***FIONNA***
So it's true.
Light scrivs can use their powers to taze you.
And no wonder Kensi wouldn't test it out on me when I begged her to do so. If Alex's face from being on the receiving end of this is anything to go by, it's absolute agony. Well, that and the way he falls, limp even when all his muscles are too seized up with excess voltage to move. Next thing we know, he's got ugly scrapes all over the right side of his face.
Gabe and I are the first to run out into the woods, following the comet-like trail left behind by that scriv's light Taser. Its source is perched on an outcropping, not even bothering to camouflage himself. He's wearing a lightweight armored wingsuit just like the one I've got on. Wait, I thought I had the one and only prototype. Or am I just assuming?
Whoever he is - I think he's a guy based on the shape of his body, but I can't see his face because he's masked like an Imperial Deathtrooper - he's a demon like me and Gabe, I bet. Which makes me wonder - how does he have light owers? And why the sudden explosion of people in the Second with dual powers? Harris, Dana Jackson's scriv...and this guy, who sees us coming and removes his mask.
Yes, he's a dude. Actually a cute one, too, with red hair en brosse, as the French would say. "Oh, I'm sorry," he says in an inappropriately cheerful voice. "Was that your friend? I didn't mean to hit him-"
He falls silent as Gabe roughly hoists him to his feet. "That was my brother."
"Even worse, then." Deathtrooper hangs his head. "Look, obviously your brother wasn't the target-"
I sneeze. For real. It's not the most conventional way to interrupt a guy, but I'll take it, because it shuts our new friend up quickly. "Why the hell were you targeting anyone to begin with?"
"Not just anyone. Ariel Mazouz."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Gabe mimes a motormouth with his hand. "We get it, he's the FBI's Most Wanted-"
"No, we're the TAD." Gabe and I both look at our friend blankly, and he pulls a leather wallet off his belt, revealing standard law-enforcement type badge. "Agent Simon Penner, Temporal Activity Division."
"TAD," I repeat, emphasizing each letter.
"Is that why Russell said 'tadpole business?'" Gabe asks.
Penner winces. "Russell's little joke. Honestly, if not for his parents being in charge of our organization once upon a time, he wouldn't be allowed to do half the shit he does." He looks down at the cave entrance below, where everyone, in our absence, is busy arguing - and, in Alex's case, getting a hand from Kelly as she helps him to his feet. He's not looking so steady, though. "At least today, we can start putting a stop to Russell doing that shit with such impunity."
"Hey, I don't much like the guy either," Gabe says sharply, "but if you're gonna count us guilty by association-"
"Without him, Holly would've won the war." I want to appeal to Penner's good nature - he's got to have one, right? "Would you rather be working for that fascist?"
"I wouldn't anyway," Penner counters. "Remember, he wanted to marginalize us Primers. Uh, you two are Primers too, right?"
"Explain then why you have a scriv power when you're a demon."
"How'd you know?"
I extend my wings, feeling my street clothes loosen while the wings expand the fabric just a bit. "You're not even hiding your full armor."
Penner's own wings flutter. "Did Harlan give you that too?"
"Seems he made more of these things than I thought." Note to self: have a word with Harlan later about whom he wants to do business with. Unless Russell beats me to it, which I bet he will. "But that's not important. You-"
"You hurt my brother." Gabe tightens his grip on Penner's wrist, which he's forced behind his back like he's about to handcuff him.
"Like I said, I didn't know! I'm sorry! But he wanted to be a hero, so-"
"I know Alex likes to make rash decisions, but that's not why he got shot." Gabe grabs Penner's other wrist as well. I notice, on the underside of that wrist, a dark green mark of some kind. Irregularly shaped like a birthmark, but the color tells another story. "You fucked up, Renner, or whatever the hell your name is. Own up to it. For real."
"I'm sorry!" Penner repeats.
"Not good enough," I whisper as Gabe forces Penner back to the ground.
"But look," Penner says, his voice muffled because his face is half-pressed into the dirt. "We're not here for your brother. We're here for the Black Mirror. We tracked it here, and if Ariel Mazouz is here, we'll take him in as well. Bonus."
"That's nice," I say idly, "but could you, uh, maybe let us use it one more time? We kinda fucked up the timeline."
"If so, then no." Hostile undercurrents belie Penner's chiming rhyme.
"I just want my boyfriend back, man," Gabe says, dialing up the pleading tones a bit. "Is that too much for you to understand?"
"No, but-"
"Then don't stand in our way." Back to angry Gabe.
Penner looks up at me beseechingly. "Hey," I say with a shrug, "I'm just the one who fucked up the timeline. It's him you're gonna hurt if you don't stay out of our way."
"But we're not here to hurt anyone," Penner insists. "We're just here to ensure Peppermint gets their property back."
"They'll have to wait."
Penner blinks a couple of times, then his hazel eyes harden. "They won't." He pushes against Gabe with all his might, surprising him enough to send him sprawling back into the nearest tree.
"Hey!" I don't care how evilly adorable Penner is, I want to break his nose for this. And more besides. Hurting Alex was bad enough, but hurting Gabe when I'm right there to see him do it? I'm gonna Furiosa his ass so hard he won't remember-
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Did that ginger assbutt just taze me?
Okay, come on, Fionna. Shake it out. Shake it out like Florence and the Bloody Machine. Just a few thousand volts of fuuuuuuuuuck, that hurts! Walk it off, tough girl. Furiosa, remember? She wouldn't take this shit lying down!
Wobbly, unsteadily, I get back to my feet, as does Gabe. "You picked the wrong fight." He wipes his mouth, and a few drops of blood shine on his knuckles. Blood from his mouth or his hands? I don't know, but either way, that's another Snow Bro that Penner's hurt, and he's not getting away with it.
"You're going down, sweetheart!" I wave flaming hands at Penner, though I'm very cautious about actually using my elemental in such a flammable environment. At least I have Gabe to be my fire extinguisher if I need one. No wildfires will be started on my watch.
"Are you saying you wanna be fugitives too? Like Mazouz?" Penner's own hands are ready to go, ready to fight. One hand crackles with glowing light, and the other, he's moving in a sort of circular motion. Is he an air elemental too? That might explain how he was able to push Gabe so far. He literally blew him away. And if he's a demon, he must have one of the four classic elementals...
...but that's not important. What I need to worry about is, can he blow me away?
Let him try. Yoda would say he can't, and I say he'll fail.
I spread my wings and get in the air above Penner. I know that puts me in a place where I'm vulnerable to his second elemental, but he can't take on me and Gabe both at once. Not when Gabe's following my lead, flying in to take Penner on at hand-to-hand range. Even if he Tases one of us, it's unlikely he'll get a chance to do the same to the other. Unless he has eyes in the back of his head, which - I'm looking at that head back right now - it appears he doesn't.
Hashtag #SorryNotSorry, you Redmayne-looking mofo.
Penner focuses on trying to blow Gabe away again. He stretches his wings and lets the thin, membranous skin there balloon like full sails, allowing him to absorb the force of the wind and roll gently with it. As for me, I sigh with a flash of regret, and an apology directed into the ether where I hope Harlan picks it up. Then I hit Penner's wingsuit with both barrels, charring his wings and rendering them, hopefully, unusable.
Unfortunately, this also has the side effect of releasing a nasty stench of burning plastic (or whatever proprietary blend of materials Harlan used to make the wings) into the air. Seriously, this is what my house used to smell like when we turned the heater on for the first time each fall. Even as a fire elemental, I hate the smell of burning anything. Maybe that's why I never eat my meat as well-done as the rest of my family - when my dad barbecues, everything ends up tasting like ash.
Still, though, I can't help but pretend I'm enjoying this, just to demoralize Penner a bit more. "Mmm-mmm! Crispy chicken, anyone?"
"Don't you mean 'crispy beef?'" Penner asks.
"My dad's side of the family is from Hong Kong. They've had their own awesome recipe for generations. Don't tell me my business, buddy!" I rain more fire down on Penner, only to have him target my wings with his wind power. Stupidly, I retract my wings - which means the wind has less effect on me because it's going to either side of me, but also that I'm falling.
At least this time, unlike when Elijah shoved me out of the Castledown cable car, I have a little more control over my fall. I have a goal in mind, and that goal is grabbing hold of Penner by his now well-worn wrists and pulling him back down to the ground. I also get a better glimpse of the mark on his wrist. Or, more accurately, the marks. Plural. He has one on each wrist, identically dark green on both of them.
They can't be natural.
"Where'd you get these from?" I turn his hands over so he can't help but see the marks.
He clams up, sparks of mini-lightning flying from his hands. I nearly let go of him, but he's not directing the electricity at me, not really. He just wants to scare me, and it's working, but he doesn't get to know that.
But what he apparently does get to do is huff and puff and blow me down. He can actually do that? I know the ability exists, but I've never known a single air elemental who has it.
And that's when Gabe strikes again, driving a sizable ice spike through Penner's right hand. He screams in pain once, then again as I hit his other hand with fire. There's a small pop - our elementals reacting together? Whatever it is, it sounds nasty, and Penner's hand is dark pink and raw-looking when all is said and done. The other one, meanwhile, is red and broken-looking, and the ice spike is melting, leaving pinkish trails of liquid all over the place.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Gabe says with a dark, humorless chuckle. "You'll never be able to play guitar again, will you?"
Penner clenches his fists repeatedly, grunting each time. Then, to my surprise as much as Gabe's, the burned hand heals back to its normal skin tone. As for his broken one, the hole in his hand starts to shrink.
"What the fuck?" Gabe stares at Penner's healing hands.
"Are you there, God?" I get ready to burn the man again. "It's me, Deadpool!"
Okay. This is gonna be a bit more challenging than I thought. But hey, no pressure. I've beaten up guys before. Holly's pet soldiers were bigger than Penner, but less endowed with super-duper healing factor. That balances shit out, right?
Thinking along the same lines, Gabe lashes out as well, brandishing some very, very sharp ice blades while I give Penner more of the "flame on!" treatment.
Penner, however, laughs it off. "What's so funny?" I ask.
"Oh, nothing." He fends off my flames with a well-placed gust of wind that puts them out. "It's just...you two are so concerned with punishing me, you don't realize what's happening with your friends below us!"
Don't get distracted don't get distracted don't get distracted...
...yeah, I'm distracted.
I look down from our current position and see a swarm of people in Deathtrooper-style masks and armored wingsuits (the old-fashioned kind like what Holly's goons wore, not the prototypes) converging on our friends. Several of them, mostly the guys, are already down, getting dragged away with what look like black bags on their heads.
But they're not bags. They're dark energy. Like what Annie covered Gideon in once - I bet he's still not forgiven her for that, because of how much the experience preyed on his worst fears.
Ty is literally the last man standing, alongside Kelly and Kensi. But even they can't withstand the onslaught much longer, and soon, they find themselves black-bagged in darkness too.
"No, no, no, this is not happening-"
And then Penner zaps me again, getting Gabe at the same time too.
Gabe and I hit the ground side by side, watching one of these Deathtrooper "tadpoles" fly up to us at the sound of a whistle from Penner. "Sorry, kids," our Taser-master whispers to us, "but Peppermint really needs that Mirror back. It's their one working model. You understand..."
Penner's friend gets Gabe first, grabbing his head and covering it with that coal-dust-looking black shit while he's still twitching from Penner's attack.
Then it's my turn.
At least I can just fall asleep and share a dream-
My vision goes black, and it feels like no time at all before my mind goes equally lights-out.