Who: Regulus Black, Alecto Carrow, Amycus Carrow, Fenrir Greyback, Walden Macnair, Augustus Rookwood What: I do say! Let us have a spot of Muggle culling this week! Where: Manchester, then Radcliffe (S. Lancs) When: 8 May, 1979. Warnings: Violence Status: Incomplete
Regulus and Alecto!
It was not a mission Regulus would normally trip over his feet to be a part of. It was not the company he desired – Rookwood, the Carrows, Greyback, they were not typically the crowd he felt most comfortable (or even safe, in this case) with, and yet they, along with Macnair, were the crowd. It was predominantly the mentoring group that Selwyn had been a part of. Selwyn, who was now dead partially because he had leaked information that he would not have leaked, had Regulus not gotten him caught.
It was not the mission itself, either, that piqued his interest. He found Muggles to be a filthy nuisance to be avoided, naturally, but pointedly going to slaughter bystanders was not typically his game. He took orders; he eliminated necessary targets or sought revenge, none of which quiet fit the situation.
No, this was a flailing but deliberate attempt to redeem himself, to begin replanting the seed of apparent competency. He was going to learn from mistakes. He was going to find that way to be the Death Eater he clearly wasn’t yet but that he desperately needed to be if he was going to survive.
And he was going to survive.
Transporting was not so eventful; their Port-Key took them directly to the destination, and gaining access through the delivery area gave them no significant hold ups – at least not that Regulus had taken note of in his tunnel-visioned approach. They were here to have “fun,” he supposed – to “experiment” and wreak havoc, but it was not so much a game as it was a need to release his frustrations, his fear of failure, his unfettered need to prove himself in any opportunity he could throw himself into.
Entering the canteen along with the others – cloaked protectively in full Death Eater attire – Regulus wasted no time engaging in throwing out a handful of Incendio spells. In such situations, property destruction seemed a proper place to build up from.
This was precisely Alecto's crowd - she'd exchanged feral grins with Fenrir and a bit of anticipation-sharpened badinage with her brother and given Rookwood a small nod, though in his present mood she wasn't going to approach him further. She didn't know what Regulus thought he was doing, pretending like he belonged in this group, but she didn't trust the little weasel. She had no idea whether he'd had anything to do with Selwyn's capture, and she didn't particularly care. He was a Black, and therefore, right now, not one of her favourite people in the world. Not that he'd ever, really, enjoyed that status.
So as they stalked into the canteen, preceded by flames and heralded by the sweet music of Muggle screams, Alecto stuck close to Regulus - it was easy enough for her to distinguish him from Amycus, even cloaked and masked as they were (as though she was ever likely to mistake him for her brother). And if he so much as twitched in the wrong direction, she'd take him out herself. Wouldn't even bother dirtying her wand with it, either; doing it by hand would be so much more satisfying, anyway.
In the meantime, however, she fired blasting hexes into one after another of the shiny food display cases, showering glass over the muggles practically clambering over each other in their haste to get out.
Regulus did not find it difficult to pick Alecto out of the group -- she was the shortest of those who had come (or of all the Death Eaters he knew, actually), and she was quite possibly the one he was most concerned about when it came to his own personal safety. They had never gotten along in the past -- she felt he was a spoiled little brat, and he felt she was a coarse, disrespectful bint (though he would never phrase it in such a manner, were he to be asked, as he, unlike she, had class), and those were by no means a recipe for pleasant interaction in any situation.
He refused to allow this fact to deter him, however. He could very well just be paranoid, and she had simply felt like blasting out that store that happened to be near him. As the Muggles poured out of the store, he fired a well-aimed Incendio at the feet of a group of four Muggles breaking away as a unit; instantly fabric of their clothes caught fire, spreading as they flailed away from each other in a panic.
One of them - a plump woman with flames licking up into her pony-tailed hair from the conflagration of her sleeve - came staggering towards them, arms outstretched and wailing piteously. Alecto lifted her chin and wand in unison, and depulso'd the woman sharply backwards, sending her careening into tables and chairs. Nothing reached them but the faint scent of charred meat.
With a second flick of her wand, Alecto hefted up the table the woman had fallen over (bounced off, more like it) and hurled it into the fleeing crowd, sending them scattering and tumbling like... well, like bowling pins, though the metaphor was obviously lost on Alecto herself.
The flurry of movement and chaos around him fit well with the rising flames. Shooting a series of blasting hexes at the nearby shops, he contemplated what next to do -- should he pick on a few and cast a few nasty hexes? What sort of hexes or curses were good for large bodies of people?
The thoughts were interrupted, however, when a large and solid body barreled into him from behind, knocking him forward; unable to steady himself in time, the chair just a few feet away became an obstruction in his path, tripping up his feet as he fell to the floor. His hands and knees took the brunt of it, but there was little that could make a tile floor more comfortable to hit.
When he turned to see what (or rather who) had hit him, the hesitantly angry face of a very large Muggle man was mumbling something about "lousy kids" as he backed away, seeming to gather from the outfit and strange mask that the fire was likely no coincidence.
Something like nauseousness came over Regulus when he realised a Muggle had just made physical contact with him -- even with all of the chaos, he did not wish for them to touch him. He was a Black -- Muggles were not allowed to touch them. Stumbling to his feet once again, he shot a rather indignant Furnunculus and watched as the boils swept across the man's skin.
Alecto watched too - or at least, took a moment out from setting tables on fire and throwing them (wheee!) to glance over her shoulder when Regulus went tumbling. She watched, and she rolled her eyes, because boils? Were they muggle-killing or playing silly pranks here, because she'd left her itching powder at home.
The Muggle man hadn't backed nearly far enough away; Alecto's confringo caught him at short range in the chest, sending him hurtling backwards through a wall in a crash and a shower of plaster dust, and leaving a faint copper whiff of blood in the air. "Kill them, don't play with them," she snarled, turning back to the rest of the room, which was rapidly devolving into smokey chaos.
"Mind your own business. I was handling him just fine," Regulus objected in a bristled tone. He was no incapable of it, and she hadn't the right to step in on his target who had -- made physical contact with him and was probably dead now anyway.
Before he could say or do anything else, however, his ears tuned into a loud, whining siren. Looking to the exit of the building, Muggles dressed in thick, identical outfits from head to toe stormed in through the hastily retreating crowds. He guessed they were probably the Muggle equivalent of law enforcement or disaster squads or something like that, but he supposed that was their cue to become scarce.
There was also the large chunk of ceiling that had just fallen on a group of Muggles -- that was another good clue -- and without another word, he slipped carefully through the crowds, carefully to avoid brushing elbows when at all possible.
Breaking out through the smoke and into the daylight, he saw Muggles trying to climb into their strange metal transportation. Feeling rather primed (he was absolutely not walking away from this with Carrow calling him a failure yet again), he picked the first Muggle he saw and shot an even yet forceful killing curse, watching the body drop to the concrete with a thud. It was so eerily simple, and there was a lurch of sorts in his stomach, but without taking the time to truly look at the person, he turned and shot yet another at a gathered group of Muggles -- an older man fell to the ground.
Alecto took longer about exiting, far less careful about shoving her way through the crowds and far more easily distracted by hurling further hexes - the incongruous smell of talcum powder drifted through the air from an exploded make-up counter, and her exit from the building was preceded by the burnt head of a mannequin, spinning wildly as she kicked it out of the doorway and followed, cackling behind her mask, in time to catch Regulus's reprisal of his killing curse.
"Gosh," she said, coming up beside him (but not close enough to spook him, if he was getting trigger-happy there), "don't overdo it there. Sure you wouldn't like to give them a nasty cold instead?" She glanced up the street; more of those big bright red wheeled things were arriving, screeching and disgorging Muggles in bulky clothes. Above them, glass shattered and smoke started to trickle up towards the sky.
Regulus made a concentrated effort to bite his tongue -- first she told him he wasn't killing them fast enough, and now she was telling him to not 'overdo it'? He supposed he oughtn't expect any different, but that did not make it any less frustrating to endure. He opted to pretend he had not heard her 'advice,' looking up at where the shattering had occurred and taking a few steps back from the building. He did not like the idea of standing so near to a burning building, so after a powerful blasting curse shot at a car that was attempting to drive away (safe to say the car had no such success), he let pursed his lips.
"I suppose it's time for our exit, then?" he asked in a dry, matter-of-fact tone as another group of Muggles peeled past them.
The only response from Alecto was the faint pop of her disapparation.
Crinkling his nose -- that was impolite (though again, what did he expect of someone like Carrow, right?) -- Regulus followed in suite, Apparating back to his home.
[complete]
Fenrir
Fenrir was full an almost unholy glee as the small group portkeyed to the target. After the frustration of the Diagon attack and being forced to use magic almost exclusively, not to mention the recent new moon, he was more than ready to take his temper out on some Muggles.
He exchanged feral grins with Alecto before donning his own mask. He hated wearing the thing and planned on losing it pretty quickly but he could put up with it for now. He followed the others into the canteen but hung back until they’d gotten well and truly involved in setting fire to the place and the people in it. He then slipped out the door and into the main building where the fire alarms had already started going off.
He slipped through the crowd and headed towards one of the stairwells. He could see people flooding down them and he licked his lips. He loved situations like this. Plenty of helpless Muggles.
He paused for a moment then pointed his wand at the ceiling and cast three separate Incendios. He laughed as the flames began to take off along the ceiling and ran towards the stairwell, ripping his mask off and tucking it into his robes along with his wand.
When he reached the stairwell, he ran straight towards the fleeing people, lashing out with his clawed hands. He sliced straight through the throat of the woman at the front and she stumbled away clutching at the wound he’d created, blood spraying everywhere. Fenrir howled in triumph and the Muggles fleeing via the stairwell came to a sudden halt, staring at him with shock and terror.
Fenrir smiled, revealing his sharpened teeth and the Muggles started shoving their way backwards up the stairs. Fenrir laughed and ran forward, yanking at the first Muggle he could reach. He pulled the man back and ripped at his throat with his teeth before throwing him to the side to choke out the last moments of his life in a bloody mess.
He dived into the stairwell and continued his attacks on the Muggles desperately trying to run from him. As he did so, he kept laughing and howling. It was like shooting ducks in a barrel doing this. Oh, some of them tried to fight back but all they had was fists and feet and those that tried that tack tended to find the offending limb broken and clawed.
It wasn’t until flames broke out at the bottom of the stairwell, accompanied by thick black smoke, that Fenrir realised how long he’d been there and that it was time to leave. He dug his clawed fingernails into the neck of the Muggle just in front of him and yanked him backwards, ripping out one last throat just for good measure. He dropped the Muggle to the stairs to die and glanced back along his path. Muggles lay dead or dying all down the stairs and Fenrir laughed as he pulled his wand out. He paused and concentrated hard for a moment then apparated away.
[complete]
Walden
There was nothing like a bout of random acts of violence to conclude one's day. Walden had spent most of his locked in an office with piles of paperwork. Working in the office depressed him. It was like being suffocated, only less dramatic.
That was the reason that Walden had agreed to come out that night. Not because these people had done anything to deserve to be targeted, although they were Muggles and therefore their mere presence was reason enough, but because he'd had a boring day and he needed to compensate for the frustration of forms and protocol.
He quickly recovered from the vertigo of portkey travel and he immediately took in his surroundings. It had taken less than a minute for the others to get the building sufficiently burning, causing Muggles to stray from their activities and swarm in fear. Some of them seemed to freeze in fear as they watched the masked figures coming towards them. A few even tried to grab for weapons, something that Walden found rather amusing. A pointless action, but cute nevertheless.
Macnair took the wand from the pocket of his robes and he pointed it idly, casting a cruciatus curse here and there. The screams of intense pain mixed with the shouts of terror and behind his mask Walden couldn't help but smile. It was so nice to be out of the office. Finally he removed the curses and quieted the victims with a quick killing curse before moving through the canteen and into the vast department store.
He scanned the room slowly, spotting Fenrir as he came down a flight of stairs some hundred yards from where Walden stood. He seemed to be enjoying himself and so Walden continued to do the same. The casual avada kadavras might concern some but they were just words to Macnair, though these words packed a mighty punch. He left a trail of awkwardly fallen bodies behind him as he wandered and he was about to take the next level when he was alerted by the lights and sirens.
He'd done enough research to know that this was a bad thing and it would be smart to fall out and get back to the group. He fell a few more Muggles on his way and soon he was back at the canteen which was now almost completely consumed by flames. He spotted a few others and watched as they apparated away from the fray and so he took one last look at their handy work and then with a loud crack he was gone.