GZ Legends 34: Tiara of the Mind pt 3

Ricci sat on her throne with a cruel smirk on her face. She watched the Mayor perform a demeaning and embarrassing dance. She loved the torture she exacted on him. She delighted in keeping him vividly aware of it all. Far ahead of her, near the front door, were Lawrence and Stagefright. She particularly liked Lawrence Jackdaw whose reflexes made short work of Gypsy before she could cast a single spell. Gypsy never saw it coming and wound up in chains with severe injuries.

            “You may as well come out where I can see you, chickee. I know you’re there,” Ricci called out.

             From where they hid, Nightfall noted blank expressions on Atomizer and Redeagle. With a sigh, she touched each of them on the cheek before she stepped out with Dreamseer.

            “I’m sorry, you guys,” she thought as they both collapsed unconscious.

            “Ooh, two of you! What fun!” Ricci sneered at the two women.

            “How did you know?” Nightfall asked.

            “Oh come on! My slaves start dropping like flies and you think I wouldn’t notice? I am in their heads you know. I gotta hand it to you for getting past my police barricade though, nice work. Still, it was stupid to come here.”

            “So why don’t you call your guards on us now?”

            “Hmm, because I’m bored. Can you believe it? I have all these boy toys and I’m actually bored.” Ricci pouted. It would have been an endearing, even cute, expression on anyone else; but on her, it just looked twisted and malicious.

            “Having everything you want isn’t always a good thing,” Dreamseer said.

            “But I don’t have everything I want. I mean, where’s the sun? Even torturing fat slob here doesn’t help that. Go back there, fat slob.” She commanded the Mayor to go back by the fireplace behind her throne and he did so.

            “The blocking of the sun is one of the reasons we’re here,” Nightfall said.

            “No, you’re here because you want my power. And you can’t have it! I see from your uniform that these guys must be friends of yours?”

            “Let them go.”

            Ricci laughed and Zachariah and Kyte came down the stairs. “Now these two were fighting up on the balcony. Great display of martial skills, but I can’t have them busting up my house.” Ricci stood up and took a couple of steps forward.

            Nightfall went for her weapon, but Lawrence shot her in the back. Dreamseer locked eyes with Ricci but suddenly found Kyte’s shadow tendrils choking her. She fell to her knees as the evil woman smiled on. Ricci owned all of Miami and nothing could take that from her. She commanded all and soon the world would feel her presence.

 Then a piercing pain in her back and chest abruptly broke her train of thought. Slowly, she looked down at the fireplace poker that now protruded from between her breasts. Ricci looked up to find everything as it was before she gave the mental command to attack. Dreamseer wasn’t being choked and Nightfall was standing unharmed. They both looked surprised though.

The men around the room were on the floor thanks to a sharp wind from Sandstorm who now materialized. He also looked toward Ricci with a semi shocked expression. Ricci turned slightly to look into the enraged face of the Mayor. She crumpled to the floor, dead.

            Dreamseer had given Ricci the illusion that she had defeated them in order for Nightfall to go up and take the tiara. The illusion apparently broke her hold on the Mayor. He took the fireplace poker and exacted revenge. He didn’t know what everyone was doing when he realized his freedom and he didn’t care. He only knew of the torture. Nothing else was real for him.

 The tiara fell and rolled across the floor to Nightfall’s feet.

            “Don’t touch it,” Dreamseer cautioned, “It won’t work for a man, so only a man should touch it.”

            Sandstorm picked it up.

            Dreamseer looked up to the sobbing Mayor who stumbled backward a little, preparing to flee.

            “Wait,” she reached out to his mind to pause him.

            He put his hands to the sides of his head, “No! Let me go! Get out of my head!” He dropped to his knees where Dreamseer ran up to him.

            “Wait, please. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise, I’m not going to hurt you.” She put her hands to his temples. Nightfall yanked down some long drapes and put them around the Mayor's shoulders.

            “What she did to me,” he sobbed. “What she made me do. What she did to me.”

            “I know, I know. Let me help you. Let me heal you.” Then her voice was in his mind, No more pain, no more hurt. You can let it all go. You are better than her and you aren’t a victim anymore.

            He opened his eyes, “Yeah, not a victim.  Okay.” She helped him stand.

            “You have a city to repair.”

            “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

            “We’ll help you,” Zachariah Ace piped in. He was dusting himself off from being thrown by Sandstorm. “Now that we are all under our own control again, it’s the least we can do.”

            The Mayor looked at Dreamseer and she said, “It’s okay, they’re good people. Let them help you.”

            The Mayor nodded and went out the front door. He wanted to find something better to wear. The jesters cap lay in the fireplace.

            Zachariah and Nightfall went to retrieve Gypsy from the basement.

            “We’ll get Gypsy to our med bay on the ship. We managed to reach Earth by teleporting past the shield around the planet. Unfortunately we couldn’t affect the shield itself, but at least we’re here.” Zachariah made a sweeping gesture, “And I think we’ll take over this mansion as a base while we help clean up around here.”

            Nightfall nodded. “With permission, I want to carry on with these people. We’re getting close to solving this whole thing, but there are more artifacts to collect. They’re of grave importance.”

            “Permission granted. Just check in with us okay?”

            Nightfall nodded. She didn’t mention that there was someone else as well. Someone she wanted to know more about. News of Anubis would have to come later.

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GZ Legends 33: Tiara of the Mind Pt 2

“When we’re done, I’ll come fix your yard,” Sandstorm promised. “This will get us past the barricade.”

            “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my usual approach and fly over it all,” Kyte said. “I’ll go for the roof. My wings won’t fit in your tunnel very well.” Without another word he spread his wings and jumped into the air. He vanished in the darkness.

            They thanked the ladies for their help and filed into the dark tunnel. Just as Sandstorm said, they had to climb around pipes and even some underground wiring. Not all the pipes were in great shape from being underground. Some were rusted and old or brittle. Sandstorm protected the more fragile infrastructure with an encasement of ice. In some places the tunnel had to be adjusted to make passage possible. The others couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe at Sandstorm’s level of power. They all inwardly wondered how much he was truly capable of. He had already wrestled a hurricane and his power to transform into tornadoes and hailstorms were well known in the powered community. Now he made the earth say ‘ahh’ like a kid in a dentist’s chair.

Redeagle didn’t care for being underground.  His 7 foot body felt cramped in the narrow tunnel. It seemed like forever before Sandstorm cleared the way to a concrete ceiling above them.

            “This is the floor of her basement,” Sandstorm put a hand against it. “I can open it up except for the epoxy coated rebar in it. I have no control over things that are overly processed like plastic. Redeagle, that will be a job for you. Dreamseer, do you sense anyone above us?”

            “Only one, and very faint. A woman, she must be injured.”

            “Then let’s get moving.” Sandstorm commanded the concrete to flow back to form a hole big enough for even their biggest man, Redeagle to fit through. Red moved in and gripped the metal rebar and tore it like tissue paper with his great strength. He bent the bars downward and back in order to make it safer to climb up and into the room above. Sandstorm made that easier as well by forming a ladder of earth and concrete and solidifying it by converting all of it to stone. They climbed up into the room and Nightfall gasped at the woman chained to the wall. She rushed to the bleeding woman’s side.

            “No, what happened to you?”

            “You know her?” Atomizer asked.

            “She’s part of my team from Council Interpol. We call her Gypsy. She’s a magic user. She’s barely alive.”

            Redeagle snapped the chains so they could lay her on the floor.

            “I didn’t even know they made it to the planet.” She continued.

            “It’s okay, we’re going to help her,” Dreamseer said.

            “Yeah, but this means she must have the rest of the team.”

            “Then tell us about your team and what they can do so we can deal with them,” Sandstorm said.

            “I’ll create an image from your mind to everyone else’s and let Kyte know we are here too,” Dreamseer said to Nightfall.

            Everyone paused and closed their eyes to clearly see the mental images broadcast to them.

            “The man with the bowl cut hair is Monty, also known as Stagefright. He’s an inducing empath. His favorite trick is to cause irrational fear in his targets but he can make them feel almost anything. I’ve seen him turn alien warlords into crying babies. The man with the silvery eyes and western clothing is Lawrence Jackdaw. He’s a gunslinger and his hands can move as fast as Electrode. His plasma pistols are specially made so that he can pull the trigger and fire hundreds of times per attack. His power is limited to his reflexes, so he can’t run that fast, but he’s deadly accurate. He has one shortfall that telegraphs his attack. He likes to sweep back his trench coat to reach his weapons. It’s the only warning he allows his targets before he blasts them to bits. The blonde buff military guy is our leader, Zachariah Ace. He’s a master strategist and combatant with almost anything he can get his hands on. If he knew about the artifact, he never would have come in close.”

            Dreamseer stopped the mental projection, “It doesn’t matter how they got taken. We just have to get them out of it and stop Ricci.”

            “Then let’s do it.”

            Dreamseer could sense two men on the other side of the door from the room. Nightfall went through and touched them both. They collapsed without a sound. For that matter, no one had to lift a finger from there, even with Sandstorm in air form. She stalked up and took out each mind controlled guard with master precision and her black out power. Three men were in the kitchen. The first got a light slap to the face. Nightfall acrobatically rolled over the center island and caught the other two by their throats and gently guided them to the floor.

            During this time, six men wandered the roof of the mansion with rifles. They didn’t notice the shadows moving around their feet until they were yanked up into the air and sharply knocked unconscious. The Kyte landed and drew his long shadow tendrils back to him. He handled all six men at the same time.  He walked to the edge of the roof and dropped to the balcony below with the agility of a cat. A sharp flex of his wings knocked out another guard who stepped up behind him from inside.

            “This is too easy,” he thought. He stepped inside to find Zachariah Ace waiting across the room.

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