A Necessary Evil - [[Dane...Revi...Liam||R]]

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

Joshua stared open mouthed at the retreating back of Revi as he moved ahead of him to the second floor leaving him alone on the first, he would be damned if he was going to be the damsel in distress in this group and have the beefcake guy take bullets for him. With a sigh he took the stairs two steps at a time and made his way to the second floor offices where he could already hear the screams of terror, his only wish was that the other two operated quickly and efficiently to minimize the opportunity the workers would have to warn everyone else i the building. So far there was no sound of the annoying klaxons of the emergency alarm system, or the presence of anymore mercs to shoot at them. "Shit!" he said as his shield activated around him preventing the spray of blood from his right to hit him, already the workers were trying to flee from the carnage around him and that would not do.

With a flick of his wrist the employess running towards him lifted off from the ground and span helplessly in the air, within a fraction of a second they were no more than vaporized matter limiting the amount of bloodshed. He had gotten his fill of blood during his times at this company, so the bloodlust he could feel coming off in waves from Revi was something he would tolerat until it became a liability. "We have a lot of floors to cover and a lot of employess to pink slip, if you feel like we should split up then i'm cool with that...you don't have to worry about any stray bullets killing me." The crack of a snipers bullet sounded in the air as his shield flared around them, the spent slug fell to the floor as a team of mercs spilled out of the elevator to the south side of the building and the multiple green laser sights were trained on their chests. "Put down the shield or your boyfriend their gets a fucking bullet in his head!"

[atlas]

Dane hunted down the other rooms. when he finally found all he had been looking for he rushed up the stairs in search of the other two. he'd prefer to find joshua than the other guy.

OOC: Sorry. out of ideas right now

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

Joshua narrowed his eyes at the sight of the armed men in front of them, many of the mercs employed within MacArthur Enterprises had worked closely with himself as they toured around the country rounding up suspected power users. The man currently spouting vulgarities at them was one of those men "You know i highly expected to run into someone i actually knew in this building yet i had no clue that it would have been you Hawkins, and for some reason that leaves me quite confused. The last time i saw you was in the Appalachians at the bottom of a 50 foot ravine, now i don't have my medical license but i'd say you were either dead or very close to it. So what bites?" The situation was more tense than it would have been if Hawkins hadn't been there, with the addition of this variable it was harder to acertain juat what the outcome could be. Joshua had a hunch that the man had been brought back to one of the facilities per his Grandfather's request to be put under some sort of experimentation, it wouldn't be that outlandish giving his relatives penchant for taking something "broken" and making it whole.

Maj. Samuel P. Hawkins had been hand picked by Liam himself to head off the Mercenary arm of the corporation due to his bloodthirst and quick thinking in the field. Both Joshua and Hawkins had been partnered together more than 20 times on a retrieval mission during his tenure at the corporation, and at times had something together. It had been nothing more than stress relief. But now as he stood in front of a man that should have been dead he couldn't shake the feeling that this wouldn't be the cake walk he had wanted, no this would be the spark to something bigger. "Let me guess, dear old Grandfather had you flown directly to...the facility in Maine and oversaw something that lead to you standing here in front of my un-boyfriend and i. What i don't get is why my powers just stop short of your body..."

Joshua could feel his own powers settle across some invisible wall around Hawkins that held solidly against even the most strongest telepathic punch he could muster, which meant that there were personal dampening fields in action right now. Their powers would come up short each time they tried to attack the mercs leaving them at a stalemate, so unless he could find a quick way to take them down or shortnen those fields they were fucked. "You know why, but you're too much of a ball breaking bitch to come right out and say it. Those dampening fields you helped engineer come in quite handy these days, and now i will tell you to stand down or i will take you down. Unless you want your poor doctor to meet an unfortunate end you will cooperate, or i will tell the strike team that should be reaching his location right now to put a bullet between his eyes. Your call."

[atlas]

Dane could feel eyes on him. not the way others do. a twinging feeling inside him told him he was in danger. Like a light switch he found the eyes and gave them powers then stripped them, the resulting scream was bloodcurdling. Running up one more flight of stairs he found himself behind a group of guards who he could not feel. he looked around and spied a deskchair in a nearby office, ducking out of site he grabbed the chair and slowly moved toward the group "I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME JOSHUA, EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO YOU CAN... FRIEND OR FOE?". He screamed in his mind, any louder and the words would be audible to everyone. he lay in waiting, not wanting to strike an ally.

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

Joshua visibly winced as his mind was flooded with Dane's words as he shouted them at the telepath, with something that narrowly focused there was little he could do to lessen the 'physical' blow he received. At the same moment the entire building lost power and quickly switched to emergency lighting, the harsh red tone of the emergency lights painted a hellish scene giving rise to shadows that shouldn't be moving. "Yeah i hear you asshole!"

[/i] he said with a hiss at the doctor well below his curret position, "They will kill you before you had the chance to realize your powers or being blocked, they're all wearing dampening field technology so we need to find a way to work around them without powers. Also we have to assume that some of these mercs are genetically enhanced somehow since i am currently talking to a man i saw die."[/i]

His short chat with Dane was cut off quickly as he ducked behind a row of cubicles dodging a sprat of bullets directed at him, with no way to attack he was working soley on defense and could feel the desperation rolling off of himself in waves. Joshua glanced around the large office space on the second floor working out some semblence of a plan, in order to short out those shield it would take something of an EMP or a large enough power surge. "Think damnit think! Dane is stuck in god knows where and Revi seems out of it, there's no way i could get close enough without risking my shield and life so long range it is. I just have to stall long enough so they don't know what i'm doing, and hopefully get where i need to go for fucks sake."[/size][/center]

[atlas]

He watched joshua dive for cover. He figured as much about these men. the only way they can have powers and stop others around them is nullifier technology... his technology. But Dr. Clarke wasn't willing to take that risk "Scissor block. grab the scissors, all three pairs. HURRY UP ASSHOLE!" the voice in Dane's head was familiar but he couldn't quite place it. "Open them up. and throw them at the men as you rush the last one with that chair of yours... i'll handle the rest" Not knowing who was talking to him, Dane had little option but to follow the logical orders.

His aim was terrible. the doctor had aimed for their heads but the scissors hit their necklaces. Suddenly powers bloomed into his minds eye, he saw them all and what they could do... "Get up josh. I could kill them all but i'm not that sort of person"

A quiet voice whispered in the young McArthurs mind "But I am"

OOC: MPD; tails=multi-personality disorder, heads= no mental issue... every time I flip the coin for a post it always lands as tails. so stuff it, I'm not even going to bother anymore

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

The gap between his powers' reach and the mercs in front of them became nonexistent the moment that Dane's attack deactivated the dampening fields, slowly he got to his feet stepping around the cubicle. Joshua couldn't shake the annoyance of seeing something he had worked on during his time in the company used against him, although the formatting of the technology had changed slightly he could see exactly where his original design stood and something else mingled. "Fortunately i am that type of person tonight." he said as he slowly raised his hands above his head creating a dip in the pressure beyond their positions, at once the mervs began screaming bloody murder as their blood began boiling off within them. Joshua was slowly changing the very frabric of the men's bodies down to the atomic level killing them slowly "It's kill or be killed tonight doc, i'd listen to the other voice when things start to get dicey. Just don't turn that lovely bloodlust on me and mine or else i will put you down like a rabid dog...we clear?"

Joshua didn't wait for a confirmation from Dane knowing that the man would accept it for what it was only for this time, after though all bets would be off and he'd be watching his back for some time to come. Slowly he made his way up to the top levels of the building meeting only small resitence from workers still within the building, it seemed that his dear Grandfather demanded for all employees to carry firearms with them at all times "Sadistic bastard! What kind of CEO makes his workers carry guns on them? I didnt get to carry a gun..." He had almost sounded pouty to someone paying attention to the slight inflections of his voice, a trained individual would be able to pick up the various moods displayed in a person's words if they knew what to look for. With a sigh he finished off the last worker before they reached the top floors lobbby area, he could sense atleast 3 minds above them all blocked from deeper probing and his influence. "We have some cowboys up above us in the mood for a rumble, they're more than likely wearing a variation of the dampening field technology or if Liam knew any better he had it implanted within them. Anyway you slice it we're going to have a fight on our hands...you good?"

[atlas]

Dane looked around at them, the screams and gargles that reached his ears would normally disgust him. But not tonight, tonight he felt something else, a craving. Suppressing it he followed the ‘soldier of continuum’ as he came to nickname him up the building. He looked at each set of guards with pity “Guns are so primitive aren’t they?”. Unconsciously Dane licked his lips as a spray of blood splattered across him. Dr. Clarke smiled at his companions complaint “Feeling a little left out are we? Ever think that you don’t really need a gun? Hell if you wanted one so bad you should have just bought or conjured one yourself. You probably could” He chuckled quietly even when Joshua began giving him information he already knew... But it wasn’t the people above that he was worried about, the danger was far below “Hey umm. We should get moving qui-” Everything suddenly went dark.

Clarkes voice dropped slightly as he replied “We need to get to the top don’t we?” He picked up one of the guns and began pulling it apart. Finding what he wanted he stripped another gun and handed the two items to Joshua. “You couldn’t, you know, make these larger by any chance could you?” he grinned sadistically as he dropped the two firing pins into MacArthur’s hand. These weapons would be all he needed from now up, seeing he was no-longer squeamish this should go alot faster.

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

Joshua could feel the change come over Dane as the man approached his position, he had already been on guard with the man and now he could feel the reason behind the mostly subconscious warning his mind had given him. Gone was the man who had hesitated to take out the first band of mercs so many floors ago and in his place an individual who seemed far more easy goingwith getting his hands dirty, his telepathic powers were hesitant to delve any further than surface thoughts giving him more cause to watch out. "You didnt go all Mr. Hyde on me now did you Doc? Not that i don't mind the change with the swagger you've got going on now, but why now?" His mind was racing to come up with a series of different plans to ensure his safety lest Dane turned against hims for any unforsee reason, it always paid to tread cautiously with a previously unidentified other personality.

All night he could fee something else entirely all together in Dane yet placed it in the back of his head as just another quirk the doctor possessed, but now as he stood face to face with the "monster" he really wished he had paid more attention when they had read the book in school. Joshua knew they were waiting until he did as requested and so reluctantly complied "Don't think i'm going to just fix everything you ask me to, i am not some trained organ grinder monkey nor am i the princess peach of the group. What's your name anyways? I don't feel comfortable calling you Dane...' Quickly he forced the firing pins to chang their atomic structure and making them significantly lager, everything within it changing alongside the size difference meeting the specifications of the man in charge.

[atlas]

The man’s green eyes dove into Joshua’s. Examining the man closely, “Mr. Hyde? I like that... Hyde was grotesque, horrifyingly disgusting. That’s not how you feel when you look at me? Is it?” his eyes trailed down the body before him. His grin had a creepy ominous sheen to it that would terrify most people. “Call me Nex, I love that word, so easy to...” His eyes snapped back to Joshua’s “groan. And I don’t see you as either of those things, I know your perfectly capable of tearing me apart in an instant, just remember” He pressed the tip against MacArthur’s neck and trailed it down forcefully, but not quite enough to draw blood “There are things worse than death, far worse. Let’s go” He briskly moved away from the stunned boy and began his trek toward the stairs.

The door opened and he flung the firing pin like a knife at the first of the blockers, running at them he reefed it out of the back of the man’s neck before he hit the floor and pointed the two of them at the others, grinning savagely. His grin vanished “Run. Flee, before I change my mind” He sniffed the blood-soaked metal and began slowly counting down from 5. “5... 4...” He launched himself forward and buried his blades in the stomaches of the two remaining men. As he traversed the air his path was littered with automatic fire, three pieces caught his left arm. With their sudden deaths he could feel the weight of the nulling switch off. Grabbing the left man he forced his vision into the man’s genes “You’ll have to do” He ripped the man’s power apart and recombined it to that of a healer. Returning to the real world he saw the physical mal-formations that his tampering had had. But he didn’t care. Placing the man’s had on his wound Nex awaited the guards slow death to finish. Healed he stood and waited for Joshua to be ready to continue.

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

Joshua was slightly unnerved that something that should have caused him some hesitation in furthering this mission with a slightly unhinged man gave him chills of the good kind, the moment that Nex had gotten within inches of his person his arousal spiked. He and Levi just like any other healthy couple with an active love life liked to try angry sex once in awhile, and so his mind forever in the gutter had unfortunately taken to imagining something of the sort at that tense moment. However it was the reminder from what images he got from telepathically feeling out Nex that it more than likely would turn into something not of the good, in other words as fun as it sounded in his mind there was no way he would go fo bloodplay. "You know it's rude to just assume that i'm some priss that would find something like a 'dark' alter to be disgusting and all eww, and furthermore i don't get why everyone only focuses on the ugly parts of Mr. Hyde." he said as he walked up the steps leading to the massacre on the floor above, upon entering the lobby area he flicked his right hand out destroying the bodies into the air. "Mr. Hyde was all about power and sex...raw, unrestricted power that Dr. Jekyll craved and the kind of lustful sex that one didnt practice in Victorian England. There's just a little bit of the darkness in each of us and more so than others, so when i call you that name Nex...it's not about the 'ugly'. No, far from it indeed."

Joshua walked past Nex and stopped in front of the steel reinforced doors of Liam's private elevator, the power out within the building would have activated the security locks on the doors making them nigh impenetrable. To an ordinary man. With quick action he used his telekinesis to rip the door away from the elevator sending it hurdling into the wall to the west, he walked into the elevator and started accessing the panel beneaths the fingerprint display. "After leaving the company he took out my fingerprint records from all the facilities making it near impossible to break into them, he did forget however that i'm not as helpless as i may seem. I just need to take a moment to feel out for the thing that will override the computer and manually take us to my Grandfather." His eyes closed off to the rest of the world hoping that Nex would take care of anything that may come their way, the task was not difficult persay but more tedious than not when you took into account that throwing the wrong switch could kill them.

[atlas]

Though Nex couldn’t read minds, he could certainly understand what would be going through Joshua’s head. All he could do was grin, In his first night independent he had already gained a nickname. “well thank you then” As they stepped in the elevator he found himself thinking about the images he must be sending to the poor boy, misconceptions racing through his mind. He lent with his back to the door. “Bloodlust does not equal sexual arousal by blood dear boy, just keep that in mind” As the doors opened he dropped onto his back with weapons readied to throw. No victims waiting. All that was in the small room was the door to the final boss.
“Hey listen, from the information Dane got about your grandfather... I could kill him if I could get within 3meters of him. Can you get me that close?”He tucked his pins away and stood by the door, this was it. the moment he was born for.

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

"I am no boy!" he said as he stepped around Nex stopping just before the doors, his powers couldn't penetrate anything past these doors making it feel like a giant void within the room beyond it. Joshua raised his left hand placing it against the cool metal in front of him wondering how many guards his Grandfather would have called to him once figuring out that this wasn't normal "You do realize we may very well die tonight right? He's not just some old guy who happens to have powers too, there are too many variables when dealing with him that it's never good to go in unprepared. But unprepared is all anyone has at any point with him and 3 metres is pushing it yet i shall try...but if it's me that doesn't make it out of here."

He left off what he was going to say hoping that Nex or Dane would understand and carry out his last wish, he had left Alcatraz without notifying anyone of his present location and mission. If anything he would be facing serious repurcussions if he ade it back home, though if he didnt then someone would need to explain to Levi just what happened and why he did it. "Back at the warehouse where we met up i have a safe and within it an encoded data disk that should get you through our shields only once. Anyways, let's do this eh?" In a split second the doors crumbled into a wad of jagged metal that was tossed away behind them, the large office of his Grandfather encompassed the entirity of the top floor with no room for anything else. Joshua's eyes hardened at the site of his last licing relative flanked by not one but all four of his horsemen "Grandfather, i'm shocked that you felt you needed all four of them to show up for this reunion. Though from what i don't sense from them is that you have the same type of dampening system working for them, and by the lack of hardware around their necks it seems that you finally figured out how to inject the stuff into their bloodstreams without cutting off their own powers. Well fuck me!" His days since learning that his Grandfather was primed to make his move were spent going over all statistical and combat data he could find on all five of them, they operated in a 2 man cell formation when grouped together and would always protect Liam no matter the cost. The tricky part was not dying before they faced off with he snake.

[atlas]

“Fuck Me!” Nex was quite surprised at this sudden development. He looked at the five men, it was obvious Joshua couldn’t see them, but this technology was based off Dane’s, Based on technology Dane was immunized against. “Well well, you sure aren’t how I remember you? What? Scared we’ll rip you to shreds?” Nex’s eyes flicked around the room “Very interesting to see artificial stackers... but I’ve seen more powerful one formed naturally.” Nex was of course referring to the 10th level pyrokinetic Dane had to weaken. “I need you to keep them out of my head... I gotta find a book, a really really old book... or a dusty piece of carpet” It wasn’t these five men he was suddenly so worried about. It was the man on the ground floor, who was 5:00 minutes away from opening the door.

OOC: This should add colour, every paragraph in each post from now on takes 30 seconds... so we have 10 paragraphs from the end of this post before the place collapses, enjoy(If anyone teleports into that room, the new air would fulfil the same function as opening the door)

[Joshua D. MacArthur]

The police chatter he was getting from his surveilance system was all chaotic with false reports of power user sightings, it was not a safe place to be outside if you were anyone given the law enforcements tactic of shooting first tonight. He had his suspicions when the sudden thick fog rolled into the city blocking almost all from view that this was cove for something far bigger, it wasn't until reports of a band of people making their way to his location that he finally knew that his grandchild finally had made his move. Liam MacArthur could be said to be a ruthless man who held no one in regard save himself and so the order to kill Joshua all those years ago was nothing to him, however on this night he could feel something inside him shift at the thought that one of them would die at the hand of the other. The ancient man sighed loudly and moved away from his desk over to a hidden panel behind the painting of his once whole family "Get your team over to me quickly, there's going to be trouble and i have a feeling i will need all of you here. Also inform Cornus that Joshua will die tonigh even if it has to be him that does the deed, no former attchment to the boy will be further tolerated."

He abruptly ended the call to his horsemen and waited for them to arrive near the glass wall leading out to the patio, his mind drifted back to the reports of somone else accompanying his grandchild wondering just who the folld was. With any luck it would be his errant relative's boyfriend which would make killing the boy that much simpler, and so Liam began to plan for killing off Levi quickly to facilitate Joshua's mental collapse leaving his grandchild open to an attack. "The next time you take as long to respond to one of my calls i shant be lenient when it comes to the next session you have with me, now get into formation in front of me since our esteemed guests are just beyond that door.'

His eyes trained upon the door that Joshua and his boyfriend would have to come through, they had been straightforward in their quest to kill him up to this point that there appeared to be no deviation in sight. Suddenly the doors were wrenched away and the sight of his grandchild forced a false smile on his face, his eyes however gave away his confusion over the other gentlemen with Joshua. It appeared that the good doctor found it necessary to stick his overly touted mind into affairs that did not concern him, there was little he could do now that his plans to kill Levi were temporarily shelved and so he began calculating what it would take to step away from Dane's powers. "I was expecting my granchild's boyfriend to be the first to die tonight, but seeing as your the one fucking him now it shall be your heart i cleave. So now onto other matters, just what do you plan on accomplishing by killing all of my employees and forcing your way into my offices?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Joshua knew that not bringing Levi into his was the right choice to make now that he heard what he suspected from his Grandfather's mouth, he knew that with the death of his lover there would be nothing else left for him and he'd give in to the shadowed whispers. The unknown things had been clawing at him from behind his mental walls more and more as he made his way to this point, yet right now they were eerily silent as if almost waiting for something to happen and that gave him cause for concern. "It never fails does it? The moment i step back into your presense i get this same shit from you and to top it all off you called in your damned guards like i knew you would, so no i'm not going to tell you why i'm here. For one i am not some lame ass Bond villain and two i know that you already know i'm going to kill you tonight, now the question is are you going to fucking die easy or am i going to have to work for it?"

It seemed that he wouldn't have to wait for a drawn out response as Zephyr and Orion rushed his position, he skillfully dodged the blast of pressurized air from Zephyr that obliterated a chunk out of the wall behind him when Orion opened fire on him. Joshua's shields flared to life as the purple plasma bullets from Orion's rife struk it and with each hit the shield decreased in size making his eyes widen in horror "Damn!" Acting quickly he sent a telekinetic blast at Orion letting is shield fall as he dodged a series of pressured air reinforced punches from the guy with the wings, his concentration solely on the battle he was commited to at the moment prevente him from seeing the other two dissappear.

Joshua at this point had noticed two things in the men he was fighting, the first thing being that somehow they did not rely on verbal comunication to sync their attacks on him and deep dow he knew that if they were to somehow disrupt that factor they'd be on a more even footing. The second factor being the dampening ability working in their bloodstream only allowed certain liberties, the 'shielding' was only concentrated enough at one given time to prevent a single attack which forced it to regroup afterwards. This limitation was why they worked in two man cells giving one a chance to regroup the dampening fields as the other held off their foe, if somehow they were to attack twice in succession a hit would be expected. "Look, i have no idea why you would even be thinking of a old tome at a time like this but i shal help you since you seem to find it important. I trust you to know what you're doing...anyways what do you think about my observations?" he asked in a quick telepathic message to Nex.