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Yeshua hangs back for the carnage.

The Queen leaves her youngest vampires down here to season. They don't make it into an apartment of their own until they can brag they've killed at least twenty rebels. It also makes the surviving rebels better hunting. A group making it past this point sets off a little mini-holiday in the castle. Their intestines will be festively strewn about the throne room by this time tomorrow.

But not Laurie's. As long as he keeps behaving, Laurie...she won't be safe, but at least she'll be alive.

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"Y'know, Goldie - it occurs to me that we've technically fulfilled our cryptic mission here. Lightening the Storm Queen's darkness, and all that - seeing as how you're all nice and shiny now."

"Wait, what? HE was the Storm Queen's Darkness? How does that make any sense?"

"I...I'm her healer. I keep her prisoners alive, try to keep the land fertile."

He stares at his hands, marveling at the change in color. "Does this mean something?"

"I'd imagine it might." Silver comes out of a room her usual grey self covered in things that are much more vivid in color. "But I do hope you'll stay and help us get rid of the problem." Her face is still blank, as if none of the carnage here has reached her, except for the blood and other evidence of vampiric demise left on her clothing.

The carnage has definitely reached the S-Man.

He's a little uncertain on his feet.

Just think about the Vulture. They're all the Vulture.

"Yeah. I thought the Storm Queen's EXISTENCE was her darkness, here... "

"You could dye her hair. No, wait. That's darkening the storm queen's lightness. What's supposed to happen if you fulfil this prophecy?"

"We get to move on to the next broken world. Our boss really needs to work on the incentive system."

Mystique leans against the wall, the picture of military parade cleanliness. There are advantages to being a shape shifter.

"You keep these people alive for her?" She raises an eyebrow. "You keep the land in good enough shape for her to maintain her herds?"

Elixr nods.

He doesn't want to. Laurie, the things they'd do to her if he dared disobey... he shudders.

"The alternative is worse." He tells himself this every night. "People would starve. People would die. I've been to Germany." He looks her in the eye, holding her gaze. She really doesn't look any different. It's scary. "The Queen loaned me to the Cassidy's once. I...I hope I die before I see that again."

"I can see to that."

She levels a gun at his head.

"Wait, wait!" Spidey barks.

"He obviously doesn't want to be doing this, all right? Can't you get your murder fix with the vampires?"

"I like that plan." Yeshua gives him a nervous smile.

"He's the key," says Raven. "I can feel it. If we take him out, we take away her ability to rule a fat, docile population."

She doesn't take her eyes off the kid.

"Lightening his skin wasn't enough. It's time we lighten his burdon."

"Forgive me if I don't give a good goddamn about your feelings. He's lighter now, but we haven't gone anywhere. So maybe his powers have changed along with his skin, and he can do something entirely different now... like, I don't know... turning into a monkey. Point is, we're not going to kill any more than we absolutely have to, and even then, we're gonna try to find a way around it."

It's either resolve or guilt talking.

"Try to do your thing, kid. See what happens."

"Um, I can feel everyone in the castle, feel the land outside, the things growing in it. Let me try something. Normally, I can't feel the masters. They're dead, see? Nothing to heal."

He reaches out, searching through the human shaped holes in his awareness of the world around him. The change is more than skin deep. He can feel everything, down to single celled organisms. He can narrow that focus in on one little bacteria floating in the air; make it blossom into a colony or die in place. It's amazing. He reaches out for Laurie, feels the comforting warmth of her presence, even though the two of them are seperated by miles of rock.

The vampires are an offense to his senses. He feels around them, using microorganisms in the suddenly soup-like air as his senses. There's the Queen, in the throne room, playing with...oh. Oh oh oh. She'll punish him, punish Laurie if she finds out he had anything to do with it, but Yeshua gently creates an anuerysm and pops it. It's a mercy.

"I...I can't reach her. I'm trying. I swear, but there's nothing there to reach. My powers are useless on the dead."

"Well, then just hang back and see if you can't heal US if we get killed, huh? I've got a tremendously bad feeling about everything here..."

Silver looks watches the happenings and purses her lips together.

"Either way, we shouldn't just stand around. I only want to give them so much help."

"They won't be thanking us when we're done, Sable. I guarantee it."

"Fine. We're all badasses. Let's GO." With that, he starts to march off toward the next level.

The sooner this horrible mess is over, the better...

Mystique watches Luche Libre sulk off. If she's right, they're done. If she's wrong, well, Goldilocks will be dead soon anyway.

"I'm sorry, kid."

She shoots him in the head.

Yeshua's body slumps down along the wall, a look of genuine shock on what's left of his face.

"Finally. Something here that dies when you shoot it."

Spider-Man spins on his heels at the sound and is instantly horrified.

Then, an immediate webline fires out to snag Mystique and yank her over where he can punch her square in the face.

She takes the blow so she can grab his wrist, just below the Tallus.

"Well? Does it have anything to say?"

"I don't give a shock WHAT it says! We're not gonna go around world-to-world executing sad sack kids who don't know any better!"

The clawed hand reaches to clutch her throat to drive the point home. "I don't care HOW many babies you throw off of cliffs or HOW many hairy psycho mass murderers you fuck! WE WILL NOT BE KILLERS!"

"Moron. Do you think the Timebroker sent us here to help the Storm Queen balance her budget? We're here TO KILL HER." She points at the other Spider-Man and Sable. "They're here to kill her! You don't get to the leader by ignoring the lackeys. Grow some damn balls."

"VAMPIRES! Human PREDATORS! We'll kill THEM because they're shockin' MONSTERS. We're not gonna kill KIDS trying to HELP US, you sick fr-"

His head suddenly jerks to the Tallus, and he shuts up for half a minute.

Then he shakes with rage, and another fist comes right at her nose.

Fuck that.

Her neck snaps straight back at an unnatural angle before he can hit her again. At the same time, her knee comes up towards his balls. If he has any.

They aren't where the knee will find them, as he's already moving with those insane reflexes of his.

"YOU PSYCHOTIC BITCH! You just got us STRANDED HERE!"

He starts to pour out webbing at her, to try to bind her to the floor.

"What?"

Not more of this shit. If they survive one more world, she's going to cut his arms off at the elbow some night.

She tries to twist enough of an angle to keep at least ten centimeters of her body free. It'll take a LONG time, but if there's one thing the raid on Istanbul taught her, it's that she can eventually shift her body through a hole that small.

"The shockin' thing says we FAILED, and the Timebroker's recruiting a whole new TEAM! The fact that we haven't been YANKED yet means we're here 'til we DIE. Thanks a lot, really, for all your help. Enjoy becoming Dracula Chow."

Morph's just aghast - utterly speechless.

The strangers seem to be coming unglued. His danger-sense is starting to tingle. With a touch on Silver's shoulder to warn her of approaching danger, Spider-Man disappears into the shadows.

"No! No!" TJ blurts out, gaze shifting between Spidey, the Tallus on his arm, the dead kid, and her grandmother.

In a desperate motion, she dives towards and into Yeshua's body. He's got a healing factor, right? Maybe a little life inside the body can jumpstart it again. It worked for the hypnotizing!

--C'mon kid!--

Silver takes a few steps back into the shadows as well. Roberto gets a tap on the shoulder as she starts to make her way away from these people. While she'd love to stand around and help them sort this crap out, really she would, she has a little bit of something to do here if she wants to continue living.

It's time to get on with it.

"Back off, Spider," comes Alison's voice as she steps over next to Mystique. "She did what she thought was right. Even if it didn't work, at least she had the guts to act on her convictions." She shakes her head at the entire mess. "If we are stuck here, we're stuck here. But I sure as hell am not going to let this Storm Queen keep control of the land if I'm going to need to find a hovel of my own to settle in for the rest of my life. I say we go finish what we started. Who knows, maybe we can still pull our asses out of the fire if we save this land."

He's done spewing forth now. He's latched himself to the wall, staring at the Tallus. Smacking his forehead against it a couple of times, just in case it's broken.

Raven stares, expressionless, at the body.

"Get out of the corpse, T.J."

"Psycho killer."

Morph's simmering with anger - the fact he's not literally simmering probably means its serious.

Failed.

You could always replace the local version of you....

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