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To fight ... the unbeatable foe ... To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ... To run ... where the brave dare not go ... To right ... the unrightable wrong...

John Darion- The Impossible Dream

"We have to go back and get him" I said, Markus, kneeling down with some of the others said "We can't. Half of us aren't even approaching same," he gestured to the ragged forms at his feet "and without me here, we'll never get them back, Erik, stepped forward out of the shadows, his appearance causing me to wince even after all I'd seen. "No. They will pay in blood and suffering for all of this." His eyes burning with barely restrained fury as he stared at the wounded lying on the tunnel floor. Otto forced himself up onto his feet, his expression a dark mirror of Erik's. "

Well that's two of us, anyone else, Markus gestured at the wounded he was tending to, but Corvus stepped forward "I always did like a vendetta" he said through a rictus grin, looking as unstable as any of us. Adam called back from the depths of the tunnel" I work better on my own, see you at James cell." And with that we heard him break into a run. Smiling with anticipation I lead our group to another tunnel, we began the long ascent back into hell.

Around a half-mile of twisting slimy drains later, we collided with a patrol out hunting for us. "They're mine" Erik whispered to us as they walked past the storm drain we were lurking in. And with that he burst through the rusty grate and fell upon them, when we climbed out there were a pile of heads in the corridor and Erik was trying to operate one of the radios the guards had on them, his clawed hand was making it near-impossible so get at the buttons so he tossed it to Otto while Corvus and I went over the bodies. Getting hold of a rifle I sighted down it and before I really knew what I was doing I was halfway through a 7-point check. Pointing this out to Corvus, who had yanked out a bowie knife from a corpse's ribcage and appraising it. He looked over, saw my confusion and my half examined firearm" don't you remember our little leaving present before we were snatched away, that was years of basic military, medical, magical training compressed into a convenient infodump. Ergo, you could probably do that blind and enchant the rounds inside with death curses, but it does take a while to sink in." Otto had finished fiddling with the radio and we listened to the speaker drive himself to apoplexy as he summoned all the other patrols to our location. Otto changed, he snarled slowly, causing even me to shiver, Erik pulled a long-handled scalpel out of his shredded coat, it glinted evilly, and I remembered the old platitude about those who fight monsters. A door burst open and people streamed towards us, flailing at us with their hands. We entered the fray, Erik stepping gracefully through the shambling mob, slitting throats and slashing eyes, Otto tearing through the crowd like a hot chainsaw through butter and the less said about what Corvus did to his attackers the better. Content with my rifle I remained apart from the press, opening fire wherever it would do the most good. The horde seemed to thin away until we were alone again.

We glanced around "weren't guards mentioned, in the sort of voice that implies jackboots and big, big guns, these just look like people grabbed of the street-"then the corridor wall exploded outwards and through the hole came both full-auto gunfire and masked figures wreathed in smoke. Corvus pulled up a barrier and their first fusillade stopped a foot in front of us "tactical retreat anyone" I shouted above the gunfire. "Hell with that" bellowed Corvus and launched a tide of shadow towards them, it roared towards them until it faded away barely a fingers width from their faces, "damn, they've got protection, magical at least" he muttered as he fought to keep the barrier intact, Otto changed, a high pitched whine filling the air as sparks began to flash around him, and his steel arm fired his familiar lightening arc again, and yet again it came inched away from the now established beachhead and hit an impassable barrier. Corvus was now drawing on his own body's reserves and blood was beginning to drip from his nose and ears. With a snarl that belonged more in a jungle than in a firefight Erik charged, his eyes mad with hate, towards the Enemy. "You Mad Bastard. what are you doing" I shouted to the charging figure as laser-sights covered him and they poured fire over him. He kept charging, his kneecap was shot out, he staggered but kept running, a grenade hit him in the chest and he was blown back by the explosion. The front of him was charred, lacerated with shrapnel and torn by bullets; blood began to pool around his shattered body. But he slowly began to reform, flesh growing, new skin covering burns, bones resetting, and he got back up. To the credit of the guards they didn't retreat, even when the killing started.

Once he was among them they concentrated on him, leaving us free, Otto and I Otto charged while Corvus let the shields collapse, sucking in great racking breaths as he tried to recover. Until finally there was only one opponent left, Erik turned to him, then collapsed clutching his head and crying to the ground, Otto just stood completely still and started saying "no" over and over again in a monotone that was worse than the crying and the- a voice rips through my head, nothing like Markus's gentle brushes against my consciousness, this was like a maggot burrowing through my head" you're a monster, you killed innocents over and over, but you hid, you're a coward, unwilling to face his end with human dignity, an animal not worthy of life, not worthy of your name" a river of poison poured into my soul, all my fears, all my nagging doubts, laid bare by the flood of bile" even your monster of a father would be ashamed of you, he was an abomination, but at least he knew when to die, when to stop running, you are a failure, a stubborn, bloody handed, failure. all those men who arrived before us were just people, innocents who had their minds dominated by me, even more innocent blood on your hands, it's a wonder you can still see them " I collapsed as the mind-leech stepped forward and tossed a gun at me " you caused so much suffering for your stubbornness in the chamber, let me show you" and suddenly I was there, I was looking over the tortures shoulder as he systematically removed all Lucy's implants, and let her be savaged by mad dogs, the collar still stopping her from changing, I saw Corvus being lashed with a bullwhip by a grinning fiend who then began to lick his wounds," all these horrors mounted upon each other until I grasped the offered gun and began to lift it to my mouth. "Eddie, stop! A rolling voice bellowed across the astral plane, I saw the mind-leech recoil from the voices direction, I was a shell, all motivations, all loyalties, all desires stripped out of me by the mental combat going on inside my head, but I still had the gun, so I turned it on the writhing telepath rather than myself, the howling stopped, Erik sat up, shaking his head as to get rid of the barbed thoughts flying through his head, and Otto unfroze only to collapse, then rise up and spot the groaning heap that was the telepath.

He broke him, just as he had shattered Otto's mind, however briefly, Otto began to break his body, and in the end I came over, forcibly separated Otto from Erik's scalpel and broke the poor mewling things neck to put it out of its misery. Corvus strode over, looking if possible paler than usual. "Was that really necessary, Otto, I'd hate to have to put you down because you got a taste for this" Otto snarled back" He broke my control, he made me an animal, he made me less than what I am, hard as that is to believe "gesturing at his twisted body and steel arm. " But what he got is what I would have done to him if I'd really been an animal. Think of it as reaping what he has sown, if it makes it any better."

Markus, silent for a while called, "I've located James, but this is the last you'll hear from me for a while. Any more exertion and I'm gone, goodbye, and good luck" And with that he departed, dropping a location into our heads,(something I didn't mention to the others is an image he sent me of him, blood oozing out of his mouth and from under his eyes. It was probably best not to alarm them)

We armed ourselves with the guards' weapons; we also stripped them of their talismans and shield microgenarators, and strode off into the labyrinth off corridors and blood-stained rooms, leaving a bloody path behind us until we arrived at a single locked door, with the words 'He's Waiting' drawn onto the door on what I really hoped was light brown paint, Otto tore through the door like cardboard, caught sight of what lay within and all expression went out of his face he turned to me and said " the bastards cut out his fucking eyes" Corvus blasted the door out of its frame with a burst of wind and we stepped into the shadowy room . Otto ran to the chair where he'd been bound and began tearing at his restraints, he tore them out and as we hurried in behind him, a sound came from the shadows as Adam came forward, "I'm sorry. But that was me. "He dropped a scalpel and a bundle of stained cloth, and Adam, Adam the cold, ruthless, amoral killer began to bawl, his stoicism finally broken by the horror, Otto maddened beyond all reason, charged at him, screaming, I would have let him kill Adam, but a terrible voice from the chair stopped him, "spare him, I asked him to do it. It was the only way to keep me sane. My torment was far more insidious, my Sight lets me see things as they really are, yes. Now remember the Old One, how it felt to look at, now imagine you can't look away. It was blindness or madness, I chose to be blind." "I don't want to spoil the melodrama, but we've still got to get back to the others, and there seem to be a lot of footsteps coming our way" I said as I covered the doorway. Adam forced himself up, nearly collapsing but for Otto's help and we helped lead him back to the exit. Through the winding corridors we came, bearing our wounded comrade, until Erik, who was acting as point man for us ground to a halt sharply. He turned to Corvus and said "there's a small squad just thirty meters in round this corner, they've got a telepath with them-" "how can you tell" "you can feel the pressure from some of the really good ones, only our altered states are keeping him from gutting our minds like fish, this is where you come in Corvus, one mind is fairly easy to bend to your will, but twelve ravens should confuse him enough for you to close," "Fine, Tacitus, but I'm not taking out the telepath, I've got no wish to have a possessed arm after all this." James, who had been silent, save for a few whimpers as we bound his eye sockets, shrugged off Otto and stepped forward, "Let me do i-""No. that's final, how are you going to kill someone you can't see." "I'm counting on him seeing me, if he comes near my thoughts, he'll do the killing for me" Corvus disappeared in shifting shadows, reappearing as an dozen or so ravens who swept down the corridor. They swept through the ranked men, driving them apart, but veering away from a small, intense man with burning eyes, and then James walked around the corner hiding the rest of us, right into the sight of the telepath. The telepath's body collapsed, and the pressure in our heads faded. With the death of their secret weapon and the dreadful cawing of the birds filling their ears, the guards routed and ran back into the maze of passages, exposing the entrance to the tunnels.

As we were squeezing into the tunnels, I asked James what he did to the telepath," I did nothing; he tried to possess me, now he's just another voice in my head."