Mutant Registration: Warpath
I was going through Ryssa's blog to see what I've been missing because I have been swamped with sewing, and I realized I'd forgotten to listen to the Mutant Registration spinoff mix
That particular timeline is kind of my home when it comes to writing from Ryssa's verses so naturally I immediately wrote something new
I didn't proofread this whoops
Static. "We need covering fire. We are losing men down here, we need more men."
"There are only three of them, how are they doing this?"
"They're mutants. We never knew what they were capable of."
A laugh can be heard from the back of the courtyard, and the soldier shivers even as he releases the button on his radio so he can raise his gun again. The laugh is cold and bitter, like something out of a movie--it's broken, he can hear that, and it's terrifying. It echoes across the walls and through the mouths of the figures of ink where they stand--there are so many of them--and their faces twist. They looked like the Greek gods he's seen before, then they looked like the mutant Apollo whose face he only ever saw in news stories--covered in blood because a danger had been neutralized, he'd thought that was supposed to be a success, but it only meant war on the streets in the night, only meant he had to drag the bodies of his men back to their families and pretend he understood why it was happening--now the faces of the ink warriors melt and turn monstrous, their limbs turning into tentacles, and they aren't limited by space anymore.
He watches as one reaches out what used to be an arm, and it stretches. Ink turned into a spike pierces body armor at the heart. The ink monster pulls its tentacle back to its shoulder, a parody of a human shape, and he can see a shadow of a gruesome smile on its face.
Another melts into a pool that spreads, wrapping around a soldier's ankles and calves before tugging harshly. He hits the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and the ink immediately pours into his open mouth, filling his lungs. He chokes and splutters, clawing at his throat and the armor at his chest like it'll help.
His body stills, and the ink flows up out of his mouth like a fountain, taking on a humanoid form once more and stepping elegantly over the corpse.
A hand reaches for a radio again, this time shaking. "We need covering fire, we need help, anything, please--" His voice cracks, his soldier's facade slips, and the sound must carry back to the mutant controlling the ink because that laugh echoes through the battlefield again.
"We don't have the manpower," the response through the radio comes. "You and your men are on your own."
"What? We--"
Ink strikes his hand, leaving it bleeding as if razor sharp steel had just passed over his flesh. He drops the radio and faces death head on.
It's ink like a sword that pierces him, a solid thrust from beneath his chin to his brain, and he doesn't even have time to recognize the pain before blackness closes in.
He falls with his shoulder pressing the button of his radio to the ground.
Static.
.
Montparnasse does not scare. He has never been frightened for his life. He accepts his fate--he knows that this fight ends with him dead, knows it's always been just a matter of time.
But now he stands beside Grantaire, Grantaire who allied himself with Montparnasse when they barely knew each other, Grantaire to whom he owes his life and his freedom, Grantaire toward whom Montparnasse actually feels affection--and there are many who would attest to the fact that this is not something Montparnasse does.
Montparnasse stands beside Grantaire, and he is afraid of him.
He is afraid because he will always support this friend, but he recognizes that this is not Grantaire, not anymore. Since he lost Enjolras, Grantaire has been buried in pain and vengeance, and he doubts he will ever recover enough to dig his way back up out of this pit.
Montparnasse watched him fall and wishes there was someone who could raise him back up because he knows he can't, but he knows that the only one who could have is dead on a slab in some government morgue. What Grantaire needs now is fire, and all Grantaire is getting now is death.
What scares Montparnasse is that this is not a life Grantaire was born for. What scares Montparnasse is that he has taken to it like a fish to water. What scares Montparnasse is that Grantaire without Enjolras is infinitely more dangerous than he was with him.
What scares Montparnasse is that if Grantaire wasn't self-destructive, he could take down this government and anyone else who dared to cross him.
What scares Montparnasse is that Grantaire on the warpath is deadlier than a plague, deadlier than Montparnasse could ever dream of being. Grantaire now is all of Enjolras' fire with none of his control, a volcano in a constant state of eruption.
Montparnasse has always felt like a walking reaper, but now he knows that he is nothing more than Death's right hand.