Heroes: Shadows over Millenium

[SirNitram]

A Freak could feel the pain of the living chair, and was responding. Walking quickly into the place everyone was forbidden to go, Sculptor dripped and lost chunks of flesh, constantly replenished by his power as he oozed.

Ghost's plea for reinforcements caused a smile to briefly form. No doubt the Normal wasn't thinking of him. No matter. He had stood by while this madness had continued long enough.

Sculptor wasn't a fighter. He was a man who was out of his depth in the metaphorical wading pool of being a Metahuman. But the suffering he saw hurt him, and he darted forward. He was going to get shot, he was sure of that, but the key was to keep going after you got shot, after the pain tried to get to your mind...

A hand touched the living chair, and there was a godawful sound of bones snapping and flesh tearing as Sculptor tried to counteract the hellish existance the other Freak had forced on the victim. A painful death was going to be more merciful.

[Charon]

Legacies tore through the last of the blockage, leaving the debris to the sides. The tunnel was still extremely unstable but Legacies had other matters to deal with, and hopefully the massive amount of debris and creaking sounds would keep people from using the tunnel. Then again. Legacies turned around, his form shifting as the symbiote expanded to hold the roof up.

"The way is clear Blast, we hear gunfire so go assist him, we are required to keep this from collapsing at the moment."

[Hotfoot]

The crack of gunfire sounded different when echoed down the tunnels of the ruined subway system, more so when slowed down to the frame of reference Hotfoot was familiar to. He veered from his current course, running towards Ghost as Blast added to Ghost's request for help.

"On my way, be there soon." It wasn't long after the message was done playing into everyone's radios, he passed Blast in the tunnel. Before much longer, he arrived on the scene.

[frigidmagi]

Blast ran down the tunnel Legacies indictated and had to plaster himself to the wall to avoid Hotfoot tearing down the hallway.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" He cursed. He would get there way late at this rate.

[B4UTRUST]

The Freak threw himself away from the grenade as it soared through the air. A second later it detonated, filling the room with shrapnel.

And then another Freak showed up. Where he had come from the Freak wasn't sure but it didn't really matter. He got back to his feet, several new wounds gracing his flesh.

When Scupltor started altering his designed, the Freak sneered.
"Betrayer!"

He grabbed the back of one of the chairs and altered the bones in it, extending razor-edged bone spurs that pierced the skin of the helpless victim. He threw the chair towards the door and then rushed Sculptor.

The Freak extended his arms and extended bone-blades from his forearms. As he got closer he moved to slash across the torso of Sculptor.

[SirNitram]

Shrapnel had buried itself in Sculptor, but the damage had avoided any of the vital organs. As a result, flesh just continued to slough off at the same rate. On the plus side, he had the big oaf's undivded attention now...

"I am sorry." Sculptor grunted as he moved, almost dancing, out of the way of the bone-blades. "I can feel your pain. But you will not harm another living thing."

Sculptor's own change was disturbing to behold; feet and shoes were torn away, as his legs extended a pair of bone blades that stabbed into the floor and increased his height. His hands were obliterated in the same manner, turning the artistic Meta into a four-bladed figure. Bones extruded through the skin and flesh sloughing off, forming impromptu armour.

"Fight, normal! Fight for your life!" He yelled, as he began a lethal dance, four blades working in concert to hold off the bigger, nastier Freak.

[Agent Fisher]

Ghost moved back into the door frame, intending to open fire. As he moved another Freak charged in. He reached the door and then threw himself to the side, to avoid the flying razor chair of death. He wasn't fast enough and some of the spurs slashed through his MOPP suit and into his leg. He yelled in pain and fell to the floor.

He kicked the chair off him with his good leg and then began scooting back from the door, his rifle still aimed at it.

"This is Ghost, I'm down." He said into his comm unit.

[Charon]

Legacies shifted his form some as some rubble began to shift again. The symbiote was pushing himself a lot to hold up what was left of the street that had been collapsed. A small group of freaks came running by not longer, heading in the direction that the fight was happening. They came to a stop short as they saw the silver figure standing in what they'd planned to use as their escape route.

Legacies looked up at them. "Go, hurry. We cannot keep this up much longer."

The freaks edged forward some, but were still very worried. Legacies looked at the group. "Now! We are trying to help!"

With only a few more moments of hesitation the group then ran past the silver symbiote, down the crumbling tunnel that was held up by a sheet of silver.

[LadyTevar]

Strapped to a gurney, hurriedly carried along the evaucation route, Lei knew none of what was happening. Yet the emotions in the air, and the voices coming over the earbud were reaching her.

The earbud made the team's chatter seem like it was next to her, voices she couldn't get away from, no more than she could escape the emotions around her. Fear and worry oozed from all around her, making her shiver. It was all around her, stranger's emotions pressing down onto her. It forced her awake, out of the darkness.

A tentacled Freak looked down at her from the end of the gurney, and Lei startled, pulling against the straps that held her safely down. That panicked her, and she started to struggle, which caused a sharp pain in her stomach. That made her gasp and freeze for a moment.

"Easy... you will pull out the stitches..." the Freak said gently. "I am surprised you are awake.... Troll only just stitched you up."

Deep breaths hurt, but she took them cautiously, trying to calm herself down and seperate outside from inside emotions. "... the others?" she asked, but got her own answer from the link to Ghost as well as the earbud.

"This is Ghost, I'm down."

Lei's leg twitched in sympathic pain as she felt his wound, and she once again tried to move against the straps keeping her on the gurney. "... they need me....."

"Hey! Don't do that," the Freak said, and she could feel his honest concern about her. Whatever he looked like, he did not want to see her harm herself. He stopped the gurney underneath a light fixture, moving forward to lean over her. His body blocked the light, casting a shadow over her.

Lei looked him in the eyes, her black-on-black orbs glowing slightly silver. "... tell Troll thank you... and I'm sorry...."

Then she was gone, faded into the shadow, following the pain-filled link to Ghost's position.

[Hotfoot]

The scene in front of Hotfoot as he blazed past Ghost was, to say the least, horrific. Bodies mutilated beyond what would seem physically possible. His aura flared, disgust and anger finally taking the place of guilt and sorrow. His sheild would hopefully keep the freak's fleshcrafting powers from working on him, but there was no need to take chances.

The first blow was a flying dropkick to the freak, the force of the blow accentuated by the followup use of the freak's body as a jumping board. The rebound sent him towards a wall, and his gymnastic instincts kicked in. The next several seconds were full of twisting, dodging motions that rebounded him from wall to wall, on the floor, and occasionally the ceiling. He was mindful to avoid Sculptor as best he could in the process, trying only to inflict grazing shots on his target, letting his speed and shield do the rest.

[SirNitram]

What the energy-wrapped speedster started, Sculptor finished. With a touch, he seemed to disrupt the other fleshcrafter's powers enough that he couldn't recover from the tremendous damage done by the other. As the remnants of the bigger Freak hit the ground, the bone-blades retracted, hands and feet slowly reforming. The bone-plating fell off with a clatter, dissolving in the smaller Freak's wake.

He moved between the furniture, touching each in turn to free the beings from their agony-ridden lives. "I suppose," He said. "You two would be those that caused the evacuation order."

[Agent Fisher]

Ghost got to his feet, hobbling along. He tapped his comm. "Blackheart, this is Ghost. We've killed one of the Freaks we were after. Odds are the rest are gone. My leg is torn up. And last I checked, Argent was being patched up. We need to get some med teams down here." He limped back into the room, looking at the dead freak. "He is dead right?" He asked the other Freak.

[B4UTRUST]

Sirens sounded in the distance. Already the strobing lights of the squad cars were visable at the horizon. The brakish puddles were tinted pink from the steady flow of blood.

The body was staked to the side of the building, metal spikes forced into the brick and morter. Burns were visable across the exposed flesh. The throat was slit. Across the chest was etched three words, carved into the flesh by a sharp blade: Ultima- No More.

The cops found the man's wallet, stripped only of any identifying information. Forensics would identify the body as Frank "Cascade" Pratt, an agent of Ultima.

Several blocks away a man walked unhurriedly through the quiet streets. The collar of his trenchcoat was turned up against a chill wind, his hair hanging in limp spikes. A swordcase was clutched in his right hand.

[Cynical Cat]

"Medical is already on its way," said Blackheart. Fucking Argent. The bitch was really becoming a pain. He looked around the rubble that Legacies had moved around. There was no point in pretending he had strength in Legacies' league.. "I'll let medical know Argent jumped to you. I'm going up for a sweep of the area." With that the meta took to the air.

[SirNitram]

"He and his victims are dead, beyond pain, now." Sculptor nodded simply. He made no other move; the two before him were likely able to either kill him, or at least inflict such massive tissue damage he'd wish they could kill him.

With his own question unanswered, he simply remained still, his face slowly oozing and dripping onto the floor, bit by bit.

[LadyTevar]

"it seems... Blackheart is becoming psychic as well," Argent's voice whispered from one of the shadows near Ghost. Slowly, she stepped out of the shadow, one hand across her stomach in obvious pain, although not a trace of it seeped across to Ghost or Hotfoot.

Her costume was ruined ... a large oval had been cut out from just above her bikini-line to just under her breasts. The view, which included tantalizing glimpses of breasts and cleavage, was ruined by the long angry unhealed red line, criss-crossed by neat but hasty stitches.

Argent knew she should not be on her feet. Even now, she believed she'd split a stitch or two, simply by trying to stand (mostly) straight.

[Hotfoot]

Hotfoot snapped back into the real world once the freak had fallen, his eyes wide as the man hit the floor with a sickening thud. The scene around him finally struck home, especially when Sculptor said that they were all dead. The color drained from his face as he looked on in disbelief. "I...I was just trying to subdue him." He looked at Sculptor, as he went from twisted form to twisted form, doing...something.

"I think so...it's a fucked up situation. I'm not sure exactly what's going on anymore, but we need to get the wounded and lost out before the tunnels completely give way. We also need to get the...get the..." He reached up and rubbed his forehead, grimacing as though in pain. "Fuck, the people that have been going out and killing in their spare time. If we don't, then a whole lot more people are going to get hurt."

He turned and saw Argent, shaking his head. "Wait, what are you doing? You shouldn't be moving, we need to get you, get everyone out of here..." He wavered, his voice fading until he could no longer contain what his body commanded him to do, and he fell to his knees and vomited on the floor, the hastily eaten dinner coming back up. The knowledge that his foe was dead, and horrible things had been done to these people, and Argent appearing again, these things alone could perhaps have been handled, but together, and on top of all the other things that had happened tonight, it was too much.

[Agent Fisher]

Ghost watched Hotfoot vomit. Truth was he left like losing his lunch, but he held it down. He looked at Argent, noticing her costume ripped as it was. He kept his eyes focused on hers, not letting his eyes look at the view. "Goddamn it, Argent. If you have a damn chest wound like that, don't go running off to do something."

[LadyTevar]

"Gravitas is worse..." Argent said softly, grimacing at the smell of vomit. Not that she could blame Hotfoot, the room was nearly as bad as the Astronomer's Lair when it came to auras of pain and torture. Oddly, the Freak who was still there felt ... cleaner. "If you needed medical aid, I was the only option..."

Yes, she was doing this out of duty, dammit. She had to at least try to make up for all the fuckups she'd caused today, even if it killed her.

... They might be better off if she did........

[Agent Fisher]

Ghost scoffed. "I've had worse and had to suffer for longer. Now get yourself back to Ultima Medical, so they can take care of you." He barked at her.

[SirNitram]

"If it will let you help others here..." Sculptor spoke up, reaching into a pocket. Tools appropriate for a literal sculptor of clay were withdrawn. "My primary talent has always been healing, restoring the form... The ability to warp my own to fight is a more painful and unpleasant manifestation, but at times, necessary..."

The Freak took a single step towards Ghost and Argent, looking between them. "I would agree, however, that you need aid first, Miss. Be it from me or your friends."

[Hotfoot]

Hotfoot fought for control, the acid burning the inside of his throat as he knelt on the floor, surrounded by disfigured flesh. His muscles tensed as he finally forced himself to stop. He stood back up, his face showing the strain the night had put him through. He looked at Argent, sorrow and regret in his eyes. "You...need help. I'm sorry, I couldn't bring you back, I couldn't risk making your wound worse. Maybe he can fix what I couldn't."

He didn't look terribly steady on his feet, and a few times, he almost reached out to a wall, but stopped himself short of touching it as he realized what it was.

[LadyTevar]

Argent looked to the tools in the Freak's hands, then up to his face. She felt no sense of malice from him, nothing but an honest concern and desire to be helpful. She looked to Ghost, who was all be commanding her to leave, and then to Hotfoot.

Poor Hotfoot... he'd gotten in far over his head. It might help him if he saw her healed. It would definately help her, as hiding the pain from her teammates was getting harder.

"Ok...," she murmurred... "Someone called Troll stitched me up..."

[Agent Fisher]

Ghost tilted his head. "Who the hell is Troll? You know what, never mind, I don't really care. I don't care if this meta does it or Ultima does, but you need medical help. Now, if we are going to let this guy take care of you, lets get out of this room. I doubt it is the best place to treat wounds."

[Dark Silver]

"Extraction team has been dispatched. They'll reach the target in fifteen minutes."

"Make their orders are clear. If they leave behind even one item, I'll have them jettisoned on the next orbital launch."

"Yes sir."

----

Just outside Millennium City, a black helicopter took to the sky, and headed towards Little Italy.