Re: X-Mansion: A Phoenix, a Soldier, and a Witch (or two)
[There was no opportunity or latitude to dodge the strike this time, coming as it was when the gravity dragging him down seemed heavier every second. The blast struck him square in the chest.
For a second, there was just nothing. He didn't know he was moving through the air, not until he passed through a space where a wall had been and struck the wall on the other side of the hallway with a crack that buckled plaster and hardwood. He dropped flat to the ground, and the hallway swam.
His vision had gone completely black, and he couldn't hear a damn thing, and he wasn't even aware that he was talking. His voice carried on -] Goddamn nobody's hit me that hard since I told Duggan I spent the night with that French girl he liked [ - wheezing as he tried to get his breath back, then wheezing harder when he found he couldn't. His lungs wouldn't fill all the way. Still talking though, whatever they said to him. Bitterly regretting the decision that had led to getting hit, he continued - this time in French.] Mon cher, toi et moi allons avoir quelque bon temps ensemble, je toi le promets.
His vision was returning, slowly but surely. He pushed himself up with his good arm (no longer so good, as the pain shooting through his elbow informed him) and onto one knee. The strike felt like it had dislocated his shoulder, and it was sending shards of heat into his nerves in a familiar way. He'd dislocated it before, when he was getting between Steve and some tough the little guy pissed off in a diner by looking at him funny. He -
He crouched on one knee, and on his heel. There was a carnival colored bruise spattering and swelling at his cheek, slowly, and he stopped moving entirely, still taking short, stilted breaths.
For a moment, there were pieces of him together in his own body. Whether it was the blast from Wanda, the knock to the head, or Jean hitting a tripwire in his brain, something had flared like a bloom of blood in water, foreign and familiar, mingling and dissipating as he hit the edge of it like a precipice, running until the road stopped and there was no more. What brought him back was the most basic of things - it was the pain, it was actually feeling that pain, it was registering it and knowing it the way a kid does when they scrape their knee for the first time, and then the sensation of a mechanism at work, of active deadening that quieted both physical sensation and his wheezing, cursing voice, until he was completely silent again.
All this in about ten seconds, as the wheezing started up, and got shorter and shorter - Wanda's intended effect, no doubt.
Then there was no breath for words, and none for consciousness. He pitched forward toward the floor again.]