CH 40: Escapees
Lex took out his trusty compass and glanced down at it while flying over the snow-covered mountains. Unfortunately, the compass remained as stubborn as ever. Before it could provide any meaningful information, it needed enough terrain mapped out to actually work with. At the moment it was little more than an expensive decoration. Still, once he had covered enough ground, it would become useful, so he continued circling through the area while keeping an eye on the landscape below.
A sudden explosion caught his attention.
Looking down, Lex immediately spotted a battle unfolding across one of the valleys.
Natasha and Hawkeye were engaged with a massive figure barreling through the snow like a runaway freight train. The man was enormous even by enhanced-human standards, his body encased within a thick rhinoceros-themed suit of armor that looked as though it had been designed specifically to ignore common sense. Every footstep shook the ground beneath him, scattering snow in all directions while his charge carved trenches through the mountainside.
The fight itself looked strange.
Not because Natasha and Clint were losing.
Because they didn't seem to actually be trying to win.
Natasha darted around Rhino's flanks with almost surgical precision, constantly staying outside his reach while firing bursts from her weapons whenever she found an opening. None of her attacks seemed intended to seriously hurt him. Instead they forced him to turn, chase, and continuously redirect his momentum. Every time Rhino committed to a charge, Clint would place an explosive arrow somewhere inconvenient, forcing the giant man to either slow down or change direction entirely.
Several hundred meters away, a SHIELD armored vehicle sat behind a rocky ridge and launched another missile.
The rocket streaked through the air before detonating directly against Rhino's chest.
The explosion sent snow and smoke erupting in every direction.
Rhino emerged from the blast a second later.
Angrier than before.
"THAT ALL YOU GOT?" he roared while charging toward the vehicle.
The missile hadn't even knocked him down.
<The objective is not direct damage,> Raphael explained. <Analysis of SHIELD communications indicates they are attempting to exhaust him. The armor lacks an effective cooling system. They are forcing continuous exertion while repeatedly exposing him to extreme temperatures. Dehydration and heat exhaustion will eventually incapacitate him.>
Lex watched Rhino plow through another barrage of attacks as though the missiles detonating around him were little more than an inconvenience. The plan wasn't bad. Natasha and Clint were keeping him moving, forcing him to expend energy while the SHIELD vehicle continuously bombarded him from a distance, but it also felt slow and unnecessarily dangerous. All it would take was a single mistake, a moment of bad footing in the snow or a missed dodge, and Rhino would turn one of them into a red stain across the mountainside.
"Seems risky."
<Agreed. Current operation possesses a seventy-three percent success probability.>
Lex grimaced slightly. Seventy-three percent wasn't terrible, but it was a lot lower than he would have liked. Fortunately, he had been looking for an excuse to test something new anyway. Over the last few days he had spent considerable time experimenting with Todo's technique without relying on Raphael's assistance.
<...>
The foundation had been surprisingly straightforward. If Boogie Woogie could swap physical objects, then there was no real reason it couldn't eventually be adapted to swap energy as well. The difficult part had been learning how to perceive and manipulate cursed energy with enough precision to make such a thing possible.
Using the endless reserves provided by the Essence of the Transcendent Self, Lex condensed a large amount of cursed energy into a sphere barely larger than a marble. The technique itself wasn't particularly complicated. In theory, replacing a portion of somebody's natural cursed energy with an extremely concentrated mass should overwhelm their system, causing intense emotional instability, headaches, panic, and a variety of other unpleasant side effects. Against an ordinary human, a much smaller amount would have been sufficient, but Rhino was hardly ordinary. Looking at the giant man shrugging off missiles and charging through explosions, Lex decided it would be better to err on the side of caution.
Far below, Rhino had just lowered his shoulder and begun another charge toward the SHIELD vehicle when Lex activated the technique. The condensed sphere vanished from his hand and instantly exchanged places with the cursed energy inside Rhino's body.
The result was immediate.
Rhino's charge abruptly stopped. His massive body locked up mid-stride before he stumbled several steps through the snow and collapsed face-first into the ground hard enough to leave a shallow crater. The entire battlefield seemed to freeze for a moment. Natasha lowered her weapon slightly while Clint paused halfway through drawing another arrow, both clearly confused by the sudden and complete end of the fight.
Lex blinked.
"...Did it work too well?"
<Yes.>
The answer came immediately.
<Subject expired upon energy transfer. Analysis suggests the concentration exceeded what his nervous system could withstand. Brain activity ceased almost instantly.>
Lex stared down at the motionless body for several seconds before rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh."
That definitely wasn't the result he had been expecting.
<Recommendation: reduce energy density in future applications.>
"Yeah, probably."
His eyes drifted back toward Rhino.
"Hope he was actually one of the bad ones."
<Subject identified as Aleksei Sytsevich. Fourteen confirmed homicides. Approximately two hundred and forty-one major civilian injuries. Additional incidents remain under investigation.>
Lex considered that information for all of half a second before nodding.
"Okay then. No regrets.”
Below, Natasha and Clint were already approaching the fallen Rhino cautiously, neither of them entirely certain why their opponent had suddenly collapsed in the middle of a charge.
Lex, meanwhile, quietly decided that perhaps his new technique required a little more testing before he started using it regularly.
On the other side of the mountain range, Gwen and Donna descended toward the two escaped prisoners. One man remained kneeling within a sprawling magical circle, his gloved hands continuing to trace crimson symbols across the snow while a collection of mystical relics lay scattered around him. Several meters away, another figure stood watch, shadows curling lazily around his body as though darkness itself obeyed his commands. Neither of them appeared to notice the two women closing in from above, and without wasting the opportunity Donna angled herself toward the lookout while Gwen gathered dozens of shimmering pink mana disks around her.
Donna's fist crashed downward toward Blackout at the exact same moment Gwen released her spell, the glowing disks slicing through the air in a tightening spiral aimed directly at the cloaked mage below. Yet the instant her mana touched its target, Gwen's expression changed. There had been no resistance whatsoever. Her spell hadn't struck flesh, clothing or even magical defenses. It had simply passed through empty space where a person only appeared to exist. Her instincts screamed before conscious thought had the chance to catch up. Something was fundamentally wrong.
A heartbeat later the trap was sprung.
The enormous pile of mystical artifacts detonated all at once, not as a single explosion but as dozens of incompatible supernatural forces violently colliding with one another. Holy flames erupted beside clouds of cursed miasma while unstable enchantments shattered into storms of raw mana. Frost spread unnaturally across the ground before being consumed by black fire, spatial distortions twisted the surrounding air, bolts of crimson lightning lashed wildly through the clearing, and corrupted energy seeped into the snow, turning patches of pristine white into dark, lifeless ground where even the mountain grass beneath instantly withered. The entire valley shook beneath the chaotic release of power as the two women were hurled backward, crashing against a translucent barrier that shimmered into existence around the clearing before slowly fading from sight.
Watching from atop one of the surrounding boulders, Blackout let out a satisfied laugh as the last remnants of the explosion dissipated.
"Well... that was easier than I expected. Good thing they sent a couple of girls after us."
The Hood merely glanced toward the smoke-filled clearing before returning his attention to the unfinished ritual beneath him.
"It doesn't matter who they sent," he replied calmly. "As long as we have hostages, especially superhumans like these, our chances improve dramatically. Escaping this place was always possible. Staying free afterward was the difficult part."
"Is that so?"
The calm voice drifted across the clearing from somewhere entirely different.
The Hood frowned.
That hadn't come from inside the barrier.
His head snapped toward the source just as a blue blur crossed his vision.
Donna's fist crashed into the side of his face with enough force to launch him clean off the boulder, sending him skipping violently across the frozen stone before finally coming to a stop dozens of meters away. His enchanted cloak flared instinctively, absorbing part of the impact, but nowhere near enough to prevent the blow from rattling every bone in his body.
Only then did he see them.
Standing atop a neighboring rock formation, Gwen regarded him with a faintly amused smile, her pink eyes still glowing softly as mana drifted around her like mist.
"What?" she asked innocently. "You thought you were the only one who could use illusions?"
For the first time since the fight had begun, genuine surprise crossed the Hood's face.
His eyes flicked toward the barrier, where the two trapped figures slowly dissolved into streams of pink mana before disappearing completely.
"...You saw through it."
"The moment my spell touched your illusion," Gwen replied. "It had no magical structure beyond maintaining an appearance. That was enough."
Only then did the Hood understand what had happened. The instant she'd realized something was wrong, the young mage had teleported herself and her partner away while leaving behind a pair of convincing illusions to spring the trap in their place.
Unfortunately for him, there was very little time to dwell on that realization.
While Donna kept the Hood occupied, Gwen extended a hand toward Blackout, sending another volley of razor-sharp mana disks spiraling toward him. The shadow manipulator reacted immediately, streams of living darkness erupting from around his body. Instead of deflecting the incoming constructs, the Darkforce engulfed them completely, swallowing each glowing disk until not a trace of mana remained.
Gwen's brows knitted together ever so slightly.
Interesting.
She altered the spell almost immediately. This time lightning erupted from the Charms of Bezel, branching across the clearing in a web of brilliant white arcs. Yet the result remained exactly the same. Black tendrils coiled around the lightning, consuming it piece by piece until nothing remained.
So it wasn't mana specifically.
It was energy.
Her mind rapidly sorted through the possibilities. The darkness wasn't disrupting spell structures or countering magical formulas. It simply devoured externally projected energy regardless of its origin. Mana, lightning... the mechanism made no distinction. That narrowed her capabilities considerably, but it also meant continuing this exchange would accomplish nothing.
Meanwhile, Donna had discovered a problem of her own.
The Hood vanished.
One moment he stood before her, the next only drifting snow occupied the space where he'd been. Invisible.
A pulse of demonic energy erupted toward her from somewhere behind, forcing Donna to pivot aside before another blast came from an entirely different direction. Levitation boots carried the invisible criminal silently through the air while his enchanted cloak concealed every trace of his movements.
Donna didn't chase.
Instead, she flicked her wrist.
Her blue lasso shot outward, sweeping across the battlefield until it caught around something unseen. The rope suddenly went taut, pulling against empty air.
"There you are."
The invisible outline stumbled as Donna yanked hard, revealing his location despite the illusion.
Across the clearing, Gwen reached exactly the same conclusion Donna had.
Neither of them spoke.
Their eyes met for the briefest of moments before both moved simultaneously.
Donna abandoned the Hood entirely and launched herself toward Blackout.
The moment Gwen committed to the Hood, Donna released the blue lasso without hesitation. The glowing rope snapped back into her hand as she changed targets mid-charge.
Without projected energy to consume, the shadow manipulator suddenly found himself facing an opponent who intended to solve every problem with overwhelming physical force. His darkness surged toward her again, but Donna simply burst through it, the Darkforce slowing her only slightly before her fist crashed into his jaw. He barely had time to recover before another punch drove him into the snow, followed by a knee that knocked the breath from his lungs.
The Hood, meanwhile, barely had time to register the switch before Gwen appeared in front of him.
"Invisibility works a lot better against people who can't see mana."
After the third spell hit him perfectly, the Hood's expression finally changed. Surprise gave way to realization as he understood she wasn't following his movements at all.
She wasn't tracking his footsteps.
She wasn't following sounds.
She was watching the constant flow of demonic energy radiating from his body, the spell concealing his appearance while doing absolutely nothing to hide the magic sustaining it.
He reacted instantly, vanishing again while firing several blasts of demonic power from different directions, but Gwen calmly sidestepped each one. Pink runes unfolded beneath her feet as dozens of glowing sigils bloomed through the air, weaving together into intricate chains formed entirely from condensed mana.
The Hood attempted to leap backward.
Too late.
The chains shot forward with startling speed, wrapping around his wrists, arms, torso and legs before locking into place. The runes engraved across every link immediately began pulsing with soft pink light. The moment he tried to force demonic energy through them, the inscriptions flared brilliantly and discharged a violent surge of mana directly back into his body.
The Hood grimaced as the spell collapsed around him.
Every attempt to channel magic triggered another pulse.
Another shock.
Another disruption.
His own power had become the trigger for his prison.
Not far away, Donna finished her exchange by planting one final punch squarely across Blackout's face, sending him tumbling unconscious through the snow.
For the first time since the battle had begun, the mountain clearing finally fell silent.