Death 1.4
I was in the Locker. My Heart was still stopped, of course, so instead of breathless panic, I was filled with an icy tranquility. My enemies were outside the small dark space that enfolded me like a mockery of an embrace. A trickle of blood ran down the wall, and I felt rather than heard the impact on the outside of the Locker.
I sank into myself as much as I could, bitter thoughts drowning out what little hope I had harboured. All I had wanted was to be left in peace, and maybe for Emma to come back and to fill the empty aching void left by her departure by following the words of another broken man. A strange thought, not quite my own, but still. Anyway, saving people.
I stepped back out of the Locker, and caught a taser to the chest. Pain exploded across my body, but compared to the Locker, it was as nothing. I growled, and staggered forwards towards the PRT officer who panicked, dropped the taser and ran. I tore the spines and wires free, hissing as the hot metal stung my hands, and looked around. SI Morrows was still on the floor, most likely dead, and the 'CPS' agent was nowhere to be seen.
A path of clarity drew my attention to the window. Without my glasses, it was the only thing that I could see properly, so I started moving slowly towards it. Then a sense of urgency swept over me, and I lunged forward, smashing through the window. I rolled as I hit the ground, and looked around. There were three paths now, but the sense or urgency pushed me down a particular one and I began to run again.
The path lead me to an alleyway where a man had a woman pinned against the wall with his hips.. Disgust and fury overwhelmed me, alongside an odd sense of surprise. I ran forward, and grabbed the man by his thinning, greasy hair. I slammed his head into the wall as hard as I could and he collapsed, yelling as he clutched his head. The woman looked at me in terror, then down at the man and then began hobbling, staggering away, pulling her clothes back into place. Her eyes never left me, as she backed slowly away.
The clear path went up the walls all of a sudden and I had to go. A short run up, and I was jumping from wall to wall as if I had done it all my life. When I landed, it was on top of a mugger. Again, just a little too late to actually save the victim, but enough to get vengeance on their behalf. Again, a look of fear, mixed with awe, and off I went again. I dragged a burglar out of a house, and he shot me. It hurt, a lot, but I wasn't losing much blood and he hadn't hit anything important, so once I had beaten him unconscious, I moved on again.
At some point, I cut my feet on some broken glass, which made running painful. My knuckles split when I was fighting off some policemen who... interfered. I broke my arm when some gangbanger took a pipe to it. Clear paths sprang up guiding my through filth, both mortal and inert matter, but it didn't matter. The paths faded when I was too slow, which meant that they faded more and more often as I got slower. Frustration filled me then, and despair.
I staggered after a path that had been there all day, bending and twisting as if to follow someone. It tried to lead me over the rooves of the city, but I couldn't climb, and soon the path relented, sending me through the streets instead. I walked into one of the better off neighbourhoods, and supressed a shudder. The people who had needed saving here... couldn't be, usually. That was the time the police came, dragging me off an abusive wife. Her husband and child had already been begging for forgiveness as I was being dragged out the door.
A notable failure, on a day of failures and partial successes. I dragged myself along until the path abruptly stopped. I frowned, and looked around. Then I looked up to see Glory Girl and Panacea passing overhead. They were perfectly clear to my sight, and I frowned. Who could hurt those two? They landed in front of a house a little ways away, and the clarity moved to follow Panacea. A fluttering of happiness came over me, before ice poured from my heart and quashed these foreign feelings. It also dimmed the pain enough for me to start hobbling forwards again. Note to self: stopping while in agony is bad.