Moone ran. There was the blast of a final bomb somewhere distant, but Moone ignored that for now. Where was a map? His mind was [singularly focused] on one goal: get to Cloud before the guards got to him. Moone [should have been] able to use the map system to track Cloud down. He wouldn't be locked out of the system, just because it was pinging him. It wasn't a person; it wouldn't [lock him out] in itself, the way a person would know to do if turned against him. He could still use the building's map system to lead himself to Cloud, even if the same system was itself already actively leading others to him.
Or, maybe not.
Moone considered the ducking and weaving pattern with which he was snaking his way through the halls. They were tracking him via supernatural means-- and that meant that he could escape it. With the building's [aura-reading] security [pinging his location] being a supernatural method of threat, he could instinctively avoid the pathways of any enemies using [that security system.] The only way they'd be able to circumnavigate his own circumnavigation skills would be...--
Turning the next corner, Moone ran into a few guards who weren't tracking him down at all, just holding their positions. --Not to attempt to circumnavigate at all. Well, great. They'd realized the same thing that he had.
No matter. Now that they had him, they wouldn't be able to injure him. They were smart enough to realize not to try to track him down supernaturally; they'd be smart enough to not attempt to further put him in supernatural danger. They'd probably just take him to custody, where he'd easily be able to call upon Cloud as a witness.
The guard nearest to Moone pulled out a pistol, and fired. Moone just managed to leap back behind the corner he'd come around, and his heart nearly stopped as he glanced back at the bullet hole in the wall behind him and realized how lucky he'd just been.
The bullet hole had no glyph flaming in the air before it. Were these bullets, non-supernatural?
They could always put him in non-supernatural danger, of course. They had a contingency in place Moone rendered himself a threat. Of course. Well, he told himself, withdrawing and doing a stealth roll into a nearby alcove, at least they're afraid of me enough for that.
He flipped through the door in front of him, into an office. Further gunshots splintered bullet holes into the door as it closed behind him, tightly clustered and aimed where his center of mass had been. They were shooting to kill, weren't they. It looked like they weren't open to negotiation as he'd hoped. Moone hid at random under a workstation at one of the rows of counters, making sure they'd need to track him magically in order to most quickly find him.
He considered his predicament.
Even bullets made out of cold-iron, which had anti-magical effects, would still count as supernatural and thus give Moone the opportunity to negate them somehow. But regular bullets, fired from regular guns, held by regular guards-- or even theoretically witch guards who happened to be using no hexes or spells at the moment-- could bring Moone down like the mortal man he was, and not allow him any opportunity to explain his innocence.
Moone was seized with a terrible panic. He felt very small, very alone; there is a dread, deep in the bones, that is usually only felt by the smallest of children, ones still full of simple faith and perfect knowledge: the knowledge that the world is dangerous, that it is inhabited down to its deepest layers by monsters. [How ironic] that this fear was brought on by the opposite reason; it was monsters that Moone would be able escape, and the threats of men that he couldn't. Another wave of hopelessness. Moone felt drowning. Just like the dream of his, one half of his [geis] eating the other half like a snake eating its tail, leaving him completely vulnerable.
And with that memory coming back to him, all at once Moone came up with a plan. It couldn't have been of his boon, could it have. Either way, his fear dissolved, for no matter the source of the realization Moone now had a plan of action again, and Moone always operated better, even under instinctive action, with a plan of attack. He stood up from under the countertop, and [went] a few steps to a side doorway, as he felt [the system mass-pinging his location] go away.
Moone ducked back down again. Right as he did so, guards from all sides bust down the doors. They began to sweep the room systematically, without the use of magic. He didn't have much time; they were locking the place down totally. Moone wormed as stealthily as he could and body-rolled across the aisle to the next row of countertops over. He wasn't even sure, really, if his plan would work, for a whole host of reasons, and he wasn't sure if his plan wasn't somehow from his boon, but it felt deep down like it was his own plan, his own survival skills, that was carrying him through, and that thought thrilled him. He scanned the room from his low angle, and saw that the guards' relative positions to one another was right.
Moone sprung up like a jack-in-the-box, rolled forward sweeping the legs of the nearest guard, and jerked out a side door. A few bullets whizzed behind him as he did so, but only from the guard nearest, who twisted and shot as he fell; the rest of the guards had refrained from firing so as not to hit anyone in the crossfire.
Moone ran ahead of the guards as they attempted to stream out of the room behind him, but turned another corner before they could open the door and see which direction he'd gone. There was a map, finally, framed on a wall across the hall and to the left; Moone pulled it off the wall and ducked behind an ash-smeared pillar. The air was still heavy with smoke, and humid from the sprinkler system, but the sprinklers had been turned off by now, and a cavalcade of supernatural first responders was beginning to arrive.
Moone put his finger to the glass of the map's frame, and drew in the directory information- only instead of summoning a call to locate Cloud, he requested to know the direction the Pontifex was instead. He was led to a suite of debriefing/interrogation rooms on the second floor-- he made his way up the stairwell, using the map to make sure nobody was near, and navigated himself to the correct room. [is the door locked? does he pick it through magical means?]
[what's Pontifex's state when Moone finds him?]
"You can bestow your aura," Moone stated, "and it enhances the powers of whoever takes it on."
Pontifex blinked, and opened his mouth, before shutting it and making a smiling sort of grimace. "Yes, I see," he said, finally. Moone and Pontifex had been in communication for months, but this was still one of the first times Moone actually heard Pontifex speak. His voice was worn and reedy, but it echoed something wise and ancient. Like pebbles in a mossy well.
"I need you to bestow your aura on me."
[perhaps they don't trust pontifex much, have been keeping him detained, though Moone trusts him; in return for the aura Moone promises to let pontifex free. Moone feels some metaphysical aspect of him drain out as he makes this bond, same as when he makes any other bargain or supernaturally binding agreement. Pontifex has something of a death wish and that can come through here as well. somehow.]
Moone could feel his bane and boon each grow stronger. Feel it. A few weeks ago, back in [Russia] and meeting the Pontifex for the first time, being able to sense the power just from being near him, was only [an interesting experiment compared to now]... now with the power of the full magical aura upon him, enhancing his own, it was [another level entirely.] Just like his dream. Just like his dream. Moone closed his eyes, reached out into his aura, only instead of covering up his enhanced boon with his enhanced bane, used his boon as the snake's head instead, reaching around and covering up his bane.
Moone's aura was usually very strong from the outside, and attracted beings to it like an irresistible undertow, sweeping them in to try and do him harm. He'd be able to march against those own waves himself, but now... now he sculpted the shape of the tides, himself, and channeled the dangerous currents inward, with the boon waves Moone himself rode directed outward instead. Moone laughed [describe laugh.] It worked.
"How long does your granted aura stay before it reverts back to you?" Moone asked.
Pontifex looked up warily, and sighed. "I have no power to call it back to me," he said. "You're only going to have to fulfill your end of the agreement, and bestow it upon me so that I may bestow it upon others. Maybe one day it will be used for its ultimate purpose."
[Moone didn't stop to consider what that purpose would be. It wasn't important right now- as long as Moone trusted Pontifex, he was sure that it would be used one day. ] To prove it to him, and to prove his innocence to everyone else, Moone needed to visit one more person. Mushroom Cloud, finally.
He tapped at the map again, brought up Cloud's position, and beckoned the Pontifex to come with him as he made his way in the direction the map indicated in his aura. It was incredible- with the Pontifex's boon granted upon him, Moone could feel not just Cloud's direction but Cloud's location through the map system, even more clearly than MacBeth's psychic links created between teammates. Also enhanced was his ability granted through the map to locate any others nearby in his periphery, but with the restructuring of his own aura, through the secondary layer of Pontifex's aura, he doubted that the guards would be much of a threat to him any longer, even with non-supernatural weapons and tactics.
Moone frowned as he considered the fact that he'd need to return the aura to Pontifex once he was done- but of course, once Moone's innocence was proven, he wouldn't need the aura any longer. He nodded in resolve, and pushed his way into the ground level foyer, whereat a triage was being set up to administer aid to the wounded.
[they find Cloud, Moone being swarmed on all sides by agents, but somehow dodging them long enough to tell them to let him at Cloud.] It was only after he said it that Moone realized the meaning they'd read into his words. They'd think that Cloud was an accomplice somehow, maybe the one who set up the explosives, the way that Lovecraft must surely have done with Gef.
"No, I can prove it," Moone said, only having to [dodge] one [bullet] this time- the agents were beginning to realize the futility of their tactics against him. "I'm bound by soul oath to tell Mushroom Cloud only the truth, and if I tell her, and you watch me tell her, then you'll know that you'll have to let me off."
He made his way to where Mushroom Cloud was standing, alone in the crowd. The agents continued to train their guns after him.
"This is wrong," said Cloud. We need to get out of here. Not just you, but all of us, now. Don't you see, it's suddenly on my word now? And we're still in danger.
Moone, grabbing onto Cloud's hand, was torn. Surely they were safe now- speak the oaths, and the truth would be revealed. The glass doors of the exit were only a few yards away, still shining bright daylight through even after what had felt like the hours' length of this morning's events. Moone looked over at those doors. If they did still try to escape, they'd look guilty. Moone was certain that the whole situation could be [clarified? erased? enlightened?], though. Cloud trusted Moone, but did Moone trust Cloud?
And once again, Moone realized something, at the same time the Tetragrammaton agents must have realized it: his enhanced aura may have granted him bonus protections, but certainly not Cloud any. Moone hesitated.
And in that moment, a bullet went through Cloud's head, and her body crumpled silently to the marble floor.
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