He gets swept up readily in the touch and kiss of the phantom of this dream soon to become nightmare. Heâs not certain when itâll distort and change or how, but heâs betting on the timing will heavily depend when his luck is drained so far that the invisible scales weighing him as either lucky or unlucky will make their unfavorable shift. But itâs hard to think long on any of that, or the battle that was still raging throughout the entire Tower, as Not-Kaz continued to give him everything heâd been longing for, despite the cruel words that echoed around them.Â
A trio of gunfire erupts suddenly from somewhere not too far away from the room he was still in, and that paired with the screams of rage and pain that followed it, manage to pull his attention away from his phantom and towards the door. He needs to get out of there, he tells himself, he needs to go track down Hyde or whoever was the source of the gunfire andâŠ..Â
âStay here⊠with meâŠ. Donât leaveâŠ.,â Not-Kazâs voice echoes through the room once more, as his free hand moves his to jaw, and gently turns Fortuneâs head back to face him. Fortune nearly fights him off this time, almost managing to slip out a âStopâ, until the phantomâs hand that wasnât holding his head in place, runs down the length of his torso and comes to a rest at the button of his trousers. And heâs a goner now⊠he knows he is, knows that the only way he was now getting out of this room was to let this play out and let Fearmongerâs powers end this however they best deem fit.Â
Itâs not much longer until he does feel the mood in the air shift, once the imaginary scales weighing his luck thud in the other direction. The phantomâs lips are at his neck, Fortuneâs own hand still carded in his curls, his eyes had fallen shut by then, but he forces them to reopen and see what has caused the shift he can sense. Once he does he sees him, the third person that made up this partial love triangle that for so long he was the only one aware of. His hold on Not-Kaz tightens as Not-Zander looms closer, the glint of the large hunting knife in his hand reflecting the light off the monitors that were behind them.
There was no stopping this nightmare now that itâd finally made his shift. He knows there was no use trying to save Not-Kaz from the blade Not-Zander was gripping onto tightly, the rage in his eyes evident as he looks over at the two of them. So he closes his eyes again, right before the knife finds its mark, and keeps them shut as he grips onto Not-Kaz as the other phantom repeatedly stabs him in the back, trying his best not to listen too closely to the sickly sound of the blade coming into contact with muscle and flesh, or the muffled and blood-choked winces of pain that spill from Not-Kazâs lips as his body slowly becomes limp in Fortuneâs arms.Â
When it seems like the attack is finally over, he opens his eyes again, to find Not-Zander glaring at him, his face and shirt speckled with the blood of the other phantom.Â
âThis will be your fault,â his voice echoes through the room, much like the other phantomâs had. And mercifully thatâs all the pain this nightmare deems fit to deal him, as no sooner than both the phantoms arrived they were gone. He almost expects to still find his shirt blood soaked from Not-Kazâs blood when he looks down to see if, after his weight leaves him, but thereâs no sign of the violence that ensued, only the disheveled and unbottoned clothing that marked what happened before.Â
Slipping off the desk, he tries to right himself again, tucking his mesh top back into his red trousers before zipping them back up. Itâs hard not to cringe at the thought that if anyone would have walked in during any of that, likely all they would have seen was him groping himself, but he figures itâs better to think about that embarrassing aspect, instead of the much more painful side to it all.Â
Once heâs put himself back together, he turns towards the monitors. Because he needs to find Hyde, and somehow get him out of his own nightmare long enough for them to find Fearmonger and put this shit to an end once and for all. It only takes him a moment for his eyes to spot Hyde out of the chaos that was ensuing on all the other monitors. His hands are stained with some kind of dark liquid, which heâs certain is blood, and heâs just as certain isnât his- which is progress, he supposes.Â
Figuring there was little else to do, but to go hunt him down, he leaves the room that housed his own nightmare behind, ready to not think about it again. Once he clicks the door shut though, and finds him back into the dimly lit hallway he quickly realizes two things- one, heâd forgotten to put his padded jacket back on. And two, heâd forgotten his gun on the desk. Quickly turning around, to head back into the room, he finds the handle frozen in place as he attempts to wiggle it.Â
âOh no⊠oh no, no, noâŠ.â he mumbles as he fidgets with the handle more, hoping that maybe he it was just stuck, and not locked. But of course itâs not - it was absolutely locked, because that was his luck now and would be, he reminds himself bitterly, for the rest of this damn battle heâs in.Â
After one attempt of shouldering through the door, that leads him no where but yelping in pain once he comes into contact with it, he throws his hands up in surrender. He was going to be stuck with no armor and no gun, and absolutely no luck at all, and he was just going to have to damn well deal with it.Â
âHyde, if you shoot me, Iâm going to kill you,â he grumbles again, as he marches in the direction he hoped the other villain was in, eyes squinting as he navigates through the dark.Â
cw: a LOT of violence in this one, gendered slur, #justhydethingsÂ
The split second that heâs distracted trying to take back over from Sebastian is apparently all Lynx needs, not to get back to her feet but to pull out a gun of her own, because he feels the bullet in his arm before heâs even processed that sheâs still moving, down there, and all he can do is grit his teeth hard as it pierces his right bicep and pain burns through his armâ
What the fuck, what the fuck, holy fucking shit, what the fuck, Sebastian thinks, looking down at his arm, which feels like itâs on fucking fire, and his sleeve is soaked with blood that he can tell is his this time and not whoever is on the ground. He stumbles back a few more steps, away from her, away from the gun that sheâs raising again and pointing at himâ
And Hyde fires, again, this one hitting her in the wrist, and she drops the gun, and he moves to stand over her, gun aimed straight at her chest.Â
   âI said stay the fuck down,â he spits, as he kicks the gun out of her reach, listening as it skitters across the floor, sliding to the other side of the... hallwayâ the street? His perception of things is blurring, between the nightmare and the reality, he canât quite tell which one heâs in from one moment to the next, andâ
And oh god, Sebastian thinks, looking at his own hands pointing a gun at her, his finger half-depressing the trigger already, and he steps back again, away from her, tries to drop the gun but his hands wonât let him, something is telling him to keep it, that he needs it, that things will get a lot fucking worse if he drops it, and he canât imagine whatâs worse than this, he doesnât even know where he is, or how he got here. Heâs disoriented, and he might be having a panic attack, and arm hurts so fucking bad he wants to scream, and suddenly thereâs a noise, at the other end of the hall, footsteps behind him, and he wheels around to see who it is andâ
Fires. Hyde fires, three more times in quick succession, blindly in the direction of the footsteps, heads a gasp that tells him at least one of them has hit its target.
And on the ground, Lynx begins to laugh.
   âI should be thanking you,â she says, and he doesnât understand why until he looks up, squints through the darkness to make out the figure at the end of the hallway, dark costume, black greasepaint on his face, a hand over his abdomen as he falls to his knees. Fucking Mind Master.Â
His own heart rate is elevated, because Sebastianâs is. His own breathing is ragged, his adrenaline spiking. None of it is good. He needs to be able to stay calm, to stay collected. But the fucking Guardian heâs reluctantly here to rescue has fallen to the ground at the other end of the hallway, and he can feel the panic attack starting to set in now, seeping through from Sebastian and into him, and he doesnât have time for this, left arm coming up to put pressure on the bullet wound in his own arm, trying to use the pain to ground himself in the moment, to shake off Sebastianâs bullshit.Â
   âHeâs a tricky one,â Lynx continues. âBut boy did you make quick work of him.â And Hyde turns back to her, fires one last shot in her direction, directly into her gut, before he starts down the hallway in the direction of Mind Master, who has fallen completely to the ground now.
   âDie slow, bitch,â he hisses, as he steps over her, the heel of his boot coming down on her injured wrist as he does, and then leaves her behind to get to Mind Master at the other end of the hallway.Â