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Post by Storm on Oct 17, 2004 9:54:19 GMT -4
Having left the lower levels of the mansion for Logan to explore, Storm found herself wandering one of the upper wings. Although she knows she should be keeping an eye out for something out of the ordinary, or at least for the others to regroup, her mind is preoccupied with what had happened earlier with Logan, among other things. There had been something there, in his eyes, and even thought she denied it even to herself, it wasn’t the look, but the feeling it instilled in her.
This isn’t right. I’m just projecting. It’s simply that I know this alternate version of me had feelings for him, and I’m simply looking too hard to find the cause of them.
Peering into yet another darkened doorway, Storm barely glanced around the dishevelled room before continuing on her way. She dared not flick the lights, for fear that it may announce their presence and draw SHIELD back for a second round.
If they could take out the whole mansion, sneak in without alerting the Professor, then what chance would the few of us have against them? I just hope that everyone is alright, that this was just a search and capture mission.
Frowning as her mind began to create visions of all the worst scenarios, it took a few moments for Storm to realize that she was no longer alone in the dark hallway. Stopping in her tracks, she listened closely, quite certain that she could hear a faint, ragged breathing.
“Hello? Is someone there?” she called, her voice echoing in the silent hall. Although she managed to keep the note of fear from her voice, it remained in her heart.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 17, 2004 12:29:21 GMT -4
It kept to the shadows.
Especially now, it knew it had to be careful. A moment of anger and arrogance had put the creature called Proteus in unexpected danger. Safe now, but watchful and wary. It peered cautiously through the darkened corridors and moved in silence. Up the stairs. Out of the lower halls.
It needed to get away from this house.
It...he... was powerful. Beyond belief. But his power consumed him, burnt up his body from inside. It forced him to take the body of another. And without the nourishing energies in the doctor's lab - now cut off from him for good because of the intruder he had locked inside - it was only a matter of time before the body he now wore was useless to him.
Before he had to kill again to stay alive. And he would. Without hesitation or a second thought, he would...because to lose the body meant a return to oblivion. Another death. Proteus would kill a thousand times before he ever let that happen again.
He...it...paused to listen. Another shadow among shadows. Watchful for the men with guns, for despite the power coursing within him they could easily destroy him. Once more, Proteus cursed the doctor and his betrayal - the blackened skin that would never allow it to walk freely among its prey.
It thought of Jennie Banks, of the beauty and the utter glory of taking over and devouring the teenage girl's mind and flesh. Its dreams of casually taking such prey now marred like its horrific appearance. Finding and taking such a prize was far more difficult. A grim expression lined its face. If the infernal doctor weren't already dead, Proteus would have killed him again.
A figure moving at the end of the darkened hallway, made the creature stop and watch. It caught its breath and stood for a moment, frozen, unable to believe what it saw through borrowed eyes. Unable to believe its good luck.
And it knew. In only a heartbeat it knew. Jennie Banks had overwhelmed him with her beauty and her femininity, but she was only a very normal young girl. The woman before him now was...an angel...a goddess. Slowly, a twisted smile leered out from the shadows beneath glowing yellow eyes.
It spoke slowly in a voice barely above a whisper, somehow menacing in its softness.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"Hello,....pretty....."[/glow]
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Post by Storm on Oct 17, 2004 15:55:43 GMT -4
Holding her breath, Storm was about to chock the sound up to her nerves and move on, when suddenly her eyes spied something in the darkness. Two piercing yellow eyes not far from where she stood. Frozen in place, she felt a shiver of pure fear run up her spine at the two whispered words that cut through the silence like a knife.
The shadows still hid the intruder from her, but from the pale moonlight that filtered through a nearby window, she could see enough to know that something wasn’t right. Maybe it was just a feeling, but she had a hard time thinking of this figure as a he, as opposed to an it.
“Who are you?” she demanded, forcing power and confidence in her voice that she did not feel at the moment.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 18, 2004 0:54:56 GMT -4
The creature let go a low, soft chuckle. Its glowing eyes moved slowly up and down the length of her body like a starving man surveying a feast. The grin that gleamed white against the charred and ruined face it wore was a grotesque leer.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"Me?"[/glow], it asked in mock surprise. Its tone became all menace. [glow=yellow,2,300]"I'm Jack the Ripper, luv."[/glow] Proteus could sense her power and her strength. He could see her beauty. The thought of stealing them from her was intoxicating. Arousing. The thought of tearing into her mind was exhilarating.
In every sense, he wanted her.
He began to move toward her, stepping out into the mansion's foyer. Though the creature emerged from the darkened hallway, the dim light did nothing to illuminate its features.
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Post by Storm on Oct 18, 2004 16:13:25 GMT -4
Holding her head high, keeping her jaw set despite the menacing words, Storm stood her ground. For a moment they faced off, neither moving, until the creature made the first move forward.
“Stay where you are!” Storm quickly commanded, accenting her order with a loud clap of thunder followed closely by a bright flash of lightening. A flash that illuminated the hallway, and gave her her first clear look at the intruder. And the sight that greeted her was the very face that nightmares sprang from. Although it wore a SHIELD uniform, it was barely recognizable as a man. The yellow eyes glowed from hollow sockets in a charred and blackened face. The grin was deformed and grotesque, and the pure evil that seemed to emanate from it seemed to increase with her strong words.
Frozen in terror for only a moment, the Weather Witch acted on pure instinct when she raised one hand and sent a strong gust of wind at the being before her, sending him hurtling backwards through a set of french doors. Her eyes clouding over white, she forced herself to follow the path she had sent him on, with the intention of getting him as far from the mansion as possible... or doing what she had to do to keep him away from the others.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 18, 2004 18:02:52 GMT -4
The momentary shock and disorientation of being cast suddenly through the glass doors faded all too quickly. The dark form chuckled as it slowly regained its feet on the moonlit lawn. The winds the dark woman cast at the creature seemed only to concern it as she first cut loose with them. Now the gusting currents appeared almost to avoid the hideous spectre, moving speedily around it or through it but hindering it not at all. It stood and began admiring her efforts with the air of someone enjoying the fresh air and daisies on a bright summer day.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"No' bad, no' bad",[/glow] Proteus said through its hideous grin. It spoke in a voice that had a noticeable brogue. [glow=yellow,2,300]"...fer a girl.... "[/glow] [glow=yellow,2,300]"Ye want ta play a little b'fore mealtime....", [/glow]it said as its leer grew wider, [glow=yellow,2,300] "I'll play wi' ye."[/glow]
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Post by Storm on Oct 18, 2004 18:14:19 GMT -4
Momentarily surprised by the fact that her winds seem to be having no effect on the creature, Storm increased them, but to no avail. As it spoke to her, she had to suppress a shudder at the expression on its face, and the implication of its words.
“I’m not in the mood for games,” she replied, keeping her voice steady. Her white hair whipping wildly around her face, she felt no cold as the temperature suddenly dropped. Then the hail started.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 19, 2004 11:24:57 GMT -4
Proteus held out a charred and blackened hand and looked up at the sky with a mild expression of concern.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"D'ye think it might rain?",[/glow] he asked as hailstones pelted the body he wore and frigid rain came with it. The display of power that would have sent a normal man running for cover in shock and awe seemed only to amuse the distorted creature. Despite the rain, he didn't get wet.
The creature cocked its head to one side and shrugged. Its exaggerated expression said, "Oh, well. Guess we'll see" .
The torrent that the goddess brought out of the sky cut all but the space between them off from their vision like curtains. Flood waters began to collect into puddles and spreading pools across the manicured lawn. Proteus threw back the head of the SHIELD agent he killed and began laughing at her inability to harm him. As he continued to laugh, he threw his arms out wide to his sides and began spinning in circles over and over like a nightmarish Julie Andrews singing about the sound of music.
His nauseating and haphazard trajectory brought Proteus under one of the eaves of the mansion where he stood for a moment and pretended to shake off the vertigo brought on by his pirouettes in a wildly exaggerated manner. Water poured from a loosened gutter and spilled over his blackened form. Still, it never actually touched his drawn and ruined skin.
Suddenly, he appeared to get an idea.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"Ye might like this!",[/glow] he said, his dead and glowing yellow eyes flashing a disturbing boyish mischief. [glow=yellow,2,300]"I just learned it!"[/glow] He reached into the stream of water that poured off of the house and it solidified at his touch. When he withdrew his hand, he inexplicably held a walking cane.
And Proteus began to dance. He did an astonishingly bad rendition of the dancing from "Singin' In The Rain" that in another place among other people might have been funny and charming. In this place, it was anything but funny. It was quite disturbing indeed.
As she watched in disbelief, Proteus ended his dance with a grand bow and an absolutely terrifying smile.
[glow=yellow,2,300]"Never had one lesson.",[/glow] he said with a mocking laugh.
The hiss of the rain began to change.
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Post by Storm on Oct 19, 2004 15:09:09 GMT -4
As the creature shrugged off her assault with a careless question, Storm’s determination began to fade. Although she had only touched on her arsenal of elements, nothing seemed to affect him. As he began spinning rapidly toward the mansion, she found herself backing away, keeping a constant distance between them.
Everyone, everything, has a weakness. I simply have to find his.
Standing her ground, Storm watched as the being began to dance, a strangely disturbing yet fascinating site to behold. Increasing the hail to the size of baseballs, and the rain that accompanied growing colder, the Weather Witch found herself shuddering despite herself. This thing couldn’t be human. But then, what was it? What did it want? And how could she defend herself and the others against it if its ‘playful’ mood suddenly shifted?
“You don’t say. I would never have guessed it,” she replied, forcing a note of sarcasm into her voice. It was at that moment that she noticed a change in the weather, the rain, which she had not implemented...
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Post by mutantx on Oct 19, 2004 15:56:16 GMT -4
The rain continued to fall heavily around them. At first, nothing was noticeably different except the sound of it - which became more muffled....hollow sounding.
The gathering pools that covered the ground began to run red.
What started from the thunderclouds she had gathered above as rain and hail sped toward the ground metamorphosed into....
something else.
Instead of water and ice, it was tadpoles and tiny fish. Small crustaceans and insects. By the second the rain was changing, and what it was changing into was steadily moving up the evolutionary scale. The tiny creatures burst as they met the ground, which was quickly covered in growing numbers of their carcasses.
The ground around them was covered in blood.
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Post by Storm on Oct 19, 2004 16:29:39 GMT -4
Furrowing her brow in confusion, Storm’s eyes returned to their clear blue as she finally tore her eyes away from the creature. Turning her questioning gaze to the sky that usually obeyed her command, it took a few seconds for her to place the object that were now falling from the night sky. As the fish fell from the sky, slowly morphing into larger creatures, her wide eyes quickly flew back to the source of the madness.
“How are you doing this?” she asked, her tone disbelieving. It was like a living nightmare, one from which she could not awake. And for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out if this was really happening, or if it was all in her head.
Suddenly she felt something drop on her foot, and a warm liquid splashed onto her bare calves. Looking down at her feet, she gasped in terror at the blood that pooled all around her, the deformed carcasses floating everywhere.
“Stop this!” she screamed, quickly taking to the air. The rain of blood and bodies continued around her, now beyond her control, but her only thought was to get out of the lake of crimson that was once the front lawn. She was covered in blood, even her immaculate silvery white hair was stained red and hung limply around her shoulders. The only thing that was not painted was the fierce white that had returned to her eyes. “I don’t know how you’re doing this, but I will not let you continue!”<br> As thunder rolled loudly around them, she sent a bolt of lightening straight at the figure that stood below her.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 19, 2004 18:04:11 GMT -4
He spun around quickly and held a grisly black hand up as the lightning bore down on him. A look of determined concentration crossed the features on his stolen face.
The lightning stopped.
It didn't leave, it didn't hit....it just stopped fractions of an inch away from his open palm. Even more strangely and eerily, the rain and winds around them stopped too. They hung motionless in the air as their mistress did.
All was deafening silence broken only by an occasional drip of water into blood.....and a disappointed sigh.
Proteus closed his yellow eyes and shook his ravaged head. [glow=yellow,2,300]"Didn't ye ever wonder what 'cats and dogs' really looked like?",[/glow] he asked her. He sounded devastated that they might never find out. The ghoulish figure opened its eyes once more and stepped closely alongside the lightning bolt, stopped in time. From where she watched, he was partly obscured by the bolt itself as he looked first to one end, then back to the other.
All she could see of his face was his eyes and above. His eyebrows raised. [glow=yellow,2,300]"How d'ye like that?",[/glow] he asked softly.
He stepped once more in front of it, the motionless bolt of electrical nergy directed at him like a spear. He reached out with a finger and touched the point of it.
Proteus turned and gave the flying woman a wide and toothy grin.
With a thumb and an index finger, he snapped the point of the lightning bolt off. It made a scritching sound like broken styrofoam.
He held the piece up for a moment and looked at it, the light that it gave off illuminated his face almost not at all. Then he tossed it into his mouth like popcorn. For several seconds, he chewed it noisily in his silent surroundings. [glow=yellow,2,300]"Could use some garlic."[/glow], he said to himself.
Without warning or indication, the world around them began to move once more. The rain and winds, the lightning - which shot now harmlessly into the ground with a shower of sparks, all resuming their former courses to a deafening roar.
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Post by Storm on Oct 20, 2004 11:33:30 GMT -4
Just a mere moment before the lightening was to strike the creature, everything stopped. The rain of blood, the howling wind, all ceased moving as if the pause button was pressed on life itself. Storm found that she was still held aloft, although the winds were no longer moving to keep her there.
This can’t be happening! How is any of this possible? It is as if he is bending reality itself! How can I compete with that? How can I fight back when nothing affects him?
As he turned and grinned at her, the deformed face stretching grotesquely, Storm felt an almost nauseating feeling in her stomach, and his following actions only increased it. He was able to pluck her weapon from the air with no more effort than a small child picking a flower.
Suddenly, the world began turning again, and it took a moment for Storm to reorient herself in the air once more. She was quickly losing hope, and running out of ideas. Hoping to catch him off guard as the lightening sparked at his feet, she rose a small whirlwind around him, quickly increasing in size, hoping to lift him into the air and send him as far from there as possible.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 21, 2004 10:37:17 GMT -4
As the winds tore around him Proteus stood defiant. A silhouette with a hideous smile and glowing yellow eyes.
[glow=yellow,2,300]“My thanks to ye for the appetizer, luv”,[/glow] he taunted her in a mockingly reassuring tone. [glow=yellow,2,300]“But I’m so much more int’rested in the main course.”[/glow] Unaffected by the whirlwind that closed in on him and buffeted his body with increasing fury, he reached out and thrust his hands into the swirling vortex.
For a moment, the whirlwind itself simply stopped.
Then, everything around it began to spin instead, the now impossibly still whirlwind was the spoke around which the rest of the world around them spun.
Proteus erupted into hysterical laughter.
All sanity ceased to exist. The spinning went totally and unpredictably out of control.
Around the figure of the flying woman, down became up. Up became down. The rain and winds spun crazily and tried to catch up with the shift in gravity itself.
The very air around her shrieked and moaned like an audio recording blasted through loudspeakers and changing speeds, getting louder and louder as it slowed and became a horrifying and excruciating low frequency rumble.
She had no time, no way, no reason to know how to react and crashed heavily and uncontrolled into the ground above her.
Proteus was lost in his own horrific laughter, seeming not to notice that the exertion of his power was quickly burning up his borrowed form.
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2004 6:03:10 GMT -4
His choice of words, the tone he used, was enough to make Storm’s blood run cold. She, by no means, had any power to prove her feeling, but there seemed to be no good in this creature, no fear, which suddenly made the fight not just difficult, but pretty much impossible.
“Well, I’ve already eaten, so I’m afraid you’ll have to find different company,” she shot back, although she had a good idea what he was insinuating.
Suddenly, everything stopped again. Storm only had a brief moment to try to figure out if there was a way to use this to her advantage when the world began spinning again, only this time much more noticeably. The creature seemed to be the centre of the axis, once again unaffected by the show of power. But instead of mocking her, this time he used her own abilities against her. The sound of the winds, the rolling thunder, became so distorted that it was painful to listen to. Covering her ears with her hands, Storm felt a sudden lurch as everything seemed to reverse. Direction no longer had any meaning, and she could feel her own mind seem to slip away with the chaos around her. Then gravity, or the earth itself, seemed to reverse, and Storm felt herself plummeting upwards to where the ground now was. Unable to react, she cried out in pain as she hit, her shoulder popping out of joint and her arm making a sickening crack. Cradling it against her chest, she curled up into a ball, willing herself to awake from the horrid nightmare she had fallen into.
I have to keep moving... but to where?
Opening her eyes, even the mansion appeared distorted. But she had nowhere else to go. She couldn’t even fly away.
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