2014.03.22 - The Pale Yesterday

How large the world has grown.
It is afternoon, and months after her escape from a former Hell Lord into the world outside her sanctum, the Hellspawn known as Historia is still taking in the differences between the past she left behind and the present she has emerged into. She has learned English fairly swiftly -- though it was still a struggle given her native tongue isn't even in the same language family -- but she has had no official instruction. Still, she is studying the mechanics of modern technology, and the things resulting from such. Deconstructing in her mind the underlying nature of the buildings around her, fascinated with the architecture, the various cultural influences all clashing and merging, and generally just learning. However, she is still alone in the world, homeless, and trying not to unintentionally make anything worse with her presence and actions. She has seen accidents. She has seen criminals and crimes. She has seen people in need. Thus far she has done nothing. Even when other heroes did not show up to help, she has only observed.
Stringy white hair trails from a dry, half-decayed scalp, and flutters off to the side in the wind, as Historia sits on the edge of a building's rooftop. An opaque black veil-like garment covers her face, with two crescents of white over her eyes. A black and red tunic adorns the rest of her, and a large, ancient-looking scroll is strapped to her back. A staff with a demonic skull on top lays across her lap. Mistaking her for a normal human would be difficult up-close. Even just allowing for the possibility she could be very old, there's a bit too much moistureless decay to her flesh. Her hands and bare feet end in digits a bit too sharp.
Thus far, however, few have seen her. She has kept herself hidden, watching from the shadows. She does not doubt there are those out there with the ability to sense demons who will eventually detect her as a Hellspawn. But for now, she has been spared any confrontations.
The roof access door suddenly slams open, and a squat figure with a pronounced pot belly and odd facepaint, and two little shocks of wirey grey hair comes waddling out of the stairwell. "Hey, babe! It's been awhile--" he starts to call out, but the Hellspawn is already vanishing over the edge of the roof. "WHOAH, WAIT!" he yells and rushes with surprising speed for his frame to the edge, leaping over as well. Historia slides down the outside of the building with her claws, before pushing off and leaping into the air. She does not know who this man is, but she wants nothing to do with him.
That choice is taken away from her when a large pale form with three horns an elongated lower jaw, spindly limbs, and a very unpleasant attitude tackles her out of the air. "I SAID STOP!" the demon roars. The two of them slam into a building across the street, smashing into someone's apartment and sending bricks scattering into their bedroom and masonry raining down into the street below.
The couple who were dozing away the afternoon in bed wake up quickly in a panic.
Historia curses silently. Already her presence is changing the world. And she thought she killed this demon too. "What was your name again?" she asks calmly. Green saliva drips from the demon's mouth as he leans in to look the Hellspawn in her fel-green eyes through her mask. "I'm the Violator, toots. Remember it."
The commotion and noise should be pretty noticeable.
It's a pleasant afternoon. Or it was. Mend has been considering quite a few things, many of them directly or indirectly connected to Tony Stark, but no reverie could survive the sound of super-powered slamming into the side of a building. Great. It's time to get to work...she ducks into an alleyway to change before sprinting towards the scene, staying at street level for now, except for one maneuver over a car to avoid a group of civilians who are, quite sensibly, fleeing as fast as possible in the opposite direction.
Demon. Joy. Mend *hates* demons. As a matter of fact, Mend is...to irrational levels...quite scared of demons. Which would be why she stops and freezes in the street. She'll be moving in a moment, but right now it looks like the young mutant is in quite a bit of danger and too startled to defend herself.
 
Magneto normally doesn't get involved. Doesn't even notice. He's not a hero- he barely qualifies as an anti-hero to most people. Flying a hundred feet overhead, the Master of Magnetism is cruising from one meeting to another, wearing his usual Metropolis business attire- a double-breasted suit and his attache case. 
Spotting Mend near the fray, though, Magneto frowns, then doubles back. He loiters in a moment, as if confirming his suspicions about her identity, then flies downwards, his attache case dissolving in a swirl of pieces to become the stylized armor he normally wears, complete with the downward-tipped dome of a helmet that is his icon. 
Magneto lands heavily, looking once at Mend, then turns his shadowy face towards the demon and the woman he's gripping. "Miss Sometimes, it looks as if you are about to do something suitably heroic," Magneto says, his tones coldly professional if polite. The vaguely European diction, clipped and proper, makes him sound very authoritarian. He looks the situation over- demon, witch, mutant- and shifts his weight minutely, as if a man preparing for battle. 
"I do not normally involve myself in the affairs of Metropolis, demon," Magneto informs the beast in those same cold, polite tones. "So perhaps this is an unwise day for you to have invaded my plane of existence." He makes a slow, precise series of gestures, and fire limns his hand. "Shall we see how well you burn?" he asks, lightning crackling from his eyes.
It was a pleasant afternoon, yes. Not that Lobo cared, he didn't care much about stuff like that. Right now, he was chaining a dude to his bike in the street..when the masonry rained down. Needless to say, the alien didn't survive..but that's not what Lobo cared about. "MY BIKE, YA' FRAGGIN' BASTICH!"...even though the bike was perfectly fine.
Lobo leaped on the SpazFrag666, floating up through the hole towards where the Violator and Sister Hellspawn were. "YA' GONNA PAY FOR THAT, BASTICH!". Lobo doesn't seem to be paying attention to anyone else right now, though.
Some people have trouble telling the difference between Earth and Hell. And some people find the difference relatively meaningless. Rorschach is one of those people. He always has the stench of sulfur in his mouth, the bile in the back of his throat as he looks out at the corrupt and ruined skeleton that was once called the world. A greasy patina of smoke and sin lingers on his eyelids, making them sticky under his mask. Of course, the weight he feels on his shoulders is easily explainable.
Virgil "Keats" Keaton fancied himself a literate drug dealer, a philosopher, a guy who was broadening the minds of people, while occasionally getting a blowjob from a strung out girl in exchange for a bag of rock. Hey, guys gotta get his, right? Well, at the moment, he's getting his in an entirely different way. He didn't hear Rorschach come into his little den of sin, too drugged out to hear the gurgling sounds as his two thugs, Marco and Piss, had their respective larynxes inverted. He did, however, notice when the tie he wears, that layer of respectability in intellectuallism, got yanked tight against his Adam's apple. And he certainly noticed when Rorschach dragged him down the stairs of the tenement, all five flights, and out into the street, the dealer's legs kicking and thrashing. He pulls at the tie, trying to get it loose, but it's too much and he's gagging, trying to beg and ask for mercy. And all Rorschach (Oh god, it's Rorschach, oh, shit, oh shit) every says is, "Hurm."
The sound of crashing and screaming alike gains his attention, fedora topped head tilting upwards. He stops long enough to let Keats catch a breath, "Oh god, oh thank you."
Rorschach considers. "Bigger problems. Just a bug. Swat it." he breathes. A flick of his wrist rolls Keats onto his belly. A stomp of his foot snaps his spinal cord at the small of his back. Keat's screaming covers up the sound of Rorschach's feet scraping asphalt as he walks towards the commotion.
Several floors up from that invaded apartment, Meggan had been lazily relaxing herself and watching BBC America, while eating a small plate of carob brownies. She had not noticed the arrival of the creature across the street - after all, she's been tuning matters out quite well, living in a cozy little condo purchased by a man from Britain who would probably rather she not live near Kurt Wagner if at all possible. 
Then, CRASH 
Meggan frowns. 
She steps to the window, opens it, pushes past the safety lock and leans outwards, calling downwards, "I'm SORRY, excuse me, but - Could - oh," as she comes to a stop, seeing the recognizable head of Magneto if nothing else. 
"Excuse me!" she calls down. "D'you need a hand down there?" She is already climbing out of that window. 
The Violator has Historia pinned to the floor with his disturbingly powerful, even if thin, arms and legs, keeping her spread-eagle. Historia is not wearing her symbiotic costume at the moment, and is reluctant to put it on. Her leaping over the roof instead of waiting to find out what the demon wanted is what led to this situation. She acted without thought, on instinct. Her Hellspawn instincts are traitorous. She should have remembered that. She decides to attempt diplomacy. "It might be best if we go somewhere else. Whatever your business with me, I imagine you desire neither bystanders nor the people who would interfere to rescue them to get involved." The last time Historia and Violator met, the former was far more emotional. Though she still talked to him, she was easier to goad into battle.
Even someone as stupid as this guy can tell she has changed. His mission here is to get Historia to take action. Trying to talk her into coming over to Hell's side and doing Malebolgia's will was plan A. So a reasonable person might think, 'Hey, if she's willing to talk, maybe I'll let her.' But Plan B has already started, which is basically, 'attack her until she does something about it'. But if she could be convinced... If she isn't already enraged at seeing him after what he did last time... Oh, but she's so much calmer now. So much frigging smarter. And he's not much of a debater. If he tries to convince her in a long, drawn-out conversation, and she won't take the bait, he'll just be wasting his time.
The Violator's dillema does not last long. At around the time he decides to push blindly ahead and try to kill the guy and gal in the bed to show he means business, to try to force Historia to do something, there's a voice calling out to the 'demon' from street level outside, and Violator's attention shifts for a moment. He starts to call out something about being familiar with burning because of being from Hell and all, but then suddenly there is a giant space-mohawk flying into the third-floor apartment on a space-bike through the hole the Violator made, and his retort dies in his throat. "...Whoah, you my long-lost cousin from Planet X, buster? I gotta' say, your palette is kind of familiar--" There's a wriggling beneath Violator and he turns his attention back on the Hellspawn, realizing too late it was a mistake to take his eyes off of her. A shadow slides across the floor, and outside, leaving the demon empty-handed.
Violator snarls and turns to try to force his way past Lobo, relying on his supernatural powers to try to barge through. "Outta' the way!" He has no idea who he is dealing with, nor who the ones out on the street are either.
He is going to find out.
Meanwhile, the shadow swells like it's being inflated, becoming 3-D and then regaining the details of Historia as she peels herself off of the sidewalk. She would rather not fight here, or really at all. She needs time to think, and she's not getting it. Even if she stands aside now and lets others do the fighting, the fact of the matter is they are fighting and in danger because she was there to be attacked.
What is she supposed to do then? How can she avoid making the situation worse? As she looks on, while Magneto flies, and Mend stands transfixed, and Lobo hovers in the aparment with a demon rushing at him, and someone starts climbing out their window, she considers those who have appeared. On some level she is glad that the present world has more heroes to help people. But they should be able to do that without her here. They should not have to clean up her messes... And get ruined by her corruptive existence.
She assumes they are either 'super heroes', a term new to her, or concerned citizens. Except the flying pale man. He seems to be upset for personal reasons. She struggles internally. Just stand there? Flee and hope Violator follows her to somewhere less crowded? Attack to end the danger? Try to talk it over with him? Try to coordinate with the others? Paralyzed by indecision, she does not notice any scary masked men approaching. But she is likely to be noticed by him and by the others. She is a 7 foot tall dead woman in Ancient Babylonian garments after all, and she's just standing in the middle of the street with a skull-staff and a giant scroll.
Her impulse is to help. She WANTS to help. The woman climbing out the window, the heroes coming to the rescue, the innocents endangered, all deserve aid.
But she just stands there and does nothing but watch and second-guess herself endlessly.
Mend says to Magneto. "Somebody got thrown into a building. The building lost." And demon. And really ugly guy. And really ugly guy and demon seem to be about to brawl. "I think it's time for damage control?" she suggests to the magnetically powered mutant. He's far more powerful than she is...but she's already moving. Rather than approaching the budding brawl between Violator and Lobo - if those two beat on each other, that suits her fine, and Lobo certainly looks like he can take care of himself - she's moving for the damaged building, studying it, trying to get a read on its structural integrity. Does she make sure people evacuate or are they better staying inside? She does note to a couple of tourists with cameras, "Get out of here. The photos won't survive...and neither will you." She just has a feeling this one's going to be HIGH on the collateral damage.
 
Magneto makes several swift assessments all at once. For the Master of Magnetism, it all unrolls in seconds- Lobo, Rorschach, Mend, Meggan- and the demon and the witch. 
Magneto extends his hands in both directions at once, and his obdurate will strikes the I-beams. He brings his hands together, stabilizing the building's inner framework so there is no danger of toppling. He brings a hand down, then thrusts it at the demon's feet- there is a wrench and a twist, and he flings a chunk of what had been a lightpole at the demon's lower limbs, in an attempt to slow or trip it up. 
"Destroy the demon!" he booms in a stentorian roar. "Flee the area! This is not a safe place!" His voice echoes and rolls with masterful control, a little jolt of magnetic force following his words as if a nudge to obey. 
Magneto keeps an eye on the demon, but maintains his hold temporarily on the buildings until he can be sure they are stable.
"Don'tcha try and run from ma, bastich'! We have words ta word!". As the Violator charges towards Lobo, he's thrusting his left arm and chain at Violator, growling. "No one touches ma' bike!".
When the demon is attacked by Magneto, Lobo is growling at the..roar. "This is ma fight, bastich! I'mma frag him to no yesterday!"
Rorschach makes his way in slowly and inexorably, footstep after footstep. From the sound of the craching and roaring and all of that, whatever's occurring is relatively apocalyptic and out of his weight class. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have a purpose to serve. He has been a witness to darkness before, and shall be again. He can read the currents in the rivers of blood and the marrow spilling from bone, and he can see that pattern and divine a purpose. A bloody purpose, no doubt, and like to end in pain, but, then, what in this world isn't?
He finds himself stepping up next to Historia, almost chummily, if anyone hadn't met him before. The bizarre appearance of the demon woman seems to have no effect onf Rorschach, the inky blots on his face swirling as the heat rises from his breath, like slugs skittering on a skein of oil. His hands are thrust in his pockets, his voice a croaking rasp as he speaks.
"Your fight," he says. It's not a question, the creature's presence cacn be no coincidence. "Coward." he says simply.
 
Meggan slings herself downwards, glancing around at the rather intense men in the area. She decides to address Lobo, raising both her hands up as she draws up her legs, crouching in the aperture that all this astonishing action has created. "D'you mind if I help those people loose then, so they won't get in your way?" 
She glances at the raspy voiced mystery man for a moment. Then back up to Lobo with a slightly more effortful smile. 
The few people who were still hanging around, both at Mend's encouragement and the more dramatic 'motivating' done by Magneto clear the area. Just in time, because as Meggan arrives to try to play cheerful helper and voice of reason, the Violator suddenly has the remains of a street light magnetically thrown at him tripping him up. He winds up heading on a collision course with not only Lobo's chains and arm, but quite likely Lobo himself. The force is enough it should carry the both of them out of the building -- which seems to be relatively stable (or at least NOW it is). Given Lobo turned around to yell at Magneto, he might not see Violator coming until it's too late. But Meggan might be able to warn him, and hopefully not also get tackled.
Either way, however, the Violator will be leaving the building one way or another and tumbling down to street level. Despite his spindly build, the ground shatters beneath him like he weighs a LOT more. "Fugging humans and whatever-the-heaven you ares!" he snarls as he pulls himself out of the small crater and the cloud of concrete dust where a sidewalk used to be. "Always gotta' be sticking your filthy noses in where they're gonna' be cut off! Do you even know who you're dealing with? What kind of fight you're in for!?"
While the Violator rants and asks rhetorical questions, and so on, Historia finds she has company. She turns to look at him, the green glow of her eyes seeping through the non-see-through veil over her face. Two people wearing masks. She takes the measure of the man with a glance, but her thoughts are distracted. She then focuses her gaze back on the larger and paler of the two demons present, and responds just as simply, to both statements, "Yes."
"I fear the harm I may bring to those I wish to protect if I attempt to protect them. That fear has ruled my existence for what is to you nearly 3,000 years. I have hidden from the world for fear of the responsibility that would follow my being part of it. That is cowardice of a sort." Still, that may have been what she needed. Acknowledging she is letting her fear control her outloud is not in itself a solution. But the fear is not for herself, but for what havoc she might wreak upon others with her actions. And therein lies the problem. She cares about the safety of humanity, and the desire to keep them from being hurt, corrupted, and destroyed in the battles between Heaven and Hell. But here she is, doing nothing to protect them out of fear that trying to protect them will endanger them. The paradox is undeniable.
And the solution, now apparent. Not every situation demands an instant, thoughtless response. But at least in this case, there is action she can take.
The large, ancient scroll unravels on Historia's back, wrapping around and around and around her seemingly of its own accord. As it touches her, it fuses to her flesh, changes to a different color entirely... Becomes skin-tight living 'fabric', with a distinct black, white, and red color scheme. More and more is covered, nearly a full foot is added to her height, and she starts looking less like a withered dead woman and more like a fearsome warrior. Even each strand of her hair becomes plated in segmented, living steel, that is in truth not steel at all but a deathly matter straight from Hell. Necroplasm.
Violator is made of the same, and that means she knows what limits his body has.
Donning her costume once more, the Architect Spawn chooses to protect. Thick, bulky chains whip out from where they lay encircling Historia's waist, and wrap around the Violator's arms and legs. He is surprised, and cut off in the middle of his rant that has given time for basically everyone to get to safety or get others to safety or prepare to attack him. The demon tries to pull free, but the chains grow blades and barbs and entangle with his flesh the more he struggles, basically ensuring he's not going anywhere.
"I apologize for taking so long to step in," Historia calls to all, looking much different from before. "Please help me protect our world and our people by smashing this demon to a pulp." "YOU COWARD!" Violator screams. "FACE ME ALONE! AREN'T YOU ALL HONORABLE AND SHIT!?" "If you wished to face me alone, you wouldn't have involved others." "SHUT UP!" The Violator decides he's not going to let this go. He's not going to just sit here while biker mouse and aluminum helmet and whoever these other guys are all pound away at him. He drops his jaw and hellfire begins to blaze in his gullet, as he aims his mouth directly at Mend.
Right. Threaten the person who hasn't even done anything yet. Mend, not wanting to get burned to a crisp if it can be avoided, vaults over an innocent (and empty) car. She crouches on the other side of it, hoping its well insured. Yeah, this is definitely going to be a high collateral damage fight. Hrm. Which of these stores is most likely to have a fire extinguisher? She's already reaching for her belt for *something*.
 
Magneto surges through the air, reaching into his cloak for something. He produces a chain about a half-inch in diamater, wrapping it around his fist, glowing red with an angry, sullen light. The Imperator rises up into the air about fifty feet, then comes down with earth-shattering force, aiming a mighty blow to the back of the demon's head, with enough force to smash through a steel door and the promise of a crackling explosion of magical force. 
Magneto lands and moves with superhuman speed away from the demon, then with his left hand, rips raw electricity from the world around him and hurls a bolt of living lightning at the monster, with far more duration and power than any natural lightning bolt could sustain.
Lobo does not notice it, no, as they go flying out the building. Pulling himself from the crater, Lobo's more or less fine, though he's /much/ more angry, and is growling. "I'm th' Main Man, and you're 'bout to be fragged!". Lobo..stops and listens to the conversation between Historia and the Violator, before Violator begins to create hellfire. Oh dear.
Lobo is charging into the Violator, removing a..minigun from behind his back. Yes. Lobo begins attempting to fill the Violator with holes, and if that doesn't work, he'll begin attempting to bash his whatever in with it.
Rorschach watches Historia's transformation, although nothing, of course, can change in an expression that's not there. Except the ink, of course, seeming to pool together along the center and then divide, amoeba-like. He recognizes Magneto among the combatants, so-called Imperator. Foriegner. Freak. The others he doesn' tknow, nor does he care to, of course, even as Historia begins to intervene seemingly in response to his taunt, "Protecting. Hurm. Prefer punishing," he says with his snarling croak. Somehow, none of the violence seems to touch him, even as bodies crash and brick bursts, even as Magneto's energies raise the hairs on the back of his arms. Nothing. Stillness. His hands in his pockets.
Devils fighting freaks fighting aliens. If only they could all kill one another, let the maggots crawl into their eyes, the stink of their meat drawing the carrion crows. The stench of hellfire is familiar in his nose, prosaic and almost like home. The Violator, especially, seems a familiar thing, like something that crawled from the pit of his nightmares. Perhaps it knows his mother. Hopefully it's making good use of the slut in the pit.
A gangbanger wanders up, a thick joint hanging from his lip, not quite noticing the man on the street, too distracted by the monstrous commotion in the building above. "Damn, fool, what's all this crazy shi-GURK!" he cries as Rorschach takes him, one forearm wrapping beneth his throat to clutch his windpipe, taking his breath as the other holds his head in place. The madman whispers, a skittering thing, like a spider worming its way into the man - Ronnie, his name is - into Ronnie's ears, "Look," Rorschach whispers. "Waiting. For you. You'll burn. You'll all burn," he whispers.
 
Meggan digests what Historia says to her, after a momentary glance at the fast-receding Violator. She doesn't interrupt, though she does do her best to radiate sympathy in return to the obvious tension she can feel in the figure of the scroll-wrapped woman. 
Of course, then matters move outside - into a realm of ultraviolence that Meggan looks away from. Instead, her attention goes towards the people who have been so cruelly invaded. 
She smiles at them. "I'm terribly sorry about everything. I'm Meggan Puceanu from the tenth floor; please, here, are you alright?" As she does this, she radiates relaxation and calmness; if nothing else, Meggan is confident that between a man with a heavy firearm, a strange yet sorrowful demonic chain-slinger, and also Magneto, it will be OK. 
"What you ought to do is go down round the back entrance," she tells them. "I'd move a bit quick if I were you. - Oh, don't worry about me!" Another million-watt smile. "I'm a super hero too!" 
As they depart with purses and improvised bathrobe protection, Meggan walks back to that opening and frowns as she sees the man in the trenchcoat struggling with something already. "I hope they don't take THAT exit," she worries aloud, before leaping down to the street level - /well clear/ of where the demon is being surrounded. 
The Violator's hellfire was meant to be used on Mend specifically because she hadn't done anything. Meggan would have also been an okay target, but Mend was right there. The price for not doing Malebolgia's will and doing evil in the world, evil stuff like killing innocent bystanders, is that innocent bystanders will be killed! ...Yeah, damned if you do, damned if you don't is an expression for a reason. Basically, if he's going down, he's taking someone with him. He wants to layer on the guilt and rage and hate and suffering.
And like most of the Violator's plans, it doesn't really turn out well for him. The magical chain punch by Magneto puts a hole in the back of the Violator's head, causing green blood to splatter from the injury, and his face to get smashed into the concrete, making his lengthy lower jaw bend and crack. He chokes on his own hellfire and it erupts out the back of his head as it burns through his throat. He is surprisingly not dead. He struggles to lift himself up, intending to roar and lash out at Magneto even as the mutant zips out of melee range, only for Lobo to start putting dozens and dozens of holes in his body. More necroplasm sprays. His attempt to charge at Lobo causes the magic chains to tear into his body even more. Flesh shreds and the demonic equivalent of bones crack as living chains work their way more and more into him.
The Violator is clearly overpowered, outnumbered, and outmatched, but still isn't giving up. Call it stubborness, call it determination, call it stupidity, whatever it is, he turns his face towards Historia, even as powerful electricity slams into him, searing him, lighting his nerves on fire and making psuedo-muscle tense and freeze up with spasms the same way his limbs are becoming more and more rigid with metal threaded through green sinew.
He has three horns, and he's a shapeshifter. Maybe he can't move MOST of his body, but the three horns extend suddenly, reaching out and around, closing in seemingly on Historia in a pincer movement -- but instead reaching beyond her and towards the man in the ink-blot mask standing nearby, currently distracted threatening a punk with the horrors of Hell that await him.
Historia was distracted as well, her attention drawn to Meggan and the empathic transmission being sent her way. She is thankful for the gesture. But her gaze snaps back to the Violator at the sudden movement. She was not expecting that maneuver, so she has little time to think before acting. "NO!" she yells as she uses the chains nearly woven into the demon's flesh now to yank him off-balance. The trajectory of the horns is changed. One cleaves into a building face, the central one that extends from the Violator's spine grows too long and winds up punching into the sidewalk well past its target, and the third horn stabs into Historia's right side and into her torso.
She grabs that horn in her hands, just as Lobo advances to the now nearly-torn-apart and heavily bleeding Violator, and hits him in what's left of his head with the minigun. Electricity crawls over the demon's body, blackening and burning, and despite the pain he must be in, he manages to sneer with his deformed mouth somehow, even with half his face missing. "Loser," he taunts. Then Historia, in pain herself, speaks. "Protection through punishment, was it?" she snarls as she glances over her shoulder at Rorschach. Then she uses her magic. The Demon Magic of limited supply that she should not be using. Green power flows from her hands, and from her chains. The horn in her grasp starts to unravel like paper, turning into strips of matter and fluttering outwards in an unfelt wind.
The same happens for the Violator's body. Soon, he is being stripped apart, piece by piece, very quickly, and sent... Elsewhere. Banished back to Hell? Teleported to the moon? Either way, all that's left is the property damage, and all the green demon blood mucking up the street. Oh and the hole in Historia's side, leaking more of the same fluid. She drops to one knee as her chains retract to wrap around her waist, the truly nasty looking collection of blades and barbes and spikes that had formed as they tried to force the Violator to hold still receding and turning smooth once more. Historia puts a hand to her wound but doesn't bother wasting magic healing it. It will hurt badly and will take some time to regenerate, but she already used enough of her limited energy for one day.
"Thank you," she calls out after several seconds. Who she is talking to isn't clear. It might have been Meggan for her sympathy, Magneto for keeping the demon from killing an innocent, Mend for having the good sense and self-preservations instincts to keep her from becoming a victim, Lobo for harassing and damaging the demon so he couldn't use more of his powers, or Rorschach for giving her what she needed to break out of her self-imposed helplessness. Maybe, it was thanks for ALL of them.
There would be consequences for her actions. But she'd never be able to deal with them if she let herself become a prisoner of her fear of them. "For now, I believe the danger has passed," she offers, for the first time allowing a hint of an accent into her pronunciation as she tries to cope with the gaping hole in her torso. "I... Should go," she says as she starts to get up.
Mend steps out from behind the car, catching her breath. "Is anyone hurt?" the slender heroine asks. She didn't achieve much, but she DID manage to convince a few people to get out of the area. Her eyes flick through those that are present, lingering longest on first Magneto and then the injured Historia. The badly injured Historia. "You need medical treatment?" She asks it as a question, not assuming, even with gaping holes in torsos. Not a mundane, after all; clearly not that.
 
Magneto slips the chain back into his cloak, making it disappear, and looks around the situation. It seems.... resolved. Resolved enough for his purposes, anyway. The Imperator goes skywards a few feet, his armor turning back into the attache case he carries. "Your wounds are greivous," Magneto observes to Historia in that commanding voice, floating near Mend and the injured woman. "I would take her advice and seek aid. And soon, before you perish." Magneto turns his head skywards and flits up into the sky with a burst of acceleration, his 'good deed' for the day done and behind him. One mutant at least won't be injured, though in Mend's case in particular that was unlikely to happen anyway.
"Ya got what ya deserved, ya fraggin' bastich.". Lobo is..putting the Minigun back wherever he got it, before picking up the SpazFrag from where it was left, getting on, tossing everyone a middle finger salute...and blasting off into the deep depths of space.
Rorschach drops his own victim to the ground, the street thug (or ,frankly, just random passerby - Rorschach didn't precisely do much in the way of investigation). Nonetheless, he does add another one of his stomps, this time cracking the unconscious man's knuckles, wrenching at least two fingers in a violent fashion, leaving them mangled. He cocks his head at Historia's thanks, paying no mind to the others at all. "Welcome," he says. He turns on his heel, casually kicking the fallen man in the head on his way past. Hands in his pockets. Head down. Trudging on. More of them out there. Always more. More of the wretched. More of the sinful. More of the worthless.
They're all going to burn.
 
Meggan winces at the sight of Rorschach stomping that man's hand, which she can see more clearly. 
She gives the faceless man a long look... and then decides, wisely, perhaps, to not intervene when someone seems more mortally wounded. Magneto is already fleeing, and Logo just flipped her the bird (Meggan waves it back, experimentally and without real understanding) before her attention rests -- on Historia. 
"I know someone who may be able to help you," she tells her, stepping a bit closer - not too close, not too fast. "I mean, with... with everything, really. Have you ever heard of Doctor Strange...?" 
The Hellspawn looks up as various people depart. She is as unfamiliar with the middle-finger gesture as Meggan, but less inclined to return it at the moment. The necrotic, rot-green flesh ringing the hole where her right-hand ribs used to be continues to drip and ooze. Yes, a normal person would probably not be standing with that kind of injury, so even putting aside the odd coloration, Mend is correct about that. "I do not know that medicine will be of use on my body. It is not made of living flesh. But I will take the advice and seek aid." Historia switches her attention to Meggan as she approaches. "I have not," she responds to the question. As she hears the cracking of bones behind her, she glances behind her briefly at the retreating figure, and sees someone possibly with as much Hell in his head as herself. She focuses on Meggan, and says, "I do not wish to be a burden. But if you feel he can help me... I will gladly give him the chance to do so. But I need a brief moment."
She then turns and heads towards the injured man on the street. Tall, imposing, he likely does not find Historia's presence favorable. But she uses a trick that Hellspawns can do, and draws some energy from her costume instead of from her own reserves. She's acting on impulse and instinct again. Something bad might happen because of this. But she will not allow humans to become victims of otherworldly forces. She heals the man's injuries.
Then she stands, and faces Meggan and Mend, Lobo and Magneto already gone into the sky somewhere. Mere contact with her might bring ruin to lives. But she has to do something, or nothing will change.
"I am ready," the tall woman says.
The statement means many things.
Category:Log