Sorry for the long wait, I've been struggling to write this fic from the start but we're almost at the one scene which flashed into my head months ago and which the whole fic grew around, so I hope that bit is good.
This chapter contains violence, blood and a naughty swear word. Not that the other chapters haven't, but this may be the first time I've thought to put a warning in. I'm not sure what happened but the Ripper has started talking like the emperor off Star Wars.
Chapter 13
The Sanctuary team huddled closer together under the emergency red lights, surrounding Bigfoot with Druitt still in his arms. Sally had disappeared into the pool understandably preferring to take her chances with the monster making its way through the waterway instead of the Ripper.
"What the hell is going on?" shouted Lt. Black. "There must be more of them. Keep your weapons trained on the prisoners."
"Uh, we're not your prisoners, dumbass," pointed out Kate.
She scowled as Lt Black stepped up in front of her and they stood nose to nose.
"We remember our own, Miss Freelander," he said menacingly. "And we remember those who betrayed us."
"Get away from her," shouted Henry, trying to struggle past Tesla to get to Kate.
He was quickly stopped with a sharp blow to the head with a rifle butt and fell to the floor. As the Sanctuary team moved to defend their own, forty gun barrels made them pause and think twice. Kate pulled Henry up off the floor.
"Nice one hero," she whispered.
"You idiots go and sweep the building again," Lt Black barked out orders.
"We already did sir, the facility is clear."
"You missed something."
"We didn't, sir. There were some abnormals in their cells but they're locked down."
"They're not cells," interrupted Magnus, in indignation at the suggestion.
"Shut up!" Black turned on her furiously, hissing in the red light.
Bigfoot growled in response eliciting a nervous glance from the Lieutenant. His assessment of the threat the Sanctuary team posed to him and his men was forgotten as he stared up over their heads, his mouth slightly ajar.
Noticing his stare, Magnus and Ashley exchanged a pained glance. They knew what was behind them.
The black cloud rolled into the room like a fog bank off the sea, filling the top half of the chamber with its smoky dark essence. Flashing electrical energy which brightened the room at intervals, it hovered above Druitt and those surrounding him all grouped tightly together by the pool. The guns of the Cabal were no longer trained on the team but slowly dropped to point at the floor in disbelief.
The stand off was forgotten as Magnus, Ashley, Tesla, Henry, Kate and Bigfoot with Druitt, slowly backed away from the poolside, widening the distance between them and the Cabal agents. The Cabal didn't even blink as they too retreated from the cloud. It didn't need saying to either side, that things had taken a turn for the very worst.
The air in the room became noticeably charged, not only with tension but close, like a thunderstorm was about to discharge from the sky.
"Time for Plan B", whispered Ashley. "Get ready to run."
The electric surge which had previously overridden the security lockdown and held the doors open was instantly relinquished and the high security blast doors finally thudded down to the ground in response to Ashley's whisper. The Ripper was listening, they were all trapped. Someone grabbed the back of her shirt in fright.
"Crap."
The cloud hovered ominously but temporarily benignly as the Cabal were ordered to spread out and take attack stance. In Bigfoot's arms Druitt stirred. Bigfoot set him on the ground his back resting against the cool stone wall with surprising gentleness as he came to his senses.
"What's happening?" he groaned.
Magnus crouched down next to him as Ashley, Henry, Kate and Henry formed a wall between them and the Ripper in a futile attempt to hide him. They flicked nervous glances from the Cabal to the Ripper, then to Druitt, as he spoke.
"No, don't," he said in a shocked whisper as he watched the Cabal form a circle around the room and take aim.
"Don't attack it, you'll make it worse," he tried to shout in his hoarse voice. "Don't look," he said to the Sanctuary team. "Don't watch," he begged them, as only the true John Druitt could, as the Cabal opened fire.
They all ducked down and bunched together in their group against the wall as bullets sprayed over them like a swarm of angry bees. Kate found herself wrapped in Henrys arms, Magnus and Ashley were together shielding Druitt, Bigfoot was on the outside of the huddle protecting everyone, Tesla was as far in the middle of the group as he could get, determined to be out of harms way as much as possible with Will squashed in between him and Magnus.
Deafening thunder rumbled around the room echoing off the walls making the old stones tremble, the sound reverberating on and on and on. Lightning crackled making the hair stood up on the back of everyone's necks and all over on Bigfoot.
After what seemed like eternity the noise quietened, the thunder rumbled its last and the unscathed Sanctuary team slowly looked up from the wall horrified at what they saw and all it entailed.
They had been spared.
The entire Cabal invasion force were scattered all over the room, broken bodies lay at all kinds of awkward angles over the ground, the flagstones were dark and slick with blood and bodies bobbed about on the waters surface of the pool. They all appeared dead.
The monster crackled in the roof space on the opposite side of the room, watching, waiting.
Ashley untangled herself from her mother's arms. This was it. What she had promised she was ready for and it was time to find out if it was true or not. With a glance she said a possible last farewell to her mother. As she turned to move, Druitt grabbed her shirt and pulled her toward him. She gasped in fright at the sudden movement from him.
"Don't do anything reckless," he said, pain still evident in his eyes.
"Who, me?" she flashed him a bright grin, full of courage yet tinged with regret. How could this possibly end any way but badly?
"Ashley! What are you doing?" Henry whispered loudly.
"Henry, shut up," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "I'm trying to concentrate."
"But there's tentacles poking out of the pool," whispered Henry, sounding very unhappy.
She continued walking toward the creature until she reached the centre of the room and faced the monster which had for so long torn her family apart.
The monster laughed. They could hear it, the air swirling and rushing and electricity crackling moving up and down as though it were laughing. Mocking them.
"You want him?" Ashley challenged it. "You'll have to get through me first."
Magnus knelt at Druitt's side their hands entwined. To her horror, and everyone else there frozen in terror or unable to think of a single damn thing to do to diffuse this situation, it spoke.
"Ahh, the offspring. There is potential here. We could be mighty together, you and I. Forget them, join me."
Trembling slightly and she hoped imperceptibly, Ashley took a hold of her fear, took a deep breath, glowered Druitt style and replied.
"Dude. Shut the fuck up."
On that note, she teleported across the room heading straight for the creature. It reciprocated and flew toward her and they met in a clash of fluctuating energy, of dust and atoms and smoke and rage and thunder and lightning and electricity, wavering, rippling, crackling, whirling. A flash of blue light and the whole cloud cracked in what appeared to be an attempted teleport. Instead the cloud exploded and a shock wave rang out throwing bodies and the living spectators away from the centre of the explosion and against the walls.
Once more corporeal, Ashley flew backwards out of the cloud and across the floor, the bodies of what were once Cabal broke her fall and halted her slide. She got to her knees and they faced each other again, Ashley on the opposite side of the room separated from her family.
Magnus and Druitt were separated by the force of the blast, the cloud reforming overhead between them. Magnus made an attempt to move back to Druitt but the creature made it perfectly clear they were to remain parted.
"There is much anger in you, offspring. Join me and let it out, let your anger reign. Use all that power you are holding back and see what you can do, what your father could not. The universe is in your grasp. Other worlds. You have more understanding of your power than he. Unlimited power."
Ashley was on hers knees stunned by what she had just witnessed. The power of it was incredible. When it had looked into Ashley, she had looked back into it. She had seen those women murdered again over and over in its mind. They didn't have names in its thoughts just faces, screams, quantities of blood, and it had enjoyed every sick second, while dragging her unfortunate father along with it.
Like hell was she going to let that monster beat her, Ashley Magnus did not quit. Ashley Magnus could not quit. Failure was not an option.
"Unlimited power? Let's test that theory."
The creature unleashed a warning bolt of energy into the pool, spraying water everywhere. The tentacles retreated under the surface and were lost from sight.
"Choose," it demanded. "Come with me or I will kill her and go back to him, or, I will go back to him and then kill her."
It screamed with laughter at the latter option.
There was no contest and she knew it. The inevitable lay in front of her. A knot twisted in her stomach as she stepped forward. She laboriously clambered to her knees.
"I choose, you," said Ashley, quietly and captured its delighted attention completely.
"No," shouted Helen.
Ashley couldn't look at her mother as she slowly took step after step away from her family.
"Don't Ashley," said John. "I'll take it back."
He tried to struggle to his feet but a blast of electrical energy knocked him back down to the ground, unconscious once more. The Ripper didn't want him any more. It wanted Ashley and all her anger and power, such potential.
She ignored all their pleas as the monster crackled excitedly. She steadily walked toward it and only stopped when she took the final step into the swirling energy of the Ripper.
Magnus screamed in anguish.