London Bridge || Matalia
It took Ana a few minutes to realize Mat had been shot - these minutes filled with throwing a middle-aged woman over the side of the bridge and listening to her spiraling screams afterwards. The wet red spot infuriated her when she caught sight of it, but she knew what it meant. Snipers. The newly red-skinned woman vanished into thin air and prowled down one side of the bridge. Fire had caught on one side of the bridge - a massive red swell that was so hot she could feel herself beginning to sweat from hundreds of yards away. Car alarms were going off, the odd rushing of the flames and the water below filled her ears, and the errant shouts and screams of humans suffering at the hands of mutants seemed to be increasing moment by moment.
She bit down on the handle of her machete, holding between her teeth while she unclipped the two twin butterfly knives from her thigh. She wiped the machete off carelessly on one forearm, staining the black material with blood, before sliding it back into its place. It was time for quick kills. Less fun, but hey, you couldn’t have everything. Spinning the two in her hands, she looked upward and watched as Mat’s shadows tore apart one of the towers brick by brick, sending them raining down like hail onto the people below. She almost laughed as she watched one of them get struck down by an especially large piece of rubble, but she learned a long time ago that silence was necessary when you were undetectable.
Breaking off in a slow run, she squeezed both knives hard as she slipped into one of the remaining clusters of humans, unnoticed. Other mutants, the ones used to fighting side-by-side with her, at least, would notice her more easily than a human would. Humans don’t look for faint, moving lines where they expect to see sky or bridge or other people. Especially not while panicking - their eyes passed directly over it. So it was the easiest thing in the world to stick two knives in the back of a young man, just to watch him crumple and witness the ripple of panic in the humans as they realized they had an unseen enemy. It was verging on hilarious, the reactions of people trying to fight off something they couldn’t see. Lots of flailing arms and shouting. Regardless of their attempts, all eight of the group died within minutes.
Shoving aside the pain, and pressing it down as far as he could to focus on his power, Mateus used one last tug at the base of the tower to pull it into the water. Rubble crashed onto the bridge, and tumbled down into the water. It was loud, and chaotic, and the effort it used brought Mat to his knees to gasp for breath. He paused, sucking air deep into his lung then wincing when that radiated pain along his body. Closing his eyes for a moment to gather himself, Mat stood up slowly. He stretched out with his power, smashing cars and when he found a human, he pulled them apart from the inside. He knew he was at the limit of how much he could do with a bullet wound, could feel he use of his powers eating at his strength slowly but surely.
He reached out with one hand, and pulled again, glancing away as the woman was shredded by the shadows inside of her. It was was gory, it was horrible, but Mat was angry. He was always angry. He’d been angry all of his life, since the first time he was abused, and mistreated and forgotten. He was better than they were, always had been. Better than the humans scuttling like ants along the bridge. Mateus glanced back at Ana, smirking at the damage she at wrought, and then turned towards the supports along the other side of the bridge, a long shadow stretching out like a whip towards it.
The bullet hit him clear in the side of the head, and the shadows he had gathered trembled, writhing for a moment in the air like snakes, then sunk, down back to where they’d been cast, their master suddenly gone. Mateus crumpled, a puppet with its strings cut, collapsing onto the bridge.
London Bridge || Matalia
It was impossible not to turn and stare at Mateus’ creation. She allowed the woman’s companion, her daughter by the resemblance, to scramble out of the car on the other side - she’d catch her in a second - and tilted her head up to stare at the enormous, half-solid half-not thing that was rising overhead. She couldn’t even name it, but the short, wild laugh she let out at the sight of it was a good culmination of her opinion of his power. “Looking good, Matty!” she crowed, amused, before turning abruptly and darting after the escaping girl. She cut her down with a harsh swipe to the back of the neck, revealing spine and sinew before kicking her over and delivering the final blow to a clean slice to the front of her neck. She stepped over her, one foot cushioned by the girl’s stomach.
A teenage boy made to scramble past her left side, and she reached out and snatched him by the collar, shoving him back and encroaching down on him like a lioness on prey. She flushed entirely a deep scarlet, the whites of her eyes flooding until they were a solid black. Baring her teeth, she leaned in and snarled, “believe in the devil, kid?” He let out a muffled yell, hands clenching down on her arm in a vain attempt to free himself from her hold. She tightened her grip and jerked him forward, knife sliding into his navel. She ripped it upwards, the boys’ mouth falling open in a silent scream. “Go tell him hi, you little piece of shit,” she spat, drawing out the knife and shoving the boy’s corpse away from her until it crumpled onto the ground.
Ana calling his name prompted him to glance over, flashing her a smirk and tilting his head in acknowledgement. It took most of his concentration to make it look like his little creation had any semblance of like, but his shadow puppet was making quite a show. It moved a foot, and humans scrambled from its path, afraid to touch it. None of them could tell that it couldn’t hurt them, not unless he was willing to put much more power into it. Turning slightly to glance back at the camera their shaking hostage was trying to use to film all of the damage, Mat took a deep breath and poured his power into a part of his shadow. It raised a semi-coporal arm, and swiped at the suspension cables, Mat using a thin edge of solid shadow to slice through the thick metal. He knew he would be sore in the morning, but he was having much too much fun playing with the humans.
His power made for a better production that it did weapon, most of the time. Long before he’d been able to keep it solid long enough to do damage, Mat had been able to use it to intimidate. And now, it was easy to use his power to make something that looked so very dangerous. He moved an arm, as though control the creature, and moved the shadows toss a human away and across the bridge. He smirked, taking a step forwards and then jerking suddenly as sharp pain blossomed in his stomach. His creature faltered as Mat’s concentration slipped, and his hand came to his stomach, where he stared in shock at the bright red of blood there.
A chill ran down as his spine, and Mat grit his teeth in a snarl of anger and disgust. He’d been shot, some human had fucking shot him. He was bleeding. Wiping his hand desperately on his pants, Mat tugged a shadow towards him, applying pressure to the wound and keeping it from bleeding. Someone had shot him, and he was bleeding. Mateus let the creature dissolve away into shivering shadows, and turned his attention instead to seeking out the sniper, using the shadows inside the tower to the bridge to pull it apart from the inside, chunks of bricks raining down. He needed to act quickly before he lost the energy and concentration he needed to use his power. A human ran, away from Ana and the falling rubble. Mat turned to the man, jaw clenched as he tried to ignore the pain, and pulled, ripping the shadows inside the human out and killing him almost instantly.
London Bridge || Matalia
It was safe to say that Ana always felt prepared when it came to violence. But this, the London Bridge attack… she’d never been more ready for something in her life. Her three favorite knives were strapped in a gleaming row on the outside of one thigh, all honed to a fine point the night before. She was all in black - maybe that was her theatrical side showing through. Her eyes roved over the bridge, hands moving up to tighten the single braid - even her usual ponytail would get in the way too much for this. She returned Mat’s smile with a wicked edge to her mouth, drawing the longest knife - more of a narrow machete than anything - from its holster.
The remaining humans on the bridge were huddled in small groups that dotted the top of the bridge, desperately trying to avoid contact with the mutants. Ana flexed her hands in the gloves and brass knuckles that encased both of them and whisked away across the bridge. The little skin that remained revealed flushed a deep red and then darkened abruptly into solid black - this wasn’t for camouflage this time, it was for show. She moved around the back of a car, up to the passenger’s window, and brought her metal-protected fist to the glass once, twice, three times before it broke. Reaching through to the screaming woman inside, she grabbed her by the front of the shirt and pulled until she was dragged out of the car through the window, dropping her hard on the asphalt beside the car. She wasted no time in pinning the writhing woman’s hands above her head and jamming the long blade through her stomach.
For a long few moments, Mat watched Ana with a smirk of a smile. She was elegant in the best way, and truly deadly, he didn’t know what he would do without her. He watched her till she pulled back her knife to kill the human woman, then turned his head to focus on other things. The chaos was just under the surface, ready to erupt, and his shadows gathered under him like writhing snakes. He rarely used his power to anywhere near such an extent, but he wasn’t a scared teenager anymore. He knew how to use the shadows, and control them, and using his power no longer drove him to exhaustion.
Swallowing, Mat dragged the shadows off of the ground around him, pulling them together into one shape. The thing the rose out of the group, hulking and solid black in a way that trapped light, wasn’t real. It wasn’t even solid, but it dripped with shadow like living tar, and twisted and bent into rolling and unnatural shapes. A gash of a mouth split on an approximation of a face, as it rose high enough to brush the top of the bridge. He heard screams, distantly, but Mat was more focused on making his shadow construct look alive.
London Bridge || Matalia
The halls of Tate were eerily quiet. Usually around this time the school would be buzzing with life, students would be off doing there own thing, whatever they did to pass the time. Not today, though, today groups of people were huddled together all over the school, comforting each other. Practically everyone was mourning the death of Blue Darrow, and everyone was affected by it, because no matter which side you were on or what you had done in the past, she would always be there to hold your hand or give you a pat on the back if you needed it.
The main lounge was full of students talking in hushed voices, rubbing each other’s backs and whispering comforting words to one another. It was here that Edward Sharpe decided to address the people of Tate.
He told them he was sorry for their loss, everyone’s loss. That Blue’s death would not be forgotten by anybody, and that he knew that most people would rather just mourn in peace for a few days. “But something must be done,” he said in a grave voice. “This isn’t about the Revolution, it isn’t even really about personal vendetta. No, we must show the humans once and for all that we are sick of being treated like this and that they will not get away with hurting us. Two good people were attacked a few days ago, people who had done nothing wrong, nothing to harm the humans. If the humans think they can get away with a crime as disgusting as that, they will do it again. Ask yourselves, do I want to let that happen? Do I want my family and friends to be in danger? Because let’s face it, if even the good and pure Blue isn’t safe from the humans, nobody is. Not you, not your loved ones. Think about it. We’ll be leaving in exactly one hour, if you want to join us, please meet us in front of the entrance in fifty minutes.”
And indeed, Edward and the people who had decided joined him fifty minutes later. Edward didn’t share much about his plan, the people who needed to know the details knew them already. They got into the vans Edward had arranged without talking too much and headed to London. A few hours later, they would first pick up hostages to force news stations to broadcast the whole show, and then they’d go to the famous London Bridge. Edward would make sure no humans could get on or off, and he would order the rest to do whatever they liked with the frightened humans stuck on the bridge.
Mateus wasn’t sure if the building in his stomach counted as nerves or excitement, but for the first time in awhile Mat could feel restless energy buzzing just under his skin. The bridge was bigger in person than it looked in pictures, but he wasn’t worried about it. Not really. Their pet news anchor was there, though he hadn’t turned on his camera just yet, and there first signs of trouble had started to be noticed by the humans on the bridge. He smiled, sending a quick glance to Ana.
The shadows on the bridge shivered as he reached out as far as he could, then slid slowly towards him, dark and fluid, like tar. Much of that was for show, but Mat had never been above a bit of production. When the situation called for it.
Not true. It would just be a much more tense situation.
Fair enough.
No, not really. But I’d feel much more superior if I knew I could.
I apologize. But, you’d have no one to watch movies with if I was afraid of you.
That’s exactly the problem.
Well, I’m sorry. Would you really want to scare me?
