Final Blow

[Nox]

10 → 2/10 S:7

The comms line was disconnected at the end of the mission.  Peter Anderson was dead. His body would go to wherever the ambulance that came took him and it would hopefully end there. Sage was in charge of everything else. His data mining and his compulsion to follow his friends would see that it didn't resurrect old things or create new ones.

Lily was fussing.  The horde was fiendishly clawing at his brain. The darkness of the tunnels helped. That caged feeling grating on his last nerve. Nox followed it through the tunnels like a guiding beacon.  The louder the horde got the fussier Lily became. They weren't connected. She had no connection to the horde short of the familiar scent of being amongst her kind. At least that was what he had hoped. There couldn't be more to it. Her father was Maximillian Blackthorn and her mother was Ava. But if the Blackthorn heiress was willing to keep him for Vaia Plus there was no telling what that woman would do to her own great grandchildren.  It was a fucked up family.

Maybe there was more to it than just the seemingly innocent connection? It might be prudent to take her to someone who might know more.  But he didn't want to make this little girl some guinea pig in some Atharim lab anymore than he wanted that himself.  Fucking bullshit!

The horde scratched at his brain.  The tried and true three F's grew stronger, but there was also two other Fs now amongst the mix -- Family and Freedom.  Wherever he was heading.  Now the horde there wanted free.  And they were calling to him to do that.  But they wouldn't get it. There was no fucking way he was freeing them from whatever cage they were in. But they would end this parade in his head.

[Nox]

Nox whispered in the darkness of the tunnels, not that had had to but out of habit. "Wicked, you still there?"

A quick reply sped across his Lens Warriors. Sure. What ya need?

"Vaia Plus, can you pull up their building schematics?"

The schematics appeared in his HUD and he flicked and waved his hands like a crazy person as he searched for what he wanted. "What do you need me to do to get to their servers and make sure they are destroyed?"

A pair of large eyes flicked in front of Nox's vision. Wicked was surprised at his actions. He wasn't sure why, these things needed to be destroyed. Every formula, every piece of data had to be gone, and Nox intended to destroy it all down to every fucking last cell if he had to. The horde would be gone.

Lily began to fuss a little more as Nox stopped to feed her in the middle of the tunnels with a premade bottle he'd been keeping cool in his puffy jacket that now lay open and unzipped for both of their sakes.

I need access to their servers, hard wired would be best. You got any USB sticks in your gear?

"No, but there are some in storage I can reuse. How big?"

Wicked sent along the specs and Nox probably had some, if not he could easily stop by an store and pick a cheap one up. "You need anything else?"

What are you planning?"

"Gonna bring the building down after we destroy the horde they've caged and have the server destroyed."

Wicked sent his final emoji -- a head nodded and Nox knew that Sage was working on a plan to evacuate the people. It wasn't the first time they'd done this. But it was the first time they were doing it in Moscow. And they needed to keep even more casualties to a minimum.

[Nox]

With USB stick in hand Nox traversed the tunnels to where the villainous Vaia Plus kept their labs. The horde grew louder. His stomach rumbled insanely loud. The depths of his control was fraying at the edge, they knew what he came to do. Knew that fire was going to be their end and they clawed at their glass cages as they tried to get out. He felt their skin burn as the air around them filled with sedative smoke trying to calm their agitation. But even that didn't stop their clawing at his head. It burned and ached and he wanted to peel the skin from his arms to make it stop but it wasn't his feelings and the closer her got the stronger they felt. Even Lily squirmed and fussed against his chest.

He fucking hated the Blackthorns for doing whatever they'd done to this one.

The entrance to the lab wasn't well guarded they thought their minor illusion would stop anyone but Nox saw through it, not because of the power he weilded but because of the feeling he had. He knew the door was there. Knew he only needed to press his hand to the panel to set off the alarm.

Wicked was there before he could even ask. Open Seasame.

Nox rolled his eyes which made Sage chuckle over the comms. It was the only sound that he'd make during the op.

Nox reached for the power and sent it wide into the surrounding rocks and building. He would know every inch of it before he brought it down. But the power flickered and stuttered and vanished from his grasp. Nox growled and the horde pushed harder against his head. He was vulnerable, they could take him. Kill him. Turn him!

It wasn't calm that pressed in on him, it was fury and anger that something or someone was fucking with his connection. He reached through the slimy tainted layer of his dark light and grasped it with that rage and fury he was going to fucking control it no matter what it thought. It came to him with ease and it bowed to his will only because it was so strong. He sent it raging into the rock and steel of Vaia Plus.

This building would be his. And he would know it all before it came down.

"Evacualte the building and lay me out a map to the server and the labs"

Q: Delve Vaia Plus and surrounding bedrock (10)
(1d20+0: [4]+0 = 4)
Fail

10 → 3/10 S:7

Q: Grasp the Power (10)
(1d20+0: [17]+0 = 17)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:8

[Nox]

The horde didn't much like when Nox used the power and now that he had it again it wasn't so much quaking in fear as it was relentlessly trying to get away. The fury and rage burned inside. The power was his to command and it enveloped the rocks and steel around him as he found all the weaknesses and all the gaps, and all the points that held the building upright. It was like seeing it from the inside out.

It wasn't a master feat, it was simplistic weave of earth and spirt that delved into the world around him. It was like pulling on ancient memories.

Nox followed his hud through the cooridoors that were now man made after having bypassed the security door without alarm.

The horde was caged nearby. They scratched at his head for freedom. They wanted out just as much as he wanted to kill them all. It was a diachotomy of strengths playing with in his mind. He had to focus on which one was him, and which was the horde.

The server room was beyond but he pushed open the door with his free hand and saw the scientist running around trying to gather their materials before they evacuated. The stopped and stared at me like I was an alien but they didn't seem alarmed that I was there. There was a hushed whisper... It's him. They had been expecting him. Perhaps their leader had relayed the message that Nox was not dead as he should be. A fool to let a monster do the job. They had other priorities and a healthy strong man like him was far more food than they dared risk.

"Empty your pockets and leave before I destroy it all."

They stared at Nox in disregard of what he could do. One made for his wallet and Nox reached for a secondary flow and crushed the wallet with ease. "Leave before it all ends." Nox said coldly from the space where the power flowed.

Another woman tried for the silent alarm and Nox wrapped her up in a weave of air. She gasped as it tightened around here. "Why won't you listen to me?"

They eyed him and finally emptied their pockets and ran out the door, the woman tied up struggled to do the same and Nox moved her towards the door before releasing her of the weave. There was no fool proof way of making sure all the data was gone, but he'd do his best to make sure they couldn't reproduce the results easily.

With the lab empty Nox made his way to the server room. It was unlocked when he tried the door and he saw a blinking dot on his HUD. Wicked had already found a port and all Nox had to do was hook Wicked into it.

The stick didn't have data, it had a virus. That virus would feed all the data to Wicked's data center and he'd store it for safe keeping. And while he saved it the virus ate it, destroying everything.

"Just let me know when it's done." Nox said as he made his way back to the horde in cages. This place would burn. He'd feel their skin peel. He's smell the burning skin and feel it slouching from his body. It was a painful reminder of his worse day. The day his life fell apart, but he had to make sure they were dead.

Fire was easy to control in confinement and it was easily set with a tiny spark. They would burn and he'd feel every bit of their pain... Lily was asleep and he hoped that she was not connected to them and it was all in his head. But either way it had to be done. Nox scavenged the lab for any organic traces, setting it on fire while he waited for Wicked's all clear.

Q: Crush the wallet (10)
(1d20+0: [17]+0 = 17)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:9

Q: Wrap up woman in weave of air? (10)
(1d20+0: [17]+0 = 17)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:10

Q: Set the glass cages alight (10)
(1d20+0: [16]+0 = 16)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:11

[Nox]

The creatures writhed in pain. Howled in their fury and their dying gurgles as they finally succumbed to the flames. Nox felt every searing breath. He felt the fire lick their skin and burn. Lily didn't squirm. She didn't move she just slept against his chest and he was grateful she was spared the feeling, the pain, the agnoy. Nox fought back his urge to vomit as he erradicated the traces of the horde in the lab.

Its done. Bring it down.

The message scrolled across the HUD and Nox took a shallow breathe, the stench of burning hair and flesh was strong and he needed air. But he had to bring it all down.

Nox made his way back to the server room and reached into the power for a second flow of power. Fire and earth and a little spirit and air to stablize and make the molden earth hotter and burn brighter with in his control started to bubble up from the ground. He could have called forth the pool that lay beneath the land. Where he had almost died, where he had fucked up his life. But he didn't. The concrete and the bedrock below just melted with the heat that Nox pulled from the power. It melted and oozed and the server room's fire supressents went off trying their hardest to cool the ever expanding magma pool.

The machines sparked and popped before they went quiet as they sank into the molten earth.

Nox walked away, with the weave under his control. It stayed and melted everything around it. The power he had through the earth and building was making him sweat as he held it aloft with sheer power as he wedged the power into the weak points.

Nox was not a book smart person, but he had a talent for understanding the problem and figuring out a way around it. He'd studied how someone would demo a skyscraper and bring it crashing down in on itself. He'd done it several times weakening the right points, melting a beam here, and steading one there. His power flooded the building and any channeler would know something was up as this building came crashing in on itself.

The top tumbled in to the center of the building, taking down each floor methodically it fell. One by one it collapsed in on itself.

Nox backed out of the building feeling, watching, his power holding the building together even as it collapsed until it was nothing but a pile of rubble and steel melting into the pool of magma that he'd left in the server room. The heat was searing by the time the rubble had all fallen. He didn't know what was going on at street level. He didn't know what it had looked like from the top. Before he'd watch it fall, this time he stayed low.

But before he left Nox released the weaves and made another but the power slipped from his grasp. He fumbled the weave and had to start over reaching through the slime, though it felt thinner than before, less present. The horde a tiny ping in the back of his head. Something was different... Nox thought as he reached for the power and grasped it again. Fought to control it with everything he had and wrapped the flow that had escaped his hold for only a moment and cooled it with air and water and spirt. Pulled the heat out, pushed the cool in until the newly formed rock was thick enough to contain the magma within and to keep it from breaking free as it continued to cool.

Nox tied off the weave and got lost down in the tunnels. He would go home eventually but his body ached. He hurt, He cried. He was grateful for the tiny lump of goodness tied to his chest. It was the only thing keeping him afloat as he wandered the tunnels.

Q: Reaching for second flow (10)
(1d20+0: [11]+0 = 11)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:12

Q: Control Multiple flows over time (10)
(1d20+0: [12]+0 = 12)
Success

10 → 3/10 S:13

Q: Cooling Weave (10)
(1d20+0: [4]+0 = 4)
Fail

10 → 4/10 S:13

Q: Trying again (10)
(1d20+0: [10]+0 = 10)
Success

10 → 4/10 S:14