Ahab -- The Beginning

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A night out on the town that starts off innocently, ends in disaster



"You know, brilliant as this city may be in general terms I do not believe I have ever been witness to a degree of low-lighting or cleansing rain suitable either to disguise or legitimately do away with the fine sheen of filth." Marius ducked to scoop the empty waterbottle from the pavement and chuck it into the rubbish bin. "Though I can see why some passerby may have indulged in littering. The closest waste-receptacle was, after all, a shockingly onerous two feet away."

"Kids these days," Jennie said, in her best impersonation of a prime Minnesota housewife, "Why, they wear their low slung jeans with the long hair and the not cleaning up after themselves, donchaknow." She stretched her arms over her head and made a face as her back popped. "Still, even with the litter-strewn streets it's a nice change from the school. I was about to go all Dr. Tran there."

Kyle broke from attempting to figure out if he could get away with untucking his shirt yet without causing offense and gave Jennie a confused look. "Wait, like, with the Dr. Tran Action Hero, or like, five year old boy getting all irate. Because I could totally see how both of those could work."

"Well," Jennie paused. "I think both. I told Ms. Munroe that I was not a maccodity yesterday." She tried to stick her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans and then belatedly realized she was wearing a skirt. She instead pretended she was just smoothing her skirt. They'd decided to have dinner off-campus, and the place they picked ended up having something of a dress code.

"Have a care, Jen. Airin' the descent into madness where all may see is unseemly." Marius turned to Crystal with an apologetic air. "I should disclaim that we are indeed capable of goin' entire conversations without degenerating into utter incomprehension, an' consequently implore you to overlook the fact the empirical evidence to the contrary continues to mount."

If any statement warranted "Of course. I see. How interesting." this moment certainly did, but yet again, Crystal found herself deciding to leave these phrases unvoiced. Instead, she simply gave Marius a polite nod and a smile. "Yes, I am sure that the three of you are capable of this when you choose," she told him. Of course, they didn't seem to usually want to hold a conversation that actually made sense, but oh well. Dr. Tran was making her life miserable again.

"Hey now." Kyle protested. "I went an entire day without mentioning Dr. Tran or the WWE -or- the Bloodhound Gang last week." Then he grinned and patted the pocket of his pants where his wallet was. "Of course, it was for twenty dollars. But it was totally worth it, because that twenty dollars totally got me a new CD, and I got to win a bet against Forge and how often does that happen?" That he'd had to leave himself notes in his notebooks and on his computer and mirror was besides the point.

"Hey, anything to that reduces smugness is fine by me." Jennie said. "I firmly believe it's not CO2 that's depleting the ozone layer, but smug. Which could explain the huge hole over Australia." Jennie threw Marius a pointed look.

"Targets are visible and on the way to the drop point. Are you all in place? And the next person who calls me 'Gorgeous' gets kicked in the fucking head. Are we clear? Over." The liquid shadows pooled around the alley slid together, forming an almost human shape that slipped along behind the kids, seeping from shadow to shadow.

"Aye, we're in position, Georgie," Ramrod snickered, tapping his wooden staff against his shoulder as he eyed the children.

Static buzzed lightly over the comms before Wipeout added, "I'm in position. Over."

"Ready here", Hairbag chimed in for confirmation.

"One wonders how you Americans have any point of comparison considerin' the void created by the vacuum of class an' sophistication over your country of . . ." Marius trailed off, feeling something niggle at the back of his neck. He sensed a mutant, and he could distinguish enough to know it wasn't any of his friends. He halted, head tilting slightly in puzzlement.

"Country.. what?" Kyle said, following where Marius was looking with his eyes. "Dude? Earth to Marius, come in Marius..."

"What's wro--" Jennie broke off as she looked at where Marius was looking. Nothing out of the ordinary, but things were starting to bleed crimson light. That was never a good thing…and it was only getting worse. She automatically grabbed Crystal's arm. "Shit," she muttered.

Something was off. Crystal didn't know what it was, but there was a sense of wrongness around them. The air… the currents… something was amiss. Marius knew, and Jennie's grip on her arm made it extra clear that she, too, was aware of danger. What was it… she couldn't see what it was, there wasn't a target to blast or whirlwind away… With Jennie still firmly attached to her arm, Crystal moved closer to Kyle and Marius, an invisible wall of solidified air springing into existence around the quartet.

"Targets seem to suspect something. We'd better make a move on three!" George seeped further back into the shadows, spreading out along the gutter.

Wipeout's voice crackled over the comms. "On it."

"...fecking gobshite!" Ramrod hissed, moving from his position to stand next to Hairbag. He nodded toward the children. "That bird over there's some streak of piss." He was eyeing Jennie. "...buncha easy targets."

Kyle caught the crackle of the radio over the sounds of traffic and voices and let out a deep growl. "We're being watched..." He said. "Dunno how many, there's too much traffic noise, I can't smell or hear anything clearly." He tilted his head, trying to pinpoint where he'd heard it and shoved both hands in his pockets, where his cell phone was. If it was just some stupid drug dealer, he wasn't going to hit the panic button, but he wanted to have it ready just in case.

Hairbag shifted in the shadows, warily. "Feral kid could be going for a weapon."

The secluded parking lot where they'd wound up parking their car had seemed like a stroke of luck. However, now Jennie was seriously regretting not paying the extra fees for more public parking. She gripped her cellphone in her hand, sweaty palm making the plastic of the cellphone slick. The world was red, all red.

"According to the plan. I distract 'em, you lot clean 'em up. On three, two, one. Go! Go!" George clicked off his radio.

Blades of grass and spindly roots lengthened and strengthened alongside the pavements, growing in numbers before lifting upwards and then over Ramrod in a wide arc as he charged forward in time with the rest.

George drew himself into a human form, set off at a dead run toward the group of kids, skidding slightly on the wet footpath. He dodged left and feinted a punch at dark-haired boy only to kick out at the feral's legs. Fucking ferals. They always turned out to be utter shits about being hit for some reason.

"Bloody--" Marius flinched automatically at the dark-purple blur of speed that flung towards his face only to retract and redirect. The twitch was made even more severe when the blow aimed at Kyle hit the wall of Crystal's solid-air shield and . . . splashed.

Ramrod came to a stop a little behind George. "Jaysus! These lil' cafflers got themselves a fuckin' shield!" It only worked to rile him up as the Irish immigrant started to slam his wooden stick against the invisible wall. "Oh, you think you're smart now, eh?" He was all for scaring the shit out of them.

Jennie dropped Crystal's arm, and gave the man with the stick an evil little smile. There was a flash of red light from her fingers, and the man tripped over a previously unknown untied bootlace and went sprawling. She clicked the panic button on her phone with her other hand.

Kyle closed his fingers around the panic button on his phone and then pulled both hands out of his pockets. "Dudes, we're just trying to get to our car. It's cool." He was still hoping they were some kind of drug dealers. Maybe that Kick stuff or something. "We're not trying to, invade your space or whatever." Despite the calm tone to his voice, the claws on both sets of fingers were out, and he'd tensed. Purple... guy... thing.. whatever it was had been going for him when Crystal's shield stopped him, he'd have put money on it. He knew a leg sweep when he saw one.

Crystal didn't respond to their would-be attackers, answering only with a slight smile as a whirlwind quickly shot up from the ground behind George and Ramrod, another one quickly following. The two had already made a threatening first move and had actually attempted to attack them, but, for the moments, her classmates were safe in her shield, and there was no need to respond with the same kind of violence that had been displayed towards them. Their attackers had probably thought they were dealing with a few defenseless kids… well, now they'd see they were wrong, wouldn't they?

"Hey, Hairbag, what do you reckon the feral's talking about?" George asked. He turned, scanning the area - this was taking too long. "Oh sweet fucking fuckery. One of you little shits is making this worse for the rest of you." Mini tornados. He started backing away from his, circling around the kids' shield, trying to keep it between him and the tornado. "Ramrod, mate, try going under it."

"When I get my hands on that fuckin' bitch..." Ramrod muttered as he pulled himself up. Instead of going under it, he drew the branches out from the trees on the opposite side of the road and together with his staff, it speared into the tornadoes, effectively destroying it. "Got ourselves our own fuckin' shield! How about that, Georgie? Now how long do you reckon we 'ave to wait before good ol' Wipeout gets his balls into gear, eh?"

Hairbag grinned unpleasantly. "I think he thinks he's wandered into gang territory or something. Thinks he might be able to talk us out of this."

Crystal's wind sent what was left of the staff right back at her attackers; the strangely malleable purple bloke intercepted the shards, but a handy gesture. Marius blinked, then remembered there was a proper protocol for this. What had it -- ah, right, cell! Marius went for his and punched the panic button on his as well. A little belatedly, he realized, but there wasn't much else he could do trapped inside Crystal's shield and with nothing in the way of a distance-power. Bloody useless reactive mutation . . . ah!

Marius snapped his fingers and turned to his friend. "Oi, Jen! Give us a lend!"

Jennie extended her hand, fingers glowing red. Which then abruptly sputtered like a candle and went out. She stared at her hand. "That's not..." She reached for the other side of her power; and nothing. It was like trying to grab hold of air. "My powers aren't working," Jennie said, holding up her hands and staring at them. She looked up and squinted. For the first time in almost six years, her vision was clear.

Crystal's powers were gone. Her whirlwinds dissipated and her solid air wall dropped, but even without these clues she would have known. She'd felt this way before. Crystal hadn't liked it then, and she didn't like it now. She tensed slightly; from what the three men had been discussing, it didn't sound as if they intended to discontinue their attack. Her powers were gone, true, but that didn't mean she was entirely defenseless.

Crystal was not a fan of running. However, given the situation and the powers that had already been used against them, she had the feeling that just standing there wasn't very helpful. Illyana's words about demons came to mind. Running might not be very helpful here, but she had the feeling that a physical attack against the purple blob man wouldn't be very helpful, either. "Run!" she hissed to Jennie, grabbing her hand again. Noticing Marius's rather stupefied look, she grabbed his hand, too. "Come on!"

When the wall of air dropped, Kyle felt it. Pressure changes in his ears and sinuses, not so different from walking into a room without air conditioning, or Ororo's greenhouse. And then the world went quiet and still, the noises of the city muffled. He'd felt -that- before, once, when he'd given Miles Blaire a piggyback ride, and he would never forget what it felt like to lose the near overwhelming smells and sounds and tastes of the world. Kyle could've bolted right then and there, sprinted away and been half a block away before he even thought about running. But these were his friends. And even if one of those guys had done something to turn off his senses, he still had his teeth and claws, and he couldn't abandon his friends.

"What kept you, Wipeout? You off having some alone time with that picture of Pamela again? If you're done with her, go the black haired girl. Hairbag, you're on the feral and Ramrod, mate, you're taking the poncy-looking one. I'll get the blonde girl." George took a moment to spit the fragments of Ramrod's staff.

"Here now--" Marius said, trying to get himself up to speed on the situation through the distraction of being hauled away at it. Jennie's lend hadn't come, and the fact Crystal was now doing her level best to haul them away from the scene of battle indicated the dissipating winds hadn't been intentional. Lost powers? He'd felt something pass through him, like a warm ripple, but he didn't feel any change . . .

Wait. Something was different. He'd felt it before; like when Jennie used probability powers on him, or Angel shared hers. He sensed nothing missing. He did sense something added.

"Dammit Marius, come on!" Jennie didn't like this. Not one bit. She could fight, true enough, but depowered against guys with powers was a whole other story. She swallowed the giddy feeling of not being able to see any lights at all. Her entire read of the situation was gone, and she felt entirely too naked without it.

"'sho boss." Rebuilding his staff had been easy and Ramrod was wielding himself a weapon again as he stepped forward. His little creation from before wrapped itself around Marius' ankles, the roots pulling the boy off of his feet and onto the ground with a sharp tug. "And that was a bag o' swhag, fellas."

Marius' suspicions were no longer relevant. The minute the roots had snared his leg the world had contracted to one simple point: he was being attacked. And when you were attacked you worked with what you had. Whatever that was.

As Marius' breath grunted out in a whuff as his back hit the pavement the boy made an instinctive pull at the power settled in him, and his yellow eyes flashed white.

Hairbag hadn't felt a thing - he didn't even have the enhanced senses to turn off, not being a feral however much he looked like one - so though he could see something had happened to his teammates, he wasn't encumbered in the slightest. He turned and headed straight for Kyle, clawed hands outstretched.

George hit out at Crystal, and then the world turned sideways. Oh shit. George crumpled mid step and landed hard. There was pain. There was nothing but pain and he lay gasping as it started to ease, slightly, too slowly, arms and legs and back feeling fundamentally wrong, too long, too short, too stiff and full of bones again.

There was some very small part of Kyle that was enjoying the idea of a fight way too much. And another larger part that was enjoying it just as much as was appropriate. The rest was focused on driving his sandaled foot into the stomach of the hairy ugly little clawed guy. With his opponent doubled over from the impact, he leaned in and swiped at the man's face with his claws without even a second of hesitation.

Alerted to the fact that his powers had been wiped out when it started to rain branches, blades of grass and roots around him, Ramrod cocked his head to the side as he stared down at Marius. "That wasn't a very nice thing to do, lad." He made a quick grab for the boy's collar and hauled him up, dangling him a good few inches off of the ground before throwing him back real hard against one of the vehicles. He picked his wooden stick up and gave out a malicious grin as he stepped forward.

He was stopped when Jennie threw herself onto his back and grabbed his neck in a chokehold. She knew she didn't weigh much, but it didn't take a lot of pressure to cut off someone's air. A small part of her brain was informing her it was probably smarter to run and get help, but it was ignored. She didn't abandon her friends.

When Marius had dropped to the ground, Crystal had moved to try to help him, but had quickly found herself facing an attacker of her own. George's attempt at punching her was easily avoided. Although the world was quite different now that something horrid had happened to her powers, a punch like that was easy to avoid. Now Jennie was helping Marius, Kyle seemed to be doing fine, and she had a crumpled, whimpering man nearby who clearly meant them harm. Sighing slightly, Crystal gave him a swift kick in the head and then moved to see how Marius was. Jennie had stopped him from being hurt more, but he'd still been thrown.

Bending forward with a vicious growl, Ramrod grabbed a fistful of Jennie's hair before moving to grip the back of her shirt, effectively tossing her off of his back with one good swing of his arm.

Crystal's hand on his arm brought Marius around from the daze of slamming against the car just in time to see his other friend unceremoniously hurled from Ramrod's back. "Jen!" he yelled, shoving himself away from the car and tearing for Jennie's attacker.

"You're some can of piss, you lil' caffler!" Ramrod faked a swing of his stick at Marius' head, knowing all too well that he'd avoid it before slamming a fist against the boy's abdomen. "Lights out, boyo-" He threw another punch at his face this time, hitting Marius directly at the bridge of his nose.

Jennie hit the ground hard when Ramrod tossed her off his back, white-hot pain shooting up her arm and the edges of her vision going grey for a second. She looked up in time to see her friend come to her defense. For someone who had been hit in the head as much as Marius had, it was something of a surprise when he crumpled from Ramrod's punch, apparently out cold. Oh Marius, you idiot-- Jennie pushed herself to her feet with her good arm and was about to attack the man with the stick again when someone grabbed her from behind.

Wipeout struggled with the dark-haired girl, grappling to get a hold on her arms. Fumbling for a second, he produced a small metal device from a pocket and stuck it hard onto Jennie's neck, pulling her bad arm behind her back, and then up, sharply. "Stay still," he snapped.

Crystal flung herself at Ramrod. He'd thrown Marius, hit him, and had now thrown Jennie? A summer filled with worry about Jennie had left Crystal quite protective of her roommate, even when they didn't get along. Now, Jennie was actually including Crystal in things, and now some idiot was throwing her around? NO!!! Unfortunately, her movements weren't as coordinated as they usually were, and what was meant to shove the crazy man down to the ground ended up as Crystal ramming into his side. Furiously, she drove a knee up at his groin and dug her up-until-then perfectly manicured fingernails into his face and arm.

Ramrod cursed up a storm as he doubled over in pain. He made a grab for Crystal's arms but that knee of hers was something else altogether. "Fecking give it up, bird or I'll give ye a clatter in the jaw!" He slapped her hard on the side of her face, pushed her to the ground and pressed his weight against her back to keep her in place as he worked on getting that stupid tagging device out of his coat. "Fuckin, fuckin' eejits-" He tagged her carelessly on the side of her arm before hauling her up to her feet again.

Clawing up the little hairy man's face was satisfying, but had thrown him off balance. Kyle stepped back, trying to catch himself and went down hard as the man kicked his feet out from under him. He windmilled his arms for balance, to no avail and landed on his butt and forearms.

Hairbag growled, shaking the blood out of his eyes. "Stay down, you ugly little shit," he cursed, kicking Kyle in the solar plexus to knock the wind out of the younger mutant. With a particularly sadistic grin, only made the more macabre by the claw marks striping his face in crimson, he reached down to grab Kyle's collar, clipping a small metal disk onto it.

"And say g'night," he taunted, placing the sole of his foot against the other feral's face and stomping the back of Kyle's head right into the asphalt.

The smart thing to do would be to run. Run and call for help, or run and try to remove whatever it was that had just been stuck on her arm. Who knew what it was? It could explode, or it could do something harmful to her, maybe even remove her powers permanently if that hadn't happened already. Crystal, however, didn't want to leave Ramrod standing there to continue harming Jennie and Marius. This guy wanted to grab her arms? Fine. Again, her hands lashed out, and she scratched wildly at any available skin. He hadn't liked that kick, had he? Another kick was aimed at Ramrod, this time with her whole leg rather than just her knee.

There was no way Crystal was going to get lucky twice with that move. Ramrod blocked the kick and directed a sharp chop to her shin. It was turning out to be a real arseways of a job. He stepped away from her, thinking that he'd rendered her immobile. "That fuckin' bitch!" He stared down at the deep scratches on his arms. "She's got me lookin' like a wreck!"

George staggered to his feet. Fuck, he felt crook right now and the right side of his body was too bloody short. He lurched over to Marius, hissing in pain with every other step and fixed the tag to the centre of the boy's back and gave him a kick in the guts, just to make sure he stayed out till they were all home and clear. He clicked his radio on. "We're good to go! Get us out of here as quick as you bloody can, before this turns into even more of a fucking balls up. We've been here too long. I repeat, we're good to go!"

Ramrod's kick was swift and effective. Crystal bit back a scream as she felt a snap in her leg. Her left leg remained straight as her right knee buckled, and she hit the ground hard. Her world was one of pain, and somewhere in the haze of pain she felt the device on her arm and flailed out at it with her hand. Ramod hadn't taken the time to attach it securely, and she felt it move. A few frantic moments later, the device was off and several feet away. She stared at it blankly, trying to focus away from the horrid pain in her leg.

As the mercenary called in, the metallic tracking devices began to quietly hum and become red hot, and before anyone had a chance to yell, they were gone. Suddenly Crystal found herself the only occupant of the street.




Crystal calls for help to the one who can get there the fastest




For a few moments, Crystal's blank stare continued. Then her eyes widened in horror as she realized that the device had vanished. "~No!~" she gasped out through her pain, looking wildly around. Jennie, Marius, Kyle, and their attackers were missing as well. They were gone... the device was gone... "~Nooo!~" she screamed. "~Come back! Take me with you! Come back!~" This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be... she was fighting through the shock of what had just happened and the extreme pain in her left leg. Focus! She looked around and sighted her purse a short distance away. Crystal reached out for it, wincing in pain as she moved backwards, dragging her left leg behind her. Somehow, she managed to open it and pulled out her cell phone. Back at the mansion, Pietro muted his television and clicked his phone open. "Hello?" he said distractedly as he tried to remember how to turn the captions on.

"We were attacked! Jennie, Marius, Kyle...I do not know where they are!" Simple was better. Just state the facts.

That snapped Pietro's attention like few other things could, and from the end of the driveway he asked "Where are you, Crystal? Are the attackers still there?"

Crystal gave her location. "They're gone, too! They took Jennie, Marius, and Kyle!"

"I know it." Plotting the route took barely a microsecond, and then Pietro was off, as fast as he could run and not leave broken windows in his wake. He cupped one hand around the phone, shielding it from the wind. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Are you hurt? Do you know if any of the others were able to hit their panic buttons before they were taken?"

"I.. do not know. I think they were holding phones... I was not looking at their hands, I was trying to stop the attackers!" Wincing, Crystal looked down at her injured leg "I will require a visit to the Medlab, but I am fine. The others are more important."

"Entirely possible," Pietro agreed, "but I can't do anything about the others right now, so I'm going to worry about you. I'm told this is a thing friends do." I might do it more often if I got less backchat when I did, he thought wryly.

"I am fine," Crystal responded peevishly. Shouldn't he have been there by now? Her leg was in severe pain and something horrible could be happening to her classmates right at this moment. "There is no need to worry about me. Find them!"

"You're 'fine?'" Pietro asked, his voice suddenly present rather than coming over the little phone speaker. "Can you even stand?--Don't try." He knelt next to Crystal, pulling a roll of bandage out of his pocket and ripping the sterile packaging open with his teeth. "There's no particular sign of them nearby . . . did you see if your attackers had a vehicle?"

"Yes, fine," Crystal replied, looking sullenly, looking down at the obvious swelling and large bruise on the lower half of her left leg. What was a broken leg when compared to all of the other reasons people wound up spending time in the medlab? "No, I did not see a vehicle. There were four of them, and they seemed to come out of nowhere. At least three of them were mutants. They... the device!" She looked around as if expecting to find it. "It disappeared! They did not need a car; they all teleported away!"

"Ah. All right--that makes this a job for Xavier and his mighty brain. Right now we need to get you splinted, safe, and back to the mansion. Where," he added soothingly, "you'll be better able to help your friends--the best thing you can do for them right now is remember everything you can about the people who attacked you, and you'll be better able to do that when you're not in pain, hm?"

Back to the Medlab, where Dr. Voght would be waiting for her next unfortunate victim. At the moment, however, Crystal didn't quite care about that. "Have you alerted any of your leather-wearing teammates or do I need to contact them?" Stupid, so stupid... why hadn't she realized right away what had happened? Nothing could be done here. You couldn't just chase after people who had teleported away.

"I'll get them on the horn as soon as I've seen to your leg." Pietro darted a quick look around the parking lot. "And I'm going to have to disappear for two seconds to get something to splint it with, but I'll be right back."

Crystal just nodded, trying to get a grasp on the recent events. Everything had happened so quickly and had been utter chaos and... her fingers were dirty. Her nails were disgusting. How had that... oh, right. The scratching, for all the good it had done.

It might have been two seconds, but was quite possibly less before Pietro reappeared carrying a pair of sturdy tree branches, which he stripped of leaves and bark as he knelt next to Crystal again. "This is going to hurt, but I'll be as gentle as I can. What happened?"

"They tried to attack us," Crystal began. "We were returning to the car, noticed something was wrong... I set up an air-wall against us, one of them slammed into it... Jennie made one of them trip, and I set up whirlwinds... the idiot tried to attack a whirlwind! Jennie tried to give Marius her powers but..." she shook her head, eyes wide. "They did something to our powers! They are gone! My air-shield vanished, we tried to run, something grabbed Marius and he fell, then we were all fighting and they shoved Marius and threw Jennie and we all just... attacked."

Pietro's hands stilled for a moment. "Your powers are gone?" That smacked of an organized group, someone who knew what they were up against. "Hopefully the doctors will be able to figure out why .. . all right, this is the part that's going to hurt." As gently as he could, he straightened her leg and tied the sticks in place with the bandage.

Doing her best to ignore the pain, Crystal held out her hands for Pietro to see. "Do you really think I would have done this against powered assailants if I could have used my powers instead? Would my leg have been broken so easily had I been able to move properly?" She paused for a moment. "Something happened to our attackers, though... they lost their powers, too."

"That's odd--if they were the ones who took your powers, you'd think they'd be able to shield themselves from the effect, however they did it . . ." He shook his head. "We'll figure it out later. I think you'll do all right to travel, now--how do you feel?"

"I feel wonderful, Pietro," she said, not bothering to hide much of her irritation. "I am fine, in perfect condition. Everyone is safe and everything is wonderful."

"All right then," Pietro muttered, lifting her gently as he stood. "Pardon me for caring, I'm sure."

"It hurts," she replied with a slight glare. "Something in my leg snapped and it hurts! Jennie, Marius, and Kyle are gone and who knows where they are or who took them? My powers were stolen from me and I was unable to prevent them from disappearing right in front of me! I am safe but they are not. How do you think I feel?"

"Quite right," Pietro sighed, shifting his balance slightly as he launched them back toward the mansion. "I only meant . . ." He shook his head. "Let me know if I cause you any further pain."

Crystal gave a slight nod and stayed silent the rest of the way to the mansion, the wind she could no longer control whipping past.