elseworldexiles | Darkness is Light

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Darkness is Light

He smelled them. The familiar scent drew him like a bee to honey;melting away from the Queen while she consulted Marius. He has been a lurking shadow since then, out of sight, biding his time with the self-proclaimed promise of violence. He knew they were far from fond of each other, and now they are in disarray while the blood of Yeshua coats the stone floors in a macabre mosaic of Mystique's making.

Now, when their alliance hangs by the most precarious of threads, is when he strike; and he will take her out, the strongest first.

Teeth and claws, bone and flesh, reveal themselves in split-second anticipation of deadly impact.

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"I'm sorry Mom."

The flames die down. For a moment the Witch does nothing. Then she stirs.

"Father?" she says in a little-girl voice. "Pietro? It--it hurts. Why does it hurt?"

"Oh man," Alison murmurs. The Witch is suffering. She may be a monster but she wasn't always. Even on her world, the woman had been driven to her insanity by the actions of others. It is time to release her. "Wanda, it's not going to hurt anymore. And Pietro will be waiting for you on the other side."

Alison dodges the snake again then spreads her hands out in front of her, palm downward, thumbs hooked together. The Solid light lasers fire from her hands in a flat pattern, disc shaped. It is aimed for Wanda's neck.

Wanda doesn't seem to be paying attention, but her hand snaps up, a hex sphere springing up around her. Against the sphere, the laser-disc shatters, fragments falling to the floor and winking out one by one.

"I can't make it stop, Pietro," the Witch says within the sphere. "I can't make it stop. It won't let me. Please, please make it stop?"

From a darkened archway, a new figure enters the scene.
Gaunt and harrowed, his pale eyes remain sharp and alert as he silently looks about the room.

His gaze falls upon the parody of Wanda and emerald lightning leaps forth from his hand.

The sphere holds, but it trembles. The mad Witch looks up.

"Stephen?" she whispers. "Stephen, I can't help you. Please help me?"

Her pleading expression is replaced by a bestial snarl, and her hands come up again, but more slowly than before--

Filthy demons.

It's time they were send back to the pit and the body of one of his dearest friends put to rest.

Bolts of Bathalk? No. The Crimson Bands? No.

He has something more specific in mind. The Montesi Formula. (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/montesi.htm)

Without the Darkhold, it lacks the power to unravel the curse of Vampirism everywhere, but it is more than enough to lay to rest a single blood drinker. As he remembers, it's also quite painful...

His harsh and scratchy voice is barely more than a whisper, but the room shakes with his words nonetheless.

Unspeakable agony twists her face and wracks her body as the sphere cracks and shatters, fragments of chaos magic scattering to all corners. The light snake screams and fades, and the vampire baby howls again for its "mother." Or perhaps its nanny.

In her dying moments, Wanda manages a whisper of her own: "Miro pralo...."

The body of the Witch dissolves and mingles with the dust. Quicksilver's beloved twin has gone, to whatever reunion or reward or punishment awaits her.

Strange makes a swift slashing movement with his hand and whispers a short phrase. The word 'Oshtur' can be picked out of his strained incantation.
The errant shards of Chaos are suddenly grounded into a golden circle of Order. The result is a brief flash of brilliant light as the two opposites cancel each other out.

Strange's feet alight on the ground next to the amorphous pool of living blue that is Mystique. He suddenly plunges his hand deep into the pool. Impossibly deep given that the pool is but an inch thick. Even so he sinks his arm in up to the elbow. There is a moment pause as he fishes around for 'something' and then suddenly he wrenches his arm violently out of the azure goo. A squirming red and purple thing struggles vainly to escape in Strange's grasp. An imp.

he rasps, and the thing suddenly ignites in violet fire. As the monster burns and screeched horribly in his grasp, Strange hold the thing fast until it is nothing more that ash.

Free of the curse, Mystique finds herself regaining control of her morphic form.

But he's now looking at Strange, as he does not WANT to look at the howling Witch mess.

The puddle slowly pulls together, eventually forming ito a naked blue woman. She's not quite the Mystique they know. She could be twenty years younger, the hard angles in her face rounder, the cut muscles of her arms and abs replaced by softer curves.

She gropes on the floor for her pips.

When the witch dies, Silver just collapses to the ground. The strain of fighting against the thing has been wearying. The curse had been keeping her going.

Oh God. She killed Dani.

"Oh.." That line is starting to slip from her.

That thing is still wailing. Crying for its mother who is now nothing more than dust. Not that she was actually its birth mother. Alison grits her teeth and walks over to the thing, refusing to see it as a baby. It was once but no more. Now it is a tiny monster who will grow into a big one and kill more people. Cause more despair and pain.

There is a flash of light and the screaming stops. Alison turns back to the group, walking away from the tiny body as it silently collapses into dust.

Ordinarily, naked Mystique would kick Morph into hubba-hubba mode, but the gruesomeness of this scene, added to her earlier murder of an innocent kid, has actually managed to dampen his libido, for the time being.

"Let's get this done.."

Spider-Man, for his part, seems disaffected by the carnage.

"Welcome back, Doc. We missed you."

He turns to the others. "Now we stand a chance."

Spiderman's voice causes a light to go on in his eyes where there was nothing but cold wrath before.

Suddenly he sees the others.

Mystique's fingers close over the pips. A brief look of relief fights with a flash of calm. In a second, it's over. She stands, shifting subtly from her bare neutral form into the harder edged SHIELD agent they've seen so far. The pips are carefully placed in her collar, where the flesh grows around them, holding them in place.

"Stephen Strange."

Great. Another one of these nuts.

"Thank you."

There is a puzzled pause first.

Social niceties seem alien and long ago.

His hand passes over his eyes. Even in this shadowy place the lights still hurt.

Crap. He's in worse shape than the rest of them. She finds a relatively dry cigarette and lights it. After a single long drag, she offers it to Strange and lights herself a second.

"Doctor," keep it formal, remind him who he is, then interrogate...shit. No, no, that's the hunger speaking.

"What you did to the Princess - is there a way to create a broader effect? Something that might take out all the vampires in the castle?"

"Steven."

Silver, for just a moment, wavers on the edge of actually being truly emotional. There /might/ even be a quiver of a lip in there somewhere. She carefully pushes herself up from the floor. "God, Steven, it is good to see you alive still."

Morph's own horror makes him feel a little better about his own. He's done some awful things, but they've mostly been accidental. Self-defense, monster-killing... they're good reasons. Justified reasons.

This is still horrible. Hopefully Strange can wish it all away.

Come on, Tallus. Speak to me.

Strange is awash in startled recognition. Silver's voice makes him pause and he stares at her intently. His hand half raises to touch her white hair, his eyes lost in recollection, but he forestalls the gesture and withdraws his hand as if touching Sable's locks would burn him. He quickly averts his eyes from her as a shadow of old pain surges in his heart. He unconsciously rubs he bare finger where his wedding ring used to rest.

Then he notes Mystique's offer of a cigarette. Against expected character he takes it. Rather than bring it to his mouth however he walks over to the gory remains of Logan.

Holding the smoldering tobacco before him he gestures over it and the ember blooms into a flower of fire. The blaze spring from the now blackened cigarette and alights in Strange's palm. It dances and crackles with a life all it's own. A word from Strange and the tiny elemental leaps from its perch and dives into the grisly remains spread over the floor, burring as it touches. Soon there is nothing but ash and bone. There will be no regeneration.

As the fire dies down, Strange's face is filled with sadness and he whispers a funeral poem fitting for the Samurai he once knew.

He turns back to the group.

--------------------------------

His head bows. Such an unrelenting atmosphere of horror and sadness.

"Where is the Darkhold?"

He rubs his temple, trying to clear the spider webs of disorientation.

With a look of bleak determination he returns his gaze to the level of thier eyes.

A series of harsh painful sounding syllables are uttered and his eyes loose focus. Then, he points in an eastern direction.

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Darkness is Light

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