Legends (Alpha)

While the force spread out would have been difficult to thwart, being singled on a thin point made it much more difficult. The destructive potential would have reeked havoc on anything hit by it, which made him impressed that he managed to hold off such force. That was when the sonic scrambler came about, releasing hundreds of screams that began to scratch at his mind, ripping through his eardrums and reducing all sound to a muffle beyond the pain. Turning his mind to scrambled eggs and causing his nose to bleed. Still, luckily that didn’t stop the telekinetic attack itself from ripping against Saint’s defenses, as he was pierced through the neck.

With no barrier between the attack and Saint, his head popped dramatically. Shards of bone flying around and catching Alpha in the shoulder as he stumbled back a few steps to slam against the wall, blood like a fountain rocketing from his neck stump. Slowly his control over his mental faculties would come, but nothing that let him meaningfully use his abilities, at the very least not for a minute more. ”Ow, fuck that stupid screeching thing.” Alpha growled, his own words sounding as if he were trying to hear them through ears stuffed with cotton until his ears healed up and the blood drained.

With muscles knitting back together, the fragment of bone would slip from the wound as it closed, causing any pain there to fade away as he looked down on the blood carcass. ”So...I think this is the part where we get the kids and blow this place up, right?” He suggested, standing to his feet, as blood was vacated from his ear canals and he wiped his nose with the back of a hand. ”You should probably talk to them though. Don’t think they’re over the whole accidentally killing the one with the purple hair.”

Lucius was quite surprised at how easy killing this monstrosity was. Not since his and Orpheus' defeat of Munition had a great threat been put to rest so quickly. It was just another example of tactics and original ideas prevailing in combat over might. But, greater then the pride of victory was the relief that it was all over. The battle was through, the kids were mostly safe, and it was time to gather them up. After they did that, Lucius could contact Slattery, and the metahuman regulation duties this lab previously held would fall instead to his partner's organization, The Hero's Association.

The lights flickered rapidly, and Lucius instinctively wiped the blood from his mask, which was getting in the way of his optics and therefore vision. The red liquid only smeared though, so Lucius just took his mask off, letting it segment into itself for storage. The dictator then looked to Travis, who seemed completely content and decisive with moving on to the next stage of this operation.

Is it getting colder in here?

Lucius nodded at Travis, motioning for the fellow Rise Head to follow him down the hallway. The lights flickered more intensively, eventually even sparking. Lucius brushed it off as damage instilled during the brawl, and continued onward.

Yes...... Yes it is. Cold, even for me...

What Lucius and Travis would find once they left the corridor, though, was an almost pitch black room, almost as large as the one where they had found the group of children initially. Lights flickered occasionally, but without his mask Lucius couldn't see all that was in this room. He knew people were in it, as they made no effort in concealing the noise they were making, but it wasn't certain who these people were.

Why.....w-why is it so dark...... So damn freezing........?

Footsteps from at least a few dozen echoed inside the dark space, but Lucius could only focus on this heinous cold building inside him. It penetrated his suit, his skin, and his entire being, and it was only getting worse. He finally saw with his own eyes that it wasn't all in his head. He saw his breath, and he also saw that it was green in color. There was gas in the room.

Oh.....God, no. He's here. But he's gone... He's angry, and he's.....

Lucius realized he was shaking violently from both the temperature and most likely the drugs in his system. He could barely put one leg in front of the other. Him, a man with a hot energy coursing through every atom in his being, was experiencing a cold reserved for the top of a mountain, or even space. Even through this haze, though, he noticed the lights turn on, and his groggy vision focused on a figure at the end of the room, surrounded by others.

"Cold..."

The facility had proven more annoying than Travis would have liked. Children with powers he couldn’t guess, and their head bearing ability that far exceeded even him. Not that such power mattered within the hands of a dead man anymore. What was done with him from there, it didn’t matter so long as that involved destroying any remains. Maybe he could have Chris do something, have that association that worked with Lucius sanitize any possible remains. Letting a small few fragments of their bodily material hover from the corpse, he scraped them into a small tube, obscuring the act with the back of his shirt.

He would have to look into Saint’s bodily structure later.

For now he was following Lucius, hands buried in his pockets and considering what to do now that they had to get the children out of here. Hopefully with Lucius’ skill with words, they would not be too difficult to persuade. He lacked the immediate awareness of the cold, only recognizing it once he noticed his breath. This opaque cloud fading away in the air, coming with each exhale while his eyes narrowed in an almost suspicious fashion.

This strange coldness persisted as they walked, following the natural progression of the hallway until reaching a room. Darkness, save for the lights that flickered in a fashion that kept them from getting a real read on their surroundings. Lucius had removed his mask, which seemed to impair his ability to see in a  location that had such poor lighting. Even Travis’ personal means of feeling the area around him, well that was something that only gave indistinct shapes and figures, all of them before them and arrayed in an odd fashion. His body shifted into a defensive stance, wondering what would come next and yet he did not know. Flesh beginning to prickle, pale and suffer from the intense cold.

His body despite it’s regenerative properties did not like the feel of cold. Cells, despite the fact they repaired could not negate pain/ Still, as the lights came on he felt something. A pain within the back of his skull, increasing until nothing but blackness consumed him. Lucius likely seeing Alpha pitch forward, face first into the ground with blood slowly oozing from a wound on the back of his head.

”Lucius, you look cold. Always thought a hotblooded man like yourself wouldn’t be bothered by a little chill.” He strode forward a few steps, clad in clothes that appeared better fit for summer time. Shorts and a shirt with the sleeves seemingly sawed off, skin pale and lined with frost as if a corpse left in the snow too long. Eyes glistening blue in an almost unnatural fashion.

Nothing about him looked human.

The children around him were better bundled up, wearing clothing that for the most part staved off deadly cold.  Should Lucius look down, he would likely see a thin sheet of ice beginning to spread, attempting to encase his legs and even the lower section of his body. ”I’ve been thinking about how I would get you in a spot like this for a long while and Saint just dropped it in front of me. Guess you two killing him just makes things easier.” Lips pale and crusted with frost curled into a smirk, a wall of force erupting before him with the intent to slam Lucius into a wall, incredibly hard.

”So, how about we skip the banter and head straight to the part where I kick your ass?”

What remains of Ryan Lester? A boy? No. A hero? No. A villain? No, not even that. What stood before Lucius on this day, in the nation's Capitol, was a shell filled with time tempered rage. This was coming. Ever since Lucius walked out of that building the day he had killed the boy's mother in cold blood, he knew. Ryan wasn't going to go on to a 'greater purpose,' he was going to fester. Ryan would force Lucius to reep what he sowed, and though Lucius knew it was coming for years now, it didn't make the moment any more bearable.

The dictator tried to speak, hell, he tried to think, but he had been poisoned. The gas coursing through his body seemed made to react and super chill under cold temperatures, while also impairing the senses and the mind. Lucius was slowed to a crawl, and every movement hurt like a gunshot, yet he couldn't scream.

Lucius Gavril Alba, the devil, the dictator, the scientist, and the savior, dropped to his knees, and then to his face. This pain was like his body was being filled with solid concrete, like his blood was made of liquid nitrogen. Every aspect of his function caused him to shake and spasm, his eyes at one point rolling into his head as he seized. Though his thoughts were moving slowly, he still had a drive to survive. He still tried to activate his teleporter to leave, or to perhaps use some other gadget--anything...

But it was not to be. A wave of electrical energy surged from the crowd of angry test tube kids, no doubt trained by Saint to treat the man laying before them as an enemy. The pulse was unlike anything Red had ever seen, frying his technology. His suit sparked and sputtered, even electrocuting the now bellowing man. Not even Cora Zen was spared, as the massive, unprecedented blast cracked the gem in it's hilt, disabling anything actually useful in the weapon.

Lucius rolled over onto his back, his glazed grey eyes connecting with Ryan's. The man knew this was coming, knew his test would have the same result it always did, yet he ignored it. He ignored LA, he ignored Searph in the coffee shop, and he ignored all the other opportunities he had to deal with the problem. Now, he could ignore no more. His past had caught up to him, and the boy that he had tried desperately to leave alone was now standing over him, ready to end his life.

"...I'm sorry, Ryan.... D-do what you have t-to."

End thread. Continued in Sympathy For The Devil.