Thump
A sudden wave permeated through the air, Chuck's makeshift creation activating as the mansion lit up with a pulsing rune that spread through every inch of the home and with it, three grimoires dropped lifelessly to the floor.
Now lying among the floorboards, the tomes were no different from ordinary books and that realization made the smug curve of Ezekiel's mouth twist into a rancid sneer.
"Inquisitor Ezekiel, is this-"
"Yes, it's the Master Merlyn's anti-magical array," Ezekiel said, recognizing the pulse that nullified his magic entirely.
The rot in his expression came not just from the loss of power, but from the bitter realization that they had poured perfection into this trap for this to arise.
But it was with this single act that the scales, long weighed in Merlyn's favor, finally began to tip, marking the first domino to fall in Ricky's favor in this long night.
Though the three events taking place were all separate, they aligned with eerie precision, like panes of glass catching the same beam of light.
It wasn't a coincidence, it was a domino effect, every piece toppling toward this singular moment, with the true catalyst blooming here, within this house.
"Should we retreat and attack from outside-"
Slap
"You fool, attacking from inside and outside would be the same, IT NULLIFIES MAGIC YOU IMBECILE!" Ezekiel roared as the warlock flinched, stumbling back two steps while clutching his cheek.
"Victor, get your pudgy ass to the second floor and Franklin, go with him and make sure he doesn't eat her," Elkanah scoffed, spinning on his heel as he drew a blade from the folds of his golden robe.
"I'll search the bottom floor."
With that, Elkanah strode forward, brandishing his short sword, leaving the two warlocks behind in his wake.
"Pudgy?" Victor muttered, glancing down at his stomach and giving it a squeeze, watching it mush between his fingers as Franklin rolled his eyes at the display.
He began climbing the spiral staircase with ease, while Victor lagged behind, already winded by the climb.
"Will you hurry up? We still have that house in Harlem to get to," Franklin hissed over his shoulder, glaring down at his wheezing colleague struggling to keep pace.
"I'm trying~" Victor whined, huffing as he climbed the twentieth stair, sweat already beading at his temple.
"But I can't help it, my gravity magic doesn't work here~" Victor continued, his voice a drawn-out complaint.
Without the usual enchantment to lighten his bulk, every step felt like dragging boulders tied to his ankles.
Then, a flicker, two yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness above.
Predatory.
Cold.
The unknowing gaze sent a chill racing down Franklin's spine as he whipped around instinctively, heart skipping, only to be met with shadows.
Just the still silhouettes of the furniture pieces, nothing more, nothing less.
"Just hurry up," Franklin snapped, fingers flicking toward Victor but his eyes never left the shadows above, locked on the place where those yellow eyes had unknowingly glinted moments before.
"This b*tch is going to be difficult, I can feel it." Franklin muttered, a bead of sweat tracing down his brow.
His hand slipped into the folds of his golden robe, fingers closing around the hilt of an elongated dagger.
"Why are there so many stairs~" Victor whined again, oblivious to the tension in Franklin's jaw, or the way his face had gone pale and unsteady.
"I-"
"HURRY UP!" Franklin yelled, his voice sharp enough to make Victor flinch and even Ezekiel, downstairs, glanced toward the source of the impatient shout with a weary sigh.
"Okay, okay~" Victor huffed, struggling to haul his layers of fat up the stairs as Ezekiel opened the fridge below.
"Make sure to take her alive and check the closets!" Ezekiel called from the kitchen, pulling out a carton of orange juice and a homemade sandwich marked with Ricky's name.
He tossed the note aside carelessly, his calm demeanor betraying any sense of threat.
In Ezekiel's mind, the hardest part was dealing with the mobsters outside, but he was fully confident those two novice warlocks could easily handle the ordinary humans inside.
To him, Raven was just one of Ricky's flashy trinkets, a woman defined entirely by the gifts and power he had granted her.
Maybe things would've turned out differently.
Maybe the whole situation could have shifted if Ezekiel had taken a moment to understand what Raven's past really meant or even noticed the strange humanoid lamp standing quietly to the side.
But his pride wouldn't let him pause for that kind of reflection.
"Damn, this is one hell of a sandwich." Ezekiel muttered, surprise flickering across his face as he almost recoiled, staring at it again as if unsure it was real, before settling onto one of the stools.
"Should I take the left side and you the right?" Victor asked as he reached the top of the stairs all while Franklin pinched himself and shook his head.
"Y-Yeah." Franklin muttered, half-hazardly, surprised by the edge of fear creeping into his voice.
This was supposed to be the easiest part.
Yet, for some reason, he felt like a rabbit being stalked by a wolf.
No, that wasn't it.
Sweat trickled down his forehead because this wasn't a forest at all, it was a jungle.
Franklin was nothing more than exposed, at the jungle floor, as the branches above him loomed with those yellow eyes.
Yellow eyes that watched from above, waiting, watching, patient, and most of all, silent.
"I knew I should've explored downstairs." Victor whispered to himself, rubbing his stomach, a convenient excuse to rummage through the kitchen, just like Ezekiel was doing.
Meanwhile, Franklin moved slowly, gripping his blade tightly as he made his way toward the mansion's right wing.
It was just a mansion.
A simple hallway.
Yet to Franklin, it felt like he was simply entrenching himself even deeper into the rainforest.
The dampening sorcery blurred his senses, and the oppressive atmosphere obscured everything around him.
The darkness pressed in like thick trees, while the anti-magic was the heavy, humid air that dulled the prey's instincts against the predator lurking nearby.
And those continued to Yellow eyes pierce through the shadows, stalking silently, like paws gliding through the undergrowth without so much as a whisper of sound.
"Dammit!" Franklin yelled, colliding with a chair and shoving it aside with a furious shove.
His breath quickened as he fought to bury the gnawing fear clawing at his heart, replacing it with sudden rage.
BAM
He kicked the nearest door open and charged inside, ripping the room apart in search of the woman.
"Come out! COME OUT, DAMMIT!" Franklin screamed, slashing at the curtains with his dagger and tossing the furnishings of the guest room into disarray.
They were attacking.
They were kidnapping these women.
Yet through it all, Franklin felt an unsettling wrongness gnawing at him.
The irony wasn't lost on him, however, those yellow eyes that had struck an unsettling gut feeling into Franklin.
Was no longer looking at him.
The yellow eyes that had struck such fear into his heart weren't fixed on him at all, but on Victor.
"Oh man, I need to sit down~" Victor sighed, pressing a damp handkerchief to his forehead as he collapsed into a chair in another guest room.
Sniff
Victor sniffled before closing his eyes and blowing his snot-filled nose into the handkerchief.
But when he opened them again, those same yellow eyes flickered open just behind him, unseen as he casually slipped the handkerchief back into his pocket.
The darkened mansion echoed with the steady crash of furniture being overturned, while downstairs Ezekiel calmly wiped his mouth, unfazed by the chaos unfolding above.
"STOP HIDING YOU FCKING BTCH!" Franklin screeched from upstairs as Ezekiel let out a big sigh.
SIGH
"Of course I have to do everything myself~" Ezekiel muttered, ascending the stairs toward the wreckage in the right wing as his eyes flicked to Victor as the man cautiously crept up behind Franklin.
"How have both of you idiots not found them yet?" Ezekiel asked genuinely, eyes fixed on the two as Franklin spun around.
"I-AH!" Franklin yelped, startled by the sudden appearance of Victor, who just scratched his head awkwardly.
"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Franklin yelled, stepping back as Victor recoiled slightly, lowering his head and rubbing the back of his neck.
"I thought you found her," Victor muttered quietly as Franklin's embarrassed expression quickly twisted into fury, while Ezekiel let out an exasperated facepalm.
"YOU IDIOT, DO YOU THINK I WOULD BE TEARING EVERYTHING UP IF I FOUND HER, HUH?!?!" Franklin screamed at him, hatefully spewing out all his fear onto the poor Victor.
"No?" Victor asked, glancing at Ezekiel, who shook his head. Victor then looked back at the furious, lean man.
"Frank, calm down," Ezekiel said with a sigh, walking over to Victor and patting his shoulder.
"He's trying. Besides, unless they've got a tunnel, they ain't going anywhere," Ezekiel added, stepping back. He rubbed his hand thoughtfully before turning away.
"Come on, let's turn this upstairs upside down."
Although an anti-magic barrier had risen within the house, those outside remained unaware as the plan was unfolding just as intended.
However not a single sound was heard, instead everything needed to be feasted on by the eyes of all those around.
Ricky's undead horde continued to try to make their way towards the attackers only for the spells to keep them at bay.
All while the other warlocks hurled spell after spell at these made men, completely brutal in their attacks as they arrogantly sat comfortably as none of these men could reach them.
Louis looked on, dirt exploding and flying all around as he sat at the side with a hollowed look that spelled only doom.
He looked, watching Johnny be thrown back but pick himself upwards to get to a runner that had his right foot cut off.
Clawing through this battlefield, Johnny was unwilling to leave a single soul behind as he dragged the boy out of harm's way.
Louis, watching, suddenly had a spell hurled at the tree he'd been placed behind as a barrage of wind bullets slammed into it.
The tree exploded, and the force hurled Louis backward, he took the hit without resistance, sent flying into the open.
Slowly, Louis rose to his feet and turned around, his eyes hollow as they locked onto the witch, who smirked and conjured another spell.
It tore through the air, blistering pockets of compressed wind fired off like invisible bullets, screaming as they rushed toward him.
But instead of leaping, instead of lunging out of the way, Louis just sort of slumped in place.
His shoulders dropped, not from surrender, but from something deeper' almost a resignation.
He was a child, no more than fourteen, but he had the disposition of a man who's finally accepted that the world has always been trying to kill him and in that quiet resignation.
Time seemed to freeze.
It felt like the scene before him was getting farther and farther away until the battlefield became a soundless theater, and Louis, the sole audience member, sat front row as the twisted film reel of his life played across his wide, tear-glazed eyes.
Within this reel of memories was not triumph, not even nostalgia, just despair.
There was no music, no swelling hope, only the crunch of footsteps echoing down memory lane.
He saw his mother's hands, those warm, tired hands that used to cradle his face, and then he saw the bruises she couldn't hide, the ones his father painted in rage, even when she tried to quickly cover them with her long sleeves.
It was then that the vision cut like a blade to a school day afternoon, when Louis had just turned eight.
Walking up the stairs of his porch with a backpack, a scrape on his knee, and a stomach full of cafeteria cheese.
His hand reached towards the door knob and he slowly opened the door with an expectant smile.
It was there within his expectant gaze that he saw his mother, sitting there in the living room like she was waiting for him, only not quite.
Instead of looking up towards him with that beautiful smile of hers, instead, she was cradling a revolver in her lap like it was her firstborn.
The silver of the gun glinted, but it was when she tilted her face upwards towards Louis did her smile seem softer than ever.
Yet it was trembling.
"Louis, would you mind going to the store for your mommy?" Louis' mother asked, her tone as shaky as her grip on the gun.
Tears shimmered down her cheeks like dew catching the first light of dawn, each drop falling to the hardwood floor with a soft finality that echoed louder than any scream.
And as they landed, they rippled through Louis's chest like waves across a still pool, trembling something deep inside him he thought long buried.
Because he knew, he knew even at that age what those words, what that tone meant.
But even still, he stepped away, he still turned, still walked, because he was merely an eight year old child and Louis didn't want to understand that some doors aren't meant to stay open.
The door clicked shut behind him as he backed away as if bracing for a sound he already knew was coming.
But the silence that followed wasn't filled by memory, it was shattered by the present.
Blood washed across his vision, not from a memory, not from the reel, but now.
Louis's hazy eyes snapped wide just in time to see Johnny throwing himself forward, shoving him aside with the last instinct he had left.
It was then that three perfect holes appeared in Johnny's torso, clean as coins punched through a coin slot as his body dropped like a weightless feather falling from a rooftop.
Skidding across the wreckage of the field they once picked weeds from, Johnny tumbled over until the dirt caught him in its embrace.
'Why did I go and do that.' Johnny thought, blood bubbling in his throat as he nestled into the dirt below him.
Watching the spells erupt above him, how they tore the sky open and made the earth tremble while Louis staggered back with a pale expression on his face.
But Johnny just looked upwards, at the carnage that raged, wrapped in a strange sort of beauty.
Magic cracked and split the heavens, bathing the battlefield in glittering light, as if divinity itself had mistaken this moment for something sacred.
But down here, it was anything but.
His blood, scarlet and hot, poured freely into the green grass, staining it like spilled wine at a funeral.
And Johnny, the one who prided himself on being the grunt the family needed to be, dedicating his life to the boss and the Luciano name, actually bent.
For a rat.
For Louis.
Because somewhere between all the violence and the vows, Johnny had seen a piece of himself in the boy.
And even now, Johnny had a weak, blood-drenched smile.
Because even when life seemed to slip from his grasp, Johnny wondered about what his mentor was thinking when he had to put a bullet in his brain.
Maybe Johnny would've gotten to think more about it if he didn't feel a sudden tugging from his side as he looked over to see Louis crying, completely desperate, and pulling at his shoulders.
Trying to drag him away while begging him to get up, to keep breathing.
Johnny tried to push him away, mouthing something like 'Get outta here', but Louis wasn't there anymore, not really.
Louis wasn't in the present, he was eight again.
Having just walked back home for the second time as he held a grocery bag in his hand, only to have the police already there.
His eyes widened at the sight of them dragging his father into the back of a cruiser with his wrists cuffed, face blank, and rage long spent.
But what made the grocery bag slip from his fingers, what shattered the smile he still carried from the store, was what waited inside.
He stepped through the doorway, still clutching the receipt, still expecting to hear her voice.
Instead, he found silence.
He found his mother.
Her limp body draped across the bloody carpet like a discarded doll, her hair fanned out like petals wilting in a pool of red as her face was planted right into her own blood.
She was never able to pull the trigger, so instead, his father did.
And in that instant, reality delivered a cruel truth: history wouldn't remember her face.
So in that moment, Louis swore he would, he had to, because if he didn't, no one would.
But the officers wouldn't let him near, not to touch her, not to say goodbye, not even to look.
Still, he fought, fists as small as his screams, flailing at the air, at the uniforms, at the injustice that had wrapped its cold hand around his throat.
Two grown men pinned him back as he shrieked and bucked and kicked and cried.
To this day, he remembered the warmth of her blood on the floor.
He remembered how it crept toward his face like it was trying to hold onto something.
How it soaked into the seams of the carpet, how it smelled, sharp and metallic, like rusted coins and rain on pavement.
He remembered the way the light hit it, how the setting sun refracted off the red and made it look almost holy, like something sacred had been spilled.
He remembered the silence afterward, a silence so loud it made his ears ring.
He remembered everything.
Except her face.
No matter how hard he tried, no matter how long he stared at the ceiling some nights, praying to whatever god might be listening, her features refused to come back.
Her smile, her eyes, the lines on her face, all of it faded like fog in the morning.
All he had left was the warmth, the red, the sound of his own voice breaking as they dragged him away.
The vision fractured like glass and reality slammed back in as a new spell charged toward him.
An incantation, the same that had ripped Johnny's body, was once again hurled towards his general direction as Louis looked up.
Louis could barely breathe as his chest heaved, vision blurred, blood roaring through his ears like waves crashing inside a seashell.
Fear wrapped around him like a shroud because this spell hurling towards him was death.
His teary eyes stared it down just like that oncoming monster on the dock.
And yet, for some reason, something within Louis made him take a step forward.
Louis felt that pull, that same one from the dock that was interrupted so rudely by Ricky.
A line had been drawn before his feet and with it, stood him.
Behind that, stood his family.
'Five seconds.' Louis thought, the very same thought he had on the docks.
His feet moved on instinct, pushing forward, just as the answer seemed to place itself before Johnny, who looked up from the ground, bleeding.
"Louis, sweety."
Louis closed his eyes because through this utter desolate silence, he heard her voice.
"There are so many beautiful things in this world and I want them all for you." She spoke to him, her touch so familiar on his cheek as if lifting him upwards, to face the spell.
"But if you ever think you're going to lose them, the things you care about, remember this. Promise me you'll remember." His mother's words echoed in his ear, stirring that part of him that had been too scared to move forward the day he lost her.
"Just remember, all it takes is five seconds of courage to change everything."
Because sometimes, sometimes in this hateful place we call our home, all you need to change everything you've ever known is five seconds of insane, reckless, unforgivable courage.
And Louis had just found his five.
'I'LL HOLD FOR FIVE SECONDS!' Louis roared through the silence, his eyes looking up with tears trickling down them but a resolve that would be unshakable.
Four, his foot hit the ground, and it sounded like a war drum in his chest.
Johnny's blood was still warm on his hands and yet, Louis didn't wipe it off but held up his forearms as his eyes looked towards the little slight.
His face contorted, not with rage, not with grief, but something in between.
The kind of pain that makes you clench your jaw until your teeth crack.
His body shook from fear, from that aching despair of death that loomed over him like a shadow.
And yet, he kept walking, one foot, then the next.
Until he stood before Johnny like a wall.
Three, the past flashed like lightning.
His mother's limp body and his father's hateful last words to him as he was hurled towards a lifetime in prison.
A family he should've had, completely gone.
The only thing he had was the Luciano family and he didn't want to lose it, he didn't want to lose another family.
Two, his legs buckled as his X-Gene roared to life, tendrils of gravity lashing out from his skin like steam from a cracked furnace.
The ground beneath him cratered as the pressure forced the air from his lungs, all while blood vessels bursting in his eyes.
It felt like he was trying to breathe through concrete, but Louis didn't stop, he leaned into it.
He welcomed the weight of this spell and let it crush the boy he had been, to let it forge something new in his place.
One, the last family he had on this earth and for once, Louis didn't feel the need to run any longer.
He stood tall, broken but defiant, his arms spread like a man daring death to take its shot because the boy took ownership.
Of the pain he had caused.
Of the people he'd failed.
Of the love he hadn't deserved.
And when the spell finally reached him, he screamed out towards it not in fear, but in challenge.
But the scream wasn't only externalized but internalized.
Because as his x-gene activated, his full power seemed to finally blossom like a flower blooming amidst a barren sea of dirt.
The spell collided with his body, and another, and another, as if his body had become so dense it rippled space like a black hole's breath.
The compressed wind met something heavier than fate, and the resulting shockwave exploded outward and for a moment, Louis was gone from view.
Swallowed in the heart of it all and as the warlock's eyes were about to trail away, until the debris and dirt parted to reveal a fact that made them slightly freeze.
Because the spell didn't pass, it stopped.
Because sometimes, in such rare moments that feel utterly hopeless, all it takes is five seconds of insane, reckless, unforgivable courage.
That's all.
The compressed air shattered against his body, and his skin, once soft, breakable, human, underwent a grotesque, beautiful transformation.
His body mutated along with his awoken X-gene resulting in a durability that matched the completeness of gravity.
Louis's X-Gene, Gravity Increase, allowed him to adjust his center of gravity, making him virtually immovable as it had transformed his body into something that could rival the durability of stone.
Steam hissed off his back, pebbles bounced away from his boots as the earth cracked beneath him in spider web patterns.
Because Louis, this orphaned mutant, this unwanted boy carved from trauma and silence, wasn't some background casualty of life pulled from nowhere.
He had a future in this timeline.
The boy bleeding through his clothes and memory, eyes dim with grief and rage, wasn't meant to die here.
He wasn't even meant to begin here at all.
This boy, this broken thing Elias had plucked from the street, was meant to become Stonewall.
In the world that might have been, Louis Hamilton would've gone on to fight in World War II alongside two other mutants, forming a secret Allied unit infused with raw mutant force.
But after the war, they were quietly retired as there was no place for mutants in Cold War politics, no medals, just silence.
Hamilton went home to D.C, tried to smother his power beneath textbooks and courtrooms.
He became a lawyer, a man of reason, but it wasn't enough as the war lived in his bones and the thrill, the clarity, he missed it.
So he became a vigilante.
Hunting criminals who had slipped through the cracks, dragging them into forests like ghosts of justice past, chasing them down, and executing judgment.
But Stonewall would have been taken down and used by the government needing mutants again.
And Louis Hamilton would grow older, his mutant ability making him heavier with regret and would eventually die a whittled man.
But that timeline, that arc of redemption and violence and law and war, it no longer existed.
The future where Louis Hamilton fought in World War II, earned a law degree, and chased down fugitives in the shadows of the American wilderness with bloodied knuckles and righteous fury.
That thread had been severed.
Because right now, the Louis standing before these warlocks wasn't a relic of some forgotten Marvel footnote.
He wasn't some side character waiting to be noticed.
No.
His muscles locked into the earth like bedrock, his breath came ragged, but unyielding.
And in his eyes, lit not with hope, but with unrelenting purpose, burned something more.
He wasn't becoming who he was meant to be, he was becoming something else, something more.
Not a soldier in a war long gone, not a lawyer clinging to justice that never existed, but a wall against the storms that sought to approach the Luciano family.
This would be this universe's origin of Stonewall.
Johnny's bleeding figure froze in shock, his eyes widening as the runners tried to pull him away, yet he stood rooted in awe.
Even the golden cloaks hesitated, stunned.
The hissing steam around Louis faded, and with it, the boy he once was burned away by the spell.
In his place stood a man, slowly lifting his gaze to meet theirs.
It was then that he took a step forward, gravity anchoring him down, slow and steady, but enough to make the gold cloaks flinch.
Another warlock turned to Louis, conjuring a firelance, while the witch unleashed another barrage of wind, sending it hurtling toward him.
The spells slammed into Louis, chipping his skin slightly, but his gaze never wavered, not even for a second.
From the battlefield, the four golden cloaks assigned to defend against the made men slowly, and surely, shifted their entire focus onto Louis.
Spells of varying power slammed into him one after another, but with each strike, his feet kept moving forward, relentlessly.
Franky, reloading his Tommy gun behind a shattered car, looked up at a sight he would never forget.
With a mix of awe and clarity, he watched Louis press through the bombardment of spells like a man lost in a raging storm, steadily walking toward the only light around.
Biting his lip, Franky steadied the gun on the Ford, aiming carefully as all four witches assigned to them were now fully focused on Louis.
Then he fired, bullets spraying forward.
The attention that might've been on him was stolen by Louis, and without warning, the shots flew silent and deadly like assassins.
They slammed into the back of a witch, crushing her and causing her to slump to the ground.
The tides that had oppressed them for so long finally turned, and with it, the other mobsters found their resolve, spraying bullets courageously at the warlocks as Louis inched closer.
While the outside was shifting, the inside of the mansion had its second floor completely turned upside down.
Huff
Huff
Huff
Ezekiel maddened eyes looked around, holding his forehead that had sweat glistening on it as he looked around in a stunned, hateful silence.
"Something's wrong." Ezekiel huffed, glancing at Franklin with exasperation, while Victor peered under a lacy throw draped over the bed.
Ezekiel's eyes suddenly darkened as a crucial detail, conveniently forgotten until this moment, flashed through his mind: Raven was a mutant.
"Hey Victor?"
"Yes Inquisitor-"
Why aren't you sweating?" Ezekiel asked, tilting his head as Victor mirrored the gesture.
"I-"
But before Ezekiel could fully register his thoughts, Raven moved swiftly, grabbing Franklin's wrist that loosely held his dagger and sharply jerking it upwards.
SPLAT
Blood splattered as his own elongated dagger pierced Franklin's throat, choking him into a gurgled, wordless gasp.
Twisting his wrist and pressing firmly on pressure points, Raven forced Franklin to release the blade, the object falling into gravity's grasp.
Raven weaved aside just as Ezekiel swung his weapon across his body, connecting and then slashing the already stabbed form of Franklin.
Then, the elongated dagger that Raven forced from Franklin's hand was caught mid-fall before it could hit the ground.
Without missing a beat, Raven tightened her grip on the dagger and slashed fiercely at the hamstring of Ezekiel's right leg.
"B*tch!" Ezekiel grunted, snapping a kick toward Raven, only for her to block it with her other arm and push forward.
In a split second, Raven realized Ezekiel had kicked with his only good leg, meaning his injured one, the one she'd just severed the nerves to, was his sole support.
Running forward, Raven slammed her body against Ezekiel while jerking her elbow to the side causing it to hit his forearm, stopping another slash from barreling down onto her.
But with his only support on the leg whose hamstring she had just cut, his balance was now compromised.
Which resulted in him staggering backward, Ezekiel tumbling down onto the stairs and began to roll down each step that Victor had so painfully climbed, while Victor's eyes flared yellow with something primal and fierce.
"Don't tell me you thought coming into the lion's den was safe~" Raven mused from above the stairs, her amused smile turning ruthless as she leaned down effortlessly and drove the dagger into Franklin's heart before he could crawl away.
"Why can't I move my f*cking leg." Ezekiel grunted, struggling to stand as his left leg faltered, forcing him to crawl backward, clutching the injured limb.
"Because I've lived many lives and in those many lives, I have learned many things." Raven answered his question with a nuanced answer, almost mocking him.
"It's where I learned to use a curved dagger and exactly how to cut the hamstring of any man or woman." Raven sounded out harmoniously, chuckling a bit at the end.
"But throughout my lives, through all my travels, the most vicious assassin fighting style I've ever encountered using a curved dagger is the Karambit technique from Silat." Raven said smoothly, elegantly descending the stairs.
Her form shifted from Victor's likeness back into her true, striking self as she waved the curved dagger with a practiced grace.
An unaware man like Ezekiel wouldn't understand but those familiar with the practitioners of the Karambit technique knew its deadly reputation.
Only those who truly grasped its lethal precision never lived to tell the tale.
This fighting style relies on strikes, slashes, hooks, and stops designed for maximum damage, while expertly parrying, trapping, and redirecting attacks.
Most importantly, it demands an intimate knowledge of tendon manipulation, an art mastered not through practice alone, but through hard-earned experience.
"And before you complain about the suddenness of the attack, you should've seen battles in Indonesia, often spontaneous and swift, striking at any time of day within dense forests, now that's something to complain about." Raven narrated, one hand gently rubbing her pregnant belly while the other held the slightly curved, elongated dagger with practiced ease.
"What? Don't tell me you actually thought I was just some woman?" Raven asked, finishing her descent down the stairs as Ezekiel hatefully reached into his golden robe and yanked out another dagger.
"Don't patronize me, you dumb btch when I'm going to fcking brutalize you." Ezekiel seethed, limping to his feet as Raven rolled her eyes.
"Maybe if you would've attacked me the second I opened the door, but you didn't." Raven mocked, twirling her dagger in her hands while slowly closing in towards Ezekiel.
"And it's a real shame, you know, didn't your mother ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover?" Raven laughed, watching Ezekiel glance away briefly before fixing his gaze back on her, watching how she was already closing the distance between them.
Gritting his teeth, Ezekiel held his dagger before him and slashed across but the blade barely missed her stomach as Raven crouched slightly, letting her pregnant belly duck under the strike.
As the blade arced past, Raven stepped forward and thrust her unarmed palm into Ezekiel's wrist, redirecting his motion downward.
She waited until his arm extended fully, exposing his elbow, then slashed swiftly at it.
Without giving Ezekiel time to register the move, Raven pushed her body forward, guiding herself alongside the extended arm while dropping to her knee and sliding forward.
The blade, barely breaking from the original slice, followed her movement until it reached eye level, then slashed the Achilles tendon of his already injured leg.
"Argh!"
By the time Ezekiel registered the full brunt of the pain, Raven had already completed her motion, sliding a bit backward behind him as Elkanah's arm drooped and the full weight of his body shifted onto his weakened right leg.
BAM
The door burst open, the disturbance prompting only a slight glance from Raven to the left of the wounded, nearly crippled Ezekiel.
A reflective vase, conveniently placed, caught the image of two intruders entering through the door.
"INQUISITOR EZEKIEL WE-"
"IT DOESN'T MATTER, MAGIC DOESN'T WORK HERE, HELP ME KILL HER!" Ezekiel screamed, clutching his limp arm before yanking the dagger from it, his eyes burning with hatred.
"Y-YES!" the two intruders shouted, gripping their grimoires as they rushed toward Raven, who lowered her stance.
"DON'T UNDERESTIMATE HER!" Ezekiel warned sharply, just as one of them surged ahead of the other and wound up for a punch.
'Overextending with his first strike.' Raven thought, her eyes fixed forward to lock onto Ezekiel's with a sudden, confident smirk.
'Amateur.'
Ezekiel flinched at the abrupt eye contact just as Raven ducked low beneath the incoming blow.
A breeze kissed Raven's beautiful lapis skin as she swirled around the first attacker and swung low.
As if Ezekiel had merely been a warm-up, the true lethality of her karambit technique revealed itself through the living practice dummy now charging her.
Twisting her back with fluid grace, Raven didn't even glance as she simply followed the motion, swinging the blade backward with precision.
Her knee barely grazed the man's before locking into place just as the blade flowed downward, slicing clean through the tendon in his right knee.
The warlock's flesh parted with surgical precision, the tendon severed in an instant.
Using the same knee that hovered near the one she'd just crippled, Raven pivoted, propelling her next strike as the curved blade whipped around and slashed through his hamstring.
The warlock's legs gave out beneath him, and as he began to fall, Raven rose with him, driving the blade clean across his neck in a final, fluid motion.
Three seconds had passed, and the warlock no longer had control of his legs, now choking on his own blood, just as his comrade, those same few seconds behind, finally closed the distance.
But instead of letting the dying warlock drop, Raven wrapped her unarmed arm around his blood-spewing neck, locking him in a headlock.
As the second attacker reached for her, she spun, using the dying body like a shield against his blow, then released her grip at just the right moment.
The charging man crashed into his bleeding comrade, their bodies colliding mid-motion as the momentum sent them both stumbling.
Bam
The warlock stumbled forward, tripping over his own foot, and with the weight of his fatally wounded comrade crashing against his back, he tumbled, landing at Ezekiel's feet.
All in just ten seconds.
Raven didn't say a word, she didn't need to.
Because in a world where some could bend the very physics of reality, when it came to fighting, just pure, unrelenting fighting, Raven wasn't even the most versatile.
Mostly because she was attuned more to guns as she trained, obsessed, and solely focused on them.
But that didn't make her lesser.
She was not forgotten in this world, not by the High Table, not by the underworld, and certainly not by the Hellfire Club.
"There are only ten people who can kill me with their bare hands." Raven said, lowering her stance, her yellow eyes glaring fiercely at them.
"And none of them are in this room right now." Raven muttered, just before taking a step forward.
Out of the thousand upon thousand possibilities of Raven's demise within a setting of unarmed martial combat with no powers, their chances of winning this fight was virtually zero.
But the only way these warlocks, who had studied the arcane relentlessly rather than the fist, could ever hope to beat Raven in a fight was the very possibility that had just dawned on them in that moment.
Sigh
"You've got to be kidding me." Raven sighed, her entire body freezing as Ezekiel flinched at the sudden move, while the other warlock, who wasn't bleeding out, pulled himself together.
But it was the sudden splash of liquid hitting the floor that twisted Elknaha's grave, hateful expression into something almost real.
Because Raven's water just broke.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Ezekiel laughed heartily, his blood dripping like the liquid from Raven's ruptured amniotic sac, setting off an entirely different chain of events.
Raven tried not to flinch, but the slight twitching of her face gave it away as the contractions soon followed while Ezekiel grabbed the collar of the warlock who had just gotten to his feet.
Bam
Ezekiel shoved the warlocks back, forcing his limping body into a barely controlled charge that sent one stumbling off balance.
"Wo-Woah!" the warlock stammered, fumbling forward like a second-rate actor in a low-budget movie.
Raven tried to bend her knees, but a sharp contraction pinned her to the ground as one knee slammed into the floor.
The warlock lunged, hands outstretched toward her, but Raven gritted her teeth and twisted just enough to narrowly evade his grasp.
She swung her curved knife upward, a red arc slicing through the air as the blade tore clean through his jugular, sending him stumbling forward.
Like a ragdoll, he somersaulted toward the wall, unable to break his fall—his hands still clutching his neck as gasps escaped his lips.
If only his cries for help hadn't been drowned out by the vase hurled at Raven's body as she turned to face it.
Unable to fully move from her spot, or bend her body away in time, Raven did the only thing she could: she raised her unarmed arm to block it.
Her golden eyes locked onto the vase mid-air, catching the warped reflection of Ezekiel in its surface just before instinct made her shut them tight.
CRASH
The vase shattered on impact, glass shards slicing across her forearm and tearing into the fabric of her sleeve as the pain flared, but it was nothing compared to the ache of what came next.
Because when Raven opened her eyes again, the real damage wasn't on her skin, it was seeing Ezekiel now lunging at her.
BAM
Raven couldn't even think about dodging as another contraction tore through her lower core, locking her in place and forcing her to bear the brunt of the attack.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Ezekiel's maniacal laughter echoed through the room, warped and unhinged.
Raven lunged to slash him again, but he caught her wrist with his good hand, his grip was unsteady, desperate, but fueled by madness.
With a guttural grunt, he used the weight of his broken body to crash into her, slamming her arm down against the floor.
His slashed leg buckled awkwardly as he collapsed on top of her, dead weight pinning her in place.
His ruined arm hung uselessly at his side, but his remaining strength went into grinding her dagger-wielding hand down, bone against stone, inch by inch.
"I'm going to make you remember me~" Ezekiel whispered into Raven's ear, his blood-slick mouth parting just enough to graze her earlobe with his teeth.
A light bite followed, intimate, grotesque, as her body convulsed beneath him, every muscle betraying her in the wake of another seismic contraction.
Helpless, she writhed beneath him, but Ezekiel only pressed in closer, grinding his hip against her side with sickening persistence.
His movements were clumsy, almost erratic, and fueled by mania more than strength as he fumbled with his clothes, breath hot against her ear.
"Shhhh, shhhh, don't worry~" Ezekiel rasped, his laughter growing more deranged.
"We'll make this one a real messy birth."
The waistband of his pants hung open, revealing his intent more than his body, and that alone twisted the air with dread as his boxers slowly pulled into view.
"Let's make this one real messy birth-"
BAM
The lemonade tray Raven had set aside earlier now proved its worth, the sharp clang of metal striking skull ringing out as her moment of mock applause gave way to the arrival of her true savior in this long night.
"If it's a girl, I expect her to be named after me." Morgana, speaking and now controlling the vessel with her actual soul, smiled while looking down at Raven.
"Look who-Ahhhhh!" Raven wanted to say something only for the next contraction to render her warning useless as her head slammed back from the pain.
"What are you-"
"GREAT, ANOTHER B*TCH!" Ezekiel screamed, throwing himself at Morgana, who slammed into the wall as he snatched up the knife Raven had dropped.
"I'm going to enjoy myself before I hand you both over to Master Merlyn," Ezekiel hissed, gripping the blade tightly as Morgana glanced at the screaming, writhing Raven before fixing her gaze back on him.
It was true that Morgana wasn't skilled in martial arts, in fact, without her magic, she was nearly helpless, something made obvious by her tight grip on the frying pan.
But still, Morgana charged at Ezekiel just as Raven's eyes snapped open to the attack.
"Ahhhhhh-"
SLAP
Backhanding Morgana as if she was nothing, the attack made her vessel fly back as she landed beside Raven, who stared at the witch with a hateful glare.
"That's it?" Raven said breathlessly, watching Morgana try to stumble up, only for Ezekiel to press her head down with his limp foot.
"I guess another one isn't so bad. I've always wanted a threesome before-" Ezekiel started to make a lighthearted joke, glancing down at the two women before him.
Bang
"Huh?" Ezekiel's incredulous voice rang out as his gaze, still lowered, caught sight of his golden white robe being stained a deep scarlet.
Looking up, he saw the sole person responsible for the two who had rushed in earlier, his mutant manifestation had completely flipped the situation.
Holding a pistol with its barrel still smoking, Louis stood bruised and beaten but unwavering.
"Merlyn warned us about you but I didn't think he was-"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Louis yelled, cocking the pistol back harder as adrenaline surged through him.
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
Louis unloaded the entire revolver into Ezekiel, who flinched with every bullet piercing his body, stumbling backward until the chamber clicked empty in Louis's hand.
CLick
THe barrel, unable to caress a bullet, made a whining click that left everyone finally relieved of the sound of gunshots.
"Damn." Elkanha muttered, his final words echoing as he fell backward with a defeated smile, blood pooling beneath him.
Huff
HUff
"Mistress Raven, we need to-." Louis heaved, limping over to Raven only to understand what was happening.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The sound of Raven's screams only seemed to echo Jennifer's that took place within the second scenario.
"Just put a gag on her," one of the witches said, glancing around before frowning—realizing the kid they were supposed to kidnap wasn't there.
"No way. What if she bites me?" the warlock scoffed, crossing his arms as the witch rolled her eyes.
"You're such a f*cking child!" she snapped, walking over to Jennifer and stuffing a rag into her mouth before turning back to him.
"See? Was that so hard?" the witch asked as the warlock frowned but had no good answer.
"Now what do we do?"
If the timing couldn't be more perfect, the link Chuck had installed in Jennifer's house while she was at work suddenly sparked open, creating the perfect opportunity.
Bump
Two grimoires clunked to the ground, but neither the witch nor the warlock looked at them.
Instead, their eyes fixed on the two headlights approaching through the living room window.
Feeling their magic falter, they froze like deer in headlights as Lucky slammed his foot harder on the gas.
"Sh*t," both the witch and warlock muttered, while Lucky gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
BOOM
The car smashed through the living room, bursting into the house with a violent force that slammed into the witch before the vehicle could roll her over.
"Argh!" The warlock was thrown aside along with Jennifer, both managing to escape most of the damage.
Before the dust could even settle, Lucky kicked open his door, brandishing a Winchester Model 1887 lever-action shotgun.
BANG
The shotgun fired instantly, blasting the warlock backward as his body slammed into the broken wall.
Click
Spinning the shotgun to reload, Lucky swung it up again, firing a shot that clipped the warlock's right side as he raised his hands in defense.
"W-Wait-"
BANG
Blood splattered across the room, spraying Jennifer, whose hazy eyes focused on the scene before shifting to Lucky.
"Henry, Gus, get her into the car," Lucky ordered, reloading the shotgun while Henry hesitated briefly, but Gus followed his grandfather's command as if accustomed to this scene.
In fact, Gus was more impressed than afraid like Henry as he eagerly went to help Jennifer, curious to see what Lucky would do, only to find out as he walked toward the front of the car.
BANG
Blowing apart the brain of the witch struggling to claw her way out from under the rubble, Lucky eliminated the two intruders sent to Jennifer's house before turning back to the scene.
He noticed Gus staring intently at the shotgun while gently pushing Jennifer away to shield her from the sight and then Lucky's gaze shifted to Henry, still frozen in the backseat.
"Henry!" Jennifer lunged at him, clutching him tightly and shielding him from the horrors around them as Lucky nudged his head toward Gus.
"Back seat. Go."
Gus hesitated for a moment, then turned and obeyed as Lucky got into the front seat of the car.
"Franky, how close-"
"Two minutes, we're two minutes away-GET THE F*CK OUTTA THE WAY!" Frank roared from the radio, horn blaring as Lucky could even hear his tires screeching.
"Chip away as many seconds as you can, don't waste a single one."
Meanwhile at Alina's,
"Paolo?"
David whispered, eyes wide, staring at the boy who smiled through the pain, through the blood smeared across his face.
"Paolo~" Isabella echoed mockingly, her voice sing-song, like a cruel child at play as she cocked Vito's finger back on the trigger, then gently laid her own over his trembling one.
"You both make me sick."
But it was then, when Isabella uttered those single words, meant to degrade, that the ripple Raven started with a click of a device, along with the anti-magic barrier Chuck set up while Alina was sleeping, suddenly activated.
Thud
Three thuds struck the ground simultaneously, freezing everyone, including the witches, in place.
Absolute silence fell over their arrogant, borderline psychotic demeanor as Isabella's eyes narrowed.
She looked down at the double-barrel shotgun trembling violently not from fear, but because she was struggling to move it.
Because Vito was holding her back.
"Ha~" Vito laughed, glancing up at the twins holding Paolo and David before throwing his head back with all his might.
CRUNCH
"AHHHHHHHH!" Isabella screeched as the back of Vito's head slammed into his nose, causing his eye to twitch.
Vito's consciousness was fading as he looked at Paolo, who suddenly understood which made the bull smirked.
"Don't f*ck this up, kid." Vito huffed, his last shred of awareness slipping away as he tossed the double-barrel shotgun to Paolo, who quickly elbowed Zara, who was holding him.
THUMP
Paolo's heartbeat thundered in his chest as Vito fell limply to the ground. Paolo reached for the double-barrel shotgun.
"YOU!" Zara screeched, lunging toward him, but the vengeful kid's hands gripped the shotgun tightly as he spun around.
BANG
SPLAT
The shotgun shell exploded with brutal force, sending a spray of tiny, deadly pellets tearing through the air.
Half of Zara's face was shredded instantly, flesh and bone blown apart in a spray of blood and tissue as the fragments splattered onto the ceiling above.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Zara screamed, clutching the side of her face where jagged bone now showed through torn flesh as she staggered backward.
"ZARA-"
"DAVID, DUCK!" Paolo yelled, raising the shotgun toward Ava, only for Isabella to lunge at him.
BANG
SPLAT
Another shell blasted outward, missing Ava but jerking the shotgun barrel directly toward Zara, who looked down in horror.
A massive, ragged hole tore through her stomach as blood gushed down her daughter's exposed chest cavity.
"Mommy?" Zara whispered weakly, reaching out trembling hands toward Isabella, whose eyes shook with terror.
"Go to hell!" Paolo interrupted their sudden loss, slamming the butt of the shotgun hard into Isabella's throat.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Isabella screamed as Paolo's manic charge surged toward Ava, who turned to face him after watching her sister's slow, agonizing death.
BAM
Paolo tackled Ava, forcing David to stumble forward as he wrestled the now lone twin to the ground.
"N-No, let me go-"
BAM
Paolo slammed her face into the floor, shattering her nose under the brutal impact as he gripped her head with hateful force.
"GO!"
BAM
"TO!"
BAM
"HELL!"
Blood splattered across the floor as Isabella rushed over and leapt onto Paolo's back.
"STOP STANDING THERE AND GET THEM OUT OF HERE!" Paolo yelled, crashing into the nearby wall and slamming Isabella against it.
Bam
Bam
Isabella slammed her fist into Paolo's head as David flinched, slowly rising to his feet.
"O-oh, yeah, right," David realized, glancing around before rushing over to the crying Alina.
"I'm here to help-"
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Ava screeched, leaping onto David's back and tackling him to the ground as Marco pulled Alina along.
"Ma, come on, we've gotta go!" Marco yelled, dragging the trembling Alina, who slowly nodded in agreement.
Outside, the magic binds meant to temporarily hold the zombies began to loosen, the creatures writhing within their restraints as they turned their gaze toward the intruders battling inside the house.
BAM
Blood splattered from Paolo's face as Isabella kicked him hard, launching him into the air with a fierce scissor kick.
"I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS, THEN I'M KILLING THAT B*TCH FOR WHAT YOU DID-"
"OH MY GOD, SHUT THE F*CK UP!" Paolo yelled, rushing at Isabella only to be kicked across the face again.
Backing up, he glanced to the side and saw Ava clinging to David's back, punching him as he ran around like a headless chicken.
"DAVID, SHARK TEETH!" Paolo yelled, just as Isabella kicked him in the face again.
"Oh sh*t, I forgot," David muttered, opening his mouth wide and biting down hard on Ava's arm wrapped around his neck.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ava screeched, her arm being shredded as rows of razor-sharp teeth tore through it like butter.
Marco, holding Moxie, dragged Alina, who clutched Sophie, toward the door, while Isabella watched the chaos unfold.
"OH KNOW YOU DON'T-"
BAM
Suddenly, a chair was thrown at Isabella, knocking her back near the stove where she accidentally twisted the dials all the way up.
Gas flooding into the house to the unaware fighters, Paolo picked up another chair and threw it at Isabella who was prepared this time.
Catching the hurled chair, she redirected it and threw it towards David who was about to fully bite Ava's arm off.
BAM
David immediately slumped as the chair knocked him to the ground, while Ava, finally free, crawled away from the mutant.
"God dammit, David." Paolo sighed, just as Isabella spun around and charged at him.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
Meanwhile, Marco led Alina into the garage as another car sped through the neighborhood and crashed into the gate leading into the house.
BAM
"We ain't late, we ain't late." Frank muttered, speeding the car up the driveway as fast as he could.
BAM
But then Marco slammed on the gas, reversing the car inside the garage, crashing through the door and heading straight for Frank's vehicle.
BAM
Immediately, the two cars collided, slamming into each other as the airbags deployed with a sharp blast as Frank quickly climbed out of his vehicle.
"AYE, MARCO, IS THAT YOU?" Frank shouted while Barko also stepped out to check the situation.
"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The chilling screams of the undead echoed in Frank's ears, making him flinch and clutch his side just as they charged toward the house.
"Holy sh*t," Frank whispered, terrified out of his mind, but he turned back to the car to grab the crying Alina, who held Sophie and Moxie in her arms.
"Come on, darling, I've got you." Frank soothed, pulling Alina and Marco along as the undead burst into the house.
"SCREEEEEEEEE!" The undead screamed, bursting through a shattered window and scanning the room.
"Mommy!" Ava cried, trying to run toward Isabella only to be tackled by three zombies.
"Holy sht, holy sht!" David whispered, scrambling away in terror as the undead tore the twin who had exploded his friends into pieces.
"AVA!" Isabella screamed, pushing Paolo aside and rushing toward her only daughter, who was being eaten alive.
"DAVID, WE GOTTA GO! HELP ME GET VITO!" Paolo yelled, urging the terrified mutant over as they slung Vito's arms around their shoulders and bolted.
Their eyes were completely drowned in fear as the undead moved past them as if they were invisible, their gaze fixed solely on Ava and Isabella.
"NO, LET ME GO, LET ME GOOOOOO!" Isabella screamed, caught in the wave of the horde as rotten, broken teeth tore chunks of flesh from her body.
Paolo and David limped out of the house with Vito as Isabella raised her hand amid the horde, the gas stove suddenly flickering to life amidst the gas already polluting the house.
BOOM
The house exploded, sending the limping survivors, including Vito, hurtling forward as Frank's eyes widened at the coming chunks of debris and yanked Alina toward him, shielding her with his body.
A faint ringing plagued their ears while Paolo, barely conscious, felt the world spinning wildly around him.
The ruined dirt lay beneath him as he grasped at it, as if trying to anchor himself.
Then someone came into view, David, tapping his cheek and saying something, though the words didn't register.
It wasn't until the world sharpened, like his head breaching the surface of water, that he finally heard them.
"PAOLO, WE GOTTA GO, RIGHT F*CKING NOW!" David yelled into Paolo's eardrums, the young Italian looking up just in time to see Marco yanking Vito into the car.
BOOM
Another explosion suddenly billowed from Alina's house, and she flinched, looking up only to have her eyes widen in shock.
"Frank-"
"Go, missy. It's gonna be alright," Frank said with a gentle smile, patting Alina's cheek before turning to Barko.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The scream tore through the blaze, sharp and jarring, forcing everyone to flinch, snapping their heads toward the source, only to see a figure emerging from the thick curtain of smoke.
"Take their car, Barko. They're in your hands now, I'll deal with this." Frank said immediately, climbing into his own car as Barko stood frozen in shock.
"But Frank-"
"GO!" Frank yelled, limping toward the car while clutching his side, just as a voice began to echo from within the vehicle.
"Franky, Franky are you there!"
"Lucky-" Frank huffed, his left hand clenched around his side where a jagged piece of debris was impaled, only for Lucky to interrupt him.
"Franky, Franky, listen, meet up at the-"
"Lucky—" Frank huffed, his words trailing off as he caught sight of Barko in the rearview mirror, their eyes locking for a split second before Marco slammed on the gas.
"Get Alina to the house over at Groove and I'll send guys-"
"Look~"
A weak, whimpering voice suddenly pierced the air, its soft, melodic tone so haunting it sent shivers down even Frank's spine.
"You've got to be sh*tting me," Frank muttered, wincing as he looked toward the rubble of what used to be Alina's house only to see, impossibly, Isabella emerging from it.
BOOM
The anti-barrier had been destroyed by the blast from the house, allowing magic to once again flow into the scenery and with it, Isabella's blue grimoire.
"LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY FACE!" Isabella screeched, her grimoire flapping wildly as a blue glow signaled the casting of a powerful spell.
Half her face had been ripped away by the undead, leaving her a two-faced conundrum, one side grotesquely damaged, the other eerily intact, fueling the maddening fury that now gripped her mind and the fatal vistage of her half eaten, burnt body.
"Oh no," Barko whispered, feeling the magic charging in the air, rippling around their car before a pulling suction suddenly appeared, a translucent blue orb swirling around Isabella.
"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THAT F*CKING SLUT AND HER FACE!" Isabella roared, her manic eye dangling from its socket as she scanned the area, locking onto the car trying to speed away into the distance.
"We gotta wait-" Marco began, realizing Frank wasn't there but Barko interrupted, placing a firm paw on the young man's shoulder.
"No, leave." Barko said sharply, locking eyes with Frank in the rearview mirror before turning his gaze back to Marco in the driver's seat.
"But-"
It was then that Alina, glancing behind her from the backseat, locked eyes with Isabella's crazed single eye as she flinched and ducked, pulling her children close.
"There you are~" Isabella hummed eerily, holding her still-intact hand out toward the car.
"Such pretty skin is wasted on you-"
BAM
Without hesitation, Frank slammed on the accelerator, the tires of his Cadillac screeching as it lunged forward, crashing into Isabella.
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Frank yelled as the Cadillac's fiery tires spun, while Isabella clawed desperately at the front of the hood, trying to avoid being run over.
"STOP RUINING EVERYTHING!" Isabella screamed in a maniacal tone, thrusting out her hand.
Suddenly, a barrage of magic missiles rained down on the Cadillac from above, shattering the giant blue sphere into smaller shards that hurled toward Frank.
SPLAT
SPLAT
His body was being punctured again and again, his left shoulder and arm reduced to mush, while he used his already severely wounded left knee to steady the wheel.
Then, a bullet slammed into his left eye.
"JUST DIE, YOU DUMB B*TCH!" Frank yelled, his grip tightening as Isabella's bloodshot eye darted toward the distance, only to catch her own reflection by chance in a shattered pane of glass and seeing what was about to happen.
"Wait-"
SPLAT
BAM
In the next second, the Cadillac, with Isabella clawing at the hood, rocketed into the last portion of Alina's house still standing.
Without any resistance, the impact instantly cut Isabella in half, killing her instantly as her blood splattered against the shattered debris.
"Franky, FRANKY!" Lucky screamed through the radio, Jennifer holding her mouth while Gus and Henry in the backseat remained deathly quiet.
Unlike Isabella, Frank wasn't so lucky to get a quick death, his near-fatal wounds were actually keeping him barely alive as the Cadillac, crushed by the impact, caved in on the driver's seat, the overwhelming pressure suppressing much of the bleeding.
Huff
Huff
Frank's bloodied form let out low, haggard breaths as his right eye glanced toward the radio, the world spinning wildly around him.
"FRANKY, STOP F*CKING AROUND AND PICK UP THE DAMN RADIO!" Lucky screamed, his bloodshot eyes wide as his thumb turned white from pressing down on the com.
"Ha~" Frank let out a small laugh, reaching out with his last good limb as his bloodied fingers closed around the radio.
Click
"Lucky-"
"Franky, just listen, get Alina-"
"Barko's got it covered." Frank whispered weakly, his tone sending a shiver down Lucky's spine as if Lucky suddenly understood what was about to happen.
"Lucky, old pal, I think-" Frank muttered, his words trailing off before a blood-stained smile crossed his lips.
"I think I gotta call it quits." Frank laughed softly, the pain dulled by the last surge of adrenaline coursing through his fading veins.
Lucky paused for a moment, staring at the radio as a ringing filled his ears and though he'd been in this situation countless times, it never got any easier.
"This harlot, Lucky, you should've seen the gal that got me." Frank joked, a gruff chuckle escaping him. Lucky slowly shifted his gaze back to the road ahead.
"Half her face torn off and I just hit her with my car-"
COUGH
COUGH
COUGH
Frank's ragged, bloody cough echoed over the radio as he hacked up bits and chunks of blood onto his crumpled dash.
"Hey, Lucky." Frank whispered, his eyes slowly losing focus as his pupils dimmed. Lucky closed his eyes.
"Yeah, Franky?" Lucky asked, holding back every emotion his father had told him never to show another man, his eyes fixed on the road ahead and the dark night sky beyond.
"You think we're gonna see each other in hell?" Frank joked, but they both understood the deeper meaning.
"Only in the deepest pits." Lucky answered with a wry smile, no one understanding the instead joke except them.
"Hahahahahaha." They both laughed across the channel all while Lucky's hand started to tremble against the wheel.
"Y-You-.......you think I'll see Eddy down there?" Frank's words sounded nonchalant, almost mild, but his shaky tone and teary eyes carried profound meaning, unspoken feelings that ran deep beneath the surface.
"Unless he falls from the heavens above, Franky, I don't think you'll ever see him again," Lucky said softly, giving Frank the words he needed to hear.
The old timer slowly leaned back in his seat, his crushed form seeming to finally relax.
"That's good." Frank gently said, looking up at the roof to see a sliver of the night sky.
Frank Costello was born in the rugged hills of Italy but raised in the shadows of New York City.
He came over on a tiny boat as a wide eyed child, hungry, and too clever for his own good and the streets didn't wait long to claim him.
By thirteen, under the watchful eye of his older brother, he'd slipped into the underworld like a hand into a glove.
A local gang gave him the name "Franky", one where he quickly climbed the ladder of power for his willingness to do what others wouldn't, which allowed him to earn his notoriety early.
It was with the Morello gang that fate introduced him to Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the bold Sicilian who ruled Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Where others saw differences in bloodline and background, Lucky saw a kindred fire.
The two became inseparable in almost the snap of the fingers, becoming brothers in everything but blood.
But not everyone approved.
The old silicains whispered to Lucky, about how Costello was a mutt, a Calabrian outsider.
The 'Dirty Calabrian' they called him, warning Lucky not to trust him only to be ignored at every turn.
After the bloody reshuffling of power that ended with the deaths of Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, Luciano took control and divided the city between the other families.
He built a new empire on the bones of the old, and at its foundation stood Frank Costello, his consigliere, his voice of reason, his closest friend, and one of his most trusted allies.
Vito Genovese served as underboss, but it was Frank who kept the gears turning.
Costello carved his piece of the pie in silence, understanding politics, bribing judges, and controlling the city's slot machines and bookmaking rackets alongside his partner, Philip "Dandy Phil" Kastel.
He didn't need to shout, he was the kind of man who could make a mayor lean with just a whisper.
But for all he had done, his fate had already been diverted in 1927 when he met a boy, when he met Ricky Luciano.
Frank didn't know it then, but that boy would change everything and eventually, would unknowingly lead to his death.
Ribs crushed and lungs collapsing beneath the weight of twisted steel, he wasn't supposed to die like this.
Frank Costello was supposed to be more, to live a little more.
Because for all the fates he'd redirected, for every life he rewired, Ricky's butterfly effect took away just as much as it gave.
Frank Costello, the man that was supposed to be called the Prime Minister of the Underworld, feared by judges and congressmen alike, would die here.
Not in old age surrounded by all those who cared about him, but alone, broken in a Cadillac, staring up at the stars as his final chapter quietly closed within this story.
"Hey, Lucky." Frank smiled, seeing the most beautiful site in his final moments as Lucky's hand shook more vigorously while holding the wheel.
"Yeah, Franky?" Lucky choked out, taking deep breaths as Frank was one of his closest and oldest friends.
And these were his last moments.
"Thanks for taking a chance on a dirty Calabrian like me," Frank whispered, using all his strength to speak to the one person in the city who had always believed he could be more.
"No, Franky. Thank you," Lucky replied gently, making Frank smile as his right arm went limp and his hazy eyes began to dim.
"Not for the family, not for everything you've done for the streets, but for being a friend, for being my friend," Lucky spoke softly over the radio to Frank's lifeless body, his final breath escaping from his now limp form.
Lucky knew Frank was gone, that speaking any further wouldn't change a thing, yet his finger remained clenched tightly on the radio.
"You were the best hand a guy could ask for, you're-"
"Dammit." Lucky whispered, staring out the window as the others simply watched him in real time lose his best friend.
"You're already gone, aren't ya." Lucky finally accepted the truth, placing the radio talkie down and resting both hands firmly on the wheel.
The road wound upward, but the night felt goddamn endless, as if it would never end, and with every mile, the weight of loss grew heavier as people seemed to drop like flies on this cruel day.
Reaching for the radio, his hand clenched it tightly as he tuned into the frequency that held all the other mobsters, his eyes blazing with determination.
"WHAT'S THE SITUATION IN STATEN!"
COME OUT, COME OUT, YOU F*CKING RUGRAT!" Cain yelled, his grimoire flipping wildly as he thrust his hand toward the bar.
Meanwhile, Joseph approached Jeremiah, who was backing away with Zatanna and Johnny crying in his arms.
Just as the mana within Cain's grimoire was about to unleash a spell that would eviscerate the counter, Benny was the first to stand.
The device, the one Ginny had given him, identical to the one Cedric had used to incapacitate the false Morgana at the citadel, was hurled toward them.
Cain scoffed at first, only to have his eyes widen as the details registered in his retinas.
Click
The device clicked, sending a pulse rippling through the area that instantly nullified the magic being hurled at Benny.
Thunk
Two grimoires clattered to the floor, now subject to gravity as they struck the bar as Cain and Joseph flinched, momentarily thrown off by the sudden loss of their magical connection.
"YOU LITTLE SH*T!" Cain screamed, hobbling forward with a fierce limp, each step dragging heavily through the sticky, uneven floor.
His breath was ragged, rasping out like a wounded animal as he lunged toward Benny, only to be met head-on by the boy's sudden, explosive charge from the countertop.
Benny's clothes were soaked in dark, drying blood that clung to his skin in jagged, ragged patches.
Crimson dripped from the edges of torn fabric and pooled beneath his feet, staining the floor with the scent of iron and death.
Splattered streaks ran down his face and neck, mixing with grime and sweat, his skin pale and ghostly beneath the gore.
His eyes, bloodshot and strained, blazed with a ferocity that was raw, unnatural, and terrifyingly unchildlike.
They burned with a rage that was impossible for someone so young to possess yet there it was, glaring at Cain with a silent promise of pain and reckoning.
Every inch of Benny's body screamed defiance and fury, a twisted silhouette of a boy forged in violence and bloodshed.
BAM
CRACK
"ARGH!" Cain howled, agony ripping through him as the bat slammed into his knee, shattering bone with a sickening crunch.
Jagged fragments seemed to splinter inside him, shooting fiery pain up his leg, making him collapse forward with a guttural groan.
Desperately, Cain swung his arm to strike Benny but the boy rolled under the attack with fluid agility.
Blood poured freely from the deep, ragged gash across Benny's back, painting the floor in vivid scarlet.
Yet his eyes gleamed with a manic fire as if the pain only fueled the storm raging inside him.
BAM
GASP
Rolling to his feet, Benny slammed the bat hard into Cain's stomach as the impact drove the air from Cain's lungs with a brutal gasp, and he buckled, collapsing to the ground in a heap.
HUFF
BAM
HUFF
BAM
Benny's ragged breaths hissed between blows as he slammed the bat repeatedly into Cain's body.
The warlock curled into a tight ball, each strike driving the air from his lungs and shattering whatever resolve he had left.
"Give them to me-DAMMIT!" Joseph yelled, struggling to wrest the children free from Jeremiah's grasp.
But when he saw Cain's brutal beating, his anger boiled over, and he shoved Jeremiah aside without hesitation.
The child staggered back, dragging the two children with him as Joseph charged toward Benny, who was still pounding Cain's flesh with the heavy wooden bat.
Bam
Joseph tackled Benny with ease, driving his shoulder hard into the boy's side and using his full body weight to pin him down as they crashed to the ground.
BAM
BAM
Joseph quickly slammed his fist into Benny's face twice, each punch sending a sharp, ringing shock through Benny's ears as his brain slammed violently against his skull.
Cough
"Hold him steady~," Cain coughed out, blood bubbling at his lips as he wiped his mouth. Joseph locked Benny in a full nelson, restraining the boy from struggling.
BAM
BAM
BAM
Cain slammed his only good fist repeatedly into Benny's stomach as Joseph held the boy down firmly.
"Finish him already!" Joseph yelled at Cain, casting a sharp glance at Jeremiah, who was struggling to secure Zatanna and Johnny in his arms to carry them out of danger.
Cain's eyes burned with hatred as he stared down at Benny, who looked up weakly, blood dripping from his cracked lips.
Winding up his only good fist, Cain prepared to deliver a crushing blow after another.
Benny's head dipped slightly, the blood trickling from his mouth a grim reminder of his fading strength.
Exhaustion gnawed at his bones, creeping in relentlessly after pushing himself so hard.
Ever since joining the Luciano family, all he'd done was throw himself into harm's way, time and time again.
'Why do I want power?'
Benny had that same thought again, just as Cain's fist slammed into his jaw, snapping his head sharply to the side.
Blood spat from his cracked lips, his hazy eyes fixated on the ground while Jeremiah watched silently.
It all started with power.
His mother's apple stand had been terrorized by Ricky's gang and all other gangs alike, but all Benny ever thought he wanted was to sell apples in peace.
But then he met Ricky, and somehow, the words Ricky spoke that day struck a chord deep inside the otherwise emotionless Benny.
'Why do I want power?' Benny asked himself again, just as another fist plummeted into his face, swelling the left side painfully with each brutal blow.
"Because power is everything,"
Then, suddenly, Benny felt Ricky's voice whisper in his mind once more. His near-death state blurred reality, plunging him into a hallucination.
As he looked up, he didn't see Cain, but Ricky staring back at him.
Wearing his smile, bending down to meet Benny's curious gaze.
"Power gives you control. Over your life, over your choices, over the people who'd rather see you crawl than stand tall," Ricky said with a wide smile, drilling the mindset into the unknowing kid before him.
"It's what made you straighten that kid out for talking bad about me, 'cause you know I have the power to wipe away this entire f*cking block." Ricky poked at his chest, not hiding the fact that if he wanted to, then he could downright destroy this entire block.
"That's power, that's my Luciano family." Ricky waved, backing up and walking down the road.
"You follow me, kid, and you'll see power that can uplift a simple apple vendor into something, something real."
Those words had doomed Benny to this moment, watching Ricky walk away and Cain winding up to deliver another crushing blow.
But as Cain's bloodied fist swung forward, Benny's hazy eyes sharpened with sudden clarity, a manic, crazed look flashing through the pain.
Instead of waiting for the punch, Benny slammed his forehead into Cain's fist, meeting it halfway with fierce determination.
CRACK
"Urgh, motherf*cker!" Cain grunted, clutching his only good hand, the one untouched by the explosion's burns as Benny lifted his heel and drove it hard into Joseph's foot.
"Argh-" Joseph grunted, recoiling and lowering his chin, only for Benny to slam his head upward with a sharp, brutal strike.
BAM
"Ah!" Joseph yelped, releasing his hold as Benny stumbled backwards, clutching his nose as the kid dropped to his knees.
But then he rose again.
Beaten time and time again, with no powers and nothing but sheer grit, Benny stood back up.
His bloodied small hand closed tightly around the baseball bat lying on the ground.
"I want~" Benny muttered through his swollen lip, standing up and swinging upwards.
BAM
SPLAT
The bat swung in a perfect arc, striking Cain's approaching chin with brutal force as four of his lower teeth shattered and flew from his jaw, accompanied by a spray of blood.
THUMP
"I want everything!" Benny's crazed second wind ignited, the hateful fire blazing in his eyes as he spun around and slammed the bat into the approaching Joseph.
His heart pounded fiercely, driven by the promise Ricky had made that day.
Until he had it all, everything, he wouldn't stop.
He couldn't.
Jeremiah stood frozen in stunned silence, watching Benny fight two warlocks at once, his bloodied form refusing to relent as their battered bodies lunged and struck.
How could someone keep going with nothing?
Benny had nothing, he was just a normal human, yet in that moment, he was stronger than Jeremiah.
Driven by nothing but his own will, Benny pushed himself beyond all limits.
Jeremiah looked down at his own hands, his soft, uncalloused hands, before feeling the crushing weight of his own helplessness.
He knew he should just run, run away from this bar and try to get the kids out of here.
So why did his hand reach forward?
"Mr. Ugly?" Johnny sniffled, watching Jeremiah scramble not toward the fight, but toward the two grimoires lying limp on the ground.
The two children watched quietly as they huddled behind him.
Jeremiah knelt down before the grimoires, turning them open and biting each of his thumbs, smearing his blood onto the pages.
Such acts were forbidden by the coven, thoughts like these were taboo, let alone action, but Jeremiah felt compelled.
Not by the coven, but for the first time, for the Luciano family.
Because deep down, he admired how Benny could wholeheartedly dedicate himself to something without expecting anything in return.
"Y-You, what are you doing?!" Joseph cried out, staggering back from a blow by the bat, only to see Jeremiah crouched at the side.
"HERETIC-" Cain suddenly yelled, shifting his attention away from Benny to witness what he believed was the greatest sin a witch or warlock could commit, only to be cut off as the bat swung toward him again.
SPLAT
Cain's head snapped around before he collapsed to the ground. Benny jerked his head to the side, spotting Joseph limping toward Jeremiah.
CRUNCH
"ARCK!" Joseph yelped as the bat shattered against his back, sending him tumbling to the ground.
HUFF
HUFF
"Get away from me!" Joseph yelled at Benny, trying to roll over toward Jeremiah, only for a rough hand to grab his legs.
HUFF
HUFF
Benny breathed heavily, summoning every ounce of strength to pull the struggling Joseph back as the anti-magic slowly dissipated.
SPLAT
Jeremiah vomited a mouthful of blood onto the two grimoires as the mana backlash from wielding books that weren't his own surged through his body, the tomes rumbling violently in his grasp.
Among the many taboos of the coven, stealing another's grimoire was the most unforgivable of all.
As the magic slowly seeped back into the bar, Cain and Joseph felt a chilling sensation, an ominous dread, as their connection to their grimoires began to weaken and fade.
"You fool, you'll only kill yourself!" Cain spat, turning his swollen, half-destroyed face toward the sight as the two grimoires began to rise but thinking that Jeremiah was trying to kill himself since what he wanted was impossible to his naive standards.
Holding up his broken hand, he started chanting a spell, dark energy swirling around his fingers.
Meanwhile, Benny loomed over Joseph, his tiny fists flaming as they slammed repeatedly into Joseph's face.
It felt like an eternity, the sickening sound of flesh meeting bone echoing with each brutal punch, yet Cain's bloodshot eyes remained locked on Benny's impending death.
"Fire spear," Cain muttered, finishing the spell as a blazing spear of fire materialized in his grasp and shot toward Benny.
The blond child didn't even flinch, continuing to slam his fists into Joseph while the fiery projectile hurtled toward him.
Boom
The spell exploded inside the bar, sending splinters of wood flying and shattering nearby furniture already broken from their fight.
"Ha~" Cain laughed from within the smoke, slowly rising to his feet.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Cain gargled, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth.
A high-ranking enforcer of the coven, Cain had been reduced to this pitiful state by a normal child.
It would be a story to tell.
"W-What?" Cain muttered, watching the smoke clear to reveal a figure standing clearly within it.
But it would be a story he'd have to tell in the afterlife, as the smoke revealed Benny, standing unflinching before him as if he didn't even blink in the face of that fire spear.
"How?" Cain whispered, dropping to his knees, eyes widening in disbelief.
His gaze then shifted to Jeremiah, blood streaming from his eyes, ears, and nose, his focus locked solely on Cain's and Joseph's grimoires floating ominously at his side.
Only two people in coven history had ever wielded two grimoires simultaneously without previously mastering one, the first was Ricky, and the second would go down in history as Jeremiah.
Jeremiah's brown eyes were replaced by the swirling green and blue covers of the grimoires floating at his side, merging into a single identical page.
"Fire spear." Jeremiah spoke calmly, releasing the spell instantly as it lashed toward Cain, who could only smile at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
SPLAT
His body exploded, chunks of flesh splattering across the bar as the doors burst open as Jeremiah and Benny's gazes flickered toward the entrance.
The grimoires flipped to a page, and Benny picked up his butterfly knife, dropped when he'd been thrown across the bar just as made men stormed inside.
"Benny?!" Little Tony exclaimed incredulously, staring at the kid before turning to Jeremiah, who stood protectively in front of a sacred Zatanna and Johnny.
"Yes-" Benny tried to confirm, but exhaustion finally overwhelmed him, and he collapsed face-first onto the floor as Little Tony rushed over to catch him.
"Jesus Christ." Little Tony whispered, looking at the sheer wounds Beny had endured and lugged him into his arms.
"Grab them, take 'em to Lucky's, I gotta take this kid to the hospital or else he's gonna kick the bucket." Little Tony ordered the made men following him before he immediately bolted out of the bar.
"Aye, kid, you're okay. Okay?" One of the made men said, creeping closer to Jeremiah, who was backed into the corner, shielding the two children behind him with his body.
"I–you?" Jeremiah spoke, only for everything to hit him at once as he fell to the ground.
"Mr. Ugly?" Zatanna asked, nudging him as the made men rushed to Jeremiah while others ran to Zatanna and Johnny.
"Jesus, this kid's bleeding everywhere." One of the made men examining Jeremiah said, scooping him up and rushing him out.
"We got Agatha's kids, Lucky. We're sending 'em over now." Little Tony's voice came over the radio as he was about to pull out only to see the made man rushing out of the bar with Jeremiah in his arms as he nodded, understanding the kid also needed treatment.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Raven screamed, holding her stomach as sweat dripped down her body while Johnny's mother stood before her.
"Get 'em here. Send some guys over to Agatha's and don't tell any warlock or witch-like nuttin, only her." Lucky muttered, side-eyeing Raven who had been taken to his mansion as she grabbed Franky's collar, with him holding up his hands.
"Woah, woah, what did I do-"
"Go get me SOME F*CKING RUM!" Raven screamed at Franky, her hair dangling in front of her face as her mood swung up one second, crashing down the next.
Sniff
"Is that so much to ask for?" Raven whimpered, watching Franky fumble for a response, clearly unsure what to do with it all as he just shrugged.
"I-"
"Here, darling." Lucky pushed Franky out of the way, handing her some of his rum as she took the bottle immediately.
GULP
GULP
GULP
Louis sort of froze at the side as Raven chugged half the bottle, Lucky laughing at the sight while Esmerelda looked up front, the blanket covering her spread legs.
"Okay honey, you need to push." Esmerelda smiled warmly, looking at Raven who put down the bottle.
"No, no, no, I can't, I need Ricky-AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Raven shook her head, panting before she screeched.
"Slick ain't here darling, he's out f*cking up the guys who dared to cross us." Lucky assured Raven, trusting Ricky completely as he grabbed her blue hand.
"But his old man is here and although I ain't much, you can squeeze my hand all ya like." Lucky smiled at Raven, the woman biting her lip only for the pain to surge within her as her head slammed back onto the bed.
HUFF
HUFF
HUFF
HUFF
HUFF
HUFF
Raven's rapid, desperate breathing, as if on the verge of giving life, seemed to merge with the fading breaths of Morgana Frost as the scene shifted to Agatha's ruined manor.
"It's over," Agatha spoke, standing across from Morgana Frost, her arm and left eye missing while seeing the made men of the Luciano family charging towards them.
"I suppose it is." Morgana Frost laughed, the undead at her sides having already torn apart the other coven members.
"Mater Merlyn, was it enough?" Morgana Frost asked as Agatha raised an eyebrow, but through one of Merlyn's orbs visible because of her remaining eye, he was watching this entire time.
"It was." Merlyn simply said, touching the orb as it dyed red.
SPLAT
Morgana Frost's head exploded in the next second. Agatha's eyes widened as the headless body collapsed to the ground, the undead swarming immediately to consume it right then and there.
"I have what I need," Merlyn murmured to himself, surveying the aftermath of the long night as he began to get to work.
Nearby, an orb flickered, playing the scene of the Knights of the Round Table rushing toward Lady Roma, who was in Asterion's hands waiting for Ricky's return.
"FREE OUR DEAR LADY ROMA!"
Author's Note: I'm sorry if it was confusing but this sort of writing, where things are happening at once was f*cking hard to right like jesus chrsit. Lemme know your thoughts if I did good or what I need to work on.
Author's Note 2: Also sorry for the late post I just wanted to get this one chap right that comes later on.