[A really bad time. I can keep going with my descriptions but my answer to all of this is just. It's bad, fam. He's confused, and dizzy, and when he's hit he just feels like a wounded animal, cowering, snarling, but too afraid to bite with what little he has.
But it's that last thing that somehow cuts through all of that. Some lucid part of him that's still holding on sees the waver, knows what it looks like when someone is resisting some sort of control, and he looks up at her, eyes going wide.]
Beauregard!
[Not an illusion. That's what cuts through. This is not an illusion, this is actually her, and she needs his help. The rest is all backdrop to that, all dressing. He reaches, a little helplessly. He doesn't have any spells for this. The knife might break a charm, if it hits her, but if it's something else it might make it worse. So instead he just reaches and puts his hand on his shoulder.]
[ beau's hands claw tighter into her hair as she struggles, eyes screwed tightly shut, bent over as she tries to fight, and fight. as caleb comes closer and puts his hand on her shoulder, she grabs onto his wrist like a lifeline. beau takes a deep, painful breath and shouts, trying to get free, relying on that grip - her head snaps up -
and a smile curls across her face, the light completely gone from her eyes as they fill with that same, dark black void when she looks at caleb. ]
Gotcha.
[ and this time, there's no mic needed, because beau just takes the stand like her quarterstaff and slams it into caleb's gut, and hard. the beau who is absolutely not beau pulls the mic back up to her mouth but doesn't speak into it afterwards, jerking her head back. ] C'mon, aren't you supposed to be smart? Can't do that either? What good are you? You're a shitty weapon and a shitty friend. Being smart doesn't do you much good if you're fucking crazy, does it?
[ in his pocket, the dagger starts to feel a little warmer; the mic in his hand does too. the mic, especially, feels familiar, like a charged spell. warm, with the familiar heat of a flame, as beau pulls the mic up to her mouth again. ]
[He doubles over again, the staff digging right into the wound that is starting to bleed down his chest, with an ugly grunt. He can't tell if - if Beau just went under again? Or no, no, it was never her. Or it - was it?
He's confused, and he can't tell. He can feel that heat in his pocket, and its comforting. He wants to burn this place to this ground. It should make him sick to think of using fire like this, but he has always loved the way it makes him feel powerful, not frightened and angry and bleeding with a mind at the mercy of this thing. But he doesn't - he doesn't want to hurt Beauregard - not sure enough, not quite enough. In an ordinary fight, if she was charmed, he wouldn't hesitate to hit her knowing she could take it. But here, he has a feeling that the moment he casts a spell, she will be screaming and bubbling and burning to death too, and he doesn't want to add a new memory to his old ones. He hesitates a little longer.]
[ poor caleb. beau's voice falls into that modulated, low growl as she lifts up the quarterstaff again. ]
You're pathetic. [ and her eyes are still that horrible, black void as she touches something on the microphone - a bright blue light blazes up the fabric wrapped around it, like it's charging up. ] You know there's really no forgiving you, for what you did. Not by your family.
[ she takes a step forward - the sonic boom effect is returning, now, a hit on family ] and not by us, either. [ another step forward, another boom of a hit on us. ]
I always thought you were like a brother to me, Caleb. Bren. Whoever you are. [ she swings the microphone back around to her mouth; the bright blue light suddenly finds its way to the copy of her tattoo etched onto the mic, and turns a bright, searing red. the eyeball in the center blinks open and staring, and the not-quite beau grins, the red light reflecting back on her face. ]
But if you're my family, I guess that means I've got to kill you before you kill me first, huh?
[The thing is, one small detail that shouldn't pierce through the haze so much but does, is that Beau has never called him Bren. Not once. All of them have known his name for a long time now, but they do not call him that. He's long since stopped thinking of that as his name, who he is. Even if Caleb is a pseudonym, Caleb has people who love him, and Bren is nothing more than a curse for an old man to spit at him to force him to remember life before that.
She could be under some kind of curse. Maybe. A strange curse, because if she wanted to hurt him, she doesn't need the mic to do it, to charge up any sort of magic, and instead she's just talking at him, saying things that claw at his insides but that he's confident enough in now she doesn't believe. None of them believe that. They all know what he's done and they still care for him, and it is disgusting to twist it this way.
Disgusting, doesn't deserve to continue to exist. He pulls that mic out of his pocket, somehow feeling as though he understands what he's supposed to do with this little toy. Because Beauregard wants to fight him using magic instead of fists.
And he's just going to shout into it.]
Fuck off.
[A ragged pant of breath while he sees if it did anything, but he still goes on - ]
Fuck off. You're speaking nonsense and lies, you know nothing, your little game is tiring me. Get out of my head, get out of my friend. Dissolve into ashes and choke on them.
[ caleb did such a beautiful job of describing his hypnosis microphone that it works beautifully. the mouth of the frumpkin shaped attachment opens as he speaks - amber sparks shoot of of the sides of the microphone, and the flames on the side seem to heat up warm under caleb's hand as he speaks. fuck off makes the mic spark brilliantly bright, once, the heat like a flash in a pan, and then as he keeps going, the metal warms and warms and warms. and then as he reaches dissolve into ashes and choke on them, all of the sound in the area seems to disappear, like it's in a vacuum, and everything freezes for one perfect, crystalline moment --
the air before a lightning strike brings to focus the crowd around them. the members of the crowd's faces turn to red hair and fear and terror, until every face left is caleb's parents, staring
and beau, who stands in the middle. she looks at caleb for a millisecond, just long enough for all of the black to melt out of her eyes. just long enough for expression to contort into utter, complete fear.
-- and then there's an explosion of flames that rip out of the microphone. they tear through the scenery like paper and roar through beau, through the crowd, as everything in a mile radius is incinerated in a matter of a second.
and as the light from the explosion fades, caleb gets one last final glance of what's left of the street he was standing on --
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no subject
But it's that last thing that somehow cuts through all of that. Some lucid part of him that's still holding on sees the waver, knows what it looks like when someone is resisting some sort of control, and he looks up at her, eyes going wide.]
Beauregard!
[Not an illusion. That's what cuts through. This is not an illusion, this is actually her, and she needs his help. The rest is all backdrop to that, all dressing. He reaches, a little helplessly. He doesn't have any spells for this. The knife might break a charm, if it hits her, but if it's something else it might make it worse. So instead he just reaches and puts his hand on his shoulder.]
Let's get out of here, let's go!
no subject
and a smile curls across her face, the light completely gone from her eyes as they fill with that same, dark black void when she looks at caleb. ]
Gotcha.
[ and this time, there's no mic needed, because beau just takes the stand like her quarterstaff and slams it into caleb's gut, and hard. the beau who is absolutely not beau pulls the mic back up to her mouth but doesn't speak into it afterwards, jerking her head back. ] C'mon, aren't you supposed to be smart? Can't do that either? What good are you? You're a shitty weapon and a shitty friend. Being smart doesn't do you much good if you're fucking crazy, does it?
[ in his pocket, the dagger starts to feel a little warmer; the mic in his hand does too. the mic, especially, feels familiar, like a charged spell. warm, with the familiar heat of a flame, as beau pulls the mic up to her mouth again. ]
no subject
He's confused, and he can't tell. He can feel that heat in his pocket, and its comforting. He wants to burn this place to this ground. It should make him sick to think of using fire like this, but he has always loved the way it makes him feel powerful, not frightened and angry and bleeding with a mind at the mercy of this thing. But he doesn't - he doesn't want to hurt Beauregard - not sure enough, not quite enough. In an ordinary fight, if she was charmed, he wouldn't hesitate to hit her knowing she could take it. But here, he has a feeling that the moment he casts a spell, she will be screaming and bubbling and burning to death too, and he doesn't want to add a new memory to his old ones. He hesitates a little longer.]
no subject
You're pathetic. [ and her eyes are still that horrible, black void as she touches something on the microphone - a bright blue light blazes up the fabric wrapped around it, like it's charging up. ] You know there's really no forgiving you, for what you did. Not by your family.
[ she takes a step forward - the sonic boom effect is returning, now, a hit on family ] and not by us, either. [ another step forward, another boom of a hit on us. ]
I always thought you were like a brother to me, Caleb. Bren. Whoever you are. [ she swings the microphone back around to her mouth; the bright blue light suddenly finds its way to the copy of her tattoo etched onto the mic, and turns a bright, searing red. the eyeball in the center blinks open and staring, and the not-quite beau grins, the red light reflecting back on her face. ]
But if you're my family, I guess that means I've got to kill you before you kill me first, huh?
no subject
She could be under some kind of curse. Maybe. A strange curse, because if she wanted to hurt him, she doesn't need the mic to do it, to charge up any sort of magic, and instead she's just talking at him, saying things that claw at his insides but that he's confident enough in now she doesn't believe. None of them believe that. They all know what he's done and they still care for him, and it is disgusting to twist it this way.
Disgusting, doesn't deserve to continue to exist. He pulls that mic out of his pocket, somehow feeling as though he understands what he's supposed to do with this little toy. Because Beauregard wants to fight him using magic instead of fists.
And he's just going to shout into it.]
Fuck off.
[A ragged pant of breath while he sees if it did anything, but he still goes on - ]
Fuck off. You're speaking nonsense and lies, you know nothing, your little game is tiring me. Get out of my head, get out of my friend. Dissolve into ashes and choke on them.
no subject
the air before a lightning strike brings to focus the crowd around them. the members of the crowd's faces turn to red hair and fear and terror, until every face left is caleb's parents, staring
and beau, who stands in the middle. she looks at caleb for a millisecond, just long enough for all of the black to melt out of her eyes. just long enough for expression to contort into utter, complete fear.
-- and then there's an explosion of flames that rip out of the microphone. they tear through the scenery like paper and roar through beau, through the crowd, as everything in a mile radius is incinerated in a matter of a second.
and as the light from the explosion fades, caleb gets one last final glance of what's left of the street he was standing on --
ashes.
there's nothing left but ashes.
the next time he blinks, he'll find himself standing somewhere else entirely. ]