x_project | Drabble

As mentioned in the previous entry, a bunch of us did drabbles for the player of

x_wytchbrat as a Christmas gift. My small contribution is below.

The bookstore exploded in a ball of heatless fire, sending torn and tattered pages flying out into the street. As smoldering pieces of paper floated to the pavement along with the tinkling of shattered glass, Amanda swore and pushed herself back to her feet. Brushing away asphalt dust, she growled as she spit out a mouthful of blood and part of a broken tooth.

"My city," she snarled at the form moving amidst the flames. Stomping out of the wreckage, the burned form began regenerating, ragged grey hair floating about his head and that sinister snaggletoothed grin beaming out from fire-blackened lips.

"My girl," Rack replied, raising his hands. "My magic."

Gas mains under the street gave Amanda only a second's warning before they ruptured, but a second was enough. In that brief span of time she reached out to touch the pulse of New York, the veins and arteries of the city's water system as the pavement opened to swallow her whole before erupting into a gout of flame.

Ten blocks away, a fire hydrant shook and exploded, sending a geyser three stories into the air. Amanda Sefton hoisted herself out of the small crater, sopping wet hair plastered to her face. "Bollocks," she cursed, holding one hand to her side. It had all started too quickly to catch, one domino falling into another until a chain reaction of mystical accidents began to bring the entire balance crashing down. Most of X-Force was occupied with the demons of Limbo emerging in Central Park, turning the greenery into a hellish inferno and spreading across the island of Manhattan. For her part, though, Amanda had to deal with some of the others that had come through - specters of the past that were gunning directly for her.

"Little girl couldn' leave well enough alone," came the scratchy voice from the sidewalk. Patches - what was barely recognizable as the former pusher - stood there, head lolling to one side from a slashed windpipe, the hotknife-seared edges of the fatal wound still smoking. "We made deals to get you, sweet'eart. An' now we'll 'ave you."

"And we do," Rack's voice whispered in her ear as burned fingers closed around her throat. "Your city's going to burn, my girl. And then you'll burn with it, body and soul. I think we'll do London next, or Brighton. Every place that ever mattered to you, burnt down to ash. And when you come crawling back to me, begging for just that little bit of power, you'll remember what you are. Nothing but my little girl. My little junkie."

"..fuck ...off!" Amanda swore, jabbing two fingers back over her shoulder into Rack's eye, the way Remy had taught her, then swinging an elbow back and up. She ran into the street before a husky contralto laugh stopped her in her tracks.

Standing in the center of Fifth Avenue, Selene held her arms out to Amanda like a mother welcoming her child. Her dark hair was matted around a face bloated with spiderlike veins, and brackish water flowing from her mouth with each chuckle. "You can't run, Amanda," she gurgled. "You always have to come back to the power. I've been waiting for you."

"Keep waiting, bitch," Amanda spat back. "I'm not goin' back that way. Rather die first."

"Oh, but you will," Selene taunted. "And then we'll make you beg us to let you stay that way. You see, Amanda, we've all made some very, very powerful connections to get back here to you. We've got friends."

Selene smiled, then gasped as her chest seemed to explode from the inside, chunks of seawater-saturated flesh splattering to the street as a fist clutching a short wooden wand - a wych - pulled itself back through her torso. Selene's solid black eyes blinked as she turned around to see the slim young man standing behind her, muddy brown hair unkempt and mouth set in a tight line. Blood from his gashed throat soaked his shirt as his other hand raised a box cutter, slashing it in one motion across Selene's throat.

"So does she," Charlie Plunder said as Selene's corpse fell to the street. "Hello, Amanda."