Nothing in this world is strange.
(Title: Priceless.)
…
…
He is gone.
Liz doesn't register it for a few half-seconds. Her soul falls into resonance with Patty after a moment of complete disorder and the eldest sibling stares numb at the spot where Kidd vanished.
Understanding reaches her in stages, the feeling is similar to having your head pushed beneath ice-cold water and held down. She is gasping for air and trying to right herself and picking out details and screwing her eyes shut while trying to hold them open.
Patty is screaming at her to fire as many rounds as physically possible into the man before them.
Liz doesn't really recall blinking back into human form, she knows she must have because she is kneeling on the cobblestone and holding a gun to the man that is crouched where Kidd was only moments ago. The man is responsible for Kidd vanishing. Liz can hear her voice, it is steel and glass and she never remembered opening her mouth… but she is threatening the man as Patty cries for their reaper and technician.
The eldest sibling notes that her vision is blurring up and she repeats Kidd's name over and over in her mind. Patty's words don't register anymore, its just sound and the bright sparking of raw loss and fearful anger jolting across their link.
The man doesn't flinch as Liz tells him to give their technician back. Instead he gives her a smile that suggests he is humoring her somehow. Only this is nowhere close to funny. The world tilts beneath Liz as the man rises and promises to spare her.
Patty notes that the man is unarmed and urges Liz to put a tidy set of eight bullets between his eyes. They could kill him. They could get Kidd back right now if this man dies, Patty thinks. Liz is choking on the concept.
The link between Patty and the eldest weapon strains itself. Liz is all confusion and disoriented numbness while Patty is focused rage and molten possessiveness. The emotions clatter and shutter-snap between them. Liz's blurry eyes spill over and she removes one hand from the gun in her grip to wipe roughly at her face.
She cannot kill the man.
He is standing, looking at her with a sort of pitiful admiration, she registers that he is calling her pretty, beautiful even. She wants to bring her technician back. She feels shaky and numb and off balance without the young reaper's soul in harmony with hers.
Her finger slides off the trigger and the man is walking away. His shadow slides out of sight before Liz lowers the gun. She cannot kill the man. Patty is murmuring a stream of curses about how Liz is weak.
Briefly there is a silence between them.
The world shifts underneath Liz's feet as Patty gives a quiet series of instructions. The youngest sibling is forming a strategy, because they need to get out of this hellhole and find back-up and go after Kidd. Liz's mind is forming images of the death room, internally she grimaces at the thought of telling Death that his son is gone.
The world spins backwards for a moment and Liz finally has the strength to pull herself to her feet. She is stoic but she can feel the gears of her thoughts whirling back into capacity.
They are two thirds of something and Liz is taking off at a light sprint to get the hell out of there. Somewhere inside herself Patty is just beginning to recognize the loss.
The sound of gunfire is absent from the battle field. The siblings notice this in unison, though it is Liz who hones in on the other sounds. The ones that crack and sing around the stone of their location. The tang of blades and the zing-y low tenor of lightning is present, there is the yelling of other technicians… indistinct and muted.
They are hand in hand as they run, Patty taking the lead because she is the faster of the two. Liz cannot remember the last time she held Patty's hand. A tug on her forearm and her younger sister's hand scrabbling at her waist. Liz is thrown to the ground by the younger pistol.
There is the ear shattering scream of high pitched sound, the rumble of a concussion wave and then dust and small rock fragments. They are pushed up against a column of stone and Liz cannot really get a hold of anything. Her mind is switching between the present and the past again.
Patty's face is right in front of her own, suddenly, her little sister's mouth moving soundlessly. It takes the eldest pistol three seconds too long to understand that Patty is holding her face between her hands. Her sibling is afraid, the pressing of Patty's soul up against her own is a call for resonance. Patty's finger tangle into Liz's hair.
There is clarity for one moment.
They resonate. Patty's soul forcing Liz into a calm that feels more numb than serene. They are exchanging a million words and pushing back a lifetime of memories. Patty is asking if she is okay, wondering if one of them should go into weapon form, listening for signs of someone getting too close.
Liz is running a hand through her ratted hair, shaking her head and getting to her feet as Patty stands and squeezes her hand a bit too hard. Inside their resonance the oldest pistol is counting her breaths and murmuring that they can do this.
Clarity vanishes.
They are running, shoes finding grip on the stone and grass as they round a corner and meet a serpentine demon. There is a half second before the creature turns it's head and fixes them in a pair of cold green eyes.
Without hesitation Liz is blinking into weapon form, her body folding into steel and perfect metal as her soul compresses and expands. Patty is taking a stance that Liz knows well. Patty's palm is warm, steady and all composure as her opposite hand slams under the base of the gun for support. The youngest sister is shoulder muscles and coiled battle stance, searing her wavelength into the gun.
Fifteen shots are fired in under four seconds. The snake demon falls dead as Patty whispers something about them needing to stay focused and keep moving.
Liz is blinking out of weapon form and reaching for Patty's hand. They are sprinting away from the snake's downed corpse. It is quiet in their resonance until Liz focuses on a specific sound. Matching Patty's heartbeat is an oath, whispered like a mantra. It has woven itself around all the images and memories and shreds of Kidd's voice that float inside their link.
It goes back, Liz notes as she tugs at the grey and steel colored twine of the words, they are spider silk and smoke. The oath was sworn the moment he left them. Repeated every heartbeat since.
We will get him back.
It is burned into their blood, repeated a hundred thousand times already.
We will get him back.
Liz feels her soul reach for the connection that would complete their resonance. The soul of death's only son.
We will get him back.
…