The Last Mission

First, there was his little brother. Then there was that weird 'blindfold' clouding his vision with dark matter. Now, the fact that this substance that shouldn't even exist was exerting a gravitational force capable of disrupting light was giving him a migraine. The lack of vision wasn't a problem, as Andre had access to all of Dead Kennedys' senses. However, Dead Kennedys was in the worst place to possibly be; grappling with Up To Me. Andre is always quick to point out his younger brother's shortcomings, but Up To Me was easily a force to be reckoned with once you got inside its pitifully small range.

Andre swung his fist wildly, trying to throw Ian off of him with the blow, instead his fist sailed through the air and slammed hard into something solid. Pain screamed up his arm and through his knuckles as he, Andre assumed, caught his fist on a shelf at an odd angle. His ears started to ring as he felt a sharp blow land on his head and bounce it off the floor. Dead Kennedys reacted accordingly to his master's peril. Not hindered by the dark-matter cloud robbing it of sight, Dead Kennedys emitted a sound like steam seeping through cracks in a pipe. Its hands quickly grabbed onto Up To Me's forearms, forcing the entity's limbs to spread wide as two more arms extended out from Dead Kennedys, stretching from below his original ones. There wasn't enough room to properly wind up, but there was enough for an almost piston-like barrage of jabs to start hammering into Up To Me's torso.

Ian was getting ready to punch his brother right in his stupid, ugly face once more, but stopped as he felt his ribs start to crack. With a loud groan, Ian clutched his body and rolled off of Andre, curling into the fetal position as he coughed up thick, dark blood. Up To Me, still in contact with Dead Kennedys, released a Surge of power with a noise akin to an electric guitar's flat chord. The Surge arced through Dead Kennedys' metallic body, lancing and leaping between joints through solid matter. It wasn't a refined and programmed Surge with a purpose, instead it ripped and split and burst the metal plates of Dead Kennedys and left awkward, warped tears and gashes along Andre's flesh. Two could play that game, and Andre suddenly pointed a finger at Dead Kennedys. With another sound like steam escaping, Ian felt true terror as he heard that flat chord once more, but it wasn't coming from Up To Me.

He had never felt the pain of a Surge, not once had Ian been exposed to his own crackling power over matter. Now, Up To Me seemed to scream as his own Surge was copied by Dead Kennedys and sent rampant through his metal frame. Ian almost cried out as his body contorted and convulsed on the ground, every cracked plate and ruptured tube, every endoskeletal fracture and armour piece fissure, all these pieces of damage mirrored a twisted, unnatural wound on Ian's body. With his brother properly punished for thinking he could match the great Andre Wakeman, Dead Kennedys stood up and turned to Joshua. Just as Andre heard the gunshot, Andre spoke to his target. "Hey Joshua, if you're feeling like you gotta dash lemme give you a hand." Dead Kennedys grabbed the newly copied arms on its body. With a gut-wrenching din, the imposing spectral entity ripped off the two arms and threw them at Joshua, Andre starting to cackle as the limbs whipped through the air like macabre boomerangs.

Joshua Langford

He heard the sound of glass breaking and instinctively shifted the mass of dark matter around him. The makeshift boomerangs were immediately deflected to the side by the newly introduced gravitational field but the man's attention was focused primarily on two things as they crashed to the ground harmlessly -maintaining the band he had created, and the sudden sting in his shoulder. Damn it! Too late. Instinctively grabbing that area, he felt blood seeping onto his hand. That bullet, only partially diverted by the gravity, had struck the upper part of his bone. Still, it didn't hurt as much as being struck by lightning.

Alright, I think this is really pissing me off now. The thing with Joshua was that he was by nature a very patient person. The things that caused him to outwardly react in annoyance honestly didn't tend to resonate too much with him inwardly, which was good because he dealt with irrational people on a daily business and if he he had taken issue with all of them, he would have already worked himself up to death. Ignoring the gunman for now -although he did strengthen the dark matter on that side so that any bullets would hopefully hit somebody who was not either him or Ian- he concentrated on attempting to destroy this troublesome duplicator.

With Ian mostly out of the way, however, Joshua saw no reason why he shouldn't just stick a lump of condensed dark matter around this monster's head and hopefully cause it to explode from the contesting gravities. So that's what he did. It wasn't like he hadn't killed people before, and some of those had been people he had liked a thousand times more that this hitman.

Things weren't going well. If Lenn could get off her shot then maybe, maybe this wouldn't be a complete waste. His duplicate arms rapidly redirected by the gravity distortions and send skidding across the ground. Andre still could barely see, and Dead Kennedys had taken some hits so far, but the advantage might still be his. Dead Kennedys lunged forward, metal hands closing into fists and ready to bludgeon the life out of Joshua. Suddenly, Up To Me somehow rose and threw itself between the specter and its target. The two rapidly began exchanging blows, metal fists glancing off the other as they walk-floated, gliding and stepping and jockeying for position. Up To Me began to falter as the blows began to multiply, Up To Me's power showing through as it duplicated the blows thrown and the impact delivered. Soon the mechanical frame of Up To Me began to buckle, the armour lining its body splitting and shattering, Ian gave a scream as his arm contorted violently, Dead Kennedys having crumpled Up To Me's limb with a powerful chop. Up To Me collapsed on the floor in a pile of its own scrap before fading away, Ian breathing raggedly and spitting out a bloody tooth. Dead Kennedys once again advanced on Joshua.

A sharp pain raced through Andre's body, a white hot needle that started in his back and spread outwards like wormwood in his blood. The bullet split a liver as it emerged out Andre's front and burrowed deep into the building's wall. Dead Kennedys stopped dead in its tracks, body going rigid in a pantomime of Andre's as it clutched its torso the way Andre clawed at the bullet hole. Shadows, dark matter suddenly wrapping itself around Dead Kennedys' head and the strong gravity starting to pull and wrench at the thing. Andre clutched his own head, grabbing wildly and screaming as blood starts to flow out from between his fingers. Dead Kennedys quickly faded from view before its head could be destroyed, and Andre was left panting and bleeding, dropping to his knees with the loud clatter of the chains he loved accessorizing with, blood staining his clothes from the sudden dire wounds he had received. "Fuck..."

Joshua Langford

And then there were two. Or, if the bullet that seemed to come out of nowhere was any indication, just one. Joshua was actually taken back by that; it wasn’t likely that the dark matter could have deflected the shot at that angle, so the only reasonable explanation was that this hitman had just gotten backstabbed by his partner. Nobody likes this guy, do they? Somehow that thought made him feel a bit more reassured about what he was about to do next. Anna probably would have been appalled, saying those nice, idealistic things that nice, idealistic people were supposed to say. And then his father probably would have just been smug. You see? A bad apple after all! Now be a good boy and kill that son of a bitch, alright?

God, I hate him, Joshua thought. Just the memory of Edward Langford made him feel furious enough to cross boundaries that he wouldn’t have otherwise. Good God. Anything that would have given his father pleasure, those seemed like things that he shouldn’t do at all. Yet at the same time, there was a certain point where he simply stopped caring. It was at that point when Joshua finally could put why he was so ready to jump straight to homicide for this man. Assholes were a dime a dozen these days, and those that resembled Edward Langford –in behavior or appearance, what difference did it make? –were almost as common. But assholes who resembled Edward Langford and were already trying to kill him –now that did it.

Yes, Anna. I know I’m making excuses to kill somebody now. Which made him a bad person, probably, but fine. Good people didn’t get far in life anyways. That one saying, the good die young, that was true, wasn’t it? Besides, he attacked me first.

In a sudden burst of anger that he’d looked back on with embarrassment later, Joshua decided to obliterate something. Somebody. Hypothetically, he knew how to make a black hole with dark matter. All it took was a lot of condensing matter together, to the point where it turned itself inside out and the gravity became a mess. Hypothetically. He hadn’t actually ever wanted to see what would happen if he tried. Until now, anyways.

He threw all of the dark matter he had at his disposal into making this anomaly. It had to be fast and the process had to be brutal or else he would be that much more uncertain about his rate of success. But the thing about magic and powers was this : the less you tried to make sense of it, the more it seemed to just work. The general rules were all that needed to be followed and everything else was just. Suggestion.

Frowning deeply to himself, Joshua set the center of the infant black hole right on Andre. What would the gravity do to a human, he had no idea. Maybe it would tear him to pieces and throw them back out. Maybe it would tear him to pieces and suck all the evidence right up. And maybe –probably –Joshua wasn’t a good person so he was hoping for the latter.

…Couldn’t let his father win, that was all. The dead couldn’t laugh at anybody.

It didn't take long, in fact it took barely over a second. Andre's limp form distorted slightly, light warping around him as he rose from the ground. It was almost possible to see him one last time, one last instance of him as he realized he was falling upwards, and then he was gone. There was no sound, no blood spray, Andre was just gone. The black hole consumed him completely. What little remained of him had gathered in a small pile on the floor.

Ian heard the rush of air, the sound of the hole opening and closing. His body throbbed with dull pain, barely able to feel each individual hurt at this point. Move, legs. Move. Ian felt himself sitting up, letting out a groan sounding like a deflating tire as he shifted until he was able to grab a still-intact shelf. There was blood on the floor, Ian's blood, Andre's blood. Bad blood. With another groan Ian hoisted himself to his feet and turned until he was facing Joshua. The blood loss had made Ian pale and woozy, but he gave a small grin and a nod in the direction of where Andre had once been. "Good riddance."

It took more effort than he'd ever care to admit but Ian pushed himself off from the shelf he had braced on and hastily limped over to Joshua. However, he heard the door open and turned his head. He was in no condition to continue a fight but there stood a woman with a gun, was she the person taking shots before? Oh, she just said she was. Ian simply kept his eyes on her. It was impossible for him to do anything other than weakly scowl as she grabbed a brownish scrap up from the ground. He couldn't speak, just watching her grab it and waiting for her to try something.

Joshua Langford

So he had actually managed it after all. The place where that person had been standing, it was so clean now that it was almost unbelievable. Good, Joshua thought initially, frowning at the floor. Even though it wasn't totally spotless, it was a lot less work to get rid of blood stains than it was an entire body. At least now he wouldn't have Niccolò bombarding him with legal procedures or police or whatever else the lawyer could pull out when confronted with a case of homocide. Just remember that it was self defense. That argument is pretty damn effective in Manta Carlos… For good reason, of course.

Briefly, the shopkeeper wondered if he should be troubled that the act itself hadn’t troubled him. He supposed that if he wasn’t, maybe there was no point in lingering on that point. Besides, he could have done worse. Had done, even. Is it supposed to be better or worse that this one was just a stranger off the street? But no, really, should have been no contradiction in his morals here because, again. Self defense.

All right, Joshua conceded after a thought. Now I’m bothered about it.

He frowned, worriedly, at the woman who came to retrieve the hitman’s meager remains. So this was the shooter, then? He wasn't especially worried about her trying anything, not when she was coming right into the open after seeing her colleague get erased from existence. If the other one had looked and acted as professional as she did, though, then maybe things might have been different. It wasn’t like he went through this kind of crap on a regular basis. Just sometimes.

“I don’t suppose that your employer is an annoying girl with blonde hair,” he started in a calm tone. “Girl, short, probably in her preteens, technology fetish. If you’re going to report back to her, I just want to put in that it’s her own damn fault for not reading the sign.”