Scene 21 - December 19th

Interior MLED Compound, Continuous

Holly Koval

I checked again, almost compulsively, on how Newton was doing against ‘Sir Amethyst’. I tried not to micromanage my team, but... in a real situation like this, it was hard not to worry, especially about the least experienced member of the team. Especially when that was my best friend.

They were doing fine, though. Other than a brief scare when Amethyst had gotten them by the throat, which they had resolved on their own before I could burn the man’s retinas out, they had kept him busy and kept him talking - even gotten some potentially useful intel out of the man, like their names and apparent goal of the secure storage units. I didn’t think anything too important was contained in New Venice’s units right now - all I could recall being in them was some hypertech recovered from Motael’s power armor the last time that the New Champions had clashed with the man, and Starling had already stripped anything useful from it. They could maybe have been hired by Motael to recover the tech, but it had been over a year - surely he would have made an attempt sooner, if he was going to. So my guess is that that had been an attempt to lay a false trail, and I would tell Director Shepard that.

Hypnos was doing pretty well too, I though, glancing at his portion of the battlefield. Sir Alacrity’s super-speed seemed to be less than precise, and Hypnos was able to dodge him without much difficulty - although he hadn’t managed to land a hit of his own yet, either.

Sequoia, on the other hand, had needed a little help. Some judicious illusions had-

“Loki, right?”

I glanced up at the sound of a cheerful voice laced with poison, and saw the fifth member of the knightly crew, white smoke rising from her helmet. Dame...

I frowned. Something wasn’t right.

“That’s me,” I agreed, performing a tricky spell to both hide myself and the floating screens and models that showed me the surrounding area and replace them, so I could move from my apparent position without her knowing. “And you are?”

“Dame Acumen, at your service,” she said, sketching a bow - in the direction of the real me, not where she ought to be seeing my image. “I serve the same function to the Round Table as you do for the Journeymen.”

Tactical commander, I noted, dismissing the spell that had apparently not fooled her, and possibly some kind of battlefield control or coordination. How was she seeing through my constructs? What kind of enhanced senses did she have, and could I fool them? “You stand at the back and snipe?” I asked, snapping my fingers and generating a concussive wave in her direction.

She sidestepped it easily, casually, as though she knew it had been coming. Some kind of combat precognitive, like Hypnos? “That’s right,” Acumen agreed. “I snipe. Not in quite the same way as you, mind you, but not all of us get lucky enough to have a combat-relevant superpower. Or combat-relevant magic, in your case. Those without have to get by with just intelligence.” There was a distinct smirk in her voice now. “If only I didn’t need it either.”

I frowned beneath my mask. “You know, Acumen, veiled insults like that won’t make people like you. For that, you’ll need to have an actual personality.”

“Oh, was that a veiled insult?” Acumen asked. “Funny, I wasn’t veiling it at all. Perhaps it just seemed so because you had to think about it-”

I interrupted by sending a lance of fire at her, simultaneously creating lasers on either side so she couldn’t simply sidestep a gain.

...but not preventing her from doing a split in place, apparently. The split dropped her low to the ground beneath the flames, her legs spreading underneath the lasers. “Ah, violence,” she mused as she bounced back up. “The first and last resort of the weak-minded.”

“It is kind of my job, you know. Besides, I’ve got to stop your yammering somehow - you’re not going to shut up on your own.”

“Of course not - why would I?” She stepped closer to me, and I raised a hand, generating illusory flames to crackle around it. “Oh, enough of the fire!” she sighed, dramatically. “Honestly, it’s the first time you’ve used it and it’s already old.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, beginning to swing my hand over my head. The flames trailed behind my hand and formed a loop, a blazing lariat of fire that I made to throw at her.

She watched with apparent curiosity, tilting her head to the side, then spoke a word. I thought she spoke a word, at any rate - my magical senses could feel the sound and even a surge of power, but my brain refused to recognize what she had said. The word was clearly a spell, as the flaming lasso I had created instantly froze over and shattered into a cloud of bluish white mist, which slowly sank to the ground.

“I wasn’t sure if your spells would count as ‘objects’ or not to my magic,” Acumen confessed, a wide grin clear in her voice. “It seems like they do!”

I sighed. “You think the fire is getting old? Trust me, your whole thing is getting old.”

“Then why don’t you stop me?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Violence doesn’t seem to be working, why not-”

I created a remote control and pointed it at her, pressing a button with my thumb, and her voice instantly fell silent.

It seemed to take her a moment to realize that I had literally muted her, but her body language seemed positively offended as she put her hands on her hips, cocking them to one side and shaking her head. Then she raised her hands and began miming something.

I shrugged. “Shouldn’t have shown me how you focus your magic. Who’s weak-minded, again?”

She made some kind of complex hand gesture.

“Sorry, I don’t speak sign. I have no idea what you’re saying.”

The armored woman held up one gauntleted finger, and I laughed. “That I understand.”

Then she pointed over my shoulder, miming laughter. Instead of looking away from her, I chanced a glance at my screens and growled at what I saw.

Sir Ardent and Sequoia were grappling with each other, while Hypnos seemed to have been pinned down and gagged by Dame Adamant, who seemed to have broken away from Sequoia while I had been distracted by Dame Acumen, fearlessly stepping through my walls of fire. Alacrity, meanwhile, was now working with Sir Amethyst against Newton - they were holding their own by using flashes of light to briefly stun their foes, but were clearly struggling, and yet hadn’t called for help.

I glared at Acumen, whose distraction had allowed this to happen. “You,” I began angrily, but was interrupted by the welcome reappearance of Journey.

The amazonian teleporter appeared not far from the edge of the room, with Referee - already in costume - sitting on one shoulder. “Hey guys!” She said cheerfully. “Sorry I’m late, had to pick up a friend who came back home early!”

Referee hunched over a little, nervous around new people even when they were villains, but gave a slight wave. “Where do you want us, Loki?”