xp_logs | Blessed Are The Peacemakers: The Queen of Swords (Reply)

Three telekinetics escape from Shatoy, and a fourth psi joins the party.

The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected,
The endless road and the wailing of chimes,
The empty rooms where her memory is protected,
Where the angels' voices whisper to the souls of previous times.

The sound of gunfire punctuated by explosions followed them up into the mountains as they chased Saidullayev. The helicopters sounded like they were directing most of their attention at the town; Nathan was almost sure he heard answering gunfire. He only hoped most of the civilians had taken the opportunity to get out.

Saidullayev was a few hundred meters ahead of them, his telekinesis letting him run atop the snow rather than struggle through it. Nathan and Jean were having to do the same just to keep up. Flight wasn't really advisable under the circumstances.

#Is that a house up ahead?# he sent swiftly to Jean. The sun had set while they'd been scanning the town house-by-house, and full darkness was coming on fast.

Still, the last of the sun's rays, lingering up in the peaks, gave just enough light for them to make out the building. #It is,# Jean confirmed, diverting some of her attention from the fracas below to scan the house. #It's... oh, that bitch.#

For one absurd moment Nathan thought she was talking about Saidullayev. But then Saidullayev came to a somewhat breathless-looking halt in front of the house, smiling like a child who'd just pulled off the most wondrous trick imaginable. Even as part of Nathan's brain started to process the very familiar psi-imprint, his eyes took in the woman who stepped out to meet him.

His mental outburst was entirely Askani, and far more profane than what Jean had just said.

"You see," Saidullayev said, out of breath but definitely looking delighted as Nathan and Jean caught up. "You were correct and I was not, Tara. I should perhaps be used to this by now."

Trask favored Saidullayev with a theoretically benevolent smile. "Well done." She turned her attention to Nathan and Jean, sparing a flick of a glance back along their path, toward the chaos. "I'm very pleased to see you. Won't you come in?"

The burst of Askani profanity from Nathan was aloud, this time. "There are Russian attack helicopters shooting up a town ten minutes away! We are not coming in for tea!" He took a step towards her, his body language unmistakably aggressive and his heart racing. It was her, she was behind all of this somehow, and he'd let her pull the wool over his eyes again.

Saidullayev promptly stepped between them, the smile gone and telekinesis coming off him in crackling waves, almost solid enough to touch. "~Don't presume too far,~" he said, in Russian this time.

Jean's Russian was more than a little rusty, and had been rudimentary at best - limited mainly to simple, sweet or important things to say to Illyana when the girl had still been having trouble with English - but she understood the tension between the two men well enough, and her own power simmered just under the edge. It might not have been as flashy as Saidullayev's posturing, but it was also harder to predict, or defend against. "I warned you before, Trask..."

Nathan stayed where he was, the urge to attack warring with the knowledge that he couldn't. He and Jean knew how to shield against Trask, but however much they'd trained to fight Saidullayev since August, it would still be noisy, to say the least. It would draw the Russian helicopters right to them.

"What is, is," Trask said. "You have your choice. Ilyas," she added to Saidullayev, and then she turned her back and walked into the house. She left the door standing open.

#I swear to God the next time she parrots Askani at me I'm going to strangle her with her own tongue.# Nathan looked at Jean, then flinched at the sound of explosions from the direction of Shatoy. #But we need to know what the hell's going on, and getting under cover isn't such a bad idea.# He eyed Saidullayev. "You first," he growled, jerking his head at the door.

Saidullayev laughed. "As if it really matters where we're standing, if one of us decides to fight," he mocked, but walked quite peaceably into the house.

Nathan's jaw clenched and he followed, letting Jean take up the rear. It would give her an extra half-second or so to react if Saidullayev attacked.

#I get to help,# Jean told him, following warily after the others, her eyes focused on Saidullayev. Trask was a problem, but he was a threat.

Inside, the house had a few more furnishings than the one where they'd found Saidullayev. Enough to offer a minimal level of comfort, if you happened to be staying for a few days. "So what is this, Tara?" Nathan asked through his teeth. "You collected a pet schizophrenic teek and wanted to show him off?"

"My plans are somewhat broader than that," Trask said. "But aside from your degrading choice of terminology, I did offer Ilyas greater scope than his previous and rather short-sighted mentor, and I did want to make you aware of it."

"I told you the truth," Saidullayev said, prowling like a restless tiger over to the window facing Shatoy. There wasn't much to be seen from this distance, but he seemed to be relishing the sounds of the continued fighting - to an unnerving degree. "I tired of Magneto's company. It seemed to me that he complicated what should be very simple. I prefer a certain... purity of purpose."

#They are both absolutely batshit,# Nathan sent to Jean.

#Not overstating the case in the slightest,# Jean concurred. "So, now we're aware," crazy lady, she didn't add. "You could have just sent a letter on some tasteful stationary."

"Oh, but the words pale in comparison to the reality." It was Saidullayev again, jumping almost gleefully into the conversation. Nathan began to realize that when he'd said the man was batshit, that was precisely what he was. Functionally batshit, but whatever Magneto or Trask had done to get him back in touch with reality after Derbent, it wasn't the reality to which the Chechen telekinetic had previously subscribed.

"I reiterate," Nathan said, through his teeth. "The Russians are bombing a town not a mile away. Given that Laughing Boy over there was likely their target, they will probably overfly the area looking for any sign that he got away. So I don't think now is the time for philosophical banter." He focused on Trask, not Saidullayev. She was the one he wanted an answer from. "Why are we here? Why is he here? What are you doing?"

Trask followed Saidullayev over to the window and patted him on the shoulder. The gesture looked as if it might have been the head, if she'd been able to reach. She drifted back across the room, then, as if perhaps it had penetrated even her peculiar lens on reality that he and the window might not make up the safest place to stand. Or maybe she just liked the other side of the room.

"I have remade him," she said, "and he will make for me strife. The turmoil of labor the world needs to give birth to itself."

"I find I like the idea of burning down the world," Saidullayev said. "It would be fair return, for all it's done for me." His smile was odd suddenly, almost ghostly. "Tara tells me it's not right to torment what I mean to kill, but I hope to convince her to make an exception for certain of my dear former employers."

Jean blinked, then blinked again. "You know," she said after a second, deciding that while discretion might be the better part of valor, it was less fulfilling, "I can't decide which of you is crazier. It's definitely a close race - you're neck and neck."

Trask ignored her. "True madness is the attempt to avert the inevitable. I am here to plead with both of you to leave that path. I have already loosed a dog on Wakanda's king, and as he was less than effective, more reliable assistants are even now dealing with Barath."

She said it so calmly. Nathan tried very hard not to let his jaw hit the floor. "You-why?" Barath. Budapest. Scott and Ororo and Forge were in Budapest right now. We have to get back to the comms and warn Charles-

"The inevitable can't be diverted, but it can be delayed. These efforts at cooperation with unmutated humans might be ultimately futile, but they are putting off the rebirth. And those two have been influential." She looked at them earnestly. "So have you, but you have also spoken with Askani. I must ask you both one more time to see the truth and join us."

Afterwards, he would reflect on just how long it had been since he'd snapped quite that dramatically. Blown like a volcano, Dom would have said. He lost it so completely that he didn't even go for Trask telekinetically but physically, his mind counting the steps it would take to get him to the perfect spot to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze. With a snarl, Saidullayev lunged to intercept him, radiance gathering around him.

Jean had twitched at the mention of someone going after Barath but Nathan had spoken up before she had a chance. Intellectually, she knew Scott and Ororo were probably more than capable of handling whatever Trask had sent after the Prime Minister. Emotionally, though, even the implied threat had her wanting to rip off someone's head.

Luckily, Nathan made his move and Saidullayev gave her her chance. He never even saw it coming as the telekinetic blow blasted out the wall of the house on the hill and sent him flying across the landscape. Jean immediately took off after him.

Gentlemen, he said,
I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.