No wonder, you're so stubborn
Nobody ever made you dig deeper
No wonder, you got demons
Everything you ever did is coming back around
I can't help you, if I'm weaker
You took the honey from the Queen Bee keeper
No wonder, you got demons
Everyone's got a choice this time around.
Our Demons – The Glitch Mob
(Inspiration: Aiden and his demons)
When Jay wakes all he hears is white noise. A stinging, shrieking numbness pounds on his muscles as he pulls himself up. A stifling heat overwhelms his senses.
Then he notices that he's alone. And everything is moving much, much slower.
He tries to focus on something, anything. He stands, wobbling. The first of his thought is to find Aiden. His only thought is to find Aiden.
He looks around, locking onto him instantly, his form unconscious, half underneath rubble. There is nothing more important than him now, and he runs, at least he thinks he's running. The world is moving as if they are underwater, fading in an out.
"Aiden!" He speaks, but doesn't hear himself, kneeling by the older psychic and shaking him. After nothing comes in response he looks up at the rubble, trying to push it away, forgetting in the heat and dream-like slowness that he could lift them easily. Senselessly, he pushes and pulls at rocks and wood.
Distantly, there is someone calling his name, around him he hears a roaring crash despite making no progress freeing Aiden. He feels his legs give out, the voices pounding him onto the ashy floor, he squeezes his eyes shut. After a moment, the noise ceases.
He opens his eyes, and everything snaps back into focus.
Coughing, he plants a hand on the floor, pushing himself up. He sees Aiden first, sprawled in the same position, but the rubble is no longer there. Looking out, an entire wall is collapsed before them, as if a tornado ripped it apart in seconds.
"Wha…" is all Jay could successfully speak, his vocal chords shot.
A moment later his arm is seized, his back hits a still-standing support beam, Wick's bright, vicious eyes staring at him. He's covered in ash and dirt, clothes torn and spotted with blood. When he speaks his voice is shaking, staggered in anger, "Do you have any fucking idea what you've done?"
Jay could just now start to hear his own tired breathing, shaking his head in response. The Will Bender turns him toward the massive hole in the wall, "You know who did that? It was you!" He shoves him on the ground, racking his hands through his hair, "You didn't even notice! But I know some people who did."
Jay looks over at the space just moment ago towering with rubble, "I…did that?"
"Yes!" Wick growls, "Yes you did!"
"How?"
Wick stares, his breath stuttered. His eyes dart behind them, then back, grabbing part of his jacket and pulling him outside. Jay rips away only to get grabbed again, he tries to summon his power but it's muddled, unfamiliar. The feeling and the rhythm foreign to him.
"Will you stop? I have your damn Fox," He gestures to Aiden floating with them, his skin pale and body limp, "I can also tell you he's not dead yet, but he will be, we will all be if you keep staling."
"What is going on?" Jay asks, frantically, panic setting in from the lack of power in him, "I…I can't feel—"
"Oh, don't worry," Wick speaks, his voice between laughter and pure bitterness, "You have all the power in the world now."
Jay wants to struggle more, but whatever happened during the explosion was something it seems only Wick can explain. He lets himself get dragged along, the voices slowly beginning to return, images flying past him. Despite not knowing what they were, at least it is something familiar, the visions.
Minutes drag by as they shuffle through allies before Wick speaks again, "I'm sorry to disappoint you kid, but I've worked for the Club this whole time."
Jay blinks, taking far too long to remember what the Club even was, then slowly realizing, "You…"
"Yes, I'm a dirty traitor, yada yada, 'how dare you' whatever," He pushes him over a fence, following afterword, "My boss has been tracking the Fox for years, he wants his power."
Jay swallows, feeling guilt in him, "That's why you made friends with me, to get close to him."
"Well, shit, you're starting to get it," Wick says, acidic, "He taught me a trick, a trick you interrupted."
"And what was that?"
Wick stops him at the end of an alley breaking back into the city, watching him with a suddenly steady gaze, "I took away his powers."
The younger psychic stares, "You—"
"They were supposed to go to me, I was so close, then you came, you took them instead."
Jay continues to stare, backing away till he hits the wall, looking back at Aiden's floating form, "I…have his powers?"
"Yeah, but you don't feel like it do you?"
Jay shakes his head.
"That's because his powers, the way he crafted them, you don't know how to control. You are not him. When his Aura went to you, you took a part of him, and now your own Aura is confused."
"But I moved the rubble!"
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?" Jay finds himself shouting, "I was trying to get it off…Aiden…" He looks over at the older psychic, "I was trying to…protect him."
"That's something both Auras can agree on, right?" Wick's voice is softer now, his eyes blank, contemplating, "…I'm going to help you."
Jay looks up at him, his own eyes skeptical.
"…I forgot what it feels like to have someone to protect," He says, slowly, seeming unsure himself, "Maybe this will give me some solace."
Jay glances away from him, listening to the voices lingering in his head. A single voice is louder, forceful in his mind.
It speaks out loud. From his own mouth, "That's bullshit."
Wick stares, surprised, "…What now?"
"I'm saying it's bullshit. You only care about yourself. I guess I should be impressed. But I'm not." Jay blinks, swallow as if the voice was a disgusting medicine that refused to go down. What got into him? That wasn't him.
Wick watches for a long moment, "…I fucked up, kid. Twice. Quinn isn't going to let me live. Might as well jump onto the good side as a over-glorified "fuck you"."
Part of him is bothered by the response, but another half of him respects the ambiguousness of his morality, a side Jay could not figure the origin of. Regardless he knew he must continue on or neither of them are going to live.
"Alright…fine. Help me."
The Will Bender nods, "Alright then. Follow me."
They follow the steamed alleys overheated by machine parts. It is just past twilight, or it may not be…Jay could not tell through the colors that pass his vision.
"…I've never had so many visions," He says quietly, not really sure if he actually has said it.
"That's because you are overpowered now," Wick looks over with impatient eyes, "Your Aura is trying to filter the new power into something familiar, which means more visions. It's better than breaking the concrete with every step you take at least."
I'd love to break some things around this fucked up place.
Jay shakes his head, the thought coming from nowhere. He disregards it, happy its just visions.
When they get to a broken up parking lot Wick stops in his tracks, "…You feel that?"
Jay stops as well, listening, feeling, a creeping aura reaching its crescendo. Along it was some…off-hinged laughter.
He looks up at the roof above them, eyes widening, "Wick…!"
Wick turns, a disrupting shot slicing the air between them. Then came the slow motion, that horrible emphasizing rhythm absent from time as Wick wraps an arm around his stomach, collapsing entirely.
He deserves it for what he did to us, really.
Jay runs to the Will Bender, kneeling by him, blood staining the cracked asphalt. Strangely enough Wick laughs, its willowed and weak, "Fuck—they work fast. Damn."
"Wick—you bastard you aren't going to make it—what can I do? You have to reverse what happened!"
Wick looks up, both of them sensing the same growing force toward them. His eyes move back to Jay, watching him before laughing again.
"You're mind…I can feel it cracking, kid."
"W-what? Stop laughing! I need you to help me!" He peels off his jacket pressing it against the gapping wound in his stomach.
The longer we stay here the better chance we have of ending up like him.
He looks over at Aiden, now curled on the ground without Wick's concentration, then back. Whatever voice speaks to him is right. But he couldn't just leave Wick to die. He couldn't…
"You can…" Wick says, reading his thoughts, there is something in his eyes, they are grinning eyes, "…Actually...take me with you, kid."
"Good, I just have to figure out how to lift you—" He jumps as Wick grabs his hand, crying out as he pulls himself up, his other hand taking the back of his neck, "What—are you doing?"
He feels a rushing adrenaline in his veins, Wick's Aura fading from his body, creeping toward him, pricking at his blood. He hears off hinged laughter.
"There is something in you, kid, and if I have to die, I'm leaving a game changer behind—" He growls, it fading into a laugh, mixed with the voice in his own mind "So I give you…everything."
~WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW~
"Do we really need to send this many for one kid?"
It is almost comical to the man the amount of backup they need. As far as he heard the kid they are after is moving slowly, weak and young, while the Fox is completely out of commission. Yes, they have to bring the kid to Quinn alive but it sounds like they could throw rocks and even that is overkill.
"Wick failed. The Visionary got the Fox's powers." One of his comrades pointed out, "Shit might hit the fan real fast."
"That kid can't possible handle the Fox's powers. At least not enough to take us all out."
It is true enough, and they are closing in on the target. There is a muddled Aura, no doubt for what Wick did. One of the snipers said they took him out, but he went silent afterword.
When the car stops the energy seems corrupted by the damn energy. God that is annoying.
He gets out, moving out into the parking lot. The kid was just toward the center, seeming frozen, staring at Wick's body. Bastard got what was coming to him in his opinion. The Fox was there too, lying unconscious.
He moves forward. Maybe he can save some bullets to the leg. Wick mentioned how stupid the kid was, stupid enough to trust him.
"Kid," He calls out, moving closer, "Make this easy for us and get up."
When the kid makes no motion he takes another step, "Alright, you're not getting yourself anywhere." He takes his arm just barely before he's flung backward, rolling a couple times before stopping himself, standing, "Shit…"
He looks back up at a laugh he hears. It's not a normal laugh.
"How dare you?" He sees the kid stand, turning to him, "I'm afraid I won't be going quietly…I won't be going anywhere with you…in fact…"
The man scrabbles up, backing toward the others as the ground cracks within itself, steam rising from breaking pipes. The kid, standing in the center of the flowering destruction, smiles, blood from Wick's body setting on his clothes. His eyes are brighter than any psychic he has seen in a long, long time.
"I don't think any of you will be getting away…so lets have some fun."
~WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW~
Clara turns the hover car sharply down a series of allies. She had…aggressively commandeered it from a man leaving a hotel.
"Fuck—" Damien curses in the passenger seat, "They aren't dying woman!"
"I told you I had a hunch." Clara growls, darting back to the main road with little to no regard for other cars.
"A hunch doesn't warrant this—" He curses again as the car breaks suddenly, "Now what are you…" he trails off, hearing humming thunder in the distance. Clara stares ahead, the people around hurrying past them as buildings in the distance collapse in on themselves.
"What did I say now?" Clara hisses quietly, rocketing forward, "I've never seen destruction like that…"
"Glorious," Damien mumbles to himself, seeing another rumble erupt into a water tower, "What can that possibly be?"
"Nothing good." Clara says, driving as fast as the car will allow across the Wards, stopping only when the road stopped, jumping out and immediately stumbling back, "Holy shit…that Aura…"
Damien twitches, the energy fogging the whole area. He moves out of the car, "...That is not any normal Aura…something has gone very wrong." He moves in between buildings, screaming sounding somewhere in the distance.
A couple minutes drag by as they wander the wreckage, eventually coming across what looked to have been a parking lot. Though it doesn't look much of anything now, most of the asphalt is ripped away, broken into shards splattered in blood, the buildings cracked and barely standing.
Clara finds the center, the only in tact area of the lot, surprised to see Aiden lying on his side, looking pale but breathing. Wick is a ways away, unmoving.
"He's dead," Damien says, though the tone in his voice is blank. Both of them already knew.
Clara kneels by Aiden, touching his face, "…He's…Damien, I can't feel his Aura…"
Damien limps over, not having to touch him, feeling nothing, "…That's not good."
"No shit! Where did it go?"
"Well. It's gone." Damien mumbles, "But since that shit can't be destroyed…what matters is where it went…"
Clara looks down as he hears Aiden shift very suddenly, his eyes flicking open, the color diluted to a human green, "…Clara?"
All three look ahead as another thunderous sound hurtles across the area.
Aiden pulls himself up, stumbling, "…What—is going on? My energy—"
"Gone." Damien says, "And considering the missing person…I think I know where it went."
In half a moment Aiden collects everything in his head, "Jay." He runs forward, toward the stifling Aura.
"And there he goes," Damien sighs, following though far slower, "Hurling himself into danger like a fucking idiot."
~WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW~
Aiden has a hard time running. There is grogginess in his muscles that make him do so. The last thing he remembers is fighting Wick…there was an explosion…
He runs till he stumbles on rubble, catching himself easily on a broken wall, "Jay!"
A ring of off-kilter laughter catches his ears. He moves forward, within a building not completely destroyed. There are bodies, stabbed with shards of metal or shot by several bullets. This can't be Jay. It can't be.
"Aiden…!"
He turns, hearing his name in the shadows, "Jay?"
A figure pulls from a doorway, his clothes ripped, splattered in blood. He is smiling, the Aura on him he recognizes. It is his own…Wick as well…and then Jay.
"I really do detest that name," Jay speaks, but it's not a voice Aiden can recognize, "I'm Defalt."
I don't really know much to say about how long it took me to write this. Lets just say it took me a very long time to think of something and leave it at that. Leave a review and tell me what you think. Love you all. :D