The Pawn And The Prince, Part I

Participants:

entity2_icon.gif peter_icon.gif

Scene Title The Pawn and the Prince, Part I
Synopsis It wasn't as promised.
Date August 30, 2019

Raising his hands, Gabriel sinks telekinetic hooks into the cross beams of the roof, the supporting pillars in the walls, the points of weakness and strength in the building around him. It's more than he'd ever achieved with this ability prior to this moment and yet seems to come so naturally. Creaking— no, screaming wood, shattering and splintering, and the world around himself and Peter and unfortunately Kara as well seems to close like a fist as the roof and walls buckle beneath strange unnatural powers, a heavy beam under particular focus as Gabriel brings it down upon Peter, along with everything else as the building collapses into

darkness

dust

debris.


Two Hours Earlier

New Jersey Pine Barrens

August 30


“Are you alright?”

Stalling in the middle of the forest, Peter turns to look back at the young woman that was up until a moment ago walking barefoot beside him through the woods. The girl, wearing the face of Sibyl Black, nods and scrubs one hand at her brow with eyes wrenched shut.

“I'm fine,” she lies. Peter isn't buying it. He takes a step toward her and takes a knee, tentatively lifting one hand up to her cheek.

“Your pupils are asymmetrical,” Peter starts to say, trying to diagnose what might be causing her headaches. This was the fifth one today. “I think— ”

It is nothing.” Her words are an order hissed out in frustration and Peter complies without even realizing he is.

“It's nothing,” Peter offers dismissively, turning back to the winding trail through the woods. “Do you mind if I ask a question?” Comes on its heels, and the young woman exhales a soft sigh and nods as she moves to catch up beside Peter. He glances back just enough to see her consent, then tucks his hand in his jacket pocket as he continues ahead. “We’re going to kill Adam, right?”

Gold eyes angle up to Peter from beside him, and the girl nods once. “We do,” she says thoughtfully. Peter doesn't seem surprised by that, but it's clear from the way he nods and grows quiet that there's more on his mind.

“But, nobody else is going to get hurt, right? Eileen… she's a difficult person but she has a good heart. I thought she died but,” Peter laughs to himself, “I guess we all have our ways.” She looks up at him at that assertion, brows furrowing, before exhaling a slow sigh and nodding shallowly.

“This won't be the end,” she says quietly, “there is more to this than just Adam. Eileen has something that belongs to me, I need to take it back.” Gold eyes angle up to Peter again. “No one else has to die.”

“Just Adam,” Peter reiterates, and she nods in response.

“There,” she interjects, redirecting the topic to a direction through the woods. Peter halts and crouches, then expands a rippling aura of illusory forest to mask his presence. In the darkness between the trees five figures walk together up a winding trail, four of them armed and armored, one of them an old man.

“Your new mask,” she says quietly at his side, unseen. Peter looks in the direction of the voice, then back.

“Him?" Peter asks, because there is some distant part of himself who recognizes the old man more than in recent memory. Or perhaps more accurately, some distant part of something that was once him.

“It has to be him,” the voice at his side whispers, “it was him."

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Deep down, Peter feels the imprint of a memory. “Sharrow…” He doesn't understand how he remembers, but some ghosts haunt him long after their departure. "But why not someone else? Is he— " The girl presses a hand to his back, urging him forward.

Do it.


Two Hours Later


A wooden beam crashes down into Peter, smashing into his chest and breaking all of his ribs. His scream is a strangled thing, desperate and breathless. But distracted by Eileen’s agony as he is, Gabriel fails to notice that it isn't Peter at all, but what he wants to see. Illusions were always easiest when they presented what the trucked wanted to see in the world.

Rolling aside from the collapsing beam, Peter leaves his illusion to languish in suffering. Nearby he spots a broken piece of machinery in a black case and a woman coated in blood and debris. He can hear the screams, see the horrific fate Eileen is about to experience. But he has no context, no understanding, no time.

But perhaps.

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Grasping the woman by the shoulder, Peter unravels into shimmering bands of rainbow light and discorporates Kara Prince along with him just as the entire ceiling of the visitor’s center crashes down around him.

The world becomes a blur of colors.

Confusing and dreadful.

Yet familiar.


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