Scene 20 - December 19th

Interior MLED Compound, Noon

Quinn Kaufman

Journey ferried us all downstairs - first me, Loki, and Hypnos, then Sequoia in a second trip. A moment later, Journey was gone, and we were on our own.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Loki quietly told us. “I’m going to use my constructs to split these guys up and have you each take one or two of them on. Newton, you’re going against the purple earthbender - our presence will keep him from putting you on the back foot with his battlefield control, and he doesn’t look to have enough fine control to flank you by himself like Anima could. Hypnos, you’re against green speed - your precognition should let you match him. Sequoia, you’re up with the other two - you’re strong and tough, but if I’m right that these guys each have only one of the Mountain King’s powers, they’ll only be strong or tough. Your toughness should negate strength, and your strength should help you get through their toughness. In the meantime, I’ll be helping out as needed.”

Hypnos frowned. “That sounds like mostly a holding action,” he protested. “Those are all decent match-ups, but how will we tip the scales?”

“It is mostly a holding action,” Loki admitted. “But we benefit from that, they don’t. They need to escape to win - we can win by dragging things out until more heroes show up. Journey will be back in just a few minutes, and if not her then some of the New Champions will be here eventually. Not to mention that there are enough agents here to turn the tide, if we’re negating the advantages of their powers.”

“Alright,” Hypnos said. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

I rushed ahead of the others, my powers letting me move faster than anyone else other than Journey herself. I tried to pace myself though - while I had gotten a lot of experience with my powers over the last two months, the backlash still made drawn-out battles an exercise in pain. I understood that it was our best strategy, of course - I trusted Loki. I would just try to deal with the wanna-be-knights without bruising myself too badly.

When I emerged into the corridor where the running battle was taking place, the ground was rumbling and splitting apart, walls of fire shooting up along the cracks to split the knights - each of them instinctively stepping away from the nearest flames, even the invulnerable one whose breastplate spilled blue mist. A moment later, she made to walk through the wall towards the smallest knight, in green, but I vaulted over her and pushed her back into the center of her area on my way into Purple’s.

“Hi there!” I said cheerily as I landed in front of them. “I’ll be your designated opponent for today. And may I compliment you on your choice of theme colors? Royal purple, very classy.”

They inclined their helmet towards me in acknowledgment. “Thank you. And I appreciate your choice of plaid - I’m bi as well.”

I plucked at the kevlar-woven overshirt I had pulled over my costume, woven in shades of blue, pink, and purple. “This one is actually one of the ones I wear in support, not to represent myself. Something about identifying as ‘bi’ doesn’t feel right to me, as a nonbinary person attracted to all genders and the lack thereof,” I said, absently anchoring myself to the ground and leaning far to the side to avoid a metal plate that Purple had pulled from the wall and sent spinning at my head from behind, “so I usually just say ‘queer’.”

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I stuck a hand out towards them, taking a quick moment to pay attention to my presence and check up on how the others were doing while Purple stared in confusion. Hypnos had just clotheslined Green, and Sequoia had Blue in a headlock. Just fine. “I”m Newton,” I said to Purple. “They/them pronouns. What’s your name?”

They paused, then took my hand. “Sir Amethyst. He/him,” he said.

“What about the others?” I asked, starting to focus in my other hand. The knife’s edge I was placing my mind in was a new one for me, but if I could keep him talking a little longer...

Amethyst hesitated before answering that one. “Sirs Alacrity and Ardent, and Dame Adamant,” he told me.”

“Alacrity in the green and Ardent in red?”

“Yes.” Then he pulled me towards him and grabbed me by the throat, a fresh wave of dark purple mist flowing from his cape as he lifted me into the air.

It came as a surprise - my presence being concentrated in the hand hidden behind my back - and I found myself instinctively scrabbling at his hand, but to no avail.

“Sorry about this, Newton,” he said as I struggled to redouble my focus, sounding genuinely contrite, “but you’re the most dangerous person here to us.”

1.19 moles of nitrogen and 0.28 moles of oxygen and

“Wrong,” I gasped. “But not entirely.” I thrust towards his helm with my hand and thrust towards it with my magic, directing the flash of light towards him as best as I could.

“FUCK!” Amethyst swore, dropping me. He stumbled backward, clapping one steel-gauntleted hand over the eye-slit of his helmet.

I rubbed at my throat, chancing another check-up on the other Journeymen. Hypnos was continuing to dance rings around Alacrity, who seemed to be dodging around what I could only assume were Loki’s illusory constructs, as they didn’t show up in my sense of presence, while Sequoia had grown a pair of wooden handcuffs around Adamant’s wrists and was sparring with Ardent to keep him away from her. We seemed to be winning.

I felt a shift in the metal tile beneath me and leapt up in the air, pulling at the ceiling and remaining there as the ground below me swelled up in an attempt to grab hold of my legs, winding up crouched on the ceiling. “Fun fact - not the first time someone has tried that on me,” I informed him. “It didn’t get Legion anywhere either.” I decided not to mention that Legion had, in fact, trapped me with her own version of the move, and it had only been Canaveral’s intervention that had saved me.

Amethyst hesitated. “Wait... you fought Legion?”

Something seemed odd about his inflection there, but I wasn’t sure what. “What did you expect me to do with the dangerous supervillain? Invite her to a tea party?” Again, I didn’t mention that I had, in fact, ended up talking to Legion - twice.

“No, I...” He shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“No, seriously,” I said, standing upright and feeling grateful for the practice I had done walking on walls and ceilings - it was still a little disconcerting to have everything be upside-down to me, but not as much as it was for my opponents to deal with an upside-down foe. “I’m ‘the most dangerous one here to you’, and you seem surprised that I fought Legion? What are you thinking here?”

“I’m thinking...” He tilted his head down, thoughtfully, then back up. “I’m thinking that we may have made a mistake.”

“Yeah, breaking into the MLED Compound,” I agreed. “Why did you do that, anyway?”

He shook his head. “Not important - we couldn’t get into the storage anyway.”

I frowned, not sure I believed him, but shrugged and launched myself at him. I pulled at the villain’s knees, causing them to buckle and giving myself a little more velocity, and vaulted over his shoulders, pushing him down in the ground. Canaveral and the director could worry about what to do with the hints Amethyst was dropping.