Amelia, Ch 348- Sabah
I cringed as we we stood there watching Beth's pixie army. The tiny creatures were ruthless, needlessly brutal nightmares, as if they felt the need to compensate for their small size in sheer viciousness. Spears the size of sewing needles stabbed into the eyes of the gunmen. Bursts of energy used to set hair or clothes on fire. The pixies stopped long enough to cut their fingers off. Those speaking over their radios received even worse treatment, as the creatures used their imitations of magic to force open their mouths and attack their tongues until they couldn't be used.
Our Tinker tech vision and hearing enhancers left very little to the imagination. We could watch and hear the battle as if we were standing in the middle of it. Screams of terror, complete with a sequence of subtitles for those screaming in Spanish. We were spared too much of the visual, as the broken bodies of the guards were left behind in favor of those still offering resistance inside. This morning, if I was told I would feel this much pity for drug dealers, I wouldn't have believed it.
"I... I can't really control my powers any better than that," Beth stated to us. Her voice was one of quiet horror. Her words an apology, a plea for us to forgive her for the cruelty going on in front of us, fear that we would hate her. I placed a hand on her shoulder, to try and comfort her what little I could as she stared forward at the pain her power was inflicting. "It's all I can do to ensure they won't kill anyone."
"Lizardtail, you will be able to heal them, correct?" Citrine asked, glancing at her other companion.
"Shouldn't be a problem," he responded. "They're still alive, even if some are probably deep in shock right now."
"Worst case scenario, we can contact Gaea for help," I offered.
"May I ask why they're so," Citrine paused to find a word.
"Horrific beyond all reason?" Beth offered quietly after a minute. Even through the pair of suits, I could tell she was shaking as she refused to take her eyes off the battlefield, watching every atrocity the pixies were inflicting to those people who had committed the most grievous crime their little minds could comprehend. That of being an enemy of their goddess.
"Honestly, I've seen worse," Citrine responded casually. "I was curious about how oddly thorough they are in their methods. They clearly have a logic to their attacks, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand what it is."
"Mind if I?" I asked Beth. She nodded after a moment. "Her summons are mostly autonomous, but not really intelligent. Sort of like small AIs. They view everything through a fairy tale filter. The guns are seen as 'sorcerous weapons', and the radios they understand as some kind of summoning stone. That's why they attack that way, to stop the enemy from using their magic to fight back."
"Why don't they attack the equipment?" The one in the blue-green costume asked.
"Because my stupid power thinks magic items are more valuable than human lives," Beth answered, her voice bitter and pained. "That's how fantasy stories work. Entire armies can be destroyed without remorse or pity, as if one stupid trinket makes all those deaths worth the cost. It doesn't even matter what the magic item does, the magical equivalent of a personal cloaking device is worth more than thousands of nameless peasants. I can't believe I ever thought those stories were good."
A series of small explosions echoed the inside of the building.
"They're using Tinker tech grenades," Citrine stated, sounding more confused than anything. "Synth must have perfected a safe bomb of some sort. Either that, or they're getting really desperate in there. Will those be effective against your summons?"
"Yes," Beth answered through gritted teeth. "I've lost about ten percent of them already. My power... isn't very intelligent. They won't adapt in time to save themselves. Maybe ten more minutes until it's up to the rest of you to finish the job."
I squeezed her shoulder with my hand, hard enough that she'd feel it through her armor. Which meant enough force that it would have broken her shoulder if she was unarmored. Beth trembled again, as more of her pixies died in the onslaught. Right now, she'd be breathing a combination of Tinker designed chemicals to allow her to keep stable and ignore the pain her power caused.
She'll be bedridden for the rest of the week, maybe longer, when this is over.
There was a time when I hated how weak my power seemed to be, how silly it was to send stuffed animals into battle. A weak power that meant I could never be taken seriously as a hero. I'd learned how stupid that was, how much worse it could be. There were ugly, painful powers out there. Some were hard to control, like Dubstep. Some came with a price that hurt their owners, like Elle. And some were so dangerous that using them meant you were choosing to risk the lives of your targets, like Lily. Beth was the only one I knew afflicted with all the above.
"Dubstep, Clotho, we move forward, secure the entrance. Othello, Genius Loci, you stay here to protect Anima until we know their device is safe for you." Citrine commanded. "Is there anything we can do to improve your summons' chances inside?"
"Not really," Beth replied. "Maybe something that boosts their energy attacks... if they hit harder, their victims will go down faster. Maybe they won't feel the need to mutilate the fallen so thoroughly." She didn't sound hopeful about that possibility.
"You hear that, Jacklight?" Citrine asked.
"Can do, Citrine," he responded. "Just as soon as you get me a way around the barricade."
"Already working on it," she responded, already taking off toward the entrance. "I've never seen anything like this before. ETA around ten minutes."
I followed her reluctantly. I wanted to stay behind and comfort Beth, help her through the physical and emotional hell. But the sooner we completed this mission, the sooner we could get her somewhere to recover. And the more pixies survived, the faster she could recover. The best thing I could do to help her right now would require leaving her.
The building itself wasn't that big- I'd seen larger gas stations. Which hid the part where it went at least six stories deep down into the mountain below. There was always the worrying possibility of escape tunnels, and no way for us to know if they existed or not. But if Minerva went through this much effort on this mission already, I was certain she'd consulted Dinah about the odds. So I'd just have to trust that what we were doing was fated to work out.
My armor told me that, by some stroke of luck, one of the men had gone unnoticed by the pixie army. I fired a small burst into the wooden crate he took shelter inside and tugged with my power, splintering it and pulling him out by his clothes. He screamed and fought against the bindings that were his clothes, crying like a terrified child rather than a man that was obviously older than I was.
Citrine actually backhanded him. "Look at me, coward," she spat the words. There was more to that than just her trying to get information. She was honestly angry at the man, disgusted by him. Not the scariest behavior I'd seen in capes.
Maybe something to do with her Trigger?
He whimpered, and I dropped my control on his clothes. <Please don't kill me! I just work here! Take the drugs and money, it's all yours!>
My suit didn't think he was lying, so when Citrine kicked him, I had to speak up. "That's enough!" I insisted. "We have powerful Thinkers on our side, we don't need to resort to torture to get information."
Citrine looked toward me, then back to the terrified man. "Fine," she relented, but she didn't stop staring down our captive. We waited mostly in silence, the only noises were the weak cries and moans of those the pixies had maimed around us, and the occasional bursts of noise from deeper in the underground complex.
The ground shuddered. For a brief moment, I thought it was an earthquake, but my armor's instruments flashed warnings of a localized explosion beneath us. I took flight immediately, but wasn't nearly fast enough. A thousand screaming voices erupted around me as the ground splintered, tendrils of rainbow light pouring from the cracks and engulfing the area. Thousands of hands and faces scattered across the mass seemingly at random, crawling their way across the landscape.
A powerful set of jaws clamped down on my leg while making a noise somewhere between a growl and a cry of pain. A new pair of arms sprouted from the eyes of the face, digging into my suit. Armor that had been tested against Alexandria's strength was torn, exposing my leg. Dozens of alerts flashed across my HUD, letting me know my armor was being critically damaged or destroyed pretty much everywhere at once by the grasping limbs.
I was pulled into the writhing mass of limbs and facial features that covered the landscape below.
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A/N- Poor Beth... if only she were a psychotic masochist with a love of overacting... then she'd be able to enjoy her powers...
And if Dethklok were here, Beth's power would be worth of an album.
my god what were the Elite doing?making super Lsd.
