>>5382239Hurling harpy-woman over the guard rail and onto the floor where she won’t plummet to her doom, fighting off any flight mutants is simply a matter of waiting for them to get close enough to your reach. Once your fist makes impact, you watch the first one get propelled backwards like a frisbee.
The jewel beetle is a bit trickier, since animal instincts tend to lend into better reflexes. Like Gregor, the jewel beetle’s got six limbs and a carapace covering the whole of his body, but, funnily enough, you note that, where there should be a human mouth, there’s a serrated pair of mandibles that would tear through normal human skin with a razor-blade efficiency.
Unlike Gregor, the jewel beetle mutant is nowhere near as strong, either from atrophying in a cell for what appears to be months on end or just because that’s how he mutated. Either way, that mutant joins the rest of his brethren back on the ground, courtesy of your fists.
The next mutant that attempts to meet you on your floor is a familiar one, Julia clambering up and over the railings as soon as she latches onto them.
For a good, couple of moments, she just stands there, hand clutched so tightly onto the wall that it leaves indents behind. You suspect that something about this whole situation-- particularly the brainwashees-- has left her reeling, and you're not sure exactly what you can say to her in the moment.
Ergo, you settle for silence because, in these situations, no treatment is better than poor treatment, and you've learned that the same applies with words, giving her the space to just stand there and process it all until the guys report back to you. You think they should be done right about now...
As if on cue, your brief moment of respite is all-but-broken, not by a calm report on one of the guys' behalves, but by shouting from the other end of the comm.
“Kelpie, Jewel–” Bernard's voice cuts through your focus. “The two of you need to get somewhere safe, quickly!"
“What’s the matter?” You can’t imagine what might’ve happened on their end to make Bernard sound so worried for your safety, but you have to know.
“It’s Blaze–” Valjean says. There’s the slightest tinge of franticness in his tone, so small that nobody except for you and the rest of the M-Guard would be able to notice it. “We couldn’t get through to her, and—”
A loud, resounding ‘BOOM–’ cuts him off, fire bursting into the open floor at the bottom of the prison– a large fire that’s quickly growing into an inferno.
>(2/3) 