End of Innocence

Posted on Sat Apr 30th, 2022 @ 11:48pm by Private Mattias Tonelly & Head Mistress Absynthe "Syn" Drake

Mission: Tales of the Unawakened
Location: Long Island, NY
Timeline: Present Day

The day had been perfect. The weather had been sunny and comfortable, the crowds had been happy and smooth flowing. Their day at Adventureland had been one of the best days Mattias could ever remember having.

As they enjoyed the day of fun, they had no idea that they were being stalked. Driving home, talking and laughing about the day, they didn't know that it would be the last time they would ever be together again.

Pulling up in the driveway, David pressed the button on the remote to open the garage door. It didn't open. "Oh, great. Looks like the fuze burned out," he grumbled slightly. "I'll be right back guys." He put the van in park and got out to manually open the garage door.

While the door opened manually, and nothing seemed immediately amiss, the darkened garage was oddly silent. The normal ambient sounds and sensations that came with any house were missing. No water running quietly through pipes, no nearly inaudible electrical hum that was normally tuned out during day to day life, no feeling of air movement from the air conditioning, rendering the atmosphere warm and heavy.

As soon as he opened the garage door, David could sense something was off. Looking over at the small clock radio above his workbench, he saw that the power was out. He started to relax, until he realized that his neighbors still had power. Reaching into his pocket for the van's keyless fob, he locked the doors, securing his family inside. Looking back at Baeryn, their eyes locked and he gave her a serious look. He then entered the garage, reaching under the workbench to the hidden pistol safe he had there.

After retrieving the Walther PPQ, he double checked that it was loaded and a round was chambered. He then started towards their home's interior door.

At first, Baeryn seemed confused, then the look on her husband’s face nearly caused her blood to run cold. She looked back at Mattias, put her finger over her lips, then slowly slid over to the driver’s seat, adjusting it so that her legs could reach the pedals. Her gaze went back to David as he entered the house.

Keeping the pistol low and ready. His trigger finger pressed along the side of the slide, David reached for the knob to the interior door.

In the van, Mattias was starting to feel scared. He had never seen either of his patents act like this before. He wanted desperately to ask what was going on, but he followed his mother's instructions to stay quiet.

The woman in white lifted her head from her long, white fingernails when she heard the garage door open. Moments later, she had already gone traipsing through their minds. Male adult. David. Combatant. Female adult. Baeryn. Non-Combatant. Male mid-adolescent. Mutant. Non-Combatant. Her quarry had finally returned home.

The Ice Queen had long grown bored of these types of monotonous errands. Not that she disobeyed orders, but she would prefer something different, more stimulating, useful. Something that didn’t involve kidnapping some whimpering child and delivering them to the madmen that would mold them into what HYDRA wanted them to be. Like chasing down her half-sister and delivering some long needed punishment.

They had denied her request to join the team that was going to be going after her. They told her that she was too close to the target. Why her superiors thought that to be an issue, eluded her. They themselves had seen to the removal of her emotion centers. Sure, they had managed to escape her twice before, but that wouldn’t have been an issue. Their guard had been down, wrapped up in the nonsensical affairs of a wedding. They had been on an island that had taken some substantial last minute intel to track down.

Regardless, she had her orders, and tonight it was the retrieval of some paralyzed brat that had been sniffed out through recent medical examinations. They had warned her of the father’s history, but none of that really mattered when it came to her skills and abilities. She only had a five man team on standby, and that was mainly for transport. The white-clad lady simply sat in the middle of their couch, stretched her arms and coat out along the back of it, her legs crossed, silently waiting for David to step into view.

Through his years of training and combat, David could feel that his home wasn't empty, even before he turned the corner. As he reached the doorway, he brought his pistol up in a two-handed hold, raising it up to look down the iron sights, he stepped into the doorway, not fully exposing himself. His eyes locked on the woman, and he remembered a newsreel about her.

Without giving a warning, he finished raising his pistol and started to squeeze the trigger.

Stop! The command wasn’t so much spoken, as it was broadcasted directly into David’s mind. Without will his body froze in place, his finger pausing just as he tried to squeeze the trigger. “Nice try,” the white-haired woman said, her icy, light blue eyes not breaking his gaze. “I’ll admit, you’re quicker than most, though. It’s almost a shame that we can’t use you.

“You already know who I am, so I’ll make this blunt. I’m here for your son,” the Ice Queen said, rising from her seat gracefully, her floor-length white coat settling around her thin, pale form. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, along with a pen, then set it down on the coffee table. As she said that, the sound of the van doors opening and closing echoed through the mostly silent home.

"You can go to hell, Witch!" David spat at her as he strained to move his frozen body. "You are not taking our son!"

His eyes suddenly grew larger, when he heard the sound of Baeryn and Mattias screaming. His face grew beet red. "You BITCH!! IF YOU HARM THEM, I WILL HUNT DOWN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU COWARDS AND END YOU!!!"

“Do you know how often that I’ve heard those words,” the pale agent asked, her cold eyes watching him as he struggled against his own body. The Ice Queen strolled around the former soldier, eyeing him with all of the passion of a shark. “And they’re nothing more than the mewling of the obsolete, the weak.”

The door opened and Baeryn was slowly pushing Mattias towards them, a look of horror and panic on her normally soft, gentle features. “I...I can’t stop walking,” she whimpered as she wheeled her son around next to her husband. Her eyes grew even wider as they settled on the woman in white that was standing in her living room. “N...no. Leave us alone!” she managed to yell at the metahuman intruder.

“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” the pale woman said, coming to a stop a few paces in front of them. She lifted what looked to be a phone and snapped a quick photo. “Your genetics are of no consequence, but the lab boys do love their records,” she gave as an explanation as she slid the phone back into whatever pocket she had pulled it from.

Then her cold, light blue eyes settled on Mattias. “You don’t really look like much, but I’m certain that the scientists will figure you out. Or kill you while trying.”

Mattias looked at the woman in white. There was a mixture of fear and anger in his eyes. "You're a coward! Using your abilities to harm people! I'm not going to do anything you want!"

As he spoke, the air around them started to feel as if it was electrically charged.

The woman tilted her head to one side, her icy gaze even, dispassionate. “Save your ire, child. I do the bidding of my masters, nothing more, nothing less. Just as you will learn to.” Then the agent turned her gaze to the two adults in the room, a sinister faux smile sitting on her blue lips. “I’ve wasted enough time, it seems. Beat her, then kill her,” she ordered the armed man coldly, as she circled around him and began pulling Mattias back and away from the fray.

Baeryn’s eyes went wide, and it looked like she was about to scream. Instead, her jaw tightened and her eyes burned with a defiant hatred. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of seeing me break down in front of my son, you bitch!” she nearly growled through clenched teeth.

David's eyes grew wide as his body started to move against his wishes. "No…no! Don't…Don't make me do this!" Please!!" He turned to face his wife, and without hesitation, swung the pistol around and hit her across her jaw so hard, there was a clear cracking sound, indicating her jaw just broke.

An agonized cry of pain joined the sickening crack of bone, as Baeryn spun to the ground. She stifled another cry when she realized that her body had simply gone limp, not even affording her an attempt at fleeing. “Not...your...fault. Love...you...” she managed to say, her voice strained, soft.

Once she had the boy backed away, she made sure to keep his eyes trained on the carnage. “Watch closely. It’s your first time, after all. You will see it repeatedly, if you survive the process,” the HYDRA agent whispered into Mattias’ ear. “Soon, emotions won’t matter. Only the mission.”

David moved in a herky-jerky motion, as he stepped over to his wife. Tears were streaming down his face as he screamed in agony. "I'm sorry, baby!!" He then reached down and grabbed Baeryn by her hair and jerked her up into a sitting position. He then commenced to pistol whip her over and over and over, until her face was nearly unrecognizable. Through it all, David was screaming.

When he finally was allowed to stop, Baeryn was struggling to breath. David yanked her up onto her feet and then turned to position her, and himself, facing their son.

"Don't make me do this!!" He pleaded as he slowly raised his pistol up to press the barrel against his wife's right temple.

"Mama!!! Papa!!" Mattias screamed. He slowly started to break the hold on his body, blue sparks starting to emit from his body.

“Mommy and Daddy can’t protect you, Mattias. They can’t even protect themselves,” the Ice Queen said, seemingly unconcerned about the electrical charge in the air. Then she sighed as though bored with the torture that she had ordered. The emotionless woman stood and straightened her pristine white jacket, her gaze not leaving the screaming man and his battered, broken wife, both of them covered in her blood. “You’re far more powerful than either of these vermin, but you’ll find that out soon enough.” She waved her hand dismissively, sending the mental impulse to David, forcing his finger to squeeze the trigger, removing all choice in the matter.

Mattias screamed in shock and agony as he watched the left side of his mother's head explode over the stairs to her left.

David had nothing more in him. Looking at his son as he was controlled to bring the pistol up to his own temple, he managed to say, "Stay strong, Matty, we will always be with you! We love…."

His words were cut off as a second bullet tore his head apart next. Both bodies were finally released and dropped heavily to the floor, David's covering Baeryn’s.

“Well, it’s time to go, Mattias,” the woman in white said, turning to look at the shocked, screaming young man. She watched him for a moment, fighting his own broken body, fighting her hold on him. “You’re close, but not today. Sleep,” she ordered.

Tearing his eyes away from his murdered parents, Mattias glared at the woman in white, his eyes were starting to glow an electric blue. "I will kill you for….for…" his intensity suddenly faded as his head finally flopped down as he was rendered unconscious.

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TBC

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Baeryn Tonelly
Agent Eva Gideon "The Ice Queen"
NPCs
Absynthe "Syn" Drake

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David Tonelly
NPC
Mattias Tonelly

Mattias Tonelly
Unawakened

 

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