Over Soon [Closed/Gabriel]

“Do you think that you can walk on it?”

Softly, Percy traces his gloved fingers over a swollen ankle, gauging the extent of the damage. Digital eyes, audaciously vibrant and animated, flick up over a psychedelic screen of static. They show concern, but composure. The voice, though muddled with the slightest static distortion, imparts confidence.

Silent, elderly gentleman nods and makes a pained effort at limping a few steps. Percy stands, one hand still on the man’s back, aiding him away from the doorway of the building and into the street where throngs of others wait on baited breath. Percy sees the uncertainty in their faces, the hurt confusion as they stare past him up into the sky.

No one ever thinks that it will happen to them.

Touko and Khyvas will still be five, ten minutes away, at least. I was lucky I was nearby.

Solemnly, Percy turns away from the crowd. The building is evacuated now. The workers should be safe.

But…

His head rolls back further and further as his eyes trace all the way up the side of the concrete bastion, settling on a floor roughly two-thirds of the way up the building where ice and ejecta have erupted from the structure, creating a fortress of cold solitude.

Spoiler:

He’s still in there. If he lets go now, the ice might melt. Who knows what will happen to the building, much less someone left inside…

With sudden energy, Percy addresses the crowd once more, his voice taking on an authoritative quality. “Listen to me, everyone! Please clear away from this structure! Police and paramedics are on their way, and the heroes will be arriving soon! For now, help anyone who appears to be injured and keep your distance!”

Luckily, the crowd is mostly calm and understanding of the situation. There is no screaming, no stampede of those trying to get away. The majority of the building had been evacuated in a calm and orderly manner, with only those nearest the incident coming away with any kind of harm.

Percy is confident that they can handle themselves. And so, with a deep breath, he crosses the threshold into the deserted offices and boards the elevator, which appears to be in working condition despite how awful the outside of the building appears.

Each floor signals its passing with an abnormally loud chime. Aside from that unsettling countdown, the journey is quiet. Percy clenches his fist, lamenting the absence of his heroes. But he knows that he must act while there is still time to help the poor soul responsible.

The cart begins to slow and groan. Percy glances up to the display to see that he’s nearing the twenty-second floor of the building. It makes sense, he muses, that the ice is building up within the shaft too. Frost is shaved away to make room for the elevator as it grinds to a nearly triumphant halt, doors cracking open to reveal that it still lacks several feet from being level with the floor of the office.

A chill slides in through the crease, sending a shiver up Percy’s spine, even through his costume.

With a forceful shove, he manages to push the doors of the elevator the remainder of the way open and step up into the offices, or what’s left of them. Computers are broken into tiny fragments. Chairs are frozen into waves of ice like ancient glacier-trapped fauna. Cubicles lay toppled like dominoes.

And the man responsible kneels in the middle of the floor, his back to Percy. He’s dressed nicely, but disheveled. He appears to be panting, out of breath.

“Sir,” Percy speaks soothingly, taking a single careful step forward. “It’s okay now. I’m Radarange. I’m here to help you.”


625

Gabriel sank to his knees panting and trembling only in part due to the exhaustion that gripped him. Adrenaline and excitement surged through him in a way it never had before. These feelings were alien to him, long forgotten, and they raged. He let out a peal of loud wild laughter that dragged off into choking sobs. He gripped his head in his hands and dug in his nails until the pain grew bad that his sobs turned into a scream that died away into silence. He looked up to the remnants of the office, to the ice that exploded outward in all directions and realized at once that the sound of the people had long since faded away.

That's right. He'd been working, and someone came in to accuse him about lapsing a deadline for work he'd completed and turned in the previous day. His teeth ground together as the memory played in his head, just the thought of their face so full of pointless fury and self-righteousness over a deadline that had no importance over, a mistake that Gabriel hadn't even made. That was it, that was the only shove he needed to get his head straight finally.

All of this was so fucking pointless. All of it. His present. His past. His future. His job, his life, his acquaintances. Tv shows and video games, shitty books and boring movies. This was the only moment in his entire life, save one, where he'd felt truly alive. Rage and misery. He realized that all along he was just looking for something that made him feel like this and now he'd found it. He saw that look on their face too as they fled, as they screamed, as they piled into elevators and into stairs and fled the office into the streets below like ants.

He'd helped them feel alive too.

Ding. The elevators chime signified the door opening, police maybe, or perhaps someone from the association to bring them in. He'd hadn't thought of a plan but he didn't want to, there was no room for that right now. His body heaved and he slouched forward as footsteps crunched behind him and the figure slowed. Just a person, a hero certainly. Gabriel looked up and grinned at the ceiling, teeth pressed tight turning into a vicious sneer.

They had such a kind voice. Was their life as dull as his? He wondered it idlely as he looked back down to the floor dropped his hand from his face slick with the patches of blood from his nails work. "Sorry," he whispered shuddering again as he began to push himself to his feet. He staggered as he went, moving almost like a puppet with non-essential strings cut. "But I don't want ANY DAMN HELP" his voice roared going from whisper to deep guttural roar in an instant. He pivoted on his heel his hand lashed out through the empty air between them.

For a split second nothing happened but then with the ice gathered on the floor around them shifted, split then bubbled as a small office appropriate tsunami of water exploded forth to crash into the well-meaning Sidekick aiming to send him sprawling back towards the elevator he came from. Gabriel's face was a representation of utmost anger, dishevelled as his uniform with six small cuts dotting along his face from his nails resulting in a spreading smear of blood across his features.

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