Evelyn Mulciber (bestdefense) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-04-01 12:16:00 |
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Dedalus—grieving and feeling very much like a blight on everyone around him—wasn’t in much of a pranking mood, but he wasn’t in the mood to let purists get away with spreading more of their hateful filth without consequence, either; art mattered, it changed hearts and minds, and he did not think that the attendees of tonight’s opening for a new Society for the Preservation of Magical Heritage exhibit (entitled Tales of Terror: The Ugly Truth About So-Called ‘Muggle-borns’, no less) deserved to be able to delight in their bigotry. That said, he had no intention of giving them any more fuel for their cries of ‘vigilante terrorism’ either, so tonight’s mischief was to be a simple prank, no more, no less. And so, he’d snuck in with the cleaning staff and broken away as soon as he was able, making a beeline for the main gallery. He’d carefully side-stepped the minimal wards he’d noticed and headed for the ‘art’. Once there, he proceeded to charm the hideous paintings to cause any observer that looked at them for more than a few seconds to sprout hideous facial hair—if they wanted to see ‘ugly truth’, all they had to do was look in the mirror. He was adding the finishing touches onto the last section of canvasses when he heard the approach of footsteps from behind. "This was a stupid idea," said Evelyn Mulciber. Her heels clicked against the marble tile as she approached the errant cleaner. Her company was providing security for the exhibit opening, and Evelyn was not about to be made a fool of, least of all by some disgruntled (soon to be former) gallery employee with an impish side. "Come with me now and I'll only have you arrested." Dedalus winced when he saw who it was, but remained where he stood. “I don’t think that’s a great idea, Ms Mulciber.” With her hands on her hips, Evelyn looked every inch a disappointed mother scolding a misbehaving child. "If you try to run, I assure you, you won't get far. And I don't want to risk further damage to the art. Mustaches? Honestly." “If you call this ‘art’, I question the reliability of your taste anyway,” the small wizard said. He sighed. He hadn’t wanted to get into a fight, but it looked as though he’d have to scrap his way out. At least he still had the element of surprise on his side. He whipped out his wand and sent a cascade of marbles skittering at her feet. "You child." A step in any direction would be precarious, and Evelyn wasn't keen to break an ankle again. Planting her feet firmly (and taking into account the expensive art she was tasked to protect) she fired a lassoing spell at the man. Dedalus stopped the lasso in mid-air with a well-placed shield charm, then tied it in a bow. “I am no child,” he said snippily. He’d fought as many wars now as Evelyn had, and he wasn’t about to go down that easily. He lit a ball of purple flame at the tip of his wand and threatened to let it loose on the nearest painting. “I wasn’t going to torch this place, but if that’s what you want, do let me know. I’d be more than happy to oblige.” The purple fire reminded Evelyn of an earlier battle, one which saw an Order safehouse go up in similar flames. Her eyes narrowed. The piece the man was threatening was hardly one Evelyn would call 'art,' but that was beside the point. It was her job to defend these things, and while the mustaches could be removed with minimal damage, it would not be easy to resurrect a charred painting from the ashes. She shot a spell not at the intruder but at the piece behind him, covering it in a protective, shimmering shield before hurling a powerful blast of water at the man threatening it. Dedalus had not been expecting her to defend the art first and was caught off-guard; he was hit with the entirety of the blast of water, causing him to sail across the room and into a wall at the other end of the gallery, where he collapsed in a soggy heap. He coughed up a small puddle of water into the larger, room-sized puddle. “Okay, that was a lucky shot,” he spluttered, then cast another, probably equally-familiar cloud of bats at his assailant. Evelyn cleared a path through the marbles and dried up what water she could before it threatened to wave back and knock down the sculpture pedestals that spotted the gallery. The bats, then, were an aggravation—especially when they knocked into the stunning Blood of Mud statue and sent it crashing to the floor, and then came for her. One familiar spell could be a coincidence, but two in a row seemed quite unlikely, and Evelyn was convinced now that she wasn't fighting some random vandal, but a vigilante. And as she vanished the bats groups at a time, she started to change strategies in her head. At this point, Dedalus decided to use her distraction to take his leave, but when he reached into his wet coat pocket, he found his portkey must have been washed away. He scanned the ground around him, but it didn’t appear to be anywhere in sight. Drat. He needed some other distraction to allow him to escape the way he came, but that was easier said than done. After a pause, he conjured the largest illusion he could think of—a giant, slithering purple tentacle monster— and tried to slip past her. “It’s been fun, toodle-oo!” he said, tipping his hat. In not watching where he was going, he wound up walking face-first into an art piece that bid the viewer to “reveal their true self” and his glamours dissipated immediately. “Shit,” Dedalus said. If the approximation of her new friend Lulu wasn't enough to tip her off to the man's true identity, the blessed piece of art (she would have to look into purchasing that one) confirmed it for her. And then, she no longer cared about the art. Her job was one thing, but her true calling was another, and she would not be letting this vigilante out of her sight again. She banished the tentacled illusion with a crisp wave of her wand and aimed a powerful petrifying spell at the man. Dedalus yelped as he ducked behind a large marble statue, just narrowly missing the spell. Thinking fast, he levitated the statue and sent it hurling at the Death Eater. “Why don’t you just quit it?” he asked, though he knew that she was no more likely to quit now than he was. He looked again for the portkey and this time, saw the glint of the silver coin that had washed to the other end of the room and was now teetering over an air vent. If he could only get to it… She ducked the statue, which careened into other art behind her. It took her longer than she would like to rise back to her full height, but as she did, she spied the vigilante straining for something. Her eyes followed his gaze. She couldn't quite see what the object was he was staring at, but it was clearly important to him. She sent a blast of air toward it to tip it out of his reach. "I don't quit." "Besides," Evelyn said coldly. She aimed a disarming spell at the cowering vigilante. "I'm not the one getting everyone I care about killed. If anyone should quit, it should be you, Diggle." “Shit!” Dedalus swore again as the portkey coin slipped through the vent and disappeared down the air duct, gone forever. It was this distraction—this stupid, stupid distraction—that allowed Evelyn to summon his wand right from his hand. He winced at her words, then took a deep breath as he rose back up to his full—but not very tall—height. “Well, you’re not wrong in that respect,” he said quietly. He had just gotten five people brutally murdered for no reason other than the fact that he’d once loved them. He’d asked Ted to join the Order, and now she was dead, too. He’d ruined Marjorie and her mother’s life, and now they were gone. She stuck him up against the wall so he couldn't come at her or do something she wasn't prepared for. They both knew where this would end, but Evelyn had things to say first. "You've cause a lot of headaches, 'illusionist'. Now, I didn't kill all those exes of yours, but you may as well have done. Why don't any of you understand that? It's always worse for the people you care about when you try to resist us. Haven't you got a daughter to think about?" There was no point in lying now, he supposed. “I wanted a safer world for her,” he said calmly, wistfully. “But I guess I fucked up.” In trying to do the right thing, he’d caused people pain. And now, at the end of it all, he was tired. Resigned, he straightened his hat and bowtie and looked her dead in the eye. “It’s been a privilege,” Dedalus said simply. For as much animosity as she bore this strange little man, Evelyn found a kernel of respect for him in that moment. Guilt was far too strong a word for the feeling that accompanied it, but there was the smallest twinge deep inside. She sighed. "Well. At least you've come to your senses. For that, I'll promise you this. If Marjorie Gillespie ever comes to the end of our wands, it will be for something she's done, not because of you." She straightened her shoulders, and the moment of kindness was over. "No promises about Humberto." There was a hint of a smile on his lips. He gave her a nod. Green light poured into him, and the vigilante's struggle was over. When the exhibit opened that evening, cleaned up and repaired to the best of Evelyn's ability, it bore one unexpected display. A small, purple-clad figure left slumped where he fell with a nameplate on the wall just above his head: |