So let Mercy come...

[wraithwitch.livejournal.com]

In a series of popular science fiction films there is a scene where a blue sphere of lightning appears and rips the air asunder before depositing someone (usually a killer robot dressed in human skin) into the emptiness of the night.

Something like that was happening now behind a warehouse in East London, only with less Hollywood style and more violence.

Five foot up an electrical explosion tore a hole in reality, and from that hole was blasted pieces of debris and a body. The body hit the wall of the warehouse with the force of a car crash and then fell heavily to land in the gutter. By the time the body had landed, the rift in the sky had winked out of existence, the lightning twisting in on itself like water down a plughole.

The narrow street was quiet once more.

There was a sudden choked intake of breath, strangled, urgent and unpleasantly sodden sounding. A cough, and blood was spat. The body in the gutter began to rise like a drunken puppet; it tried to stand on a leg with a shattered knee and promptly fell with a cry of pained surprise. There was a string of guttural sounds which might have been swearing, if a mutant crocodile had been taught to swear.

The body sat up more slowly this time and examined its legs, scowling at the bone and flayed skin. There was no shining light, no heavenly chorus, the bone simply began to pull itself together and mend. The body blinked and seemed to realise that one of its eyes was ruined, weeping blood and aqueous fluid down its cheek. The eye healed until it matched its twin, bloody but whole and with an iris that was a startling purple.

The effort seemed to tire the girl – because under the smoke stains and the blood it was a girl – and she lent back against the fender of car. After a moment she opened a pouch at her boot and pulled out a roll of bandage which she tried to wrap around her knee before realising her left wrist was broken. With a sigh she healed it. Under her fringe was a line of five silver-white scars on her forehead; they began to redden. Her eyes lost their focus and started to roll upwards in their sockets: with a supreme effort of will she stopped herself from passing out, resting her head against the car and waiting for the dizzying weakness to cease.

The girl with the long black hair and delicately pointed ears who smelt of hot copper and smoke dragged herself to her feet. Her breath still rasped in her throat and blood ran unchecked from numerous cuts and burns, not to mention five bones which were still broken, two of those causing an amount of internal bleeding.

She needed to find somewhere safe, somewhere to rest until she could work out how to get back to D’Kaa. Wearily she opened her mind to the city around her, seeking the threads of knowledge and fate that would tell her where to go. One hand reached up to the collar at her neck and touched it, much as a devout supplicant might touch an icon. If the CLE had a unit in the area – if the Black Tabs were looking for her then they’d pick her up. Her collar only put her down to a Level 3 these days unless she helped it along. And she couldn’t play Quiet Mind when her mind was ransacking an entire city...

There. In that direction. There was a place that was safe. There were others like her. Ones who might be able to help her open a Rift. Perhaps it was a Cell? More likely a couple of Silver Eyes hiding out in a cellar, but she couldn’t afford to be picky.

The girl walked through the streets, shielded from almost everyone. An old tramp marked her passing as did a toddler in a buggy. Cats watched her through narrow slit eyes and knew her to be Aha-ib-ne-Bast, a killer in the service of the Goddess. They stalked her on velvet paws, hoping she would lead them to good hunting. People did not see her, cars did not stop for her and she was almost run over twice.

By the time she had neared her destination her mind and body had shut down to the barest minimum. Her heart pumped, her lungs breathed and her legs walked because she commanded them to. Her mind cloaked her from sight and scanners alike and perceived nothing save the direction in which she needed to travel.

She didn’t know when she had reached her destination. She stumbled down the stairs and stood swaying at the last step, staring blindly at the room. Her nose started to bleed. She wiped it on the back of her hand. Blurred shapes moved towards her and sound travelled on the air.

“Where is this?” she asked D’Kaa, speaking in his language because he still hadn’t bothered to learn hers.

The shapes shepherded her towards a chair.

“What are you saying?” she growled, angry that D’kaa wouldn’t speak to her when she was so tired and her head hurt. Anger burnt a hole in her fugue state through which a thin ray of clarity shone. The explosion at the facility had opened a Rift – she had been thrown through it but D’kaa had not – he didn’t answer because he wasn’t here.

The shapes bobbed around her seeming fretful.

“Who are you?” she asked in her own tongue, a language far more elegant and lyrical than D’Kaa’s. “Let me sleep. I don’t understand you...” She tried to wave away the fussing shapes and her hand brushed against one, snapping the world into sudden focus.

“...Tate. You’re safe here. I need to look at your injuries – I can help you...” A slender young man neatly dressed and with an aura that tasted of grain-deep unhappiness was leaning over her. He was speaking Second State Standard and his accent was refined; she wondered if he was discredited medic or an Agitator – if he was a real doctor why wasn’t he speaking First Standard? “Who did this to you? You’re badly hurt. Do you understand? I and others here can assist you but I need to know...”

“Where is this?” she interrupted him.

He looked at her in surprise. “Ah, this is London. England.” He wracked his brains for other descriptives. “Albion. Anglais... Avalon? Europe...”

Comprehension lit in her bloodied purple eyes. “Europa?”

“Ah, yes, yes I suppose. You, ah, where do you come from?”

“City State Two, Europa. Who are you?”

“I’m Lemuel Tate. I...”

“You’re a Chaos Wizard,” she told him, apropos of nothing.

He blinked. “I... yes, I suppose I am.”

“I’m Mercy,” she said brightly, not bothering to add 'Project Cassandra, Subject 2' as it wouldn't mean anything to him. “Psyker," she added. "Level Five.” Which was a lie. She was a Mindmelter and was actually Level Six. She smiled. “I can kill things by thinking it.” And that was perfectly true.