The Lament of London [CLOSED]

As James Hood walked down the street holding his mothers hand on the calm fall day, he felt peace. It was a rather cold day, almost straight up chilly. But he didn't mind. His mother had ensured that he was bound up nice and tight. Although, he did put the gloves on himself. He was eight years old after all. He was almost a grown man! Besides, ever since his daddy left to go fight the bad guys in another country. His daddy was a hero after all, he was a Royal Marine! Which, was almost as cool as his favorite hero, Lord Smasher. He was the coolest. Not only that, but he was totally invincible! But... He still thought his daddy was cooler.

James knew that today was gonna be a good day. Mum had promised him that if he was good while she went shopping, at the end of the day; he could go to the mall and grab the newest video game! "The Adventures of Sander Squirrel 4: The Tall Tail" James had heard from his friends at school that it was a kiddie game, but. James had been following Sander Squirrel since he was 5! He had to see how it turned out, right?

James sat on the bench outside of the womans dressing room. Mum was trying on a dress that she thought daddy might like. James was being so grown up today, he could almost feel the plastic casing in his hands.

It's just too bad that the explosion completely ripped his life to shreds.

James woke up, seeing a fight going on between Lord Smasher and a man with a pumpkin for a head.

James could feel something in his stomach, but he wasn't sure what it was. James could only watch as the man shoved a scythe directly into Lord Smashers chest... killing him instantly. Jack couldn't even scream, when he saw the body hit the floor...right on top of his mother...

James.. blacked.. out.




Jack licked the blood off his blade with his green, vine like tongue as he giggled. "So much for heroes, right guys?" He said looking around at all the dead bodies. He grabbed the half dressed blonde woman that the "lord" had fallen on top of. "Wouldn't you agree, baby face?" The woman simply laid limp in Jack's grasp. "You okay, lady?
You seem a little... Impaled." Jack said and threw her to the side, letting her hit a piece of rebar where she was - in fact - impaled.

Jack grinned as he stared at the destruction he caused. It wasn't long until an ambulance arrived to cart away the injured. Jack floated through the roof of the building, and landed just outside. He would meet the first responders. He did love meeting new people after all.

Pinnacle's heart sank within his chest when he heard the sounds of flesh tearing and felt the life being snuffed from a woman and child just a relatively short distance away, not to mention the renowned protector of the British Isles known as Lord Smasher. He had joined the ECLIPSE Justice initiative only a few months prior, and now it seemed that the glow of his promising future would be extinguished.

As soon as he heard these things, he teleported to the location, having mapped the area with the precision of his echolocative abilities, and having arrived without incident, barring some magical effect blocking his quantum tunneling power, he would immediately send out bands of living cloth from himself to wrap each injured party in, removing them from the rebar upon which two of them were impaled, and channeling healing chi energy into their bodies, first injecting a tiny portion of themselves into their blood streams before closing wounds and the like and performing a defibrillation of their hearts, had they stopped, two of which had.

The portion of Pinnacle that was within them would help to clean up, revitalize, and repurpose clotted blood before escaping through the pores of their skin when the task was completed.

In the meantime, again, provided that he succeeded to at least begin these endeavors, he watched warily the blood covered psychopath that had very very likely committed these atrocities.

He could observe two spirits within the man, one being of a particularly dark nature, and though he had only seen a demonic soul once before in this world, he could recognize that this entity was demonic in origin as well.

Regardless of these facts, he eyed him intently, ready to react with great speed to any attempt of his to thwart his own efforts to heal the man's victims before it was too late to do so.

London, at long last. Leo sat upon a tree branch, looking over the park in front of him. The view was absolutely beautiful, and the sweet smell of turkey legs made his mouth water. Within a few minutes, the blue haired boy began to walk down the street after acquiring one of the legs of meat.

That's when the ground shook, an explosion a block down from him. The leg of meat dropped as Leo shifted his form into that of a cheetah. His paws dug into the ground hard as he sprinted down the block and leaping, shifting back to his human form mid leap. His eyes were fixated on the pumpkin headed man, who was obviously the cause of it all. Without a second though, the boy turned into a rhinoceros mid air, aiming his horn towards the mans chest. If successful, the multi-ton beast would catch Jack entirely off guard as it flew quickly through the air, following through and charging off before changing back into the boy.

His eyes darted to the man who seemed to be helping the injured "What the hell is that guy? Some doofus wearing a gourd on his head?"

The Mad Pumpkin saw that the blue boy was having some sort of effect on his recently killed claims. "Now, now. There's no reason to be hasty. Let's have a bit of fun, Red... er... Blue."

Jack raised a singular fist in the air, ready to raise his zombies. Before he was quickly side swiped by a... rhino. The glancing blow to his arm caused it to be dragged along with it for a short distance. Jack instinctively phased, before the rhino could pull the arm into anything dangerous.

He could see that his victims were already too far from death for him to control. Damn. He'd have to fix that... after killing that... rhino? He had turned back to face the beast; only to find a blue haired boy standing next to the hooded figure.

"Shapeshifter, huh? Note to self: Shapeshifters suck." Jack frowned as he stared at the pair. He could tell that these two weren't going to be easy prey. He needed backup.

Jack once again raised his fist into the air, and the eyes of 2 normal humans began glowing with orange fire. The same fire that Jack had behind his eyes.

But the more terrifying of the dead... also rose.

Lord Smasher, patron hero of the British Isles, smashed his fists together in a rage before flying at the blue haired boy. If this succeeded, Lord Smasher would smack into the boy with the strength of a semi-truck.

"I have only just arrived here myself." Pinnacle said to the shapeshifting newcomer. "But I thank you for buying me time. I need to get the injured out of here." Israel said, finishing his revival of the first three before causing the bands that were tending them to envelop them and raise them into the air, hopefully largely out of reach of the psychopath before them.

Unfortunately, the demon possessed man with a pumpkin for a head had already succeeded in putting a kink in Israel's plans to revive as many of the injured civilians as possible by raising some of them as his slaves. "Try not to harm the ones he's raised, I may still be able to save some of them." Pinnacle said. Sadly, though he had recently picked up on a countermeasure spell for magic that raised the dead, it would seem that the limits placed upon him by the Proscenium Primordium prevented him from using such a means to counter the arcane effects currently placed upon the poor souls before him, as when he spoke the arcane words, nothing happened.

Realizing this, he would instead attempt to heal them even while they were in such a state, revived though they were by arcane means. Thus, he would attempt to float himself or any potential victims out of the way of the man's attempts to harm them, his bands being able to move very quickly to intercede in the event of any such attempts. If the healing was completed in time, it would hopefully break the spell over the bodies of the unfortunate civilians in his sway, allowing Pinnacle to get them fully out of harms way from both the pumpkin headed man and themselves. Hopefully, this would prove to be the case.

At the same time, he would create a facsimile of the boy's mother out of parts of himself as the woman was carried behind a building. He would then convey her away through the twists and turns of the city to the London ISO facility, which would open for him on command, getting her to safety if all worked in his favor.

Leo nodded towards the man "Do what you can." the young mans eyes widened at the sight of the dead rising "But there's no promises on not harming them, to be honest." Creature smiled at the fact the Halloween costumed wannabe hated his set of powers so much "There's more tricks up my sleeve than you think, you wannabe nightmare before Christmas character!!" The smell of sulfur grew in his nostrils, as his eyes finally focused on the undead hero flying towards him. Thankfully, due to his increased reaction time and superhuman agility, Leo rolled back, avoiding the attack entirely. Within seconds, his body shifted into an African elephant. His body shifted forward, as his head swung upwards, hoping to drive his trunk and tusks into the man, and flinging him away. If successful, the boy would shift back into his human form and retreat backwards once again.

Jack glared maliciously at the blue hooded man. Jack felt his blood boil - in fact, it was literally boiling. - Jack looked down at his arm where a piece of glass slashed his arm. The blood dripped on the ground and melted bits of asphalt.

His carved face split into a wide grin. He floated up to meet the Scion in the air, blood still dripping from the open wound. "You're gonna want to let those corpses go, Red. Don't make me hurt you. Or do. I'm going to hurt you either way." Jack said and then attempted to barbecue Silver with his fire breath. He didn't figure it would hit, the damn blue clad hero seemed to be far too slippery. But maybe he could roast the dead so his kill count didn't get randomly decreased.

He noticed then that his zombie was getting pummeled by an african elephant. That just wouldn't do at all.

He zipped down to Creature. "Afraid of your own government, eh? I sure hope there are none of them in the crowd." Jack said before blasting the boy in the face with fear gas, and sending his zombie back towards the boy while he was distracted before reaching up to Silver and attempting to grab him by the leg. If he succeeded, he would toss Silver into the crowd that was building.

Israel could afford to phase and absorb the attack with his merkavah as it passed close to and then through him, and he continued to drift the others out of harm's way. This phasing did not change his appearance at all and it would likely appear that he took the attack head on. Accordingly, he swung his leg out of the way as well to maintain appearances.

"Have you no heart? Shouldn't you be attacking people that might remotely deserve this sort of thing?" He asked the pumpkin headed man.

His phased band that was currently hanging out inside of Lord Smasher was still attempting to heal him... And hopefully it would accomplish this soon. As for his other bands that were all busy with their own healing duties, they would continue to take care of such things whilst Israel would be entirely focused on their health and safety.

He'd attempt to stop the demonic entity before him with greater focus later, but for now, he formed a cross in the air before him. It was certainly a long shot, but he'd try to cycle through various things that were said to drive away demons in various cultures.

Leo began to gag on the foul smelling gas, his vision growing blurry for a split second. As his widened eyes drifted towards the crowd, he couldn't help but notice the government agents amongst them. "STAY BACK! Just let me help for once you idiots!" The boy roared, shifting into the form of a lion. He slid into a defensive stance, letting how snarls towards the agents.

His eyes shifted back to Jack often, as well as Smasher. Just because they were here didn't mean the current threat was off the table. "Hey Robes, what is your plan, because I can't do this alone. There's agents everywhere and zombies and this thing.." seconds after speaking, his form slipped back to a lion.

Jack felt nothing as the cross was drawn in the air. In fact, he instead phased through pinnacle, and grabbed the woman that he had healed. He didn't care that it was probably useless; but he called his scythe to him, and sliced downward as hard as he could. The weapon cut through cleanly, removing the head. "Protecting people doesn't work. You're gonna need to learn to act more offensively if you want to save anyone, Red." Jack grinned as he licked the blood off the weapon with his vine like tongue. He grabbed the head from the air, and burned out the eyes. Creating a Jack o Lantern.

Jack flew into the air, laughing himself to near tears as he . He didn't know why he hadn't thought about this before. It was almost genius. Jack could spread his fear all over the crowd. The robed goodie goodie and the shapeshifting freak would be overwhelmed by the crowd. He opened his jaws again, and began spewing the foul smelling gas all over the growing crowd, creating a fog. Within moments, the crowd began to feel the effects. He heard them change views to the cloak and the shapeshifter. Police raised shaky weapons, and a few would whisper the sudden doubts within their minds.

James opened his eyes, he was... floating. Why was he floating? James didn't like it. Where was he? Where was his mother? He was having trouble clearing his mind. Then, he recoiled. The villain. He had seen him before. Mad Jack. He wasn't anything big time, but there were people posting on the Internet claiming that he had gotten into their dreams while they were asleep. They had only survived because they woke up before he could finish them... but they almost never made a second posting.

If this was Mad Jack, then he must've decided to make it big time. Taking out... Oh god, where was Lord Smasher? Surely he would help them. Then he saw the zombie. He was slowing down fast, and it felt… weird seeing his hero fight against the heroes. He then turned his head to see where his mother was; and… found her headless body. He noticed that Mad Jack was holding a bloody scythe, and...the head.

James broke free of the invisible wires that seemed to be holding him up, and… flew. Straight at Jack, knocking him to the ground.

Smasher-Z also fell from the air, and started losing muscle tone.

Israel knew that the woman he had slain was a facsimile of sorts... But that didn't stop him from mentally cringing at both the feeling of the blade slicing through, as well as the man's (if you could call him that,) general demeanor and attitude towards the violence done by his hands.

The cross that he had physically formed in his hand had done nothing... In fact, the man known as Mad Jack was laughing himself near to tears over something that he seemed to find immensely hilarious after only moments ago performing an act of such despicable horror that one arriving late to the scene might not believe it should it be described.

Then, after flying a bit higher into the air, he exhaled over the crowd a thick green smoke.

Israel simply watched the smoke in slow motion. To his instantaneous information processing, the whole world looked that way, really. But as he was about to attempt to stop the gas from washing over the crowd, something stopped him... And so, he continued to float in place, watching as it flowed over them.

In a moment, he was hit by a thrumming sort of feeling, like steady waves of the sea colliding with him as he waded through the ocean by the shore. He recognized immediately that these trembling waves which were rippling through the Proscenium Primordium and through the Fateweave were coming from a boy... The boy he had healed from his injuries only a few moments before.

He was waking up... And the fabric of reality hummed and broiled around him as he did so.

Clearly, this child had a special destiny written for him.

As the boy looked around, Israel could feel a power emanating from him, and as he felt resistance from the boy against his "cloth" band that had surrounded him, he caused that part of himself to fall slack as a sort of secondary skin to him, loosing him from his invisible suspension in the air and providing Israel with a means of aiding him from a distance if need be.

The boy did not disappoint, and flew straight at the pumpkin headed psychopath, knocking him all the way to the ground.

The bands that Israel had loosed earlier into the crowd pulled those in their path out of the way and into relative safety as the part of himself within Lord Smasher unphased from inside of him and coated him as well, slowing his decent and more than likely imprisoning him at the same time, as his strength lessened.

To see that the boy was alright, and not only alright but also seemingly a superhero gladdened his heart, somewhat, but the crowd below was now staring about in fear and doubt.

Israel didn't want to fully disable them, as that would make them easier targets for Mad Jack, so he chose instead to quickly disable their weapons on each of their persons. The process would be all but unnoticeable as tiny amounts of the elements of his person that were already dispersed throughout the crowd coated their implements of offence and defence in a micro-thin film. Only an individual with potent metahuman-level observance would be able to notice the infinitesimally tiny increase in volume for each of the items.

Enough of him remained in the spheres wherein he had placed them that he could act swiftly and decisively to come to their defence in the event that they were under any threat from Mad Jack... Or themselves.

In regards to the former, Israel would remain in a defensive role, watching the boy and even seeing through his eyes somewhat as the part of him that coated the boy adapted itself for transmitting visual information where applicable via his amorphous autokinesis. He could use his physical abilities to enhance the boy, heal him, or potentially tug him from a dangerous situation with this physically undetectable coating if necessary.

Creature began to lash out, staring with wide eyes at the crowd; The roars the emanated from his throat echoed through the air. His eyes darted back to a child, seeming to...fly? towards the pumpkin headed man. Leo had honestly seen everything today..which in all honesty was pretty draining. "Hey Robes, ya gonna help at all or am I just going to DPS this whole fight?" Leo jumped from his human form back into the Lion, remaining in a defensive stance.

The adrenaline was rising, to say the least...government agents, pumpkin headed freaks..zombies...the stress was building to new highs..

The almost human like nature of Leo's animal eyes seemed to fade. With a primal roar, he began to charge at the crowd of 'agents', his teeth bared. It was only a matter of seconds before he'd be atop one of the bystanders, mauling them to pieces.
[Sorry it's short BBs, getting back into the hang of it]