Battle of the Mind (Jake)

[Jacob Foley]

"Aidan, hit the gazebo!" Jake cried out as he scrambled to his feet.

It was like whisper of icy breath, the hairs on his neck stood on end, and he turned just in time to snatch a smoking hand from the air. Once the rest of his attacker materialised, he buried a fist into his gut. The knife quivered dangerously overhead, and as they wrestled for leverage, Jake sought to capitalise on his blow by following up with a dirty knee lift. Instead, he stumbled through a pillar of caustic fog, rubbing furiously at his eyes.

"Get down!" he barked, and not a moment later did the first crack of gunfire pierce the night.

[Aidan Fox]

With Ramona's touch came a pulling sensation, like something was being drawn through Aidan's skin, a substance he didn't know he had. It dizzied him for a moment, and he was unsteady as he rose to his feet, as if he were standing on a tilting carnival ride. He only just absorbed Jake's warning in time to get down again, and he dove behind an old cinder block grilling pit.

Aidan leaned cautiously around the wall of the grill, just enough to see the dilapidated gazebo looming in the darkness and two dark shapes huddled inside. One of them fired off a shot that took a chip off the concrete bricks and forced him back to the other side.

He laid his hand in the dry grass again and spat out a jet of blue flame, which ran quickly over the lawn as if following a powder trail to the gazebo. The more fuel he burned, the more power was available to him, and the dry, rotting wood was pure hunger for the flames. The blue fire shot around the perimeter of the gazebo and engulfed the whole thing nearly instantaneously, forcing the two Elevens to dive away and swat at their smoldering clothes.

"Where'd the black smoke guy go--"

No sooner had he said it than he was scrambling away from a swinging knife. Aidan punched at him with a bloom of fire, but the man dissolved, ghosted around him, and reappeared behind his back to put him in a vicious arm lock.

[Ramona Calaveras]

As she scrambled for cover from the gunfire, a stream of curses tumbled from Ramona's lips and most of them aimed at herself. Playing with fire was never a good idea, even if - a short distance away - Aidan was making it look like child's play. The urge to cheer as the gazebo near enough went up in flames was curbed almost instantly as the black smoke solidified once again, snatching Aidan up into an arm lock.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Ramona felt herself slip back into the shadowy realm of the smoke man. It felt like the world had been slowed down to half speed as she saw Aidan's face gradually contort into a grimace whilst he struggled to break free. Against all common sense, Ramona let the blue fire ignite within her fist – and seconds later blinked back into existence, perpetually unable to maintain more than one 'borrowed' power at a time. Aidan jerked his head forward at just the right moment, as she threw the flame over-arm like a baseball – the sphere colliding with the Black Smoke Man's jaw seconds before he could poof out of existence.

“How you like that, cabrón!”

[Jacob Foley]

Before the gazbo was consumed in a roaring inferno, Jake was sprinting in a wide arc around a row of storage sheds, clear of the gunshots. When the startled cries of the gangbangers rang out, he reappeared close to where they had fallen, dusting glowing embers from their clothes. The nearest of the pair was on all fours, he saw Jake and scrambled for his weapon. There was the low crack of boot-meeting-jaw, and as the thug reeled, Jake advanced on his unsuspecting friend, coiling a length of chain around his fist.