No Way Home (Central Park- TAG: ALL)

[Madeliene Descoteaux]

Even here, in the open expanse of greenery that was Central Park, there were so many people…

For five days she had stayed inside the cramped walls of her derelict hotel room, watching from the cracked window as the crowd never seemed to stop. Countless shadows moved by on the sidewalk below, even in the thin hours when sleep evaded her. They called New York the ‘city that never sleeps’ and it was a title that seemed earned.

Although her accommodation was cheap, took cash and asked for no I.D or credit card, such an establishment was also lacking luxuries like room service. Which meant that twice now the girl had been forced to venture out into that hectic river of people to buy food. She had left it until well after midnight, going only as far as the all-night convenience store half a block away and skulking about the aisles with the hood of her jacket pulled tightly around her bowed face.

Today was the first time she had dared to go out in broad daylight. Initially her heart rate had spiked in shock as she had been swept along by the tide, hunching tightly and clutching her arms across her chest as she weaved to miss the passing bodies that brushed by dangerously close. No one in this place seemed to have any care for running into their fellow pedestrian- with their eyes on their cell phone in front of them they ploughed through the crowds and expected everyone else to get out of the way. In a desperate effort to get clear of the moving hazards, she had sought out more open ground and fled into one of the many paths leading into Central Park.

Now Madeliene Descôteaux found herself sitting on a bench across from the inconspicuous row of black boxed payphones in the bright September sunshine struggling with a worse enemy than the never-ending crowds…

When she had first sat down the payphones had hardly been a concern, but now she was replaying every spy movie she had ever seen, imagining the scene where the secret operative on the run would make an anonymous phone call from a location just like this as people none the wiser passed by in the background. She wondered if such public phones were harder to trace than the average landline. Even if her hotel room had been furbished with a phone she would not have been foolish enough to try and use it.

But those phones… Could she?

It had been over a week since she had last seen her father and the sound of his voice still filled her ears as she laid in bed at night staring at the ceiling. The sight of tears in his eyes as he had reached for her and hesitated still made her guts twist. It was the not knowing which ate at her so fiercely; what had been the consequences of his actions at the hospital? Was he in prison? Or was he at home, pacing around the house alone, worrying about her as much as she was him?

Gloved fingertips dug into her knees, wrinkling the jeans as she bit back the rising bile in the back of her throat. She was too warm, dressed inappropriately for the sunny day in jeans and a long-sleeved top, but the layers covering her had felt comforting to some extent. Bare skin felt too dangerous, too exposed, and while other women walked by in skirts, shorts, t-shirts and tank tops, the dark-haired girl sat hunched in her swaddling attire. However it was not just the heat of the day making her skin itch now. She could feel that terrible sensation like maggots crawling under her skin working its way up her forearms, squirming across the back of her shoulders and slithering down her spine.

Pressing her clothed fingertips to her pallid features, she raked them through the long, wavy lengths of her mahogany hair, gathering it back where it tumbled down her shoulders and taking a deep breath to calm herself…

Before she lost her nerve, Madeliene lurched to her feet and dashed across the pathway to practically fall upon one of the payphones, snatching the receiver into hand.

A quick glance around the interior of the small canopy surrounding the box yielded a helpful chart listing emergency numbers and directory assistance. In smaller print below were two columns of countries and their international calling codes, which she deciphered from the pocket-sized French-English dictionary in her back pocket. Blunt, clothed fingers fumbled through the little pages and glancing from the book to the sign on the inside of the hood, Madeliene rushed to stab in the digits before she changed her mind.

She held her breath as the phone rang… and rang… and rang again. On the forth tone her heart seized in her chest and she sucked in a sharp breath as someone picked up. What felt like an eternity passed before she heard the familiar tenor say: “Allô?”

“… Père!” His name seemed caught in her throat, rushing from her along with her breath in a great shuddering sob.

“Madeliene! Ma fifille, que faites-vous? Vous ne devriez pas appel ici!” His voice was suddenly frantic and a male voice in the background barked out sternly.

“Père! Je suis désolé! Je suis tellement désolé!” All of a sudden it felt difficult to breathe and pain was throbbing through her body as if she were burning alive inside her own flesh. The girl hunched like she were in the grip of agony and her face contorted into a soundless sob as her chin crumpled and her lips stretched into a wail.

“Les forces de police sont à l'écoute ! Raccrocher ! Raccrocher, ma cherie! Je t'aime ! N'appelez pas--!”

The sound of her father’s voice was suddenly gone, like a thread cut by invisible shears and the dial tone rang empty in her ear.

“Je t’aime, père! Je t’aime! Je suis désolé! Père!... Père!”

Her cries deteriorated into sobs as Madeleine lent her head against the keypad and her shoulders shook with her tears, her hand still clutching the receiver as if it were the only thing holding her on her feet. Burning saltwater broke free of her lashes to roll down her cheeks, leaving searing trails like molten slang as it dragged over her skin. The pain in her fingers flared and she was forced to let go of the plastic device, pressing her hand to her chest and gripping at it as she grit her teeth.

Through vision blurred with her tears, she watched in horror as the receiver swung once on its cable and then broke loose, clattering to the ground in front of the stand. The plastic was bubbling as if it were held too close to a naked flame and what was left of the reticulated cable broke apart into rust to scattered over it on the ground below. The pole supporting the box warped, the metal corroding and falling apart and without warning the payphone crashed askew onto its side across the footpath.

Madeleine made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a wail as she backed away from it, clutching her hands in front of her and her porcelain face twisted into fear and anguish. As the phone next to the one she had used began to twist and succumb to the unrelenting tide of oxidization eating over the side of its cover, the gloves on her own fingers had started to break apart into mouldy fragments of cloth, spilling out of her palms to show the thick beige wrappings underneath. But even these were blackening, shrinking and coming loose off her skin, rotting with mould as they unravelled and still the destruction of the payphone bank continued. The rusting pieces that had broken loose were eating holes into the footpath where they had toppled, the crater spreading as the concrete eroded.

The sound of shrieks and screams made her head dart up, her wide brown eyes glistening with tears darting around like a frightened rabbit as she spotted the joggers pointing in her direction. A woman grabbed her child up into her arms and screamed a word she recognised, her eyes wild with terror:

“Police!”


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OOC: Please note I do not speak French fluently and all sentences in French were translated with the help of an online program. Pardon the grammar and mistakes.

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

Crystalynn Fosterman

As usual, Crystalynn went out for breakfast. As usual, that meant going somewhere special. She’d had more than enough time to store up enough energy overnight, as she had slept well for once. While it was early on the West Coast, there was a three-hour time difference between Los Angeles and New York, but she had long since become accustomed to the time zone changes, since she had gone as far out as Osaka and Dubai.

As was her custom, she stepped out of the wormhole in a thicket of trees in Central Park, where she would not draw attention to herself. What did she feel like eating? She had not decided yet. Perhaps something would catch her attention as she walked. Or her nose. She liked to try new places any time she went out. Sometimes she found a nice little place in a nook or crevice of some corner, though. Those were the few places she frequented.

Today, however, she was feeling adventurous. She had a few hours before she was due for work at the Jung Facility, so she walked about the park almost lazily, taking in the sights and smells of approaching fall in New York City. The temperature was somewhere between “warm” and “cool,” so, having checked the weather first, she had picked out one of her favorite sweatshirts, the one that said “Normal People Scare Me,” and added a touch of makeup too. Later, she would be walking around in scrubs, most likely, or maybe a suit, depending on what Jessica needed her to do, so this morning was the time for wearing something fun.

She tugged at the straps of her foxy - literally - backpack as she made her way to one of the paths. Now, this part, this walk, had become familiar to her. It was the fastest way to the exit. Not that Central Park was not interesting - it was, very much - but she had seen it enough times that it was no longer a tourist attraction for her. With her hands tucked into the pockets of her distressed jeans, she meandered along the path, listening to the birds chirping and taking in the scent of the last flowers to bloom.

Crys was picking her way out of the park when she heard a crash of some sort. Curious, she made a turn at a fork in the path. It was not long before she saw the origin of the noise. A couple of pay phones had tumbled to the side and onto the pavement which, in other circumstances, might have been fun to think of as “dominoes,” but that was not the end of it all. The boxes had begun to corrode, as though something was eating at it. Whatever was causing it was also making a hole in the pavement. A Special, Crys thought immediately. Things like this did not happen out of nothing.

Nearby, there was a young woman backing away, looking at her hands as the gloves and some other material that had covered them also broke apart. Crys considered the pros and cons of approaching her. She did not want to scare the young woman or invade her privacy, but it was apparent that she needed some sort of consolation. Only then did Crys realize that she had stopped in the middle of the path, and was staring. That was rude. She shook her curly hair out a bit and blinked. Okay, that was better. She hoped.

She had to back out of the way as a jogger came her way, but the jogger stopped to stare as well, pointing at the scene. That was enough for Crystalynn. She broke off the path and started toward the young woman, but then heard shrieking behind her and someone yelling “Police!” behind her. A civilian, maybe, or a more tame Special. Whatever the case, the woman was irritating.

“Oh, please,” Crys said, turning around to flash her Jung Facility identification badge. That ID bore a good amount of weight, especially these days. Hopefully it would be enough to shut that woman and any others up.

That done, she turned back to the young woman and placed a hand on her forearm. She would have laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, but the diminutive doctor was too short for that. “Hey,” Crys said softly, offering the young woman a smile. “Don’t worry about it. This sort of thing happens all the time.”

She figured the young woman was a new manifest. This would take care and caution. “We’ll figure this one out. There’s no need for tears.” Crystalynn mustered up the brightest smile she could.

That was before she saw what had happened to her own hand.

Outfit

[Jack Murdock]

Jack was wondering about "The Green Lung" of New York City to clear his head about the recent events of the Washington, DC invasion by the Dominion when he heard a commotion ahead of him. He was wearing blue jeans, white sneakers and a white sleeveless tee shirt and upon instinct, Jack bent down and touched the bike path he was walking on with the palms of his hands.

His skin turned into the black tarry surface of the tarmac road and blindly rushed in as usual without thinking of the consequences.

He saw two women, one young girl in distress and the other female flashing her badge around.

"Is this lady bothering you, miss?" Jack said carefully while still in tarmac form said to the girl in turmoil while keeping an suspicious eye on the so called "official".

[Madeliene Descoteaux]

When most of the people in the immediate area of the now crumbling payphone bank were running away from the eroding corona, there were some who started moving the other way, towards the dark-haired young woman who had been its epicentre.

The diminutive female who looked like any other passer-by in jeans and a motiffed sweatshirt was the first to reach her after breaking from her stare.

Madeliene instinctively backed up when she realised the curly-haired female was coming at her, fearing an attack and her hands tucked in against her chest as she held her now bared raw and blistered hands to her body. The sleeves of her top had disintegrated as far as her elbows and there was little in the way of bandages left, displaying the glistening, angry wounds in full view.

The hysterical civilian clutching her child forced Madeliene's would-be rescuer to pull out an official badge that made the girl's dark eyes go wide as they flicked from the upheld emblem and back to the bearer’s soft features. Her first thought was that this was a plain clothes detective or a government official and fear rooted her to the spot.

Too late she recoiled as the woman reached for her, her voice soothing but her words barely understood in the midst of the girl’s panic. Madeliene flinched, shuddering and shook her head wildly as her dark waves thrashed against her tear-streaked features.

“Aucun! Ne touchez pas moi!... Non touch me! Conserver à l'écart!” she sobbed and pulled away, her reddened stare riveted to the sight of the other’s hand. She made a pathetic wailing sound that caught in the back of her throat when the tell-tale blackening of the skin started to mottle over the stranger's palm, quickly spreading down the digits and wrist. Even as Madeliene backed away, she was witness to pieces of desiccated flesh crumbling loose from the poor woman’s hand.

A deep male timbre caught her attention, more English words her brain was unable to focus on in the instant of her terror and when the girl whipped her head around to look, the sight of the tall and imposing figure made her lips drop open and tremble. His body! The blackness of his body startled her and for a second she feared she had somehow started to rot this person too!

Loosing a shriek, Madeliene stumbled on weak legs and started running down the path. Her sobs faded as she disappeared around a garden bed out of sight, but the footpath where she had been still cracked and crumbled with the outline of her steps. The large, manicured bush she had brushed past was already wilting, its foliage shriveling and turning brown…

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

Crystalynn Fosterman

There seemed to be a crowd forming. Crystalynn wanted them to disperse. Perhaps seeing enough damage would simply scare them off. Or it could draw them in closer. People seemed to fave a morbid fascination with danger and destruction.

‘Normal People Scare Me.’

She remembered how one day, in Washington D.C., she and the Jung team had rushed to the rescue following what could have been a disastrous nuclear explosion. There had been no residents or visitors present in the city, and the bigwigs had been evacuated to their underground hideaway, but the small police, SWAT, and FBI agents that had remained had been more than enough crowd for Crystalynn, even after the bomb went off. The local EMTs had swarmed around too, as if they had no concept of give the victim space as they must have been taught during their qualification classes. Ah, well. That was what wormholes were for; Jung had gotten to the scene, collected their patient, and been back in California in a matter of minutes.

If she had a loudspeaker, she would have called for everyone to keep it moving. As it was, they were drawing the attention of the Central Park authorities already. Crystalynn prepared to show her badge again - and realized she had a bigger problem.

“Sssssssssshhhhhiiiiiii-“ Crys looked down at her hand. There was some sort of radioactive energy eating away at the flesh and muscle of her fingers. Quickly, she waved her free hand over her disfigured one, countering the effects of the girl’s energy with her own. The muscle wound and tightened, and the skin pulled back together.

“There. Much better.” She glanced to the girl again. “Distraught” was putting it lightly. Now Crys called on her energy to create a small and invisible barrier around herself, to shield her from further radioactivity, but the girl had already gone off running.

She had been intentionally ignoring the man who accused her of bothering the girl. But when the girl reacted again to the allegation, Crys could not help but indulge a bit herself. Opening her hands, wrists together and palms out, she sent a concussive beam right toward the dumbass’ head. The beam ticked in at three hundred twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit - or about one hundred sixty-three Celsius - hot enough to bake cookies on, and more than hot enough to melt tarmac. The man’s facial features would begin to liquify, and the effect would spread to the rest of his body if he didn’t do something about it. “Asshole.”

Then, spinning neatly on her toes, she took off after the girl. She realized the young woman had been speaking French, and it took her a bit farther back to college French studies and Doctor Quatrevaux’s more recent lessons for her to properly come up with anything to say. “Um… un moment, s’il vous plaît! Je vais bien! Vraiment! Qu’est ce… shit, I know this one… qu’est ce qui ne va pas?”

At that point, her sprinting had paid off, and she caught up with the woman. Reaching out, she took the young woman’s arm, but this time, there was no effect, thanks to Crystalynn’s shield. She took a couple of breaths and then looked up at her. “Hi. I mean, bonjour. Je suis Crystalynn. Vous pouvez m’appeler Crys.” She took another breath, and grinned. “And j’ai besoin de pratiquer mon français.”

[Felicia Soler]

Cease to know, or to tell, or to see, or to be your own
Cease to know, or to tell, or to see, or to be your own
Have someone else's will as your own
Have someone else's will as your own
You are beautiful and you are alone
You are beautiful and you are alone

Often the adolescent play, reward your grace
Often the adolescent play, reward your grace
Confuse your hunger, capture the fake
Confuse your hunger, capture the fake
Banish the faceless, reward your grace
Banish the faceless, reward your grace

Central Park
New York

The first two decades of motherhood were always the most difficult.

No, strike that.

The first eight decades were the worst. Neither Ildiko nor her brother Tivodar had manifested any powers, but given their family's rather strong pedigree, the odds of winning the genetic lottery were definitely in their favour. Having children was, for her, a fairly regular event. Having been born in the 12th century, it was expected that she crank out a child every nine months after reaching child-bearing age—which in her case was twelve. Her power first showed signs of developing when she nearly bled out during childbirth but had managed to draw strength from the family around her. She stopped aging entirely some fourteen years later once her brain had fully developed, and had been alive ever since.

Now that the situation in Washington DC had died down somewhat, she figured it was as good a time as any to take a vacation. Helena was off somewhere in the shopping district while Felicia and her mother took the twins on a stroll around the green heart of New York City. Since it was the height of summer, Khalidah was wearing a simple, diaphanous white summer dress. She'd plied a few gardenias from the bouquet that had greeted them on the centre of the table in their hotel suite and weaved them into her hair. Synthetic fragrances had never done anything for her; she preferred going directly to the source.

They'd been taking turns pushing the double-seated stroller occupied by the two sleeping babies. They were both at that in-between stage where while they could walk (mostly) unattended, they still lacked the endurance and muscle coordination to manage long distances. Felicia was at the helm of the mini-SUV sized stroller with her mother at her side.

“I left Helena at the Bergdorf Goodman store. She'll probably be there for the next few hours, at least until the sun goes down and we have to retrieve her.” Mother and daughter hadn't had much of a chance to spend time together given the events of the past several weeks. It had taken Felicia roughly a week to get the entire story of Helena's involvement out of her, and what she heard, she didn't like. At least Helena had managed to stay out of the direct line of fire and had returned to her in one piece.

Felicia kept her eye on the path ahead of them, dodging around tourists and bicyclists like a pro. Really, all she wanted to do was run them over. This was supposed to be a peaceful place, not a fucking obstacle course. “Kibaszott parasztok!” God, why couldn't they just stay out of her way? She sighed, suddenly annoyed and very aware of the heat of the sun's rays bearing down on them. “Jesus, whose genius fucking idea was it to come here for a vacation anyway? I knew there was a reason I moved out of this city around the turn of the 20th Century . . . ”

“This vacation was actually your idea. At least that's what Helena told me.” She could see Felicia glaring at her from the corner of her eye. “You may or may not have been drunk when you said spending some time away from the countryside and back in civilisation would be a character-building experience for the kids.”

“They're two years old, Ma. They don't know 'character' from their ass cracks.” Shit, she must have been really drunk when that particular idea was being floated around. She hated large cities. Even large cities which were broken up into smaller communities—like the monumental Big Apple—had never really sat well with her.

“You really shouldn't curse in front of your children. It sets a bad example.”

She snorted. Oh, that was precious. “Right. Coming from the woman who taught me that 'Baszd meg magad!' really meant 'Good morning!' I find that highly ironic.” From the stories she'd heard of her own childhood, she'd learned how to tell people in several different languages precisely what unsightly acts they could perform with their mother and a dog before she even knew how to spell her own name.

Ahead of them, Felicia spied a small crowd of parkgoers gathered in a semi-circle around a payphone booth. Some of them had taken out their own smartphones, quite possibly amused by someone using the archaic, pre-cellular device. “Who the fuck still uses a payphone?” Well, there was Devon, but that was only because he still hadn't quite figured out how to write proper text messages. Damn him and his need for perfect punctuation and grammar.

The sensation of decay brushed past her consciousness like a falling leaf wafting to the forest floor. Khalidah gently touched one of Felicia's arms and both women stopped walking, instead focusing their attention on the petite figure at the centre, holding her face in her hands and crying. As the young woman started to back away from the phone—or what was left of it, whatever had been done to it was spreading. She was immediately reminded of Devon and his uncanny ability to melt through just about any object that got in his way.

When one of the passersby called for the police, Felicia rolled her eyes. Unless the police had a power negator in their ranks, they weren't going to be able to do shit.

“Oh, please,” came a voice from the crowd. Even from where she was standing some twenty feet away, Khalidah could see the flash of the Jung Facility's badge as the woman displayed it and the crowd parted before her.

Felicia had already dealt with this sort of thing before with Devon, so this particular situation was nothing new. Using the stroller as a battering ram, she jostled and shoved her way through the mass of bodies which seemed to keep multiplying as the seconds wore on. “Christ, it's like these people have never seen a special before. Nothing to see here, folks! Show's over. Get the fuck out.” She pushed the stroller onto the grass, well out of the way of the rapidly disintegrating walking path. Just when she thought the situation couldn't possibly get any worse, Tarmac Man decided to make an appearance. “Te seggfej köcsög . . . Az Isten szerelmére, csak kurva lőni nekem.” She ignored him and upon seeing that her mother was well into the process of curtailing and remedying what damage had been done, Felicia set her sights on the brown-haired young woman who'd so rudely disrupted her mid-morning constitutional.

Unlike her daughter's more brash method of getting to the front of the crowd, the power of her presence was more than enough to persuade the onlookers to happily gave her a wide berth. As the public face of the Jung Facility—which she now owned, at least in name only—she was a very recognisable figure. The type of power she had under her control had brought whole dynasties to their knees. It was that very same power she exuded when she knelt down, touched her hand to the ground at the edge of the crumbling path, and stopped its progress. Drawing from the energy stored within her, she set about reversing the decaying process. While she was unable to re-form the matter which had been destroyed, she was able to breathe new life out of the chaos.

“Aucun! Ne touchez pas moi!... Non touch me! Conserver à l'écart!” And then she started running.

French. Great. The last woman she'd heard speak French was someone she desperately wanted to murder by flaying her alive.

Seeing that her mother had the decay under control, Felicia grabbed the stroller and jogged up the path until she pulled up beside the pair of women, one of whom appeared to be struggling to remember basic high school French.

“Hi. I mean, bonjour. Je suis Crystalynn. Vous pouvez m’appeler Crys. And j’ai besoin de pratiquer mon français.”

“Je suis docteur Felicia Rahal, et ce sont mes jumeaux, Ildiko et Tivodar.” Grasping both of the woman's raw, blistering hands inside her own, she focused on the organic energy contained within her own body and began to send it out in waves, overriding whatever signals were radiating from the reptilian side of the young woman's mind. Felicia held her fast and soothingly rubbed her thumbs over the girl's steadily healing skin. “Vous ne pouvez pas me faire de mal, donc ne vous inquiétez pas. Maintenant calmer la baise vers le bas, et prendre le contrôle de vous-même.”

Довести до белого каления.

ф ф Word count: 1606
ф ф Mood: Sleepy.
ф ф Outfit: In post.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Afraid, Neko Case
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: None.

[Jack Murdock]

Jack didn't mean to frighten the girl with his freakish appearance but it did happen. He really felt bad about that and quickly willed himself back to normal. As he did so, he felt uncomfortably warm for some strange reason and moved away toward the cool shade of a nearby tree.

Odd, the small crowd that was forming minutes earlier had dispersed. Maybe they were used to seeing Specials every day though he knew that most of his kind kept their abilities hidden. Of course most of the Specials he had encountered are psychotics.

"G'add'amnyt!"* he cursed softly as he wiped the sweat off his forehead and then went after the two women.

( * - Yiddish for Goddamnit!)

[Madeliene Descoteaux]

The warm sunshine clinging to the beginning of Autumn had brought more people out to wander the paths winding through the city’s sprawling parkland than usual and every single face that leapt out at her through the sheen of tears clouding her vision made her heart pound.

Less than thirty feet down the walkway Madeliene stumbled, reaching out to grab for a light post to stop her fall and then immediately she yelped in pain and wrenched herself away. The contact with the metal flared the horrible wounds covering her hands, streaking fresh blood now upon its surface, but more than that the transfer of her power started to eat at the hand prints as if the vitae smeared there were acid.

Footsteps were coming after her now. Through her own ragged breathing she could hear the beat of a hurried gait on the concrete. Tossing her head over her shoulder, through the flaying strands of her dark hair the girl felt her chest seize as she saw the wake of dying greenery left behind; the large trees were dropping their leaves and branches were falling onto the path as they rotted and broke, the smaller shrubs withering to little more than twigs in the ground as the grass receded back and left the sod bare.

Worse than that however was the glimpse of the dark sweatshirt and jeans rounding the turn in the track, visible through the now-dead garden bed. The woman with the badge was coming after her! If she had of possessed a clearer head through her panic, the teenager might have realised that if she could chase her, that meant the woman with the mane of curls was at least still alive despite the affliction she had watched take hold of her hand moments ago. Unfortunately her fear only remembered that badge and everything that came with it.

A voice called out to her, shockingly in her native tongue. The French was broken and rudimentary, but it was enough to slow Madeliene. Her face glistening with tears and with strands of her chocolate hair plastered to her cheeks contorted into confusion for a second as she looked back and that was enough for her to run right into a thick tree's trunk close to the edge of the pathway.

Colliding with a gasp, the girl scrabbled for a moment to regain her footing as she took a step back and that was all the chance her pursuer needed to catch up with her.

A hold closed around her arm and instinctively Madeliene struggled, trying to push the fingers off her sleeve as she pulled away. She felt the change in texture against her skin as the burning heat concentrated on the area of contact and the fabric of her top quickly fell away under the touch. The ragged ends came apart and fluttered to the ground to be trampled under her feet as she breathlessly pleaded: “Lâchez-moi! Je ne veux pas vous faire du mal!”

About the same time her captor tried more French to soothe her, Madeliene realised that the woman was not pulling away, screaming in pain. She grew still and stared down her shoulder to the small fingers wrapped around her now-naked bicep. For a second she almost forgot the pain that came from the connection, even as she watched the skin start to redden and blister out from under the stranger’s touch.

Finally she blinked, snapping out of her stupor and hissed through her teeth in discomfort as she pushed off the touch and covered her new wounds with her other hand. It appeared the danger of contact was not only to those around her but to the girl herself as well. Whatever it was about her power that caused the quick decaying phenomena, she was not immune to it.

“(Please, it hurts, stop touching!)” the young brunette gasped, keeping her hand firmly around the inflamed upper arm. But even that pain seemed to be unable to distract her from the startling reality of what she had just witnessed and her eyes were skittering all over the diminutive woman now as if she did not know where to look: she glanced at everything from her sneakers to the thick mane of ringlets crowning her soft features and finally down to the hand that should have been nothing but blackened bones.

“(Y-you are not dead! Your hand is fine! How… how did you do that?)” Madeliene murmured, the dark pools of brown that were her eyes now large as dimes.

Instead of an answer to her amazed question, a second by-stander had now caught up to them, this one pushing a double-stroller in front of her. Madeliene immediately took steps back, putting a wide berth between herself and the children, horror returning to her features as the second brunette who appeared for the moment to be just another park-goer, reached for her.

“Non! Attendez!” Madeliene cried and renewed her attempt to flee, but the newcomer reached out and grasped both her hands before she could escape.

At first Madeliene grimaced at the pain of the contact with the raw flesh, but the adrenaline of that hurt quickly ebbed from her and her arms felt suddenly like lead. The girl hardly heard most of what was said to her, but she did notice that this woman’s French was much more fluent and native than the first.

Another thing that was impossible to ignore was what was happening to her hands where they rested limply in the stranger’s hold: the deep, oozing craters that had eaten into her palms, even the nasty one which bared the bones of her metacarpals on the back of the left one, were filling in, the black and infected flesh falling off to be replaced with living, red tissue. The mottled rash and blisters were fading where they tracked up her arms and even some of her fingernails were growing back into the beds as she watched. The new mark on her upper arm was no exception and it itched as it lost its angry inflammation and became part of her smooth, pale complexion once more…

“(You are both… both like me? How can this be? I-I…)” Madeliene’s voice trailed off as she swayed on her feet then. With all the panic drained out of her system, she was instead left with a heavy weariness and a lightheadedness that nearly had her fainting for a moment. “(That man… Did I do that to him? Or is he one of you as well? God, I think I am going to be sick…)”

Certainly, the girl’s flushed cheeks had drained as pallid as the rest of her features and there was a glaze to her brown stare now that accompanied the colour draining from her full lips…


---------------------------------
* Speech contained within (...) is spoken in French

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

Crystalynn Fosterman

As Crystalynn gained - or maybe she just thought she was gaining - on the girl, she saw the girl look back when she used French. The next moment, the girl had run right into a tree. Crystalynn winced. That had to hurt.

But that gave her time to catch up. Although Crystalynn was not affected by the contact between her hand and the young woman’s arm, it seemed that was not the case for the young woman herself. When Cryatalynn finally realized that the young woman herself was being hurt by their contact, she pulled her hand back, and frowned. She had totally not meant to do that. What was the extent of the young woman’s powers, anyway?

Crys had noticed that the plants around them had begun to wither, and of course she knew what had happened to her own hand. Okay. Something that caused decay, obviously. The doctor in her was studying all the signs. Her own ability had been able to counter it, so there was that. Fortunately, the sound of feet and wheels was not too far behind, and Crys looked up to see two children and presumably their mother with a stroller.

The new woman introduced herself as Felicia Rahal. Crys tilted her head at that. She knew of Felicia, primarily through Doctor Quatrevaux’s explanation of why Felicia Rahal did not work at the Jung Facility. It was nice to have some information to work with, but Crys never let anyone’s opinion fully inform her own, and here, as Felicia stepped up to the young woman and began to heal her, Crys thought of that as kind and well-meaning.

She knew Felicia was a Special as well, as was Khalidah, her mother. Both of them were significantly powerful, Crys could tell. Of what nature, she could not. She just knew what she had heard and what she could detect through her own ability. She did not see Khalidah, but could detect a fair amount of energy being spent in the area; and, looking back, she could see that the decay was springing back to life. There were only so many Specials in the vicinity, and none of them had anywhere near the amount of power the Rahals had.

Felicia’s French was much better than Crystalynn’s. It almost sounded native. Crys did not understand all of it, but she got the gist of it, and nodded. Then she remembered the young woman’s question to her, and opened her hands, letting a little globe shine between them. (“Oh, I have a sort of energy-based ability. It’s got plenty of uses. I was able to reverse the damage that was done before it got too far.”)

As to the “man,” Crys waved a hand. (“Nah, you didn’t do that. He’s just a dumbass.”)

She nodded to Felicia and smiled. “Thank you, Felicia. And your children are beautiful,” she added, giving the twins a little wave. She could never quite remember their names, but they were unique and, Crys hoped, meant something nice.

(“But yeah, there are a bunch of us ‘like you.’ New York seems to be the best place to find them. Here and Los Angeles.”) Why those two cities were so popular, Crys was unsure. New York was not a bad guess; it was already a “melting pot” of cultures, so why not Specials too? Los Angeles was more confounding, but she lived there, and there were plenty of esteemed colleges and universities there. Ark Industires also had its headquarters there, but whether that was a boon or not Crys was not entirely sure.

(“But tell us about yourself. You seem very surprised to be here. And, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to have very little control over your powers.”) Her French was still stilted, but she hoped she was still getting her meanings across well.

[Felicia Soler]

Driving home I see those flooded fields
How can people not know what beauty this is?
I've taken it for granted my whole life
Since the day I was born

Central Park, New York

“Non! Attendez!”

Felicia rolled her eyes and held fast to the young girl's hands, unamused at being told 'no.' “For the love of Nut, shut up, pup. I know what I'm doing.” Her bedside manner as a doctor left something to be desired, but then again she wasn't exactly being paid to help femme!Devon. Grasping hold of Madeliene's nervous system once she'd managed to break through her haze of adrenaline and pain, she brought an almost trance-like state of calmness over her body as their biological energy fields merged into a feedback loop.

“(You are both… both like me? How can this be? I-I…)”

(“Oh, I have a sort of energy-based ability. It’s got plenty of uses. I was able to reverse the damage that was done before it got too far.”)

(“In the words of Lady Gaga, I was born this way. Make of that what you will.”) Glancing over Madeliene's shoulder at the burnt path she'd left in her wake, she was happy to see that her mother had already made quick work of the destruction without batting an eyelash. As she approached them barefoot and clad in her white dress with gardenias weaved into her loosely braided hair, wildflowers, grass, and an abundance of other local flora sprang to life wherever her feet made contact with the scorched earth.

Just as Felicia felt the young woman's knees nearly give way, Khalidah steadied her from behind and led her to a nearby bench that had as of yet remained untouched by the decay. Khalidah never needed to announce her presence when she walked into a room; her family often joked with her that she would show up five minutes before the rest of her body made an appearance. Being in her presence was simultaneously gut-wrenchingly terrifying and awe inspiring. Over the years, she'd learned to adjust the thick aura of energy at her command to suit the situation, just as she'd done in both Los Angeles and Atlanta. With a little help from the President's daughter, she'd created a solar storm that had all but demolished half of the United States' power grid and had killed every living soul within a twenty mile radius.

But that was old news. Now everyone was focusing their attention on the Dominion and a group of highly-specialised rogue godsends.

“(That man… Did I do that to him? Or is he one of you as well? God, I think I am going to be sick…)”

Felicia shook her head and released Madeliene's hands. Her skin had returned to its previous flawless pale white hue, and her nervousness and fear had ebbed consideraly. Khalidah put an arm around her as Felicia's ability slowly receded, unafraid of the consequences. Whatever power she exuded would hold the decay under control.

(“Nah, you didn’t do that. He’s just a dumbass.”)

(“I wouldn't go so far as to insult donkeys, but yes. He's an idiot.”)

Crystalynn nodded in agreement with the assessment. “Thank you, Felicia. And your children are beautiful.”

(“They come from good stock.”) Whatever powers they would have in the future escaped her. Both children had very distinct energies that she'd only encountered in other godsends of her lineage. They would be no different.

“I think she should meet Devon.” Since she assumed they'd be sitting down for a while, she lifted Ildiko from her stroller seat and sat down beside them, cradling the toddler in one arm. Reaching into the diaper bag attached to the large stroller, she produced a bottle full of breastmilk which Ildiko was more than happy to wrap her little hands around so that she could feed herself. (“Daro's already been weaned off the bottle. Illy's going to grow up and be stubborn like her mother.”)

(“Felicia didn't stop breastfeeding until she was four years old.”)

(“Mother!”) Well, that conversation had turned down a very strange road rather quickly, even for a Rahal. Felicia swatted her mother on the back and blushed. (“Shut up!”)

(“Have either of you ever tried breastfeeding a four year old? It's like nursing a lamprey –except that lampreys don't really bite and children do.”) Any day where she could spend some good quality time 'humiliating' her daughter was a day well spent. (“One time, she almost chewed my left nipple clean off.”)

(“Do you have a gun?”) Felicia looked at Crystalynn pleadingly. (“If you do, can you just shoot me now?”)

A fat load of good it would do to shoot her. She knew she couldn't be killed in such a mundane way, but at least the momentary pain would save her from the embarrassment.

Довести до белого каления.

ф ф Word count: 903
ф ф Mood: I should go to bed.
ф ф Outfit: Same as previous post.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Neko Case
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: None.

[Madeliene Descoteaux]

The calming aura at least stopped the young woman from fleeing in terror and causing destruction as she went, but it did not insulate her from the feeling of being suddenly so very overwhelmed…

It was one thing to see the occasional news report in Europe or read rumours on the internet about individuals who allegedly displayed abilities only seen in the reams of comic books and science fiction. But to then find herself afflicted with… whatever this horrible curse was and then be torn from the only home she had known into the hands of such powerful people. It was simply too much and the girl’s dark eyes had taken on a glazed quality as she stared at the small orb of light suspended between the woman’s hands.

She was lead over to the park bench and sunk onto it slowly, blinking as if she were trying to force her eyes and ears to focus on the words around her, but Khalidah’s mighty presence had a powerful lulling effect on her. After the nasty shock she had just received from the phone call to her father and the subsequent destruction of the payphone bank, her thoughts felt as if they waded through thick honey. It was a small mercy that the women around her kept up the effort to speak in her native tongue or she would have been lost all together.

Taking a deep breath while the mother of the two children bickered with her elder, Madeliene pressed her now healed hand to her warm cheek and let out her exhale slowly, closing her eyes for a moment. Her cheeks were blushing a deep pink in response to the subject of breastfeeding and when she spoke her voice was quiet, hushed by her timidity.

“(Can we leave here, please? I am very grateful to all of you, but I do not feel comfortable talking about myself here, after what happened now...)” the brunette murmured gently.

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

Crystalynn Fosterman

Giggling, Crys glanced between mother and daughter as they went back and forth. This was too funny. The young woman still seemed unsettled, though. Crys felt terrible for having given her such a shock, but it was bound to happen. Better with her and the Rahals than some random civilian who would just freak out like the ones in the park.

(“I stopped breastfeeding early. My mom hated it.”) She grinned. (“We’ve yet to see how I feel about it. But I have time, I think.”) Her lips twisted. (“Or maybe not. I’m thirty-three.”)

The woman looked ten years younger than that.

Felicia asked Crys to shoot her out of embarrassment. Crys chuckled and shook her head. (“Would it were that easy.”) Actually, if Felicia had been serious, Crys could have made a wormhole to go find one, but that would really been taking a joke too far. And showing off.

Crys closed her hands, and the globe disappeared. (“Sure, we could go somewhere else,”) she said cheerfully. (“Where to go? Maybe get some coffee? Or hit up Morningside Park? Or, well, I keep coming back to food….”) She also wanted to add To Osaka? To Oahu? To Venice? but she did not want to freak out the girl more by revealing that she could go many places in a matter of seconds.

[Felicia Soler]

The sky is falling on this setting sun
Echoes of silence ringing loud and long
This isolation is the king of pain
A lost horizon in an ocean of flames

Central Park, New York

“(Can we leave here, please? I am very grateful to all of you, but I do not feel comfortable talking about myself here, after what happened now...)”

“We can take you back to the condo. It's not too far from here.” Khalidah owned several pieces of real estate across the country, most of which she sublet or otherwise rented out to friends and family members when she wasn't in town. Her condo in New York City was located at the southeast edge of Central Park on Fifth Avenue. It had set her back (though only briefly) $54 million, which she'd paid for in full. “We can even walk there.” Although she was well-versed in French and all of the other romance languages, if they spoke English, they wouldn't be drawing as much attention to themselves. Americans were still incredibly xenophobic, even in a melting pot as large and diverse as New York.

(“Or maybe not. I’m thirty-three.”)

God, why couldn't she have stopped aging post-menopause? With how many feminine products she had to buy in one lifetime alone, she could have bought Kimberly Clark ten times over. “Yeah, you've got time.” Since she wasn't sure whether Crystalynn was a friend or foe—though if she'd been a threat to them, her mother would have dispatched her by now—she elected not to share with Crystalynn precisely how old she was. Telling a relative stranger that you'd be celebrating your 733rd birthday was sure to turn heads and earn more than a few strange looks questioning her sanity.

(“Where to go? Maybe get some coffee? Or hit up Morningside Park? Or, well, I keep coming back to food….”)

“Eh, let's just go back to my condo.” From where they were sitting on Terrace Drive facing the famous Bethesda Fountain, it was roughly a quarter mile walk back to the safety of her home. A little physical exertion would do them all some good. Khalidah rose to her feet and walked to stand behind the double-seated baby stroller. Both Ildiko and Daro were rousing slowly, squinting their eyes against the sunshine streaking through the trees. Illy let out an annoyed grumble and reached for her mother.

“Mama, up!” Even for having just turned two, Ildiko looked like a miniature version of her mother with her round, cherubic face and dark brown hair. She repeated the command seconds later when her mother failed to comply with her instructions quickly enough. “MAMA. UP.”

“I'm not picking you up until you say 'please.'”

Dropping her hands to her sides, she took a deep breath and sighed, giving her mother a very 'Felicia' roll of her eyes. “Mama up, please.”

“Don't take that tone with me, young lady.” She knelt down to unstrap Ildiko from the stroller and picked her up in her arms, balancing her weight on one hip.

“She's definitely your daughter. You started copping an attitude about that age, too.” Khalidah turned the stroller around and began to steer it towards their destination.

“She's just tired and overheated and hungry.” Felicia wiped Illy's forehead with her sleeve. “Can you get me their sippy cups out of the diaper bag?” She always came prepared with several changes of diapers, snacks, and liquids just to make sure that her children never had to go without.

Khalidah complied with the request and handed one of the cups to Daro and the other to his sister, who was quite content to be carried around by her mother. By the time they crossed Fifth Avenue and greeted the doorman, Felicia's clothes were practically drenched with sweat. She made her way across the marble-floored lobby to the set of elevators at the far end and pressed the button marked 'UP.'

“Next stop, the penthouse.”

Довести до белого каления.

ф ф Word count: 751
ф ф Mood: Meh.
ф ф Outfit: Same as previous posts.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Desert Song, Def Leppard
ф ф Illustrations: Included in post.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: Included in post.

[Jack Murdock]

After a while, Jack admitted to himself that he had gotten lost while trying to follow the two women. He did felt like a pervert because of his interference and was about to abandon his search when he suddenly saw a group of women with babies in strollers taking the young scared girl toward a condo at Morningside Park.

The girl seemed to be alright but Jack was still wary. What was that badge the woman flashed on him? Was that even real? Jack never did paid much attention on current events but he was more concerned about the girl.

What now? Would he stick around or just knock the front door to get answers?

[Jack Murdock]

After a half hour, Jack saw that nothing untoward was happening at the house. As he was pondering his next move, he saw in the corner of his left eye, the telltale marking of an police car pulling up near him.

Jack didn't give a damn about the cops and no doubt that the bimbos in the house had called 911 on his ass. Still he saw no point in beating the crap out of the Law when there isn't anything wrong as of yet. So he did the sensible thing: he walked away.

But he mentally vowed that someday he will get to the bottom of this. He was tired of all of the conspiracy crap and wished someone would explain in simple English about what is going on for a change.

Jack checked his watch. It was happy hour, time to find the nearest bar and get very drunk.

(FIN for Jack.)