ic Dreamweaver (IC)

[Sophistemon]

The magician ran a hand through his hair -- it was perfect already, almost artificially so, but it never hurt to make sure -- and scoffed. "Of course they're going to love me; I'm Presto the Preposterous! They won't have a choice by the time I'm done out there." Then, he cast his eyes about the room and leaned in, towards his agent. "You have the stuff, right? For the after-party? I've got something big planned for tonight and I'm going to need to unwind when I'm done." When the agent started to answer, Sam raised a finger. "Hold that thought; my audience awaits!" The agent ducked out of sight as the curtain rose, shooting him a thumbs up as he did, and Sam faced the audience with a dazzling smile, his theme music booming as a cheer that was thousands of voices in the making reached his ears. He switched on his microphone and responded. "Please!" he called back, his voice jovial and his spirits high. "Please, you're all too kind. I have to say it's a wonder being back in Las Vegas. An absolute delight -- there's no other city like it in the world, and I would know!" He paced from one end of the stage to the other as his audience cheered. "It's a pleasure to be back in the City of Lights, a man-made oasis in the middle of the desert. Why, if that isn't a kind of magic then I don't know what is!" The audience laughed, and he grinned back at them. "Speaking of which, what did you all come here tonight to see?" The audience responded, voices booming: magic. Sam raised a hand to his ear. "What was that?" he asked. "I couldn't hear you." The audience repeated, louder, laughing: magic! The magician laughed with them and spread his arms wide, revealing the crimson vest that he wore beneath the tailcoat. "Excellent!" he crowed. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get this show on the road!" What followed was nearly three hours of some of the best entertainment that Vegas had to offer. He hit all of the old classics -- the Disappearing Act, the Box of Swords, the Flock of Doves... and some tricks of his own invention: the Whirligig, the Flaming Queen, the Drowning Banker. The audience loved it -- they clapped, they cheered, they demanded more and more and more of him and what he had to offer. He obliged, until the clock ran down on the grand finale. The lights dimmed to almost nothing, and the audience hushed as a spotlight shown down and illuminated the performer, who knelt in the circle of light like a descended angel.

 

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, almost whispering into the mic. "I'm afraid that we're out of time for this evening -- the hour's grown late and the show's about to end." The audience groaned; they wanted more! He raised a hand. "My friends," he consoled them. "We have time for one more trick. But to do it, and do it right, I'll need a volunteer from the audience. Is there anyone out there that would like to join me on stage?" The audience exploded. They stood, as one, and waved at him like a single organism desperate that he take particular notice of only one of its cells. Normally, for something like this, there would be a plant in the audience, someone who knew ahead of time what to expect. But there was no expecting what Samuel had planned tonight. He'd practiced at home for over a month, and had developed this particular talent to the point where he could levitate a car with no real trouble at all. And it was no trick -- it was magic. Real magic! He'd studied, and practiced, and it had finally paid off: he wasn't just a magician anymore: he'd stoked the spark inside him to a flame and it was finally paying off. A car. He'd lifted cars before, so when he chose the petite young woman in the red dress he thought that he'd have no trouble flying her above the audience. No wires, no platforms, no tricks at all: magic. Real magic! It would be something that they'd never forget.

 

When she fell, he almost caught her. That's what stuck with him later. When he was being kicked out of his apartment on the strip, he thought: I almost caught her. When he was running from the police, he thought: I almost caught her. When Fast-Forward's fist struck him in the face and shattered his nose, he thought: I almost caught her. When he was sitting in jail, counting the days as they went by, he thought: I almost caught her. But to this day he didn't know why she'd slipped. It had gone perfectly, like something out of a dream: he'd lifted her effortlessly and floated her across the stage as the audience gasped. She had looked at him, enraptured, as though she'd fallen in love with not just him but with the idea of him and he'd asked her if she'd ever thought of flying. He'd swooped her out, above the audience, her dress fluttering behind her like the tail of a comet. He did it again, and again. And then, on the fourth swoop... she'd slipped. He'd tried to tighten his 'grip,' to force the magic to hold her until he brought her back to the safety of the stage, but the audience had noticed. Their gasp -- of fear, not awe -- sent a quake down his spine and caused his forehead to break out in a sweat. She slipped, again, and screamed. He'd held both hands out to her and willed the magic to work. He'd begged, pleaded in his mind that it bring her back, safely, to the stage where he could play it off as a bit of dramatic tension... but she fell.

 

The sound that she made when she hit the ground ended his career.

[Blarghy]

GM

 

Mister B. hadn't planned for this.  Not tonight, and not without the right circumstances, but to stumble upon such a dream...how could he refuse?

 

Two strange occurrences took place in the crowd, now panicking, security guards fighting to get down the aisles while the patrons pushed against them, toward the exit doors.  Paramedics were on their way, but of course, by then it would be too late.  Perhaps it already was.  

 

Tangents.  Two strange occurrences, then.  The first walked--no one had walked before, the first time, regardless of their direction--toward Presto.  The crowd parted around her, like a stone forcing its path through the weaker water.  She brushed back her stiff hair and smiled.  Stage lights glinted off her titanium teeth.  Hadn't more of them been blunt, when Sam last saw her?  Now every not-so-ivory was long and edged.  She swished her hips and did a little twirl, which transported her by magic from the middle aisle to the edge of the stage, mere yards from failed magician.

 

"You sure know how to start a party, Presto," Knickknack taunted him.  A flick of her hand brought a knife into it.  "I think I'm ready for that dance now."

 

The other, Sam might hardly notice, at least at first.  As the crowd began to thin, more and more comprised of healers and enforcers of the law, a glimpse of dark green showed itself among the moving legs.  A large toad--large as a child, tall as Sam's waist, were he to stand beside it--watched the scene with huge, gold eyes.

 

Atop its head sat a dapper bowler hat.

 

This odd guest hesitated, breathing in and out with exaggerated bulges of its chest.  Then at last, its mouth open, and its tongue shot out.  The pink harpoon snaked past the cops and the EMTs--their shouts muffled as the dream's attention turned toward Sam on the stage--to latch tightly onto his unintended victim's leg.  In a blink, she was flying away, stretcher and all, into the creature's mouth. 

 

The accusing shouts, already soft, faded entirely.  The people who uttered them looked away, their angry expressions turning puzzled, then blank, and then nothing at all, features smoothing to doll-like simplicity.  Moments later, they disappeared entirely, leaving nothing but empty seats to overlook the stage and its last two performers.

[Sophistemon]

Samuel felt... funny. His mind was fuzzy, like it might have been during a fever or a bout of the flu but he didn't feel sick, really; just mildly detached. The audience faded into obscurity and then disappeared entirely, but he didn't notice -- he was fixated on the strange woman striding towards him, knife in hand and a mouthful of fangs. She looked familiar, which was impossible because he'd never met her before in his life and she was so (it would be most polite to say) unique that he didn't think that he could have ever forgotten her if he had. He swallowed, hard, and backed away from her. "Wait," he said. "There's... there's a girl. She... I almost caught her." He tried to think, but he couldn't focus on anything for very long. "Party?" he asked. "Dance? What are you talking about? Please, I think there's something wrong. I think I might be sick. The girl... have you seen the girl? I almost caught her." He looked past Knickknack, into the audience... but there was no audience. There wasn't much of anything. "Where'd everyone go?" He looked at the woman, and then again, more closely, at her teeth. "What's going on?"

 

And then, suddenly, it clicked.

 

"Wait." His voice, previously wavering, uncertain, scared, strengthened. "Wait. Knickknack. What are you doing here? I don't meet you until... until after prison. I don't meet you until after I go back to Blackstone." He raised a white-gloved hand and pointed a finger at her. "You shouldn't be here, Knickknack! What's going on?"

Edited May 26, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

"'You shouldn't be here,'" she repeated with a mocking sing-song rhythm, waving her head back and forth.  "You know how often I hear that?  'Knickknack, you shouldn't be here.'  'Knickknack, what're you going to do with that knife?'  'Knickknack, please don't eat me.'  So tiresome."  The hardened criminal looked around the stage and sighed.  "But yeah, you're right.  People like us don't belong in places like this.  Let's you and me go home.  Would you like that?  Would you like to go home?"

 

The toad breathed in and out.  Its gold eyes shimmered.  Blackstone.

 

The theater disappeared, and in its place were cold rock walls and diamond-matrix doors.  Through the clear but impossibly strong barrier at the mouth of his cell, Sam could see Knickknack's own prison across the hall.  Her crazed, sharp smile remained the same, but when she opened her mouth again, her words were insistent with a kernel of honest concern at odds with her face.  Audio tacked onto the wrong film.

 

"...Don't do it.  Don't help him, Presto.  He'll just use you up and throw you away.  You can't change what you are!"

 

The toad breathed in and out.  Its gold eyes narrowed.

 

Dark shapes waited further down the hall, but their faces were blurry.  The standard Blackguards held their proper details, but another figure had only dark lines, a splatter of white in the middle of his torso that might've been an undershirt, and some specks of gray across his hair. 

 

The toad's eyes squinted, and those details struggled to become clearer. 

[Sophistemon]

The scene shifted, as dreams are wont to do, to Blackstone Prison. Samuel Steiner had spent five years of his life there following a humiliating defeat at the hands of a hero called Fast-Forward. The fuzziness in his head intensified, and it was though his brain filled up with cotton. Focusing became more difficult and he found himself wandering from thought to thought in a daze. Blackstone. Yes. Yes, he remembered Blackstone. How could he forget it? He'd died and been reborn there; broken and rebuilt. The surroundings fuzzed and skipped like static. So much had happened between the girl and his arrival at Blackstone... but he couldn't focus on it, and so it didn't matter. Knickknack's words echoed in his head: 'What you are... what you are... what you are...' The words buzzed through the fog in his head like a hornet and stung him on the brain. What was he? That was an easy one. Befuddled as he was, he could answer even that. When he was in Blackstone Prison, he was... nothing. Samuel Steiner, when stripped of his wealth, his audience, and his bag of tricks... was nothing. His suit dissolved into a fine mist and reappeared as a prison uniform. His hair, perfectly done, fell from his head in waves to reveal a buzz-cut that made him indistinguishable from the other prisoners. There were only two things that were unique about him here: the first was the number stitched once on his chest and again across his back, between his shoulders. The second was the black eye that marred his features and blurred his vision. He was unpopular here, as a former celebrity. Everyone with a chip on their shoulder and an axe to grind with the world outside their cells took it out on his face and he, without his money or his magic, was powerless to do anything about it. He was nothing, and they treated him like nothing. He looked down at his hands and saw that they still wore their white gloves. His hands. Those hands had worked wonders both magical and mundane, but in here they were worthless.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

The foggy man with the Blackguards became less foggy.  AEGIS Agent Warne stalked the corridor like a lion in a suit until he reached Sam's cell.

 

"I'd pretend to be surprised, but this place..."  He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and raised them to his face.  "This place brings out the honesty in me.  What about you, Steiner?  You feel honest?" 

 

Smoke splashed against the cell door, swirled back, and enveloped Warne like a cloak.  As he inhaled again, the glow of his cigarette brightened his yellowish teeth and the tip of his nose, but deepened the shadows on his eyes, turning them to empty pits.  He became something less than human, a leather-skinned reaper leering at Sam from the dark corridor.  The hand with the Zippo flipped the cap open and closed with rhythmic clicks.  Each echoed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until the distorted dream-sounds twisted into clock-ticks marking down the seconds of Sam's life.

 

"I give you a little rope, and what happens?  You can't wait to hang yourself with it.  But it's my fault, really.  I knew better.  This is just the way the story goes, Steiner.  This is your story, in here."  He gestured with his index finger, spinning it around, signaling the prison.  "Blackstone's got you, and it never lets go." 

 

Warne leaned in close, his nose at the glass, and exhaled smoke and sparks.  "You can't change what you are, Presto.  That's honesty."

[Sophistemon]

The inmate flinched backwards, but then his face hardened and he stared through the glass at Warne. If there was one thing that the fog in his brain couldn't addle, couldn't dull, couldn't blunt, it was the one thing that had driven Samuel Steiner forward since his very first show: his ego, his arrogance, his single-minded obsession with respect. His lips curled back away from his teeth in an angry, snarling sneer. "Screw you," he growled. "Screw you, you sanctimonious prick. You came to me! I never asked for this! I served my time! I have a job!" Flickers, images of two young women and the smell of coffee. He slammed a gloved fist into the glass and was gratified by the sound it made. "I just wanted to help!" More flickers, an image of himself, once more clothed in his performance outfit but with a cape streaming behind him while an angelic choir sang his praises. "Damn you," he shouted. "Damn you, I almost... I almost caught her." Flickers, a skip, and for the briefest moment they were back on stage before the prison reappeared around them. "It wasn't my fault, and even if it was, should I suffer forever for a single lousy mistake?" His head started to pound as the fog reasserted itself. "I can't... I can't not make it right. I have to make it right again!"

[Blarghy]

GM

 

"What would you know about right?"

 

Warne shook his head in disgust and stepped away from the door.  "You think you're a bad man because you did one bad thing?  No, no, no.  This is you.  It's that thing in you that wants the spotlight like a shark wants its next meal.  Prestooooo the Preposterrrrrrrousssss!"  He lifted both hands, spread them wide, and shouted the title like a sports announcer.  The prisoners of other cells along the hall took up the chant, repeated it, adoration in their voices.

 

"Pressstooo!  Pressssstooo!  PRESSSSTOOO!  PRESSSSTOOO!"

 

They went silent abruptly as Warne slashed his hands down.  He turned back, head tilted down, two tiny pinpoints of light shining from his void-deep eye sockets.  "That's in you, and it doesn't go away.  Might not be so bad, if you cared a little more about how you got to the top.  But here's the thing, Steiner, about the top: even when you've got your picture in the paper, smiling for the cameras on your way out of the bank, all the hostages telling how smooth and suave you were...even when you've got your name written in the best cocaine across a table longer than your rap sheet...even when you can look in the mirror and forget where you've been and what you've done, just for a minute...it still ends.  Right.  Back.  Here."

 

The frog's eyes glinted gold.  So tempting, so tempting...but first, it had to know.  Make it right.  How?

 

The gold swirled and shined, pushing at the dream.  How will you make it right?

[Sophistemon]

The words stung, deep inside, but the pain of it just made Samuel angrier and further roused the great black beast that was his ego. His eyes narrowed and he threw himself at the glass, pounding both fists against it in a fit of rage. "You think you know me? You think you know me?" He drew back his hands and slammed them, again, into the barrier. If this weren't a dream such an action might have broken his fingers. "You don't know anything about me! You look at me and you see a mark, someone you can drag around to do your dirty work!" He took a few great, heaving breaths and stepped back. "I'm going to change it. I'm going to change all of it and nothing's going to stop me -- not even you. You'll see. This time I'm going to be on the winning side. This time I won't miss." He spread his arms, like he had on stage, and his prison shirt parted to reveal the red vest underneath. "I'm going to get it back, you bastard! I'm going to have it all and there's nothing you can do about it!" He grinned that wide, white showman's grin. "I'm going to be the best, the best that they've ever seen, and they're going to love me as much as they ever did -- maybe more. I'm Presto the Preposterous! They won't have a choice by the time I'm done out there."

Edited May 26, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

Warne pulled back.  At first, his half-shadowy expression was one of indignity, but it turned to fear under the force of Sam's charisma--and as he made his final declarations, a crack ruptured along the agent's weathered face.  He stumbled sideways, and for a moment it seemed as though the mark was an illusion cast by the actual fissure in the diamond door from Sam's impacts, but inspection revealed that both were true.  A distinctive creak-screech sound marked a perpendicular break, not just on the door, but on Warne too.  Slowly, they both spiderwebbed, Warne recoiling in horror.

 

He screamed as the glass shattered away from Sam, showering over him...right before he followed suit.  His glossy black remains fell to the floor, but the crystal pieces of Sam's prison floated instead, beautiful and pure.

 

Like doves thrown from his sleeves during a performance, the shards took to the air, obscuring Sam's vision of his cell and the hallway.  The minimal florescent lighting reflected again and again off the fragments until it became unbearably bright...and condensed again, to beams of dawn lazily pouring through his apartment window.

 

The front door opened slowly.  In walked Warne.  He bent down and picked up the largest remaining piece of his doppleganger's face: half of his mouth, twisted in a fearful sneer, along with his cheek and the corner of a wide, wide eye.

 

"You know, Steiner, it's things like this that worry me.  You should be more careful.  Some people might get the wrong idea, with this Starlight business going around.  If you're this dangerous already, I wonder what you could do if you switched sides and took a dose.  That's the last thing we need.  Can you imagine the press?  Let's not have that kind of a complication muddling up our investigation, hmm?"

[Sophistemon]

Sam stared, wide-eyed, as Agent Warne inspected the shattered piece of himself. Finally, after a few long moments, the magician found himself able to speak. "I don't... what was this? Some kind of test?" His eyes hardened at the thought; the lack of trust was galling, even if it had a solid foundation to exist. "I told you, I don't do that anymore. I'm done with drugs, and... and being on that side of things. I'm done. I spent five long years getting done and I'm staying done, and your psychological bull-crap can't change that." He stepped towards the other man and sighed, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You know, I'm almost glad, though. I thought... the whole thing was so strange that it's almost a relief that you were behind it." He tapped his head. "I'm still buzzing a little -- what did you do to me? Lower my inhibitions so I'd be more honest? That's... really devious, you know, even for you." He narrowed his eyes. "Don't ever do it again, okay? Or I'll turn you into something slimy, like a... toad." He blinked and trailed off into silence. There was something there, he could almost see it in the corner of his mind's eye, but he couldn't quite grasp it so that it made sense. "Or a newt," he concluded, shaking his head. "Hey, how long does this last, man? I need to be on the ball for the meeting. If I show up and I'm all rattled like this they're going to suspect something."

[Blarghy]

GM

 

"You're probably right," Warne agreed.  He lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, and breathed out.  And out, and out.  Smoke filled the room, growing thicker and darker, until the agent was nothing but a dim shape in the fog.  Brighter but no clearer were the two golden lamps that appeared behind him, at waist height.  They seemed to flicker with an inner glow, hypnotic. 

 

"We wouldn't want that," he continued.  His voice sounded distant now.  "We wouldn't want that at all..."

 

The floor beneath Presto's feet didn't disappear, so much as turn to air, upon which he floated gently.  He didn't fall back, so much as the direction of up changed, leaving him adrift in the smoke.  Those golden lamps rose above him, twin suns, moving further away until they faded and peaceful sleep took him once more.

 

* * *

 

The pigeon flew down from the apartment roof, made its way to the end of the street, and landed on the parked car at the corner.  As was its custom, it merged through metal to reach the interior. The four inhabitants jumped, one in particular, who outright screamed.  His companions looked to him, the twitching and unkempt man who was once more, but none dared to voice their thoughts, which had grown less enthusiastic over the course of this enterprise. 

 

"Yyyyyoouuu...yyyyou found him?"

 

The pigeon settled onto the front passenger seat and changed.  Three of the four men found this new form decidedly less comforting. 

 

"Mm, yes."  A skinny hand reached up to full, greedy lips, to lick the fingers.  "I did."

 

"Good.  Good!  Right?  Uhh, that's good?"

 

"Mmm...I think so, yes."

 

"Ssssoooo...we, uh.  What do we do now?"

 

"Now you open the trunk and get out those lovely guns."

[Blarghy]

GM

 

At this early hour, none of Sam's neighbors noticed the four men enter their apartment building and climb the central stairwell (nor did they notice the mixed-breed dog wearing a leather bomber helmet--though it had better justification for passing unseen).  Even if they had, the untucked pistols and a shouldered shotgun would've likely encouraged most people to pretend otherwise.  The thugs made their way upward with purpose, then down Sam's hallway, to his door.  One of the men cast his eyes about jitterly, curled and stretched his fingers, pacing, unable to relax in the pre-battle excitement.  His behavior plainly unnerved the others; the dog noted this and smiled from its vantage point at the far end of the corridor. 

 

The nervous man stood back and changed.  Thick bone-plates stretched out his clothes, tearing them in some places--once, he would've taken greater care, but now he often forgot such details--and his fingers became sinister claws.  His companions should've become emboldened by their leader, but instead they cringed in fear beneath his wild, rolling eyes.  They hesitated, heavy breaths their only conversation, until an impatient snap of his hand brought their attention back to the door. 

 

The shotgun-wielder leveled his weapon against Sam's lock.  He'd done this before; he prepared to kick the door inward after his first shot, and if that didn't do the job, he could fire next at the hinges until the entire barrier came down easily. 

 

He nodded.

 

His companions nodded.

 

The dog smiled, and he pulled the trigger.

 

After the roar of his weapon left the hallway dusty and deafened, the four men and one strange beast stared in puzzled disbelief at the lightly-scuffed doorknob. 

 

A second slug, and a hail of pistol bullets, failed to do more than ruin several eardrums.  Their leader glared from behind them, his monstrous face twisting further with rage.  The other men couldn't hear his vicious scream, but they readily moved aside when he bowled through them and slashed at the door with both hands.  Like a mauling bear, he attacked mad and merciless, so frenzied that saliva coated his lips and splinters filled the air.  When he at last made a pathway large enough, he still kicked at the remains, until his underlings slipped past him into the room beyond. 

 

A decision they might come to regret. 

[Sophistemon]

The shotgun went off and Samuel Steiner, who had been having one of the strangest dreams of his life before moving on into merciful blankness shot out of bed, his eyes wide and his head pounding. At first he thought that he couldn't possibly have heard what he'd thought, but further gunshots put that disbelief to rest. He was out of bed in an instant, looking this way and that, thinking. Calm down, he told himself. This isn't your first raid; you've been through all of this before. Remember Oregon, and the dealer that wasn't a dealer? He spoke a word then, so softly that it was inaudible to anyone but himself, and his pajamas changed from a brilliant set of crimson silk to his now expected suit-come-costume. The fabric rippled as it shifted shape and color. The last thing to appear was his mask, which formed over his eyes and caused them to glow with an eerie silver light. The dreams were already fading, but he could remember enough of them to suspect that they might have something to do with what was going on and, regardless, the pounding in his head made him mad enough to spit fire -- which might actually happen, depending on how things go. He snapped his fingers and his wand, tucked as it was inside of a dimensional pocket that he'd sewn into the right sleeve of his tailcoat, appeared in his hand. He turned, stepped out of the way, and levitated his dresser up over his head and then out the door and into the main room. He upended it in front of the main entrance, spilling the drawers -- not the mention the clothes inside -- onto the floor before he dumped the remains as well, creating an obstacle for anyone who attempted to enter. With that done, and not a moment too soon, he ducked back into his room and peered out, wand at the ready, as the door burst in and some thing stood mad and panting in the remains of the frame.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

Certainly, the monster held little resemblance to a human, beyond his bipedal shape and clothing.  He wore dress pants and a red buttoned shirt, with leather brown loafers, but all were in rough condition from the pressure of his natural armor; Presto might infer that his attacker didn't always appear as a hideous horn-shelled beast.  Beyond that, if he had the presence of mind to notice, the creature's outfit was subtly but thoroughly ill-maintained (stains on the pants, misaligned buttons on the shirt, one half of the collar popped up, and so on). 

 

Whatever his nature, the monster leaned back with brief but intense panic as the dresser crashed in front of him.  Just as suddenly, rage overtook his fear, and he came forward again to scream viciously at Presto.  This caused his mouth-plates to shift to the sides, revealing seemingly-human teeth beneath.  His gray-and-black exoskeleton was composed of similar "scales," wider and less numerous than a fish or reptile's, closer to a knight's heavy armor than anything found in nature.  His claws of the same color were long spikes protruding directly from his fingertips, part of the appendages like sharp extra digits. 

 

His primal howl died down and his mouth vanished behind the protective sheath.  Without it, the only signs of humanity were his eyes, wide and wild, full of rapidly-shifting emotions.  They darted around without predictability or purpose.  Even knowing nothing else as of yet, Presto could be sure of this: his assailant was utterly deranged. 

[Sophistemon]

Presto took in the details of his assailant -- the unkempt and dirty clothes, the shifting plates of armor, the sharp claws, the manic expression -- and swallowed his fear. He'd faced tougher-looking opponents before and come out on top. If things turned against him in battle he always had his handy-dandy teleport spell, which he had practiced so extensively that he could perform it in his sleep. It might not be needed, however, for at the first indication of hostile intent the wards he'd prepared began to manifest. Ghostly chains appeared, rattled menacingly, and attempted to wrap themselves around the monster, to constrict his arms to his sides and render him much less threatening. Before waiting to see the outcome of that struggle, Sam aimed his wand and uttered a word of power, unleashing a mighty bolt of lightning at his enemy.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

The air-sizzling blue vein impacted with precision, staggering this strange monster and leaving behind a scorch mark, but he recovered quickly and sidestepped the chains, which seemed to fumble just short of their target's hasty evasions.  After half-tripping his way over Sam's dresser, the beast caught his balance atop two expelled drawers and a pile of pants, glared eye-to-eye at Sam, and threw his arms wide for another bloodcurdling shriek.  This time he put real effort into it, seeming to stretch taller, armored plates bulging from the straining muscles beneath.  A fast slash of one hand tossed one of the wooden drawers against the wall...in four pieces, neatly sliced by those nasty claws.

 

However well Presto was able to weather the intimidation, he'd have more practical concerns when another goon put a bullet through his costume from the doorway.  The man ran inside the apartment--stumbling over the dresser as well--followed by his companions.  They looked nervously to the pale, hovering chains that faced them next, but if their leader had no trouble, why should they worry?

[Sophistemon]

Presto saw the monster evade the chains, which caused the mindless things to float harmless by, and watched as it puffed up to shriek. The sound of it was loud enough to pop his ears, and he grimaced. What's more, he could feel the roar worming in at the edges of his mind, trying to find the cracks in his resolve so that it could change his thinking. "My brain," he grumbled. "The dreams, this thing. You're here to attack my brain. Well, I won't stand for it!" At that moment, a bullet whizzed by and struck him in the shoulder. Though it was thankfully repelled by the enchantments of his suit, the impact still stung. "Gah!" he shouted. "All right, that's enough. Do you hear me? I've had enough!" He looked back out through the bedroom doorway and saw that the three human attackers had been subdued by his defenses. A smile worked its way across his features as he aimed his wand once more at the monster. A bright line of flame erupted from the silver tip of the wand and seared through the air at his abominable opponent. "You want magic? You want magic? I'll make you all disappear!" While shouting, he used his free hand to conjure up his phone and quickly thumbed the 'redial' button. He dropped the phone to the ground, where it rang, and hoped that Agent Warne would hear what was going on from the other end and make an appearance.

[Blarghy]

GM

 

The phone's tone was rapidly drowned out by another chilling scream from the monster; this time, Presto's fiery blast brought his enemy to one knee.  Though he struggled back to his feet, he swayed, and now that Presto was in the mindset of battle, he might take some grim satisfaction in seeing fear bloom in this thing's eyes.

 

Behind him, two guns went off by the door.  The thugs fired clumsily--the shotgun-wielder could only use one hand, the other pinned to his side by the chains--and succeeded only in ruining some of Sam's furniture.  A wooden chair was blasted to pieces by the force of the shotgun slug, and the pistol round ricocheted off his magically-reinforced window, then two different walls, until it found a home in a couch cushion. 

 

The last man, tied so tightly that he stood rod-stiff on his toes in a mummy pose, could only stare in horror at their target.  This was not the plan.

[Sophistemon]

The gunfire forced Presto back and he took cover behind the bedroom wall. He fired off another blast of elemental lightning as he retreated, but barely took the time to aim. "You know who I am!" he shouted. "You'd have to, or you wouldn't be here. But if you know who I am, why would you come so unprepared? Don't you know what I've done? What I'm capable of?" He grit his teeth and breathed. "Give up!" he bellowed. "Give up and you might get out of here still looking like you! Give up or I'll have four more fish for my aquarium!" He reached down and took up the phone to see if Warne had picked up. He could talk a lot of bluster, and even back some of it up, but four against one was a bad proposition no matter how you sliced it.

[Blarghy]

GM

 

Between the frantic noises from all four of his attackers and the ringing he likely had in his ears from recent gunfire, Sam had to rely on the phone's display to confirm that his call was connected, until he had it almost to his ear.  "--on their way, less than ten minutes," came the distorted voice.  "Don't get yourself killed."

 

Then another, stranger sound came from the front of the apartment, like crunching plastic with a wet, gooey aftereffect.  Though unable to see the details from his position of cover, the gangsters plainly weren't pleased with whatever happened.  Three of them, anyway.  Presto's chain-bound prisoners shouted together, voices clashing, and soon their complaints were followed by more gunshots.

 

"Boss!  Boss!"

 

"Don't leave us, man!"

 

"Shoot the chains!  Shoot the damn chains!  This guy's crazy--we gotta get outta here!"

 

Yet, no further war-screams from Presto's monstrous enemy, nor did the creature pursue him into the next room.  The wizard of the Fens was more persuasive than he might've suspected.

[Sophistemon]

Presto heard two more gunshots that were decidedly not followed by sounds of escape. He grinned, pleased with the strength of his enchantments. This entire ordeal reminded him of a job he'd pulled a few years ago, before his imprisonment. Of course, it had gone in reverse then, as he'd been breaking in, but things had otherwise played out rather similarly. He stood, then, and dusted himself off before speaking. "I'm feeling generous," he called out. "So I'm going to give you another shot to make the right decision." He breathed, composed his words, and spoke. "You aren't going anywhere," he explained, his voice surprisingly friendly. "You're dealing with an ethereal manifestation -- the chains both are and aren't there, so breaking free of them would take more than you've got. Your boss has left you; he got a small taste of  my power and ran. What's more, eventually you're going to run out of ammo, whereas I..." He chuckled. "Well, I've got the limitless energies of the aether to draw from. What's more, I have some friends on the way that are ever scarier and more dangerous than I am. When they get here, they're going to want to hear that you gave yourselves up and want to go quietly, is that understood? Surrender, throw me your weapons, and I'll tell them to go easy on you."

Edited July 5, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

GM

 

There came more wordless, distraught mumbling from the fully bound thug, but the other two descended mostly into silence.  The menace and power in Sam's promises weighed them down like the chains, and at last, after a long moment of indecision, a pistol clattered to the apartment floor.  The shotgun soon followed it.

 

"Who...who are you, man?" one gangster demanded breathlessly.

 

"He's Presto," the other said, his eyes wide and his face a bloodless pale. 

[Sophistemon]

From his position behind the doorframe, the magician breathed a sigh of relief. For one thing, a short fight meant that less of his apartment would get destroyed -- although from the sound of things there would be much to do in the coming days so far as repairs were concerned. And that was if the landlord didn't kick him out; it was unlikely that damage incurred as a result of magical combat would be covered by the lease. Regardless, after taking a moment to compose himself, he stepped out from his hiding place. His posture was perfect, his hair and teeth immaculate as he grinned at his captives with a look of grim determination in his glowing silver eyes, mystically enhanced as they were by the power of his costume. When he spoke, his voice filled the room. "You've made a wise decision today," he told them. "I mean that, gentlemen." His eyes narrowed. "But that wise decision follows after a very large mistake. You've intruded into my home and caused me no small amount of frustration. I think that I deserve the courtesy of an explanation." He pointed his wand at one of the thugs, the one that had been holding a shotgun. "You there, before I turn your tongue into a rattlesnake; why are you here?"

[Blarghy]

GM

 

The two men looked to one another, and their heavily-wrapped colleague tried to join in, with what little room he had to turn his head.  "It's just, the boss said to, man," one pleaded helplessly.  "It's--it's nothing personal.  We just did what he told us."  From the way he cast a hopeful, trapped glance toward the door, he surely wished he could follow his employer's example now too. 

 

His companion added a little more.  "You were poking around our business, weren't you?  He said something about that in the car.  So this, uh, this was just good business.  It's nothing personal."

 

"Nothing personal," the first gunman repeated hopefully.  Now that Sam was in the room with them again, he looked down to the wand in their mystical captor's hand, then down to his fallen gun on the floor.  Perhaps he wished he hadn't been so quick to disarm...but not enough to risk Presto's wrath by reaching for it.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Blarghy