmare King. Oh now he was pissed. His eyes sparked with lightning as his fists balled up at his sides.
"We've got someone to find." (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/305245.html?thread=22943581#t22943581)
(ooc: we're organizing everyone to tag on to Matt's thread for the action, so go ahead and claim a posting order here! (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_pilgrims/231543.html?thread=2107255))
Beckett's greatest fear was no surprise to those who knew her well. It wasn't that she was afraid of dying, or anything like that; she was used to the possibility that she could get hurt or killed while on the job. But what scared her the most was letting down her parents. Her mother was already gone, but she was doing what she could to resolve that.
Her father was still around, and she made it her goal to never, ever disappoint him. This made her an easy target for the nightmares; Beckett was aware of that, and was attempting to bolster her mental defenses in the event of another nightmare.
But what she saw was nothing that she was prepared for. The hall lurched and changed before her, and she found herself back in her father's house. She was a few years younger from the looks of things, and he was very drunk.
Beckett thought back to that time, when her only thought was to help her father recover from his alcoholism. She had done everything she could think of, from talking him into going to therapy, to begging him to stop drinking. That part was more from sheer desperation than anything. It had been months, but it seemed that he was finally getting a handle on his habits.
But then, as was to be expected when going through the process of detox and recovery, Beckett's father regressed and got drunk once again. Beckett couldn't help but feel guilty that it happened, and the disappointment she felt after seeing how far he'd come was unbearable. So she went to him, meaning to talk with him to try and convince him to put down the alcohol again.
Except it didn't go as planned. He'd gotten angry, angrier than she'd ever seen him, and slapped her full across the face. She cried out in spite of herself, and fell back against the wall behind her.
"Dad, you have to stop!" Beckett held her face where she'd been hit, knowing a bruise was already beginning to form. But from the way her father looked at her, she knew he wasn't going to stop, and she cowered as far against the wall as it would allow, in fearful anticipation of what he'd do to her next.
He's not going to get the chance. Not before somebody takes a decent stab at setting him on fire.
Fortunately, the fireblast is just enough to scare the man off the cowering woman, not to completely set him on fire. Even Zuko knows that would hardly be helpful in a nightmare environment.
The man is off-balance, and the boy's kick to his gut sends him sprawling. Zuko takes the girl by the arm, hauling her up. There's no time for sympathy, though, truth be told, he feels it.
What happened next seemed to come on so fast that Beckett barely registered any of it. But she saw someone she didn't know arrive at the scene, send a blast of fire at her father, and then kick him fiercely.
She just sat there unmoving and momentarily stunned by the sudden intervention. But then the person who'd intervened grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Who are you?" She couldn't help but sound dazed, her eyes still on her father. Except then, the scene shifted and changed, and suddenly her father was no longer there... meaning the entire thing was a nightmare.
Beckett clenched her fists together, angered by the realization that she'd been toyed with a second time. But it didn't seem like now was the best time to be angry, so Beckett simply crossed her arms (which were still shaking a bit from the frightening experience of being attacked by her own father), and asked, "So what are we supposed to be doing?" A simple question, perhaps, but she wanted an answer.
Beckett knew what the Nightmare King was (it was kind of hard not to, what with recent events...) but she didn't know what an Avatar was and why Zuko was looking for one. It didn't matter to her either way.
If it was important, then she'd help him look, but other than that, her opinion was strictly neutral. "Yeah, I'm coming. And thanks for your help."
The Avatar is dead. He'll have to start his search all over again. The water tribes, this time. They're small. Localized. The search will be easy.
If he survives this confrontation. And he most likely will not. But with Aang dead, somebody still had to stand up to Ozai.
"So, the son steps forth to take the crown from his father." Ozai's sneer is easy, confident. As he has every reason to be. "You know, if you wanted a crown so badly, it would have been much easier for you simply not to have been such a failure as a son. Then you would be Fire Lord now, instead of your sister."
"I'm not here to steal your throne. I'm here to stop you." And then . . . defeat Azula too. Somehow. And then, search for Aang.
. . . no. Aang's dead. That's why he's here.
Ozai's laughter echoes through the canyon where his son has waited to challenge him. Aang should be here, instead of sealed - no, dead. But he is. And so it cannot be helped.
"And then what, lead the people in a grand revolution of peace?" The former Fire Lord - Zuko doesn't know what he's calling himself now - sneers again. "You think they will follow you, when they thirst as much as their lord for conquest? I am not the only firebender eager to see the Earth Kingdom burn, Zuko. You think my warriors will turn and follow you back to the Fire Nation like docile sheep-pigs? You underestimate your own people."
Zuko only stands, waiting for the first blow. When it comes, he barely manages to block it - Ozai's fireblasts, even at this range, sear him with a heat nearly impossible to fend off. But if he's to find the Avatar, he must survive this, because Aang is still -
And therein lies the conundrum. Because why is he looking for the Ava - Aang, if Aang is dead?
If that's the reason he's fighting his father, and not Aang?
No - Aang's not dead - he's . . . he's hidden. Hiding. Did he run away? No, somebody - somebody has him. For a moment, the canyon inferno framing his father disappears. Oily green-black, pulsating, horrible walls, a city awash in a nauseating luminescence. There. There the Avatar is.
There's more missing, but Zuko doesn't have time to remember it. Ozai is attacking and it's all he can do to evade. His clothes catch fire. He
There's no way he can win this. He has to find the Avatar. That city -
Pulsating walls. Vents - so many vents. A city with stairs going every which way.
The first clue Jono had that something was wrong was that he woke up on the floor. The thing was, of course, that he didn't remember losing consciousness or doing anything that might have caused unconsciousness as a side effect. The second clue was that it was damned difficult to hold onto that bit of consciousness, but Jono clung to it tenaciously. He still felt sluggish, like he didn't even have enough project past the end of his nose, nevermind anything like moving.
But he managed because the third thing was that it was hot. Not the hot and moist that Stacy always was, but the dry heat of fire. He pushed himself up, staring around at the pod cavern he found himself in. The pods were open, contents burning. Some of them were already burned beyond recognition, but others--others he could see faces.
Faces he knew.
Ev? he said, voice sounding small even to himself. Ange? He struggled to get up to a kneeling position, body and mind refusing to obey his orders. Wh...what the fuck's 'appened 'ere? Why... It took a moment to place what it felt like. Stacy, why're there dampeners up? The very idea scared him. Almost as much as those faces he knew in the pods.
"You happened." A gleaming figure stepped out of the flames, face twisted in anger. Not the one he'd seen at the last podpop, but one he knew from home. The flames reflected off the planes of Paige Guthrie's face. "You lost control. Went up like a Roman candle on the fourth o' July. I don' even know what set you off!"
Neither did he, and that scared him. Paige... That couldn't have happened, right? But it would explain the dampeners and why he felt so out of it. I don'...I didn'...
She laughed, a cruel and heart-broken sound. "Wasn't bad enough we had to see 'em die once, but you had ta kill 'em before they ever had a chance. You're no friend," she spat at him. "You're too dangerous to live."
There was something he needed to remember. Something that would make all of this...better? No, that was impossible. There was no better from this. His best friend was dead. Again. And this time, the blame lay directly at his feet.
Jono tried to get up, only making it half way before the dampening of his powers kicked in again. He was made entirely of his powers, after all. Dampening them meant that every bit of energy he lived on was suppressed.
He only made it about half way before the lack of energy he could access kicked in, sending him tipping forward and straight back to the floor. His last sight was Angelo and Everett burning in their pods and understanding that the flames were approaching where he lay as well.
Speaking of the power dampening, it's making it hard for Zuko to extinguish all those flames, but he's doing his darnedest to get the unconscious Jono away from them.
Fortunately, he's a strong boy, but it's still slow going.
Luckily, Jono IS a lot lighter than he looks like he should be. Still, flat out and not able to help makes it worse.
The voice and the mind near his makes Jono stir slightly, eyes blinking open but not exactly focused. Wha...? Yeah, he's not doing too well at the moment.
God, how to explain that. In me head. Okay, that's not helpful. Sorry. 'S me powers. Body sorta runs offa 'em. Stacy's got a dampenin' field on t' keep me from goin' up, I think.
Except...that didn't make a lot of sense, did it? He hadn't heard it from Stacy. Stacy had, in fact, been very quiet about the whole thing.
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"Better than you," replied Matt as he took off at him and leaped, swinging the sword he had in a powerful downward slash which Shagon blocked with his bracers. Metal screamed on metal as the pair fought back.
"I have the edge at this," sneered Shagon. "The skill, the power, oh the RAW POWER!" And yellow-green light blasted at Matt who was forced to block the attack again.
"You might have the power, but you're still a figment!" exclaimed Matt as he ducked in close and scored a hit across Shagon's exposed abs. "Heh, not so mighty now, are you?"
"You only delay the inevitable!" Yellow-green light blasted from Shagon's eyes and Matt held up his shield.
Forced to his knee, Matt held on as Shagon walked forward and raised his hands and struck the shield. And again. And again. And then the shield splintered and fell into pieces.
Matt threw his hand forward and magic erupted from the point of contact. "GAH!" cried out Shagon as he stumbled back. "So... the mouse has teeth."
"Enough teeth for ya?" said Matt as he charged forward and Shagon swooped down to meet him. They passed and Shagon fell to the ground a half second later.
Matt exhaled as he held his hand up to his shoulder, muttering a healing spell. When the Red Alert had started, he went immediately to the Lumia and removed several pieces of magic and infused it into his being. "This is going to take a while," sighed Matt as he picked up his sword and broken shield and charged into the darkness.
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"I don't know who this clown is, but whoever's dreaming about him, will you cut it out now!"
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So when the world shifted around him, so put him mack dab in the middle of his first war. The Superhero Civil War. The day his hero attacked. His eyes widened as he felt the ghost of fear stab him. The sky's opening up as a lightning bolt stuck the ground moments before a tall man landed.
"Oh shit.." He could hear the fight going on around him. Then watched as the lightning ripped through the chest of one of the heroes. His eyes however were on the blond man still fighting above them.
"Thor please.. stop this! This isn't you." But he got no answer. Instead he felt his own electrical energy spike as he dodged out of the way of the hammer that had swung at him. But he couldn't keep dodging. Every time he dodged another person on the ground was struck. Billy watched as the lastest bolt struck way to close to his friends.
His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the fight. They were loosing but Billy's powers could alter things. Like this fight. Billy's eyes glew and he looked down. Iron Man and Captain America. Together they could beat anyone. Including Thor.
Billy watched with a smirk, as the two heroes took down the god. As Billy neared the ground though, he watched the scene change. Then he felt something in his neck. He held up his hand and cursed, just as the darkness took over.
He woke up moments later, inside a cell. A man standing over him. Billy knew him and his heart froze in his chest.
"Not you... Anyone but you." As Billy jumped off the bed, he felt a rage build up inside of him. "You bastard! You fucking bastard!" He lashed out, but only hit an energy field. The man just smirked at him.
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"Whatever he can do, he can't do it here, because he's not real! Remember the ship! Remember Stacy!"
Yeah, Zuko doesn't have time to coach people through things. Dreams of super overpowered lords of whatever need to get out of his dang way.
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He placed his hands on the door to his cell, and found that it wasn't there. He stepped out, confused and well completely lost. His eyes locked onto Zuko again and it hit him.
Stacy. The meat ship. The Nightmare King. Oh now he was pissed. His eyes sparked with lightning as his fists balled up at his sides.
"That bastard is going to pay for this."
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They might as well work in a group.
"We've got someone to find." (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/305245.html?thread=22943581#t22943581)
(ooc: we're organizing everyone to tag on to Matt's thread for the action, so go ahead and claim a posting order here! (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_pilgrims/231543.html?thread=2107255))
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Her father was still around, and she made it her goal to never, ever disappoint him. This made her an easy target for the nightmares; Beckett was aware of that, and was attempting to bolster her mental defenses in the event of another nightmare.
But what she saw was nothing that she was prepared for. The hall lurched and changed before her, and she found herself back in her father's house. She was a few years younger from the looks of things, and he was very drunk.
Beckett thought back to that time, when her only thought was to help her father recover from his alcoholism. She had done everything she could think of, from talking him into going to therapy, to begging him to stop drinking. That part was more from sheer desperation than anything. It had been months, but it seemed that he was finally getting a handle on his habits.
But then, as was to be expected when going through the process of detox and recovery, Beckett's father regressed and got drunk once again. Beckett couldn't help but feel guilty that it happened, and the disappointment she felt after seeing how far he'd come was unbearable. So she went to him, meaning to talk with him to try and convince him to put down the alcohol again.
Except it didn't go as planned. He'd gotten angry, angrier than she'd ever seen him, and slapped her full across the face. She cried out in spite of herself, and fell back against the wall behind her.
"Dad, you have to stop!" Beckett held her face where she'd been hit, knowing a bruise was already beginning to form. But from the way her father looked at her, she knew he wasn't going to stop, and she cowered as far against the wall as it would allow, in fearful anticipation of what he'd do to her next.
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Fortunately, the fireblast is just enough to scare the man off the cowering woman, not to completely set him on fire. Even Zuko knows that would hardly be helpful in a nightmare environment.
The man is off-balance, and the boy's kick to his gut sends him sprawling. Zuko takes the girl by the arm, hauling her up. There's no time for sympathy, though, truth be told, he feels it.
"Get up."
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She just sat there unmoving and momentarily stunned by the sudden intervention. But then the person who'd intervened grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Who are you?" She couldn't help but sound dazed, her eyes still on her father. Except then, the scene shifted and changed, and suddenly her father was no longer there... meaning the entire thing was a nightmare.
Beckett clenched her fists together, angered by the realization that she'd been toyed with a second time. But it didn't seem like now was the best time to be angry, so Beckett simply crossed her arms (which were still shaking a bit from the frightening experience of being attacked by her own father), and asked, "So what are we supposed to be doing?" A simple question, perhaps, but she wanted an answer.
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The boy looks at her as the illusion of the child disappears. He's calm. Simple questions are all right by him. He's got some simple answers to give.
"You coming?"
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If it was important, then she'd help him look, but other than that, her opinion was strictly neutral. "Yeah, I'm coming. And thanks for your help."
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From the sound of his voice, he means it. Zuko is not the talk-things-out type.
"What's your name?"
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If he survives this confrontation. And he most likely will not. But with Aang dead, somebody still had to stand up to Ozai.
"So, the son steps forth to take the crown from his father." Ozai's sneer is easy, confident. As he has every reason to be. "You know, if you wanted a crown so badly, it would have been much easier for you simply not to have been such a failure as a son. Then you would be Fire Lord now, instead of your sister."
"I'm not here to steal your throne. I'm here to stop you." And then . . . defeat Azula too. Somehow. And then, search for Aang.
. . . no. Aang's dead. That's why he's here.
Ozai's laughter echoes through the canyon where his son has waited to challenge him. Aang should be here, instead of sealed - no, dead. But he is. And so it cannot be helped.
"And then what, lead the people in a grand revolution of peace?" The former Fire Lord - Zuko doesn't know what he's calling himself now - sneers again. "You think they will follow you, when they thirst as much as their lord for conquest? I am not the only firebender eager to see the Earth Kingdom burn, Zuko. You think my warriors will turn and follow you back to the Fire Nation like docile sheep-pigs? You underestimate your own people."
Zuko only stands, waiting for the first blow. When it comes, he barely manages to block it - Ozai's fireblasts, even at this range, sear him with a heat nearly impossible to fend off. But if he's to find the Avatar, he must survive this, because Aang is still -
And therein lies the conundrum. Because why is he looking for the Ava - Aang, if Aang is dead?
If that's the reason he's fighting his father, and not Aang?
No - Aang's not dead - he's . . . he's hidden. Hiding. Did he run away? No, somebody - somebody has him. For a moment, the canyon inferno framing his father disappears. Oily green-black, pulsating, horrible walls, a city awash in a nauseating luminescence. There. There the Avatar is.
There's more missing, but Zuko doesn't have time to remember it. Ozai is attacking and it's all he can do to evade. His clothes catch fire. He
There's no way he can win this. He has to find the Avatar. That city -
Pulsating walls. Vents - so many vents. A city with stairs going every which way.
This isn't his father. This isn't his battle.
Ozai leaps at him, fist blazing.
Zuko drops his sword and watches the blow coming.
"Nice try. But I've got an Avatar to find."
The canyons luminesce into a twisted cityscape.
Ozai is gone.
And Zuko has only begun to fight.
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But he managed because the third thing was that it was hot. Not the hot and moist that Stacy always was, but the dry heat of fire. He pushed himself up, staring around at the pod cavern he found himself in. The pods were open, contents burning. Some of them were already burned beyond recognition, but others--others he could see faces.
Faces he knew.
Ev? he said, voice sounding small even to himself. Ange? He struggled to get up to a kneeling position, body and mind refusing to obey his orders. Wh...what the fuck's 'appened 'ere? Why... It took a moment to place what it felt like. Stacy, why're there dampeners up? The very idea scared him. Almost as much as those faces he knew in the pods.
"You happened." A gleaming figure stepped out of the flames, face twisted in anger. Not the one he'd seen at the last podpop, but one he knew from home. The flames reflected off the planes of Paige Guthrie's face. "You lost control. Went up like a Roman candle on the fourth o' July. I don' even know what set you off!"
Neither did he, and that scared him. Paige... That couldn't have happened, right? But it would explain the dampeners and why he felt so out of it. I don'...I didn'...
She laughed, a cruel and heart-broken sound. "Wasn't bad enough we had to see 'em die once, but you had ta kill 'em before they ever had a chance. You're no friend," she spat at him. "You're too dangerous to live."
There was something he needed to remember. Something that would make all of this...better? No, that was impossible. There was no better from this. His best friend was dead. Again. And this time, the blame lay directly at his feet.
Jono tried to get up, only making it half way before the dampening of his powers kicked in again. He was made entirely of his powers, after all. Dampening them meant that every bit of energy he lived on was suppressed.
He only made it about half way before the lack of energy he could access kicked in, sending him tipping forward and straight back to the floor. His last sight was Angelo and Everett burning in their pods and understanding that the flames were approaching where he lay as well.
Then he lost the battle to stay conscious at all.
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Fortunately, he's a strong boy, but it's still slow going.
"Hey. HEY. Wake up."
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The voice and the mind near his makes Jono stir slightly, eyes blinking open but not exactly focused. Wha...? Yeah, he's not doing too well at the moment.
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Except...that didn't make a lot of sense, did it? He hadn't heard it from Stacy. Stacy had, in fact, been very quiet about the whole thing.