Spellbound's eyes roll back into her head as the dance of her reflective energy field shrinks and encircles the blood-smeared paper napkin on the floor in front of her.
The napkin is consumed in a bright white fire that seems to dim the lights in the homeless shelter. And then suddenly Spellbound shrieks out with Windchill's voice
"I'm hit! I'm hit! Oh God AHHHHRGH! Die you bastard!"The magical fire produces a hazy smoke. Within its wisps, an image is formed of a Dreadnought robot towering over Spellbound. The image is a first-person view of yesterday afternoon's battle on the Port Authority docks, from Windchill's perspective.
Everybody viewing the explosion of images produced by Spellbound's ritual feels a wrenching, horrible sensation of pain in their abdomens, non-damaging yet anguishingly empathic with Windchill's perspective. A gush of illusionary blood pools from Spellbound's abdomen onto the floor of the homeless shelter.
In the vision. a bluish streak of Windchill's familiar coldwave blast misses the towering Dreadnought as it limps towards him on a damaged leg saying
"Target hit. Moving to terminate." Elixir in titanium form steps into view and the outer casing of the Dreadnought closing on Windchill crackles with sparks of electricity and slumps over saying
"Warning. Recharge cycle needed in one hour. Warning recharge cycle needed in 4 minutes. Warnnnnnn.." Another Dreadnought with a severely damaged faceplate says
"Error. Optical sensors destroyed. RFID tag of crate located, retrieving..." as it begins to pick up a crate filled with glass globes of oddly colored liquids. Just then, there is a loud ring of vibrating metal from that Dreadnought as Shockwave pins it down on the icy pavement with a sustained burst of sonic force. Then it is encased in a garbage dumpster Flashdance has carried though the air in a gymnastic somersault that ends with a metallic crash as it hits the pavement.
The vision blurs to black as everyone empathically experiences another sharp abdominal pain when Windchill wrenches the Dreadnought's spike out of himself. Spellbound shrieks in agony with Windchill's voice, yet everyone feels the pain.
The image goes dark, but Shockwave's voice is heard saying to Elixir,
"Chemistry guy? Think you can do that again to the other two? That seems to have worked wonders on the first one. Then we can stack them all in the dumpster, and figure out what to do with them before company shows up."Windchill passes out.
Windchill briefly regains conciousness. The image is blurred badly, but it is apparent the scene has changed to an ambulance ride.
Someone in the ambulance says to another,
"Can you believe we're riding inside an actual psycho-physical projection?"
"The Hypnoporter is impressive, indeed. You're here, but I'm not."
"What? No shit? You're projecting in from the Hypnoporter?"
"From one of the node sites. We're testing if the H-Device can create functional psycho-physical projections of itself. Now, stabilize the mutant's injuries and keep him alive. If we can analyze his power signatures we may be able to begin custom tailoring the next batches of Kick."
"At least mutants are good for something...."
"Exactly. We're already stirring up local anti-mutant sentiments. That usually brings out the boldly powerful ones we can find useful."Spellbound moans with Windchill's voice, "Who... are... you... where are... you... taking me...?"
"Sedate him. Lightly. An overdose might kill him, and we need him."The blurred vision fades to black.
Windchill regains consciousness and there is a buzz of activity around him. He appears to be in an dilapidated warehouse vandalized with Batboys gang graffitti.
The room is filled with strange machines. Windchill is strapped down to a gurney as technicians in HYDRA uniforms take blood samples from him and scan him with odd technological devices.
Across Windchill's blurry vision of the room, HYDRA technicians in green hooded uniforms connect an unconscious Oldschool to a machine covered in blinking lights and globes of oddly colored liquids that crackle with electricity.
As Windchill sobs in agony, the room is filled with hustled conversation.
"Get a lock on his brainwave patterns in rest state. The boss wants a projection of him to drop into the middle of the Nefaria family's meeting with the Jade Phoenix Yakuza and tear up the place tomorrow. Make sure we can override control of his mind before bringing him to base. We've already slipped Nefaria photographs of him meeting with Hammerhead. That will definitely get the Maggia and Yakuza families all fighting each other."
"What about the other heroes with them?"
"The plan is to lure them to another fight with the Night Shift projections and record their power signatures for study before killing them. While they're fighting, we'll retrieve the psychodynamic catalyst globes they captured. The Hypnoporter doesn't seem to be able to construct functional duplicates of the stuff without the Seven Keys described in the Jacobs grimoire. The museum curator's information on this team of amateurs was scant, but he's a member of a secret society that calls itself the 'Paladin Institute' that appears to be ready to back them. Turns out his assistant is a mutant and her son is a mutant. Our Dansen projection has led the Faces of Fear gang to him. They're going to take him to the trap and...."
"What the hell? That's 'Solo' the Pride projection is speaking with and he's bonded to one of the two Keys we detected earlier after the warehouse explosion!"
"Solo?! That bastard is with them?! Quick, inform the boss that a Formorexian Key is bonded to that prick that hit us in Cairo last year."
"Even more reason to kill him, since it's the only way to retrieve a bonded Key. We'll get the other one we detected when the fires are out at the docks."
"That leaves four of the seven unaccounted for..."
"Something's wrong. The boss is pushing too much psionic energy into the Pride projection. There's a backlash! I'm detecting full cascade failure on the Paladin agent projections. They're deresoluting! If he doesn't dial it back he's going to kill that old man. He's pushing his control too much, losing cohesion over the other illusions."
"Feedback is too intense. We're going to have to shut down the node test. Pack up the alien and leave the mutant. We've got enough samples from him."Windchill's blurred vision shows crackles of balled lightning as some of the HYDRA agents disappear while many of the machines around the room simply crumble into large piles of fine dust.
The remaining HYDRA agents pull the gurney holding Oldschool through a pile of dust that once was a bank of machinery and computers, kicking up a cloud of dust that spreads over the floor. Others disconnect Windchill from a machine and leave with an unconscious Oldschool. As they leave, one of the HYDRA agents punches Windchill in his abdominal wound, saying
"Die, mutie!" The shock of pain reverberates empathically through everyone viewing Spellbound's post-cognitive spell.
Windchill passes out.
Then he regains consciousness again, soaked in his own blood. Daylight beams in through broken windows. Spellbound cries out in agony with Windchill's voice as everyone feels their bodies grow cold, then numb. Windchill has flash frozen his wound to stop the bleeding, soothing the agony of his gutshot.
Windchill passes out again.
Windchill reawakens to the sound of a powerful motorcycle engine outside the warehouse. It is nightime.
Through Windchill's blurred perspective, Vendetta creeps into the warehouse.
Spellbound weakly whispers out to him in Windchill's voice. "Help me."
Vendetta pulls out a cell phone, dials a number and says
"I need an ambulance and police at 9543 Avenue G right away. There is a person here who looks to be the victim of an illegal surgery ... my name is not important. Lets just say I'm a concerned citizen." As the image of Vendetta hangs up his phone, Spellbound gasps in Windchill's voice,
"no... cops...don't trust them. Ambulance brought me here... people... turned to dust." A knife of icy, excruciating pain is empathically felt by everyone as Windchill freezes his wound again. Spellbound gasps in Windchill's voice,
" find... elixir... spellbound... they have old school... hunting mutants.. of the city... the war is coming... the faces of fear are..."Windchill passes out again.
Windchill reawakens on a table, in another location.
A seedy looking man in a doctor's lab coat speaks into a telephone.
"Yeah. But this dropoff is different. He had the money on him to pay, but I didn't find a bullet in him. From all the frost damage to his flesh around the wound, it looks like he was drilled by a giant icicle. He's been moaning about that Oldschool guy that crashed Nefaria's goons this morning and that Faces of Fear gang. I figured Mr. H would be interested in what he has to say. I'll keep him here tonight. But if what he said is true then..."Spellbound's eyes return to normal as the image suddenly ends. The blood that had appeared to burst from Spellbound's abdomen disappears into non-existence.
Spellbound stands, woozy as everyone else shakes off the dizzyness of this unusual experience.
Spellbound says, "Windchill is alive. Remind me not to do that ever again."
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ooc: how's that for deathtrap gloating?
![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
Anyway, a significant clue is there in the recap of Windchill's view of the battle of the Dreadnoughts, one that could be picked up with a nice Reason FEAT roll from somebody....