Chapter 110 : Chapter 110 : When the Music Stopped – Acceptable Losses
New York, Lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village – Alex's POV
It happened fast.
Not the confusion—that had already taken root—but the sorting. The moment where the room stopped being a mass of people and became a set of targets.
I felt it before I understood it.
The pressure in the air didn't change for me. My balance didn't waver. My breathing stayed even. But everywhere around me, bodies folded in ways that had nothing to do with fear. Knees buckled. Spines bowed. Hands that had been steady minutes ago trembled or went slack, fingers clawing at nothing as if muscle memory were trying to fire signals into a system that no longer answered.
The Purifiers moved through it like surgeons in a disaster ward.
They didn't ask questions. They didn't check IDs. They didn't need to.
One of them stepped into the aisle a few meters away, wrist-mounted device pulsing once—twice—and then he turned his head with certainty and pointed. Two others peeled off immediately, converging on a young man who had just sunk to his knees, palms flat on the floor, eyes unfocused.
"Up," one of them said.
The man tried. Failed. His legs folded again, useless.
That was enough.
A baton cracked across his shoulder—not measured, not restrained. He cried out and collapsed fully this time, curling in on himself. The second Purifier grabbed him by the collar and dragged him backward across the concrete, heels scraping, head lolling. No one intervened. Anyone who tried would have been in the way.
I saw the pattern take shape in seconds.
Those who were unaffected—who could still stand cleanly, move with intention—were shoved aside without ceremony. Hard hands to chests. Forearms across throats. People slammed into walls or barriers and told to move with boots and batons when they didn't react fast enough.
But the ones who couldn't keep their feet?
They were marked instantly.
A woman a few rows ahead of me gasped as something inside her failed catastrophically. Light flared once around her hands—uncontrolled, reflexive—then snapped out like a blown fuse. She screamed, more in shock than pain, and dropped to the floor as two Purifiers were already on her, pinning her arms, snapping restraints around her wrists with practiced speed.
"Stay down!" someone yelled nearby—civilian, panicked, trying to help.
He was backhanded so hard he spun, hit the floor, and didn't get back up.
No warning. No hesitation.
Darcy was at my side, rigid.
A Purifier shoved past us, shoulder-checking Darcy hard enough that she stumbled into me. I caught her automatically, one arm around her back, absorbing the impact.
"Move," the Purifier barked, already past us.
We moved.
Around us, the room fractured into lanes of violence. Purifiers advanced in overlapping arcs, devices pulsing, heads snapping toward anyone whose body betrayed them. A man tried to crawl away, dragging useless legs behind him. He made it two meters before a boot pinned his spine to the floor and a knee dropped between his shoulders.
The dampeners weren't subtle anymore.
They were a line drawn through the room.
Those on one side of it were weakened, exposed, helpless in ways that made resistance impossible. Those on the other were obstacles—problems to be shoved, struck, or thrown aside if they slowed the operation by even a second.
This wasn't crowd control.
This was extraction.
The pattern repeated everywhere at once. Devices pulsed. Heads turned. Anyone who faltered was taken. Anyone who interfered was struck aside. The room wasn't reacting anymore—it was being processed, reduced to a sequence of decisions already made.
I watched a Purifier misjudge for the first time.
He lunged toward a woman who had collapsed near the aisle—and ran straight into a civilian trying to shield her. The civilian took the hit full-on, ribs cracking audibly as he was driven into a support pillar. He slid down it, gasping, hands clawing at his chest.
The Purifier didn't look back.
Two more took the woman.
They moved with terrifying efficiency. Grip. Pin. Restrain. Drag. Each step already flowing into the next, as if the room had been mapped in advance and the people in it reduced to variables.
Darcy's fingers dug into my sleeve.
"They're not even—" she started, then stopped when another scream cut through the air.
"I know," I said quietly.
A Purifier turned his visor toward us.
For a fraction of a second, the device on his wrist pulsed—and didn't register anything. His head tilted, recalibrating. He stepped closer, eyes tracking Darcy, then me, as if checking for something that wasn't there.
Then he moved on.
That was worse than if he'd stopped.
Behind us, a man with faint markings along his skin—almost invisible under normal light—was trying to crawl toward an exit. Each movement left him weaker, more disoriented. A Purifier caught him by the ankle and yanked him backward so hard his head struck the floor with a dull, final sound.
No one flinched anymore.
Shock had burned itself out. What was left was raw survival.
The room was no longer a concert venue. It was a grid under active clearance. Bodies on the floor were repositioned, sorted, removed. Those still standing were herded, struck when they hesitated, forced to make space for an operation that did not acknowledge them as people.
I kept Darcy moving. Slow. Controlled. Always just out of the way. Every instinct screamed to do something—to step in, to break formation, to disrupt—
—but this wasn't chaos.
It was precision wrapped in brutality.
And the most dangerous thing in a room like this wasn't rage.
It was being noticed.
Not me—not yet—but the stage.
The pattern sharpened in my mind with cold clarity. The floor was no longer just a danger zone; it was a funnel. People were being pushed outward, dragged away, flattened into controlled clusters. And the stage—raised, visible, already cordoned off—was becoming a fixed point.
A place you secured.
Every Purifier movement reinforced it. Two units already held the edge. Another angled their bodies so sightlines converged upward, not out. They weren't acting yet, but they were preparing to.
And everyone I cared about was still up there.
Gwen. MJ. Cindy. Liz. Betty. Dazzler.
Darcy's hand was still locked around my sleeve, knuckles white. She hadn't said anything, but her breathing was fast and shallow, her eyes tracking the room with the kind of frantic intelligence that came right before panic turned into motion.
I couldn't let that happen.
Not here.
Not now.
"Stay with me," I said quietly, leaning just close enough for her to hear without raising my voice.
She nodded immediately. No questions. No hesitation.
I moved.
Not fast enough to draw attention. Not slow enough to be caught in the shifting currents of the crowd. I chose the moment between commands, between impacts—when the room exhaled for half a second—and stepped toward the stage stairs.
No one stopped me.
The Purifiers were focused outward, inward, everywhere except up. Civilians were being driven away from the perimeter, not toward it. The path opened without meaning to.
I took Darcy's hand fully now, fingers interlacing—not to pull, but to anchor. To make sure she didn't trip, didn't lag, didn't look like a problem that needed correcting.
We mounted the steps together.
The stage was chaos held barely in check. Equipment lay where it had fallen. A mic stand on its side. A guitar abandoned near the monitors. The band was clustered tight—not performing, not speaking—just there, eyes sharp, bodies tense, holding space because there was nowhere else to go.
Gwen saw me first.
Not surprise—recognition.
I shook my head once. Subtle. Immediate. Not yet.
I guided Darcy behind the nearest stack of equipment, placing her where bodies and shadows broke lines of sight. Then I stepped forward—not in front of anyone, not squared to the room—but between.
A position that looked accidental.
A stance that didn't challenge.
But from where I stood, I could see everything.
Gwen and MJ were to my left. Cindy and the others slightly back. Darcy just behind my right shoulder, close enough that I could feel the heat of her through the chaos.
I adjusted my weight. Balanced. Ready.
Not aggressive.
Prepared.
Gwen shifted beside MJ.
It was subtle—barely a change in her posture—but I saw it immediately. The tension in her shoulders. The way her weight settled forward, instinct already lining her up with the edge of the stage.
Spider-Woman was waking up.
I met her eyes and shook my head again. Sharper this time. No ambiguity.
She frowned—just a flicker—then glanced past me, taking in the room properly for the first time. The bodies on the floor. The civilians pinned where they lay. The Purifiers moving through them without distinction.
I didn't need words.
I lifted one hand slightly, palm down, pressing it toward the stage floor in a slow, deliberate motion. Stay. Grounded. Not now.
My gaze cut briefly to the crowd, then back to her.
Too many people.
Too many bodies between her and them.
If she moved—if she went airborne, if she struck first—every hostage in this room became leverage. Every civilian a shield.
Gwen's jaw tightened. I could see the calculation collide with instinct, the hero's urge grinding against the reality in front of her.
For a heartbeat, she looked like she might ignore me anyway.
Then MJ's hand brushed her wrist.
Gwen exhaled through her nose and stilled, shoulders locking back into place. Not relaxed. Controlled. Waiting.
Spider-Woman didn't vanish.
She just stayed caged—for now.
The stage lights were dead, but emergency glow outlined the room in harsh angles. I tracked movement automatically—the way a Purifier's visor tilted upward a fraction longer than before, the way a unit shifted closer to the stage edge without stepping onto it.
They hadn't decided yet.
But they would.
And when they did, the violence wouldn't start with a warning.
So I stayed still.
Breathing even.
Eyes forward.
Covering everyone who mattered—without giving anyone a reason to look twice.
Because the worst moment hadn't happened yet.
It arrived without drama.
No shouted warning. No dramatic escalation. Just a shift in posture that rippled through the Purifiers like a switch being thrown.
Two units moved at once.
They stepped onto the stage with the same measured efficiency they'd used to take the room—boots striking wood instead of concrete now, sound sharper, closer. Weapons stayed lowered, but hands freed. Batons came up. One compact device pulsed brighter at a wrist.
The path they took was direct.
Toward Dazzler.
She tried to stand when she saw them coming.
Her body betrayed her immediately.
Her knee buckled, strength vanishing mid-motion, muscles refusing to coordinate. She caught herself on a monitor, breath tearing out of her as the effort cost more than it should have. Whatever she reached for—instinct, habit, the reflex that had always answered—there was nothing there to meet it.
A Purifier grabbed her by the arm and yanked her upright.
She cried out—not in defiance, not in rage, just shock as her weight was taken from her without warning. Her other hand lashed out blindly and was caught mid-air, twisted down with practiced precision. She gasped, pain sharp and disorienting, and stumbled forward as they forced her to move.
"This one," a voice said, close now. Calm. Certain. "This one shines where it should not."
Another answered immediately, overlapping without pause. "A beacon of corruption. A false light."
They didn't look at the crowd when they spoke.
They looked at her.
A baton cracked across a piece of fallen equipment as someone stepped into their path—one of the stage crew, too slow, too close. The blow sent him sprawling, air punched out of his lungs as he hit the floor. No follow-up. No glance back.
"Clear the way," someone said. Not shouted. Obeyed instantly.
Gwen moved half a step forward.
I shifted with her.
Not blocking—occupying.
A Purifier's shoulder clipped mine as he passed. Hard. Deliberate. Enough to test whether I'd react.
I didn't.
He moved on.
Behind me, Darcy sucked in a sharp breath. I felt it through the contact at my back, felt her start to move—and tightened my stance just enough to stop her without turning, without touching her. She stayed.
On stage, the litany continued.
"We cleanse what should never have been allowed to grow," one of them said as they forced Dazzler down onto her knees. Her palms slapped the floor, useless, her body folding under control she no longer had.
"We correct the error," another added, visor angled downward as if in prayer. "We return the world to its intended shape."
They wrenched her arms behind her back.
She cried out again, sharper this time, pain breaking through fear as restraints snapped closed around her wrists. The device pulsed once—confirmation, not necessity.
A Purifier grabbed her by the hair and forced her head up.
"For too long," the voice continued, reverent now, "you have been praised for what you are not. For defying the order set by God Himself."
Dazzler's breath hitched. She shook her head weakly, not arguing—unable to.
"You are not a miracle," he said. "You are a warning."
Someone near the front of the stage screamed her name.
A baton slammed down again, this time against the floor between bodies, the crack loud enough to cut through the sound of breathing and sobs. The scream died instantly.
"We do not debate," another voice said. "We do not bargain with sin."
They hauled Dazzler to her feet.
Her legs barely held. She sagged between them, head lolling for a second before she forced it upright through sheer will. Her eyes flicked across the stage—past Gwen, past MJ, past the others clustered there—and for a moment, something like apology crossed her face.
Then she was dragged forward.
Any civilian too close was shoved aside without hesitation. Someone fell hard against a speaker stack. Another was thrown backward off the stage edge, landing in a tangle of limbs and cries below. No one was spared for being in the wrong place.
"This is a symbol," one of the Purifiers said as they reached the stage stairs. "And symbols must be broken."
They didn't hurry.
They didn't need to.
The message had already landed.
This wasn't an arrest.
It was an offering.
And the room understood—cold and unmistakable—that what was being taken wasn't just a person.
It was momentum.
Once it started, it didn't pause.
The Purifiers moved with brutal efficiency, splitting the room into vectors and objectives. Two units pulled back from the stage carrying Dazzler between them, her feet barely touching the steps as they dragged her down. Others surged forward immediately—not toward the band, not toward the civilians as a whole, but toward specific points in the crowd where bodies had already failed.
Where people couldn't stand.
Where something about them had been noticed.
A man with trembling hands was hauled up by the collar and thrown forward. He cried out once before a baton struck the back of his knees and folded him again, this time under control. Another was yanked sideways out of a cluster of civilians, her scream cut short as a device flared at her throat and left her gagging, eyes unfocused.
The dampeners never relented.
Whatever they had taken didn't flicker back between pulses. It stayed gone. Mutants didn't recover between steps. They sagged, stumbled, were dragged or carried, their bodies reduced to liabilities to be managed quickly.
Civilians surged anyway.
Instinct overrode fear. Hands reached out. Someone grabbed at a Purifier's arm, shouting for them to stop. The response was immediate—a rifle butt slammed into a sternum, dropping the man flat with a sound like a sack of meat hitting concrete. Another civilian tried to block a stairwell and was flung aside hard enough to crack against a railing.
No warnings.
No escalation.
Just removal.
I stepped forward.
Not fast. Not sudden. Enough to be seen without being read as a charge.
"Hey," I said, keeping my voice level, loud enough to carry without shouting. "You've got them. You don't need to hurt anyone else."
A visor turned toward me.
Then another.
The unit didn't stop moving.
"This is not your concern," a voice replied, amplified but calm, as if explaining something obvious to a child. "Stand down."
"I'm standing," I said. "I'm asking."
Behind me, someone sobbed. Ahead, another mutant was forced to their knees, breath hitching as restraints snapped into place.
"There are civilians here," I continued. "They're scared. You've already taken who you came for. There's no reason to open fire."
A pause.
Not hesitation.
Recognition.
"You mistake restraint for mercy," the Purifier said. "Mercy is not ours to grant."
Another voice cut in from the flank, sharper. "Every life taken in this place serves a purpose. Every drop of blood cleanses the ground it falls on."
I felt Darcy shift behind me.
I didn't turn.
"You don't need to kill anyone," I said again. "Not for this. Not to leave."
A ripple of laughter moved through the unit. Not loud. Not cruel.
Certain.
"Listen to him," one of them said, mockery barely concealed. "Still bargaining."
"We are not murderers," the first voice said. "We are instruments."
A baton cracked again. Someone screamed—short, raw—then went silent as they were dragged backward, heels scraping uselessly against the floor.
"I'm not arguing theology," I said. "I'm telling you that if you fire into this crowd, you'll kill people you didn't come for."
"Acceptable losses," the Purifier replied. "All of them."
Another civilian lunged forward—too close, too desperate—and was slammed face-first into the floor, pinned with a knee between the shoulder blades. Blood smeared instantly across concrete.
The extraction accelerated.
Mutants were pulled in twos and threes now, dragged toward secured exits where armored figures waited to pass them off. Some resisted weakly, instinct more than intent, and were punished for it. Others didn't fight at all, eyes glazed, bodies moving only when forced.
I took another step.
Not closer to them.
Closer to the space between them and the crowd.
"Then don't fire," I said, flat now. "You've got control. You've got your targets. Leave."
A beat.
Then: "We leave when the room is quiet."
As if summoned by the words, a scream broke out near the bar. A civilian had been struck hard enough to drop, glass shattering around them. Panic surged again, brief and sharp, before it was crushed under shouted commands and raised weapons.
"Silence," a Purifier barked.
Someone didn't hear fast enough.
A shot cracked.
Not into the crowd—into the ceiling. Plaster rained down. People shrieked and dropped flat, hands over heads, bodies curling in on themselves.
The message was immediate.
"You see?" the voice said, almost conversational. "We are already being generous."
My hands curled at my sides.
"This doesn't need to escalate," I said, forcing the words through my teeth. "You're proving nothing by hurting them."
"We are proving everything," another replied. "That the world still has a spine."
I felt the shift before I saw it.
Not in the room—in them.
The negotiation had run its course. Not because I'd said the wrong thing, but because one of them had decided there was nothing left to say. Certainty didn't need dialogue. It needed punctuation.
I held my position on the stage, body angled just enough to keep Gwen, Darcy, and the others behind me without making it look like a shield. Hands open. Palms visible. No sudden movement.
"You've made your point," I said. My voice sounded distant to my own ears. Too calm for what the room had become. "You're extracting them. Fine. But this—" I gestured broadly, not at them, but at the civilians pressed flat against the floor, at the people sobbing into their sleeves, at the bodies that hadn't gotten back up. "—this is unnecessary."
A Purifier near the right aisle laughed.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't mocking.
It was dismissive.
Another one—closer, heavier armor, rifle held a little higher than the rest—turned his helmet toward me. I could feel the focus settle, cold and impersonal, like a crosshair finding its rest.
"Enough," he said.
Not amplified.
Not for the room.
For me.
I took a breath.
"This ends cleaner if no one else gets hurt," I said. "You know that."
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
The extraction continued behind them—boots dragging, restraints snapping closed, bodies hauled toward the exits. Civilians flinched with every sound, every raised weapon.
Then the rifle came up.
Not fast.
Not panicked.
Deliberate.
The muzzle aligned with my chest.
I didn't move.
The shot detonated the room.
The crack was deafening—sharper than the warning shot before, closer, violent in a way that ripped the air apart. The sound punched straight through me, through everyone.
People screamed.
Some dropped instantly, hands over heads, bodies curling into themselves. Others froze mid-step, eyes wide, brains lagging behind terror before gravity finished the job for them. The floor filled with scrambling limbs and panicked breaths.
I felt the impact behind me.
Not on me.
A wet, heavy sound. Too close. Too wrong.
MJ's breath left her in a sharp, broken gasp.
For a split second, the world narrowed to that sound alone.
I turned—
—and she was already going down.
Her bass strap slid uselessly off her shoulder as her knees buckled. One hand reached out, fingers grasping at nothing, eyes wide with shock more than pain. Blood bloomed dark and immediate against her shirt, spreading too fast to deny.
Time fractured.
The crowd vanished. The Purifiers blurred. Sound collapsed into a dull roar behind my ears.
MJ hit the stage hard.
And didn't get back up.