The bomb is meshed in a tangle of coruscating threads of dark energy that make Zhao Yunlan's head ache every time he looks at it directly. Luckily, he doesn't have to look at it: that's Shen Wei's job. All Zhao Yunlan has to do is keep these mooks from distracting Shen Wei while he disarms the thing - all he can do; regular explosives he can handle, but this Gordian knot of dark energy is intentionally designed so no Haixingren has a hope of disarming it, only a Dixingren with the skill and the patience to unpick each hair-trigger strand of the puzzle.
That is to say, it will take Shen Wei. Who is standing, as he has been since they rushed into the building and found it, in front of the device; both of them wrapped in a bubble of power. His eyes are closed, his forehead furrowed in intense concentration, dark energy gathering in his hands. Occasionally a flicker of energy will flash out, and delicately, carefully, sever a thread from the snarl.
Zhao Yunlan doesn't have time to stop and watch, though: the bomb isn't their only problem. Either there's time left on the bomb's countdown, Ye Zun and Ya Qing simply have no problem sending minions into a building they're about to blow up, or, most likely, both. Either way, there's plenty of them. He whirls and ducks under a punch, slams a fist up into an opponent's face, raises his gun in the other hand, fires. He doesn't see whether the shot hits its mark - catches instead the motion of an arm in his peripheral vision, flings his own up and back to parry, meets no resistance. His forearm flies through a cloud of smoke and feathers, and he swears as he stumbles. Then there are flapping wings battering at his face, and claws scrabbling for his eyes. He throws his arms up in a vain attempt to cover his head, and the gun clatters to the ground.
Blinded by the battering wings, and the blood now dripping into his eyes from the cuts the crow's talons have left across his forehead, he doesn't see the blow that knocks him down coming. He doubles over, dropping to his knees, and whoever it is kicks him again, sending him sprawling on the floor before twisting his arm up behind his back to hold him in place, sending pain lancing through his shoulder joint. A knee drives into his lower back.
The wings are gone, the Yashou resuming his human form to kick the gun out of reach, and cock his head significantly at someone. Booted feet step forward.
This one is definitely Dixingren, not Yashou, Zhao Yunlan thinks, rather inanely, as the man kneels down beside him, energy flickering in his hand as he reaches out to touch Zhao Yunlan's face. He flinches away, but the rough hands twisting his arm won't let him move far enough to matter, and cool fingers brush his skin.
Every nerve in his body suddenly burns, a wash of electric pain rushing through him. He jerks as power rushes through his nervous system, licks down his nerves and sends them into overdrive, heightening every sensation to the point of agony. Nothing registers as anything but pain - the roughness of the floor against his cheek feels like it's scraping the skin from his bones; the texture of his own clothing itches and burns. The weight on his back is crushing. The cool fingertips resting against his face are freezing, searing cold. The pain in his shoulder heightens from "uncomfortable" to agony. He opens his mouth to scream -
(if he screams now, Shen Wei will hear; will drop everything to help him, and oh god, he needs help right now - )
- and stops, biting it off into a choking gasp.
If he screams now, Shen Wei will hear; will drop everything to help him, and Shen Wei can't do that. A sudden flash of memory rushes over Zhao Yunlan - a quiet hospital room, Shen Wei holding a bomb, carefully, so carefully in his steady hands; remembers Zhao Yunlan's own hands, as he cut the wires. He remembers the wire between the cutter blades, the way his focus had narrowed, closed in on that singular, essential task. Steady hands. Imagines that focus shattered by screams.
Thinks of Shen Wei, now, a few yards away, cutting through something more complex and just as delicate - and he can shut out the sounds of fighting while he does it: this is Shen Wei, his powers of concentration are phenomenal, but -
Either he will shut out Zhao Yunlan's screams too, and he can scream himself hoarse, but all he'll do is give his captors the satisfaction of hearing it. Or, worse, he won't. He'll flinch. He'll look away. He'll cut the wrong wire. And then, they're all fucked.
And, he realizes suddenly, that's what they want. He was here to keep Shen Wei from being distracted; they'll use him to create that distraction.
He gasps, swallows a whimper. Stays, almost, silent.
The one on his back twists his arm again, and the world shatters into stabbing shards of dizzying pain. Scrabbling blindly, Zhao Yunlan manages to bring his arm up, though moving, too, is fresh agony. His hand finds something - an arm? - paws futilely at it.
The hand on his cheek moves away as he bats at it, and the world regains some clarity for a moment. Before he can act on that, though, before he can do anything but lie there gasping, it clamps back on - harder, harsher, this time, grabbing the back of his neck instead of stroking his cheek.
The world whites out with pain. He can't keep from screaming, this time, but -
His arm is here now, by his face. He can't see, he can barely feel - everything is a cloud of formless hurt - but his arm is...here -
The pain hits and he convulses helplessly, but as he spasms he crams his wrist into his mouth, muffles the scream before it can escape.
He holds it there; bites down, the pain of his own teeth against his skin grounding for a second before it melts into the rest of the pain that is everywhere.
He's simultaneously hyper-aware of every nerve in his body as the burning, searing, power licks along them, and completely lost, losing track of where his limbs are, where his body ends; that he even has a concrete form, is not just made of burning.
He loses track of his body, loses track of time, loses track of everything. The only thing he clings to is the conviction that he mustn't scream. Mustn't distract Shen Wei until he's done.
Shen Wei
The burning white-hot pain is shot through with grey and black, dimming out around the edges. There's a metallic, bitter taste at the back of his throat, and he's choking, there's something in his mouth, he can't breathe around it, can't scream around it, it's suffocating -
He wants to spit it out, bite through it, but there's a reason he shouldn't, wasn't there?
He has to -
Hold on. Steady hands.
He mustn't -
He shakes, whimpers, chokes on his own saliva and blood, shudders under the weight and the pain.
When it's over, there's not enough of him left aware to notice. He doesn't hear the flurry of violence as Shen Wei finishes, turns, sees him - doesn't feel his assailants flung off him. None of it tracks - it's only a new sensation, and all that means is pain, and all that means is that he needs to hold on through the storm of it.
"Zhao Yunlan?"
Hold on -
Unsteady hands are touching him, now, and they're cool - really cool, not burning freezing cold. Cool, and gentle, though they're shaking, and their touch wakes shuddering echoes of pain through his body, and -
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2019-10-16 01:45 pm (UTC)That is to say, it will take Shen Wei. Who is standing, as he has been since they rushed into the building and found it, in front of the device; both of them wrapped in a bubble of power. His eyes are closed, his forehead furrowed in intense concentration, dark energy gathering in his hands. Occasionally a flicker of energy will flash out, and delicately, carefully, sever a thread from the snarl.
Zhao Yunlan doesn't have time to stop and watch, though: the bomb isn't their only problem. Either there's time left on the bomb's countdown, Ye Zun and Ya Qing simply have no problem sending minions into a building they're about to blow up, or, most likely, both. Either way, there's plenty of them. He whirls and ducks under a punch, slams a fist up into an opponent's face, raises his gun in the other hand, fires.
He doesn't see whether the shot hits its mark - catches instead the motion of an arm in his peripheral vision, flings his own up and back to parry, meets no resistance. His forearm flies through a cloud of smoke and feathers, and he swears as he stumbles. Then there are flapping wings battering at his face, and claws scrabbling for his eyes. He throws his arms up in a vain attempt to cover his head, and the gun clatters to the ground.
Blinded by the battering wings, and the blood now dripping into his eyes from the cuts the crow's talons have left across his forehead, he doesn't see the blow that knocks him down coming. He doubles over, dropping to his knees, and whoever it is kicks him again, sending him sprawling on the floor before twisting his arm up behind his back to hold him in place, sending pain lancing through his shoulder joint. A knee drives into his lower back.
The wings are gone, the Yashou resuming his human form to kick the gun out of reach, and cock his head significantly at someone. Booted feet step forward.
This one is definitely Dixingren, not Yashou, Zhao Yunlan thinks, rather inanely, as the man kneels down beside him, energy flickering in his hand as he reaches out to touch Zhao Yunlan's face. He flinches away, but the rough hands twisting his arm won't let him move far enough to matter, and cool fingers brush his skin.
Every nerve in his body suddenly burns, a wash of electric pain rushing through him. He jerks as power rushes through his nervous system, licks down his nerves and sends them into overdrive, heightening every sensation to the point of agony. Nothing registers as anything but pain - the roughness of the floor against his cheek feels like it's scraping the skin from his bones; the texture of his own clothing itches and burns. The weight on his back is crushing. The cool fingertips resting against his face are freezing, searing cold. The pain in his shoulder heightens from "uncomfortable" to agony. He opens his mouth to scream -
(if he screams now, Shen Wei will hear; will drop everything to help him, and oh god, he needs help right now - )
- and stops, biting it off into a choking gasp.
If he screams now, Shen Wei will hear; will drop everything to help him, and Shen Wei can't do that. A sudden flash of memory rushes over Zhao Yunlan - a quiet hospital room, Shen Wei holding a bomb, carefully, so carefully in his steady hands; remembers Zhao Yunlan's own hands, as he cut the wires. He remembers the wire between the cutter blades, the way his focus had narrowed, closed in on that singular, essential task. Steady hands.
Imagines that focus shattered by screams.
Thinks of Shen Wei, now, a few yards away, cutting through something more complex and just as delicate - and he can shut out the sounds of fighting while he does it: this is Shen Wei, his powers of concentration are phenomenal, but -
Either he will shut out Zhao Yunlan's screams too, and he can scream himself hoarse, but all he'll do is give his captors the satisfaction of hearing it. Or, worse, he won't. He'll flinch. He'll look away. He'll cut the wrong wire. And then, they're all fucked.
And, he realizes suddenly, that's what they want. He was here to keep Shen Wei from being distracted; they'll use him to create that distraction.
He gasps, swallows a whimper. Stays, almost, silent.
The one on his back twists his arm again, and the world shatters into stabbing shards of dizzying pain. Scrabbling blindly, Zhao Yunlan manages to bring his arm up, though moving, too, is fresh agony. His hand finds something - an arm? - paws futilely at it.
The hand on his cheek moves away as he bats at it, and the world regains some clarity for a moment. Before he can act on that, though, before he can do anything but lie there gasping, it clamps back on - harder, harsher, this time, grabbing the back of his neck instead of stroking his cheek.
The world whites out with pain. He can't keep from screaming, this time, but -
His arm is here now, by his face. He can't see, he can barely feel - everything is a cloud of formless hurt - but his arm is...here -
The pain hits and he convulses helplessly, but as he spasms he crams his wrist into his mouth, muffles the scream before it can escape.
He holds it there; bites down, the pain of his own teeth against his skin grounding for a second before it melts into the rest of the pain that is everywhere.
He's simultaneously hyper-aware of every nerve in his body as the burning, searing, power licks along them, and completely lost, losing track of where his limbs are, where his body ends; that he even has a concrete form, is not just made of burning.
He loses track of his body, loses track of time, loses track of everything. The only thing he clings to is the conviction that he mustn't scream. Mustn't distract Shen Wei until he's done.
Shen Wei
The burning white-hot pain is shot through with grey and black, dimming out around the edges. There's a metallic, bitter taste at the back of his throat, and he's choking, there's something in his mouth, he can't breathe around it, can't scream around it, it's suffocating -
He wants to spit it out, bite through it, but there's a reason he shouldn't, wasn't there?
He has to -
Hold on. Steady hands.
He mustn't -
He shakes, whimpers, chokes on his own saliva and blood, shudders under the weight and the pain.
When it's over, there's not enough of him left aware to notice. He doesn't hear the flurry of violence as Shen Wei finishes, turns, sees him - doesn't feel his assailants flung off him. None of it tracks - it's only a new sensation, and all that means is pain, and all that means is that he needs to hold on through the storm of it.
"Zhao Yunlan?"
Hold on -
Unsteady hands are touching him, now, and they're cool - really cool, not burning freezing cold. Cool, and gentle, though they're shaking, and their touch wakes shuddering echoes of pain through his body, and -
"Zhao Yunlan? Zhao Yunlan!"
- and now he can let go.