Billy Batson (originalmarvel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-05-14 22:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, billy batson (captain marvel), wrex |
I’m doing my best. Not all of us are heroic material.
Who: Billy Batson and Wrex
Where: The battle at the wedding
What: Billy gets hurt, and helps lead some kids to safety, Along the way, things go to hell
When: late on 04/12
Warnings/Rating: R for violence, and for angst, and for NPC death
Status complete
Billy panted as he stared at the oncoming orcs, feeling helpless and defeated. He’d been there from the start, and he had run when he could. But when he heard screaming, on the way out, he had reversed course. He had spent the next day running water and food and other supplies around the battlefield.
Sometime this morning, he had run into three kids who had been cut off from their parents while the chaos happened. By this afternoon, he had seven kids with him, and was trying to find adults who had powers or maybe flight, to get them out of there.
And then the orcs had found them. Billy bad tried to get them to run but the kids had frozen and Billy had taken up a mace he had found to fight them, but within moments, he was sent flying.
He had failed.
Damn it.
Something exploded nearby. It looked like an orc. Or what was left of it. A big man charged into the group of the Enemy, smashing his head into one face and then blowing a hole in him with a shotgun. He turned, laughing and crushed the face of another orc with the butt of his shotgun, then flipped it back around and shot another in the stomach.
Wrex was glad Shepard had invited him to the party. Nobody messed with kids. Nobody.
Billy sagged with relief, for a long moment, then slowly levered himself up on the mace. “KIds! Stand together! Help has arrived! Take five and rest, but be ready to run.”
He felt his heart soaring. About time a real hero had arrived.
Wrex swung his shotgun like it was a mace, smashing in another orc’s head. He glowed blue, and a shockwave raced from his body, clearing a path for the kids.
A large goblin lept towards the man from behind, before it’s head exploded as a sniper’s bullet found it.
“Thanks, Shepard!” He called out. To his left, a large southron charged.
Billy urged the kids forward, hobbling along after them, even as he swung his mace at a bolder orc, slamming it aside, barely, and hobbling on. Damn it. He was nearly done. He just had to get the kids back to civilization.
“Not bad kid, get movin’,” Wrex grumbled. He wished he as a KrogerKrogan, big and strong and tough. He was still all of those things, but damn, imagine the wrecking ball he could be.
Billy kept going, hobbling along, the kids running ahead slowly. He chuckled. “I’m doing my best. Not all of us are heroic material.”
“Big heros can come in small packages.” Wrex picked up the Haradrim’s weapon and swung it around. He started to follow Billy, covering their backs.
“And sometimes, small packages are just small packages... of fluff.” And so they went, maybe arguing, maybe just pushing back and forth and smiling a little as they kept the kids moving toward the valley entrance and the medcamp set up there, held by X-Force and allies.
Billy sighed as they topped a hill, within sight of the camp, and of course, of the orcs before it. “You know, this is all too reminding me of some movies I didn’t need to watch again this soon.”
Wrex had run out of bullets. He threw things, hit things, and otherwise got to relive his glory days as a military contractor and/or a Krogan warlord. Really, a large chunk of Wrex’s life had revolved around killing people, and lots of them. That was a big reason he’d turned all his payouts into helping kids.
“Just as long as we can keep this from spreading. I’ve seen too many warzones to wanna see this place look like one.”
Billy nodded as he hobbled toward a side-trail, hoping it would be clearer. The kids trailed along, tired now.
“As far as I know it’s bottlenecked here, but I’ve been out of contact all day. Not sure what the overall situation is. Think your Shepard might know?”
“She went dark about ten minutes ago, but we don’t need to worry about her.” If it went thirty minutes then he’d worry.
Billy nodded. “Okay.” He worried, a little. He had heard enough to know Shepard had brought Wrex in and without that, he and the kids would be dead. The trail wended along and so far was quiet, heading away from the orc, and hopefully around them, then back to the camp! He hoped.
Except there was a large Oliphant in the way, armored with a dozen bowmen on top of it. Wrex sighed, staring at the thing and trying to figure out the best possible attack.
Billy headmaced, lightly, and then eyed the thing. “I wish we had caltrops. And cloaking devices. Yes.” He quieted the kids and got them to sit and rest for a minute as he tried to think.
“Caltrops. Good thinking.” Wrex bumped Billy’s shoulder then headed to a pile of wreckage. He started to pry off pieces of metal, large enough to be a caltrop for a giant beast. His muscles strained, pushed to the limits of his human body. For once, he honestly wished he had his alien body.
Of course if he had his alien body he’d just rush the thing head first and wrestle it. Krogan were stupid that way.
Billy blinked then stared, and he nodded. Then he spotted some black liquid dripping to the ground, and he hmmed. He glanced at a nearby wreckage where a bow sat, a small one, and some arrows, and then back to his torn and tattered shirt.
And back to the oil. “No way...” He went carefully, and tore his shirt off, and into strips, and started wrapping small strips of oil soaked fabric around the ends of arrows. “I learned this in class, but no way it will be this easy.”
Wrex grinned. “That’s perfect. Spook the fucker and run it right over the caltrops.” They could have used this kid against the Reapers. Wrex could value intelligence - that actually made him pretty rare among his kind.
Billy got his arrows ready, and then nodded. “Okay. I’m not great at this, but I think I can get a couple near it’s hind end. I sincerely hope you know how to position caltrops, though, because I haven’t a clue.”
“You fling them in front of it’s feet,” Wrex said, securing his chunks of metal with a wire. He started to spin them around over his head. “Go!” He charged!
Billy blinked, then hastily, drew, and fired, his arrow landing in the dust behind the oliphaunt and making it wail and move, but not much. Billy winced and hobbled more to the side, and drew again, this time slower, everything seeming to slow to a crawl as he drew, and then fired.
The arrow arched toward the Oliphaunt’s ass, looking like it would hit, right up until the man who came around the back end carrying a glass jar with a rag sticking out of the top stepped right in front of the arrow, unknowingly. Billy stared in horror as thje man stopped, the arrow embedded in him, and his clothing starting to smoke, and looked down, then got a blank look and started to fall.
The bottle seemed to rise, as if tossed and then come down on his head and broke, and the liquid coursed over him. And when the flame touched it, the man was suddenly in flames. There was a single shriek, and then he did not move.
This did, however, drive the Oliphaunt to a run.
“What have I done...?”
Wrex threw the caltrops, and dove out of the way as the creature ran them over. It bellowed, stumbling to it’s knees as it’s feet were ruined. He clambered up the head, ripping a spear from the master’s hands. He flung the man to the ground, and then rammed the spear into the back of the Oliphaunt’s head, severing it’s brainstem.
Only then did he realize what had happened with the arrow, and he gave Billy a grim, sorrowful look. That was all the time he had before the rest of the riders were swarming him. He grabbed one, snapping his neck, and smashing his head into another. It was like this one time, in Russia...
Billy swallowed as he shook his head, disbelieving, but then he saw what was happening and the kids were shouting and afraid and it was all too easy to lift the bow and fire, over and over, his shots mostly just annoying or knocking some of Wrex’s opponents off balance, and not hurting anyone really. But he couldn’t regret that, not too badly, as long as he was helping.
Wrex threw another man, and started to draw them away from the kids. He used the spear to anger them, stabbing and hitting and slashing, until he had the survivors hot on his tail. They disappeared around a building.
Billy shook his head, then got the kids moving, leading them down the now abandoned trail and praying that the universe was done surprising him badly for now and pushing aside what he had done.
As hard as he possibly could.
The camp had been hastily put together, but they had arrived safely, and that’s what counted. It took Wrex five minutes to come back, bleeding and beaten looking, but alive. He’d taken a helmet as a trophy. Because that’s how Krogan roll.
Billy was cheered to see Wrex and nodded to him as he finished handing the kids off to others, and then, with a smile, spoke to a nurse. “I’m just going to faint now. I have a broken leg, and I think it’s starting to try to kill me.” And then, he fainted.
Later, when he woke up, evacuated to a hospital, he would be embarrassed. But for now, darkness was a blessed relief.
Wrex would watch over Billy, until they could get him to the hospital. He wished the boy never had to learn this truth about life, to experience the guilt that would undoubtably rack his dreams. Wrex was a killer, and he’d long ago accepted that as part of the life he’d led.
But it was no life for a teenager, and no experience one so young should know.
FIN.