AN: So like last year I did NaNoWriMo, and again I completed it (on day 11), this time with a grand total of 125k words(!), 90k of which were for new stories/one-shots, most set after "The Colossus Saga."
To Lyger 0: Actually, Kheaa wouldn't even know the Qing Dynasty; he was lost in the destruction of Atlantis and not reactivated until Fu found him a year or so ago! Unless he remembers an "Early Qing Dynasty" that even predated the Xia. Ironically, Atlantean medicine would not have employed leeches, since they were far more scientifically advanced than that.
To yellow 14: I didn't introduce her to become a miraculous user, but that just seems like such a perfect fit!
The van pulled up in front of a large residence just off the Rue d'Andigné a couple hours after noon, and the back door slid open even before it had fully stopped. Mind-Wipe stepped out, an intense look on his face, with Sandy right behind him. Mind-Wipe quickly scanned up and down the street for signs of life, but the street was completely deserted, apart from the two police officers standing to either side of the mansion's front door. According to Monte-en-l'Air's information, this was the only inhabited residence on the entire block. This section of the city, on the far western edge of Paris proper, had survived the Tarasque's rampage almost without damage, though it had also been the first area evacuated once the evacuation order had been given.
Mind-Wipe's lip curled up slightly in a sneer. The perks of wealth, power, and influence. While the peasants had suffered in terror, the rich and powerful had escaped in luxury and ease.
On catching sight of Mind-Wipe, the two officers jumped to attention. One reached for his gun, eyeing Mind-Wipe suspiciously, while the other focused all his attention on Sandy, who leaned against the side of the van, arms folded. Steeling himself for the most dangerous step in the operation, Mind-Wipe briskly crossed the sidewalk and approached the residence.
"You look familiar…" the officer began as Mind-Wipe briskly climbed the stairs toward him. His eyes narrowed, holding one hand out toward Mind-Wipe in a gesture to stop as his other hand rested on his gun's grip. "What is your business here?"
"I get that a lot," Mind-Wipe responded smoothly, touching the officer's outstretched hand. "It must just be that I have one of those faces. As for my business here–" Mind-Wipe concentrated, staring intently into the officer's eyes and mentally reaching down deep into his consciousness, focusing on what he wished for him to do. The officer suddenly drew his pistol, his finger finding the trigger. In a single smooth motion he raised the gun and fired. Mind-Wipe's ears rang from the proximity. Without a sound, the other officer fell to the ground, half his face missing. The gunshot reverberated off the buildings around them, the echo abnormally loud in the silence of the city. Sandy was already moving, sprinting up the steps to stop next to the still-living officer, scanning the street for signs that anyone had noticed. Mind-Wipe jerked his head at the van, and Elemento and Monte-en-l'Air – both already wearing police uniforms – jumped out and sprinted up to join them, taking the two officers' places flanking the door. Behind them came Dynamus, who stopped at the foot of the steps. "Good," Mind-Wipe murmured, his eyes not leaving the officer's blank face. "Now, since we're old friends," he continued, focusing on the connection between them, "you are going to bring me to Minister Faure."
Without a word, the officer turned on his heel, opened the front door, and gestured for them to enter.
Frowning, Dynamus bent over next to the dead officer and raised one hand. The body levitated a few centimeters above the ground, slid through the railing, and dropped down to the ground behind a row of half-browned bushes lining the front of the house. Pressing his other hand to the blood-stained cement, he let out a breath, his brows furrowed in concentration. "You could have made less of a mess," Dynamus pointed out in annoyance as the cement surrounding the stain turned spongy and absorbed the still-wet blood before returning to cement. He rose back to his feet and took his place on the step next to Mind-Wipe, facing the open door of the mansion.
"Speed is of the utmost importance," Mind-Wipe informed him curtly.
"Especially now that everyone's heard that we're coming," added Sandy, arching her eyebrow. "If we were going to make a mess, I could at least have made a quiet mess…"
Mind-Wipe's mouth set in a thin line. "This sufficed for our purposes."
Mind-Wipe, Dynamus, and Sandy quickly made their way across the entryway toward the wide staircase. His ears still ringing from the gunshot, Mind-Wipe turned this way and that, searching the hallway quickly for the occupants, looking straight down it past several doorways to find the back door sealed, a tree limb having crashed through the window and pinned it closed. To one side of the entryway he could see the empty sitting room; the door leading into the formal dining room opposite the sitting room stood ajar, the room within lightless.
A door opened partway down the hallway in front of them, and a housekeeper poked her head out, staring back at them in confusion. "Jean–?"
Before she could finish the question, Dynamus clenched his fist, shattering one of the wooden chairs along the entryway wall, and punched out, sending a hail of splinters straight at the woman. Her eyes widened in shock, moments before most of the splinters struck home in her face as the rest rocketed past and embedded in the back door. Dynamus twisted his wrist, and one of the splinters twisted around in place. With a strangled cry, the housekeeper collapsed in the doorway, and Dynamus transmuted the splinters into lead, driving them deeper into her flesh. As he did so, Sandy sprinted down the hallway, hopping over the housekeeper as she passed, and threw open each door in turn.
On reaching the last one, she hurled her knife into the room and retrieved it before returning to Mind-Wipe, wiping blood off the knife blade on the back of the housekeeper's shirt as she passed. She threw the dining room door open, poked her head through, and nodded firmly. "We're clear," she announced.
"Well, then." Mind-Wipe's mouth set in a thin line, all his focus on the officer. "Lead on."
Still with a blank expression on his face, the officer stepped around Mind-Wipe and led the way up the stairs to the second level. Mind-Wipe cautiously followed him, flanked by Dynamus and Sandy. On the second level there were four doors, all of them closed. A glass display case holding an array of vaguely African artifacts had tipped over and smashed, blocking one of the doorways. The shattered glass of the case had been swept together into a pile against the wall next to it. Discounting that room, Mind-Wipe looked back and forth between the other three doorways, frowning, but the officer walked straight to the one closest to the stairs and pushed it open. Sandy shoved him to the side and rushed past him into the room, her knife raised. There was the sound of crashing and splintering wood followed by silence. Sandy emerged a moment later, shaking her head.
"Empty," she reported, glaring at the police officer with her eyes narrowed in anger.
Mind-Wipe's nostrils flared and he turned on the officer. "Where is he!?"
The officer slapped himself across the face. His eyes widened, and he let out a whimper. "I–I don't know! He's supposed to be in the office right now! If he isn't, then I don't know – maybe he's in the bedroom?" He pointed at the door next to the office.
Dynamus waved his hand callously, and the door swung open wide. Mind-Wipe had a brief glimpse of an enormous bed before Sandy charged inside and began throwing furniture in all directions. She tipped the bed on its side and disappeared into a closed, only to again return alone. Mind-Wipe shared a look with Dynamus, who threw open both of the other doors. Again Sandy searched, and again she came up empty. With a growl, Dynamus placed his hand against the wall, which shimmered for a moment before the entire internal wall structure – drywall and insulation included – turned to glass. With a glance, Mind-Wipe took in the empty rooms. Groaning in frustration, Sandy punched the wall of the last room, driving her fist straight through the glass.
"Where?" Mind-Wipe demanded of the officer, his eyes narrowed. "Where could he have gone? Is there another exit?"
"The roof?" offered the officer, giving him a dubious look. He glanced up at the ceiling.
Following his gaze Mind-Wipe at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. However, as he looked closer he traced a thin seam around a rectangular section of the wood overlay. "The… roof." Mind-Wipe's eyes flashed, and he smirked. Above them, a woman's scream carried through the ceiling and reverberated off the walls.
Three minutes later, Mind-Wipe, Dynamus, and Sandy, followed by the officer, emerged through the trapdoor onto the roof to find Mistral and Fire-Fly standing over two people. A heavyset man in his mid-fifties knelt next to a woman in her early twenties, both of them quivering in fear. The woman stared in horror at a suitcase that still smoldered on the ground in front of them; a briefcase had burst open, scattering papers in all directions. Fire-Fly aimed her flamethrower prosthetic at the woman's head, her lip curled up and a manic glint her eye. The rotors of Mistral's fan-rig spun slowly as they idled. Mind-Wipe and his group formed a circle around the two terrified civilians, as the officer stepped back to take a position between the trapdoor and the edge of the roof.
"Well look what we found…" Fire-Fly sneered, nudging the woman with her prosthetic. The woman whimpered, flinching away from her.
"Air-Mail," added Mistral, stifling a laugh.
"Minister Faure," Mind-Wipe greeted the man, leering down at him, his eyes drifting to the woman as his lips turned up in a smirk. "Surely this isn't your wife…"
Faure glared up at him, though his lower lip trembled, his fast breathing betraying his fear. "You will not get away with this!" he declared. "We already called for backup the moment we heard that shot; they will arrive in only a few moments."
Mind-Wipe clucked his tongue, shaking his head in disappointment. "Minister," he asked him, "do you really think this is an emergency that warrants intervention by the authorities? After all–" he reached forward.
Faure fell onto his back, crabwalking away from him. "Get–get away from me!" he yelped, his eyes darting around the roof helplessly.
Mind-Wipe arched an eyebrow and jerked his head at Mistral. The fan-rig whirred to life, and she rose off the ground, hovered for a moment above Faure, and dropped down to land on his chest. Faure let out a ragged breath, gasping in pain. Mind-Wipe knelt next to him as he writhed beneath Mistral's foot. Slowly, tenderly, he placed his hand on Faure's cheek "Isn't this just a huge misunderstanding, Minister?"
"Yes…" Faure agreed, a slow tone to his voice. His eyes went out of focus, and he slowly sat up as Mistral removed her foot from his chest. Behind Mind-Wipe, the police officer shook his head groggily, rubbing his temples.
"What!?" the woman yelped, her eyes taking on a wild panic as Fire-Fly pressed the prosthetic to her temple. "But–"
"Be quiet, Colette," interrupted Faure sharply. "It is only a misunderstanding."
"And you need to call off the police," Mind-Wipe prompted, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course." Faure fumbled around in the remains of the briefcase for a moment and lifted a radio to his mouth.
"What – what's going on?" wondered the police officer, looking around at the group in confusion.
Mind-Wipe spun to stare at him, clenching his jaw in frustration. He had forgotten about their erstwhile guide. The officer's pistol was still in his hand. Mind-Wipe could force him to drop it by shifting his focus from Faure back to the officer. But he couldn't do it now, not while Faure was on the radio – Faure was far too important to his plan. "Mistral?"
Instantly, Mistral turned one of her arm-mounted fans to point at the officer and revved it up to the highest speed. The officer's eyes widened in shock and he waved his arms, trying to regain his balance. But she pointed the fan a little higher to point directly at his face, blowing his hair back as his hat sailed off his head. He stumbled backward, less than a meter from the edge of the roof, and fell over. His last yell trailed up to them, only to be silenced in an instant when he struck the ground with a sickening thud.
"Now, my dear," Mind-Wipe continued, fixing his eyes on Faure's mistress, "are you going to be quiet, or are you going to share his fate?" Quailing under his intense gaze, she swallowed hard, tears in her eyes, and sat still on the roof, hugging her legs tightly and sniffling quietly. Mind-Wipe turned to Faure, arching an eyebrow, and concentrated on him. "I believe you were in the middle of something?"
Slowly, Faure depressed the button on the side of the radio. "Disregard my last message," he intoned, his voice lacking any inflection. "I was mistaken. Send the police away from my residence."
"Understood."
Dynamus glanced down the street in the direction of the city center and stroked his chin. Finally he nodded. "They're leaving."
Mind-Wipe grinned dangerously. "Excellent. Now to business."