CONCLUSION: brass devil

[ximilian]

// CONCLUSION:BRASS DEVIL 

In the midst of all the chaos and fighting occurring on all floors of the headquarters, the team will suddenly receive a live streaming broadcast through the network. A video conveying the showdown of the events on the top floor: An’alya’s painful death, the shocking realisation of Ruvia Alonetti’s identity — the Orbers will witness through Peter’s eyes as Cheri absorbs An’alya’s magic for herself, Kovacs suddenly surrounded by a red mist that can’t be anything good, and for a moment the situation looks like it’s about to head south, very quickly —

But they witness the orb not responding, and Cheri’s rage that follows before Kovacs tackles her down and shouts for Peter to act... and thankfully, Peter does. Kovacs pays a hefty price for his bravery, and Peter, facing the dreadful choice of protecting the orb or staying back with his teammate, eventually smashes through one of the large windows, bringing with it the sound of static and muffled audio before the video feed is nothing more than a blur of colour.

As the building starts to shake and the ceiling and the walls begin to crumble around them, the team hardly need to hear Peter’s message to know how painfully obvious it is that they’re going to need a little help.

● ● ●

“Even now, you're still so goddamn stupid. People like you will always want to play God. But you're just as fucked up and human as the rest of us.”

Kovacs, heedless of his broken arm and the pain in his abdomen, throws himself across the floor covered in debris and bits of broken glass. He reaches for Cheri’s gun, loosened from her grip during the chaos, and takes aim.

Cheri’s eyes flash with venom as she flicks her hand upwards, materializing a wall of ice to shield her the very moment Kovacs releases the bullet; on impact, the wall shatters into chunks that fall at her feet but Cheri still remains in one piece — this bit of magic had served its function.

“Oh, honey, I never said I wasn’t. I’m just —”

She tilts her head almost lazily as the floor beneath Kovacs’ feet starts to quiver, losing its integrity.

But before she can continue, it’s a shocked intake of breath that finishes her statement as a bullet, silent and undetectable, penetrates her shoulder. An imposingly large figure, Rosinante, appears at the entrance of the room, a wisp of smoke clinging to the barrel of his gun.

“You —”

Cheri starts. She grits her teeth through the pain, the dark stain of her own blood seeping into her clothing for the first time in a long, long time, and her eyes suddenly widen as several others appear behind him: Andy, Yelena, Sabriel and Yzak. Help has arrived.

“I see,” she says, flicking her gaze back to Kovacs again. “So, you called reinforcements. Against little ol’ me? How flattering.”

Sabriel, attempting her sleeping spell, will notice the lack of effect and only Cheri’s delighted laughter. Almost too confident.

“Sorry, darling. You forget that I’m not just Cheri — I’m An’alya and I’m auntie Dnria, and your magic is no match for mine.”

The tension within the room has grown palpable, daring the other person to make the first move. A large chunk of the ceiling suddenly falls, crushing the table in the middle of the space entirely. And that’s the cue — from there, it seems everyone moves at once: Kovacs, Rosinante and Andy all point their guns at Cheri, three shots ringing out in unison.

But Cheri lifts her uninjured hand again and an explosive blast meets the bullets in mid-air, causing shrapnel to fly throughout the room, ricocheting back to the shooters, and wounding them instantly. The rain of shrapnel is immediately followed by a cluster of small ice shards like arrowheads, materializing before Cheri, before she releases them at once in a blur of deadly pinpricks. Some will find their mark, leaving behind sharp puncture wounds, but some will meet Sabriel’s protective cover instead, pinging off like a fatal hailstorm.

“Let’s see you stop this, girl,”

Cheri says and with both palms turned towards them, she pushes, releasing another blast like the one that had previously thrown Kovacs across the room —

But it is met by a giant, horse-like creature, as Shinji has made it into the room, Castor absorbing the blast and saving everyone from more broken bones.

He is not the only new arrival: Alina, with the Darkling’s amplifying power, sends a powerful burst of light in Cheri’s direction, knocking her back until she hits the opposite wall with a surprised cry.

When she pushes back to her feet this time, she is shrouded in sudden darkness, only the bright, glowing red of her eyes showing through. The air crackles like static around her, smells sharp like metal, almost alive with the combined magic of three individuals. She lets out a scream and the floor under Alina and the Darkling’s feet cracks like a deafening thunder, sending them falling through. Another scream and both Shinji and Castor find themselves unable to move, now encased in ice.

For a moment, the entire room goes still. How can anyone go up against such power?

But it isn’t for lack of trying. Small blue lights that contrast with the red of Cheri’s eyes emerge as Yelena, having snuck around the room during the chaos, has made it to where Cheri had fallen down. She swiftly activates her Widow’s Bite gauntlets and delivers over 30,000 volts of electric shock.

A look of surprise crosses Cheri’s features as she wavers a little unsteadily on her feet —

and collapses to the ground, her breaths now ragged.

At the entrance of the room, twin roars bound forward on steady feet as the building finally seems to settle. Ignoring the damage and the wounded, Ursa and Altair make their way towards Cheri, simultaneously skidding to a halt before her, sniffing the air.

● ● ●

From the exterior of the slowly crumbling infrastructure that had once been a pinnacle of unrelenting strength, the situation doesn’t seem to fare any better. But for whom? It’s almost difficult to tell.

“We don't have to fight, Olexa. Please. Cheri isn't in her right mind, she's going to collapse the entire building and everyone in it. Any Lionetta still in the building will die if we don't stop her. You could help us, maybe she'd listen to you. She thinks she needs this Orb, but she doesn't. All they want is chaos, the farther away from here it gets the better it is for all of Lionetta. All of Braccia, too.”

Something unreadable crosses Olexa’s expression in response, barely flickering hesitation in her eyes before she redoubles her focus on the spiderling and the orb now strapped to his chest. Who does this foolish child think he is, assuming that he knows anything at all about her life? About Cheri?

“Don’t you presume to know me,” she hisses as she advances on Peter, one of her many arms now clenched into a fist that she lets fly towards him. “And what do you know about that — orb, was it?”

Before she can land another hit, her entire body tenses in preparation for another form-shift, something that might withstand a little more damage; have a little more durability. Each of her limbs begins to stretch and expand, the rest of her growing larger to match. Her skin turns gold this time, mimicking the beautiful glistening statues that can be found scattered across the city, but the transformation is cut short as a bullet grazes her skin and she jerks out of the way.

Olexa whirls her head at the sudden sight of Percy shooting at her while adorned in wall-climbing boots that must have come from the Featherstones, and from below, Bucky offering more firepower. More and more of these traitors have appeared to help their thieving friends; more obstacles keep her from retrieving the stone. Sam whizzes forward on giant metal wings light as air, Redwing not far behind to assist.

Wings. Well, that’s not a bad idea, is it?

The moment she tries to shift into a creature she remembers with wings not unlike Sam’s, she stops — it’s so sudden, she is very nearly hit with one of Percy’s psychic bullets as Rhysand attempts to crawl into her mind, clouding her thoughts and shattering her focus, and she starts to claw at her head as though she could pull the intruder directly out from her psyche. All this does is frustrate her, and she lashes out with her many arms, swatting at the Orbers as though they were flies, her form caught between the incomplete gold metal and the many armed alien she’d already shifted into.

Quill manages to duck past the swinging arms with his own boots powered up, offering Peter a final way out of this situation with the orb in tow, just before the rest of the fragile glass they’re standing on crumbles away beneath their feet. But it’s a sharp howl that pierces the chaos of the fight, and then, separately, a series of loud barks follows. One of the great beasts — Altair — sticks his head out past the shattered glass to meet Olexa’s eyes. He whines.

“Cheri —”

Abandoning the fight, she clambers back towards the opening in the building where she can smell the sharp tang of magic and electricity before she can see it, and her eyes quickly scan the area for the other woman, praying that nothing has happened, or so help her. She would fight for her, would fight to the death for her, but none of it would matter — none of this would matter if Cheri didn’t survive this at all.

● ● ●

It might be the perfect chance for the others to get away to safety, and at this point retrieving the stone is the last thing on Olexa’s mind. While Daisy and Tony work together to keep the building contained and in one piece for as long as they can, the shapeshifting woman slinks back into the initial battleground, surveying the damage done, both of her beloved dogs at her heels. As she approaches, her form shrinks until she’s returned to the recognizable human-like shape of Olexa Lionetta those assigned to her family met on their first day here: smooth curled hair, a furry white shawl across her shoulders, red lips. Her red dress, tattered now at the hem, sweeps across the floor covered in a spray of glass and metal and blood.

“Cheri,” she says again, her voice softer this time.

If any of the others might dare to attack now, there is no telling what kind of mercy Olexa might or might not give. She needs a moment here, and that much is easy enough to parse. Her dogs begin to pace a circle around the two women, guarding them, their teeth bared and ready for any interruptions.

Olexa drops to her knees where Cheri lies now, watching each rough and uneven breath. She lifts a hand to sweep at the stray lock of dark hair in Cheri’s eyes and tucks it behind her ear, a gesture so tender it couldn’t be any clearer the connection the two women share with one another.

“Did you get it?” Cheri breathes.

“Would you die trying to get that stone back?” Olexa asks instead.

Her voice is quiet but edged with the kind of sharpness she’d become known for amongst the families; unwavering, pragmatic.

“What’s so important about the stone — the Orb — that you would risk everything for it? What about what we had planned? What we dreamed together? Is it worth all this that you would throw your own life away?”

The Orbers watch as Cheri’s expression slowly crumbles and the darkness that blankets her slowly recedes, leaving behind an injured woman much, much older than she looks.

“... fine. I don’t — Lexie, you know I never meant to… I don’t mean to throw my life away. Not when it’s a life I can spend with you.”

There are two opposing forces battling inside her — one part that wants to keep fighting, that wants to rage out and take back the stone that belongs to her... and the other part that has already realised this is a fight she is going to lose. And if she sends Olexa back out there to fight — one she will lose, too.

After a long stretch of silence, Cheri closes her eyes.

“I… I’ll let the stone go, if it means we won’t be parted.”

As soon as the words pass her lips, Olexa leaning forward to take one of Cheri’s hands between her own, the team will — whether in this room or elsewhere in the city — feel a tug starting from the bottom of their stomachs, bright light filling their vision.

There is no time for a ‘goodbye’ as they leave Braccia behind.

● ● ●

Still reeling from the climax of the orb’s retrieval, the team will find themselves back on the station, on the teleportation platform, and for a moment no one will even think to move — but then the orb they retrieved begins to float away from Peter. It glows a faint, rich red reminiscent of Cheri’s eyes and Olexa’s painted lips, but that’s all behind them now.

On its own path, the orb floats towards the door of the north wing, and just as it had the previous mission… the doors slide open with a hiss to accept it.

“Not bad, not bad! Your second orb, collected! You know, I think I’m starting to actually have some faith in you guys.”

The voice of the station’s commander carries through, but he remains rooted to his spot, thoughtful. The orb floats towards him and those Orbers looking might notice a very human-looking hand reaching out to take it; against the orb’s red light, they’ll see the silhouette of a man, average in height, and with a flash of a beard —

“I’ll bring this one in — seems like it’s grown particularly vicious. But hey, that’s not your worry! Go and get yourselves something to eat and, uh, maybe visit the infirmary? Ouch, that looks bad. Anyway, see ya later!”

With that, those usually impenetrable doors slide shut again, and the mysterious commander disappears with the orb.

Now it’s time to relax, catch up with your fellow orbers and friends, and use the station’s rooms to their fullest… and, yes, maybe that includes a visit to the infirmary.

Well done, team.

● ● ●

N O T E S

This is the end of the second mission! If your character goes back to review the mission file, they will notice that next to its name, a little check-mark in green has appeared.

This is not an official log — however, for the next two weeks, your characters have downtime on the station and all its locations (aside from the north wing, still) are available. Players are encouraged to make their own logs for what they do during the downtime.

Please also note that the TDM happens during this downtime.

Should characters want to talk to Viveca, they can do so here.

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