[ It takes Lance a while to arrive at the inevitable action. Stephen watches the fight in measured silence once his power has arced out into the room for that first time, waiting, anticipating the moment when Lance's attention turns his way.
The thing about a fight like this is it's a visceral experience. There's very little time for planning ahead when you've two other people making choices and taking actions that might prevent your own. So although it's inevitable eventually, the when of it is obfuscated by the unpredictability of the sequence of events playing out between the three battling shrikes. Take your eye off the ball for a second, get too caught up in the show, and things get out of hand in the same way they can in the fistfight he's too busy watching to notice the need for immediate preparations.
So Lance has the opportunity to make the shot. Stephen sees it coming only the couple of seconds before it does, and by that time it's too late to control the man himself and avoid the action. Defensive measures are all he has left, and they come in the form of the other people in the room— Garak, the only one spatially positioned between himself and the arc of lightning coming for him, he has throw himself up as a bodily barricade against the attack heading his way; Amos he makes move to grab for Lance's aiming hand, in the hopes he might conduct some of that force and channel it away from the blow that hits Garak.
He'd asked for an arrest, not two dead shrikes. Ideally, he won't have to inform his son that his favoured shrike died in the line of duty today.
At the same time and almost reflexively, a killing blow met with equally deadly force, Lance will find himself caught with the same pain as both of his unintended targets are experiencing as Stephen opens up the links between the three of them in his neural network, allowing the sparking of the struck shrikes' pain receptors to overlay onto Lance's own.
It's all a little too late to avoid one of the branching coils of electricity that cuts through the air in a flash and strikes him at his open collar, burning the material and sending stabs of sharp pain rocketing out from the epicentre. ]
no subject
The thing about a fight like this is it's a visceral experience. There's very little time for planning ahead when you've two other people making choices and taking actions that might prevent your own. So although it's inevitable eventually, the when of it is obfuscated by the unpredictability of the sequence of events playing out between the three battling shrikes. Take your eye off the ball for a second, get too caught up in the show, and things get out of hand in the same way they can in the fistfight he's too busy watching to notice the need for immediate preparations.
So Lance has the opportunity to make the shot. Stephen sees it coming only the couple of seconds before it does, and by that time it's too late to control the man himself and avoid the action. Defensive measures are all he has left, and they come in the form of the other people in the room— Garak, the only one spatially positioned between himself and the arc of lightning coming for him, he has throw himself up as a bodily barricade against the attack heading his way; Amos he makes move to grab for Lance's aiming hand, in the hopes he might conduct some of that force and channel it away from the blow that hits Garak.
He'd asked for an arrest, not two dead shrikes. Ideally, he won't have to inform his son that his favoured shrike died in the line of duty today.
At the same time and almost reflexively, a killing blow met with equally deadly force, Lance will find himself caught with the same pain as both of his unintended targets are experiencing as Stephen opens up the links between the three of them in his neural network, allowing the sparking of the struck shrikes' pain receptors to overlay onto Lance's own.
It's all a little too late to avoid one of the branching coils of electricity that cuts through the air in a flash and strikes him at his open collar, burning the material and sending stabs of sharp pain rocketing out from the epicentre. ]