Malcolm moved into position when they neared the tree line, particle rifle shouldered. Pulled in firmly at the shoulder, cheek to the stock, left hand on the barrel grip, ready to fire and with perfect accuracy on any threat that presented itself. Nothing did and nothing would just yet, but it was standard procedure for a reason. You just never know.
He moved in, taking cover behind the tree near where Aliyah already crouched, hard at work, waiting there with her and the rest of the team while the berserkers came in behind to stand around. They not bothering to take cover or even attempt anything that could be called 'stealth'.
Working with civilians like this, especially such socially maladjusted sorts...maybe it wasn't the best idea in most cases, but if everything he'd been told about these 'berserkers' were even half right, this case should prove the rather remarkable exception.
He took position at the tree, weapon ready, and he waited along with the rest of them. Just a few moments, giving the universe time to recognize where they were and how much danger they were in, in case it wanted to throw some of that at them.
It seemed that it didn't just yet, so he lowered the weapon and crouched down next to Aliyah. Observing her as she worked, waiting until she was done so he could disseminate the information quickly, to make use of it immediately.
She stared ahead, out at nothing, face perfectly slack...her eyes even rolled back white in her head. Across her knees, a drafting PADD she'd fetched from her pack. The software there was already running, showing a satellite view of the target area and everyone there.
Aliyah's hand danced and twitched over the PADD while she tranced, moving with a mind of its own, jerking suddenly to tap one figure out of the mass and tremble its way over to select a tag from the side of the display. Back to hovering again, trembling and twitching, until another target was suddenly, spastically tapped at.
It took a minute, but she soon had all of them tagged. All the ones they cared about anyway. The berserkers would handle the rest.
Her eyes suddenly reappeared and she blinked slowly and deeply, off balance now and swaying enough that Malcolm had to reach and hold her up for a just a moment. A quick shake of her head to get things squared away in there, a few more quick taps at her PADD and it was done. All the information she'd collected already being sent securely to the team's individual tactical HUDs.
Aliyah flipped the PADD over, handing it to him and leaning slightly to put her back to him. He took it, flipped it over as well, sliding it snuggly into her pack again. On his feet then, he reached and slid his eyewear into place, tapping the side of the clear plastic eyewear to bring up the HUD.
Jahi was there, slightly to the right and no more than fifty meters away. Eisheth and Lelina just beyond her, Lamia closer to them and right. Two other demons Aliyah had picked up on, powerful enough for her to take note of, off to the far side. Nothing the berserkers couldn't handle, but worth tagging.
Altogether, perhaps two dozen demons and twice as many civilians, with another dozen or so scattered around here and there...already dead.
Tragic but no less so than what as about to happen now. Not too many of the civilians unfortunate enough to have gotten themselves caught up in this were likely to survive the assault.
Malcolm shouldered his weapon again and reconsidered that though. Taking into account what he could see on the HUD and from satellite view on Aliyah's PADD...what those demons were doing to those people, what they were doing to one another...perhaps what he was about to stir up here constituted an act of mercy.
He took a breath, expelling it harshly. Steeling himself.
And gave the order.
"Call it." He said, quietly.
Far down the line, Luther muttered something into his comm and they waited...no less than two seconds before the small, red light on their HUDs blinked, indicating the pentacle was already in place.
Malcolm raised his left hand, slightly above his shoulder, fingers extended and chopped forward twice, rapidly. Giving Dusty the signal.
Something harsh and very threatening stirred in the woods behind the line. Grunts and snarls, the sounds of something feral and impossibly mad welling up back there...and the men howled.
Furious, filled with bloodlust and already sweeping past them, charging ahead across the open field toward the three large construction vehicles and the little bit of hellish horror that had broken loose beyond. Howling and growling, faces literally swollen and red, contorted with rage and murderous wrath.
Charging across the field recklessly, most of them already tearing their shirts away to reveal the Norse sigils tattooed across their torsos, front and back. Tearing them away in large part just to have something to rend and tear before they got their hands on the people ahead.
And that was the tragic part here. They were berserkers. They'd would literally rip everyone apart up there. Everyone and everything. Civilian victims, the demon possessed, inanimate objects...it didn't matter. If it got their attention, they would beat and break and destroy it.
Which was why he and his team held back for now.
Trip held his hands to her shoulders, standing behind her, guiding her and moving her into position. A gentle nudge and firm squeeze of her shoulders to communicate she was standing where and how he wanted her to.
Then he let go, leaving her standing there on the side of the road, to take a step back away from her.
"Okay," He said, "Now, look back here and see where I'm standing."
She turned her head, looking over her shoulder to see him there, only a step behind.
He nodded back at her.
"Now, look ahead again."
She turned her head forward again, losing sight of him. Staring back down the highway once more, with Trip behind her.
"You know where I am now." He said. "You can hear my voice and your hearing's sharp enough that you'll know if I try to sneak off or move away or something happens to me, right?"
"Yes." She affirmed.
"So you know right where I am. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere without you knowing that."
"Yes, that is correct." She said, clearly.
"Now...I want you to think about whether or not you trust me." He said. "Whether you getting hurt somehow is something I'd ever allow to happen, if I could help it. Are you thinking about that?"
T'Pol paused, long enough to think that strange thought.
"Yes, I am thinking about that."
"So, if you fell back from where you're standing now, do you think I'd catch you or let you fall?"
T'Pol paused again.
Because she had to think about that.
"I think you would catch me." She decided.
"You're right, I would. But I want you to really think about that. I want you to be absolutely certain about it. Be a complete Vulcan here, T'Pol, and critically analyze all the data, all your experience, every bit of relevant evidence you have on that question. Put that Vulcan mind of yours hard to work on that and pick it to pieces. I want a firm, perfectly logical conclusion here that you're absolutely certain about."
T'Pol hesitated, because that sounded like...
"Trip, are you going to require that I...?"
"That's not giving me a Vulcan assessment here, darlin'. I need you to give me a confident answer on this. If you fell back, could you trust me to catch you? Yes or no?"
She suppressed the urge to fidget. And to argue.
But she cleared her mind and focused on the question. Considering it with perfect clarity and without distraction. Objectively, analyzing all the relevant information she'd accumulated over the years, in regards to Trip.
"You would catch me." She decided. "At the least, you would make the attempt."
"You recognize there's a risk here, that I might try to catch you and fail. But how big a risk is that?"
"It is...minimal."
"That's right." Trip affirmed. "So all you need for it to be logical and rational to decide to fall back and trust that I'd catch you is...anything more than a minimal reason to. Right?"
"Yes," She said, quickly. "But there is no reason to do so. Without some motivation that is at least equivalent to the risk, the risk remains unacceptable."
"The motivation here is to determine if you can ever bond with me." Trip said, evenly. "Because if you can't do this, you can't bond. Not with me and maybe not with anyone."
T'Pol was silent at that.
She'd hardly missed the perfectly obvious point Trip had just made. It almost physically struck her as it was presented.
And...yes, he was correct, of course.
She couldn't do it.
She'd known that all along, illogically refusing to acknowledge that fact until now. Very irrationally allowing herself to ignore that critical flaw in all her plans here, hoping that it would simply disappear somehow if she failed to acknowledge it.
She hesitated, but...
"Trip...I don't think..."
But, no.
No, that wasn't accurate.
"Trip, I can't do this."
"I know, darlin'."
"I...see the logic." She said, uncomfortably. "But the risk is too great. It is interfering with my ability to accept the logic. I am unable to act on it."
"Because it's too dangerous." Trip said. "I know and I get that. But this, though...here the risk isn't too great. The worst that will happen is that you fall down."
"Yes."
"It's not even fear, is it? It's just plain old self-preservation instinct."
"I could suffer injury." She argued. "Falling in the manner that this sort of trust exercise requires risks significant injury. I could easily suffer head trauma..."
"Except you won't. Because I'll catch you."
"Yes, I know, but..."
"You know it, but you don't believe it. That's the problem. So you don't have anything to overrule that instinct with."
T'Pol considered that, examining the subtle difference there. And, yes, that seemed correct.
"Yes." She said. "I don't know how to overcome it. Logic should be sufficient..."
"Logic just informs you. You still have to accept it and believe." He said. "So Vulcan logic doesn't cut it here for you, that's all. What you need is concrete evidence. You need to have already fallen back and had me catch you, maybe a few times, so you can accept the logic here. If you fall, I'll catch you."
"That is not possible. The contradiction is obvious."
"So I'm going to teach you a Human trick." He said. "Something completely irrational and totally illogical. Even a little crazy. But it works. Okay?"
No, that was not okay.
She didn't want to learn anything like that. Certainly she didn't want to do anything like that. To actually exercise an illogical, irrational and insane Human technique that allowed her to overcome her instinct for self-preservation and throw herself to the ground, risking potential head trauma...?
No. Certainly not.
"Trip, no. I don't think..."
"If you can do this, you can bond."
Of course...
On the other hand, that was rather an important goal. One worthy of...almost any risk or price.
She was Vulcan. She needed to be bonded. And she hadn't had that in far, far too long. A true family bond was beyond her reach now, with all immediate family gone. So she needed it. Perhaps...more than she needed to live, as illogical as that might seem.
That part Trip didn't know yet. That it wasn't all about simply doing the logical thing and complying with Sophia's request. She needed it. And, honestly, wanted it. Badly.
So, as ironic as it might be, embracing illogic here would be logical, if it achieved that goal.
"How?" She asked.
"I want you to repeat after me." He said, confidently. "Pay attention to yourself, focus on yourself, when you do it. I want you say, out loud, 'Trip will catch me.' Hear yourself say that and pay attention to what you feel when you say it."
"What I feel?"
"Tough, I know, but you've been on Earth a long time. I think you can do it just fine."
T'Pol frowned a little, brow tight.
That was an uncomfortable concept.
"So give it a shot." He said. "Go on. 'Trip will catch me'."
She paused, needing a moment to adjust to the strange behavior and thought exercise she was about to attempt. Then she drew a breath and did as he'd asked.
"Trip will catch me." She said.
"Now, when you said that, there was a part of you that believed it. You had to, just to put it into words and say it. Words have power, so pay attention to what you feel and what you believe when you say that. Say it again and focus on that, until you see what I'm talking about."
T'Pol thought back, considering what she 'felt' when she'd said that. And she could almost perceive what he might mean...
"Trip will catch me." She said, again.
And, yes, she could perceive it. Some small part of her had been perfectly convinced, fully believing it just as he'd said, if only long enough that she'd been able to speak the words and give voice to the concept.
"I see." She said. "How is this useful? Is there some way to capitalize on this effect?"
"Nothing fancy." Trip said. "You just have to grab that belief and hold onto it. Long enough to believe that if you fall back, I'll catch you. And then just do it."
She struggled with that for a moment and it was indeed every bit as illogical, irrational and frankly rather insane as he'd indicated.
But logical enough, from a certain perspective.
"Trip will catch me." She said again.
Reaching for the belief as it flittered through her, almost grasping it.
"Keep trying." Trip encouraged her, quietly. "As soon as you can grab that belief, you fall back. I'll be here and I will catch you."
She nodded.
"Trip will catch me." She said.
It flittered past, evading her attempt to seize it and hold it, even for a moment.
"Trip will catch me." She tried again.
And, to her mild surprise, she suddenly had it. Grasping and holding the belief for a just a split second longer than necessary to merely give voice to the idea.
And, impulsively, following his direction still, before she could make any actual decision...she fell back. Some part of her recognizing she had only that quick moment to take advantage of the opportunity...
He caught her.
Before she could even stiffen and flail to catch herself, the sudden realization of what a completely irrational thing she'd just done only just beginning to shockwave through her. He caught her before she could even react to herself.
He helped her back to her feet quickly, in time for that sudden, short wave of shock to have already subsided, leaving her trembling just a little at it. Her startled reaction and instinctive attempt to protect herself suddenly having nowhere to go, no longer being necessary, because he'd caught her.
"Okay," He said, smiling behind her. "Do it again."
She looked back at him, surprised and almost wide-eyed.
Because...was he serious? He couldn't be serious...
"That was blind faith." Trip explained. "Blind faith is illogical, irrational and crazy. But now you have rational faith. You have evidence you can rely on. So now you take the next step. Accept the evidence."
He had his hands out again, ready to catch her. Just a step behind her.
So she turned away, letting herself reel a little at what was asked of her here. And as well that she'd actually managed it. And...
Would manage it again, she realized. Because she had concrete evidence now.
"You are prepared?" She asked, over her shoulder. To be certain, in case he were distracted...
"I'm ready." He said, firmly. "I will catch you."
She squared her shoulders...and examined the evidence.
This was Trip. She trusted Trip. Trip cared for her and they empathized with one another. That she would suffer would cause him to suffer, so he viewed protecting her from danger and injury to be as important as protecting himself. Perhaps even more so. His instinct for self-preservation extended to her, just as much as hers extended to him.
And he'd already caught her once, in this very situation, only a moment ago. So the logic was clear and it was perfectly rational to expect he would catch her again now.
Moreover...she believed it. She was able to believe it.
So she steeled herself...and fell back.
He caught her. Again.
Of course.
Felicity leaned back from the tree, high up enough to have a clear view of the field ahead. The climbing strap holding her in place slung comfortably across her back, providing full support, while the tree limb directly in front of her gave her 10mm Gauss rifle a stable resting place of its own.
She had one eye down the powerful sight of the weapon, her eyewear dangling around her neck, while the HUD display that would normally be available there was thrown up in the sniper rifle's telescopic sight instead.
Jahi was right in her sights, her first target. From what they knew of her, she was pretty intimidating in her power, and a little crazy to boot. Popping her first was a no brainer. It just remained to see what kind of hell broke lose when she did.
Felicity was ready for that, as much as she could be. Hit Jahi first, then hit every one of the other high order demons she could before Jahi did whatever terrible thing she was going to do about that.
Because whatever it was, it was probably going to be very bad.
Felicity had her target, so she let her free eye open to take in the big picture down there while she waited.
And so she saw the berserkers charging across the field. She already heard them, that was pretty hard to miss, but seeing it was a whole other level of 'wow'.
You could almost feel the power raging through those guys down there. The ground almost looked like it screamed in terror and tried to run away before they could stomp on it. The air around them almost seeming to panic and dodge to the side so they could pass unhindered, lest they take their insane fury out on it somehow.
And the first one...she couldn't even tell which one that was, their bodies and faces were so twisted and swollen with rage...that one hit big the six-wheeled construction vehicle parked down there, covering their advance up to that point.
He literally hit it. Running right past it to come around to the other side, hauling back with one furious fist, taking advantage of the opportunity to express just a little bit of his rage on that first inanimate object that came within reach.
That little bit of rage almost knocking the whole truck right over. His fist slammed into the engine housing as he passed, throwing the huge twenty ton truck up off its wheels on that side. The side of the engine housing caving in like thin metal foil and the engine itself even slamming right on out through the other side.
From just one angry, passing, probably not even especially focused punch.
The truck reeled for a minute, like it was shocked at what had just happened to it...then fell noisily back onto all six wheels again. Just in time for the next two berserkers to reach it.
Both of them roaring and leaping over it.
An easy ten meters into the air, to sail over it, howling, and hit the ground on the far side, right in the middle of the massive demonic S&M party going on over there.
Felicity couldn't help but gawk at that a bit, even pulling her other eye off the scope for a second to confirm what she was seeing.
There'd been an old serial film that she used to watch with her grandfather when she was a little girl. He liked old films and series, so they watched a lot of those things together, whenever her mom would drop her off for gramps to baby-sit while she went off to work.
One in particular came to mind now. The one about the guy that was mutated by gamma radiation. He turned into this big green monster sometimes, when he got mad. The incredible something or other, she couldn't really remember. But she remembered the monster he turned into, how it was kinda scary and cool.
Had nothing on these guys. Not even close.
Just forget about it.
One of them down there had a civilian by the ankle, swinging them around like a weapon. Roaring and babbling madly, slamming a half dozen of the demon possessed around like they were rag dolls. Sending them flying, smashing them to the ground...even hauling back and sending one up and off into the air with one powerful swing and strike, to actually collide with the perimeter of the projected pentacle of Mercury a good twenty meters away.
Just that one guy, in maybe ten seconds, had a half dozen demons smoked out of their hosts, because their hosts weren't just dead but flat out too broken and torn and just plain destroyed to even be hosts anymore. They were just dead meat that even a demon couldn't do anything with.
By then the civilian that one berserker had been swinging around finally just fell apart. Fell to pieces, not just dead and gone, but broken to bloody bits. That last final swing practically disintegrated what was left of them.
So he roared and bounded over, to snatch up one of the demon possessed, and starting swinging him.
That was just one of the berserkers.
Another one had the engine from the truck in both hands, raising that over his head to smash down on people. Easily a three ton hunk of dense metal, as big as he was and certainly a lot more massive.
Just roar, raise, smash. Over and over. Leaving little mushy piles of red pulp in the dirt.
Before finally throwing that with enough insane force right at Jahi and the succubi gathered to her that even they didn't bother trying to knock it aside or catch it with their power. They actually dodged it instead.
That suggested a lot. It suggested that maybe Dusty Jones hadn't been kidding when he said their power couldn't overcome the berserkers. Otherwise Jahi would have snatched that big engine out of the air and thrown it right back at him.
But she'd dodged it instead.
That was pretty damned scary.
Likewise another of the berserkers actually physically grabbing demons and literally ripping them apart. Barehanded. Tearing them to pieces until they smoked out of the things that couldn't even been called corpses anymore. That guy roaring madly and snatching vainly, trying to catch the smoky demons and tear them to pieces too.
Only getting all the more impossibly outraged that he couldn't before finding another demon to tear and rip and break, to get even more insane at the incorporeal demon he couldn't catch and destroy.
And Dusty himself, identifiable only by the gray-haired ponytail, grabbing one demon, throwing him into the five ton truck nearby and punching through his chest, right into the vehicle's external fuel tank. That releasing a gout of liquid hydrogen that immediately burst out all over Dusty and the ground around him, sending up a cloud of quickly evaporating hydrogen...
...that one demon nearby, one of the two higher order demons that weren't succubi, immediately took advantage of. That one seemed to have some form of pyrokinetic power.
He was smart enough not to go hand to hand with any of the berserkers, but apparently not familiar enough with them to fully understand their invulnerability. Because he set the hydrogen off the moment Dusty was standing there raging and roaring right in the middle of it.
It exploded, flipping the truck over and sending it rolling right out of the pentacle, sending up a huge flaming mushroom cloud and a blast wave that destroyed the hosts of three more demons who were busy rushing at Dusty to take him on.
None of which had any effect on Dusty, other than setting his clothes completely on fire. He turned around, screaming maniacally and ran straight for the demon responsible for that.
Completely ignoring the blast after blast of pyrokinetic power being thrown into him, accomplishing nothing more than to leave him naked and inhumanly furious about it all. His hair wasn't even singed.
Dusty grabbed that one, raised him up high in the air and threw him to the ground, so hard Felicity could hear the bones break from where she perched in the tree.
Then he started stomping on him.
Finally Jahi screamed, furious herself, and Felicity snatched her attention back there again. Eye back to her scope quickly, to reacquire her target.
Jahi was furious. Her face contorted with outrage, even if nothing at all as horrifyingly as the berserkers. She pulled both arms back behind her, palms open...and shoved.
Screaming her fury at the berserkers and, apparently, even the demons in front of who were failing to do anything about how they were crashing the party.
Jahi's power slammed across the field in a wave. Felicity could see it warp the very air, flashing forward and impacting everything in the field. Sending it all flying and tumbling until the demon possessed, even the smoky incorporeal demons themselves, were all shoved and smashed into the invisible walls of the pentacle.
The two or three still living civilians at least tumbling through the air beyond, out where they were finally safe from all the impossible power being thrown around in there. They and every single piece of bloody human meat left strewn about on the field.
Even the remains of the trucks were thrown over, to roll out beyond the perimeter.
The demons themselves all fell, there at the edge within, once Jahi's power crashed over them and dispersed against it. They fell in a long, slightly curved pile along the edge of the pentacle's boundary.
Not the berserkers, though.
They hadn't been moved a single inch.
And now the closest thing to them, that they could take out their rage on, was Jahi and her succubi. And she'd just got their attention in a big way.
They all roared, fists clenched at their sides, swollen muscles flexing grotesquely in their monstrous fury.
All of them at once, right at Jahi and her demon pals.
Jahi...
Took a hesitant step back at that...
And somewhere below and to her left, Felicity heard the thump she'd been waiting for.
A low thump and barely discernible whoosh, as Chavez sent the fifty gallon aerosol dispersal drum flying through the air, out over the field. Propelled by nothing more than a simple gravity plate and a high-tension snapline.
It sailed high into the air, out over the field, to explode with a strong enough concussive force that she felt it in her chest, even a hundred meters away. Strong enough that most of the liquid was dispersed over the entire field in aerosol form.
Spraying down over the knot of demons huddled up around Jahi like rain.
Like acid rain. Very, very bad acid rain. The sort that literally burned. Because that was holy water.
Even Jahi started screaming.