Fifth Column: The Truth
May. 31st, 2009 06:02 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe last of the ambushes is dealt with, and back at the Centre for Psionic Arts, the guiding hand behind it all - the ambushes and the Preservers, is revealed.
A Darkforce tentacle snared the remaining police officer standing with Jean, hauling him downwards. He vanished from sight with a scream, sharply cut off. Then, it wasn't just tentacles but a wave of darkness moving - or oozing - up the stairs. A hoarse laugh echoed from inside the gathered shadows.
"Run, race traitor," a rough-sounding female voice taunted - in English, with a distinctly Middle American accent. "Run for your life, before I turn your lights out for good."
Logan had found another set of stairs leading up to the next floor. As he reached the top, it became obvious what the Darkforce-wielder was doing, why she was herding people upwards. Two more mutants stepped out of one of the apartments - both women. Logan's reappearance didn't seem to throw them, either. One raised a hand, and the temperature in the hallway plummeted, a thick layer of ice sheathing the floor and walls in an instant. A thick wall of ice formed, cutting Logan off before he could get back to Jean and Ororo.
Jean had gathered Ororo to her and telekinetically leaped to a bit of floor in the hallway above that still looked stable, landing just as the ice wall rose up. Well, Logan could take care of himself for the moment, easily, which left the woman below for her. And now that the telepath blocking her was down, Jean could really focus. #You can't hide from me...# She aimed the telepathic whisper into the center of the Darkforce, testing the other woman's natural shields and training.
And there were patterns in the shadows. Familiar patterns. I'm not hiding, the woman hissed back, her mental voice startlingly clear for a non-psi. Clear enough to suggest a lot of mental discipline and training. Not hiding at all, X-Man. The shadows oozed up the stairs, tentacles exploding outward and lashing threateningly at Jean and Ororo. One shot outwards at Ororo's ankle.
The Darkforce was too slippery for Jean to get a hold of telekinetically, so for the moment all she could do was hang on to Ororo, determined the other woman would not be pulled down into that pit as she made her telepathic assualt. #No, maybe you're not...# The telepathic tone was still little more than a whisper, ghosting around the edges of the Askani shields, and Jean spared a brief moment to silently curse at Trask before something caught her attention. Not a crack, not as such, but a weakness, an opening which meant she wouldn't have to brute force her way in and possibly kill her enemy by accident. #You're so out in the open, might as well be standing in bright sunlight.# Her tone didn't change but all of a sudden she was slicing into the opening she'd found, pressing forward, searching briefly through memories and feelings until... #There we are. Good night.#
The tentacles writhed spasmodically, then the shadows collapsed inward, leaving the woman at their heart sprawled on the floor, mere feet away from Jean. There was noise from the bottom of the broken stairs, groans and a few shouts, reassuring proof than the police officers she'd sucked into her Darkforce shadows weren't all dead after all.
On the other side of the ice wall, the mutant who'd created it eyed Logan calmly, raising a hand once more. Ice spread upwards from the floor, trapping Logan's legs and rising ever higher by the instant.
"Cripes." Logan said as he popped both sets of claws and started to shave away at the ice. It quickly turned pinkish-red from the cuts he was inflicting on himself, but he was making serious headway into freeing himself. Shaved ice, anyone? He took a step forward, then another one, still hacking away at both ice and flesh to free himself from the clinging, bone-chilling cold. "Phoenix? Little help here?" he said as he slowly approached the ice-wall.
The second of the women took a run at the ice wall, her controlled slide down the icy floor only increasing in speed. But instead of smashing against the wall, she passed right through, becoming tangible for long enough to kick Logan in the head - then turning intangible again for just long enough to avoid his claws.
OK, this was definitely starting to suck. He had to keep up an assault on the intangible one, prevent her from going solid. She had to be solid to hit, which means that if he timed it very carefully and hit as she struck him, he could do some damage to her. And he'd only need one good hit to put her down. She was too dangerous to play around with. And, of course, if he was timing her attack it would crimp his attempts to carve himself out of the ice-block the other one was so determined to get him into.
The Darkforce manipulator having been subdued, Jean did a quick scan to make sure there wasn't anyone else coming up on their rear before gently let Ororo settle to the ground and then turned as she heard Logan's yell. "Wha... oh. Yes. That's a problem," Jean muttered as she saw the ice wall cutting her off from her teammate. And it looked like the wall was reaching out towards Logan. On the plus side, the woman who was manipulating the wall seemed to have failed to notice two things. First, that her backup was down. And second, that she was on the same side of the wall as the aggravated red-headed X-Man.
Jean darted down the hall towards the corner where the ice manipulator was standing and couldn't help but smile as the other woman turned at the noise; the woman's eyes widened as she turned straight into a telekinetically enhanced roundhouse that broke her concentration. And possibly her jaw.
As the ice wall crumbled inwards, it threw off the phaser's rhythm and she stumbled and went down, still perfectly tangible, and very close to being within Logan's reach. She swore and tried to roll away, and in that same moment someone came through the window at the end of the hall, a burly woman apparently unaffected by the glass she'd just plowed through.
"Thanks, Red." he said with a truly disturbing grin as his adamantium-cored fist caught the phasing woman in the jaw. Just to be sure. He turned to face the new playmate and charged, claws out and ready to party. What he wasn't expecting was to get picked up and bear-hugged, the woman obviously trying to squeeze the life out of him.Unfortunately for him, she had both his arms pinned in a bad way and he had no leverage, no way to cut her.
She gave him a shark-like grin - and flew right back out the window, into the central courtyard of the building. She flung him away, right at one of the rickety-looking balconies. The rotted wood and rusted steel collapsed under his weight, dropping him down onto the next level, which thankfully seemed to be a little sturdier.
"I think you make a good ping-ping ball, mate," she called out cheerfully to him. The accent was Australian, rather than Hungarian, but even as she delivered the taunt, she dove at him.
Logan met her dive with a boot aimed straight for her chin. He hurt, but the damage wasn't something the factor couldn't handle. What was really driving him nuts is that he had a board with some rusty nails in it embedded into his back. They hurt - a lot.
She clearly felt the blow, but she shook it off doggedly, grabbing him by the front of his leathers and flying straight upwards. They crashed through two more levels of the old balconies that wrapped around the courtyard before she put him through the concrete of one of the exterior walls and into an apartment that was, unfortunately occupied. A young woman shrieked and dove for the toddler playing placidly on the floor, trying to get out of the way of the combatants.
"I'm glad we didn't manage to blow all of you up," the Australian mutant said. "This is much more fun."
"Yeah. It's a lot more fun this way." he said, mindful of the kid and its parent. "Lady, you're going to want to..." he started to say before Big Bertha here hit him with one in the jaw that made his teeth fly like popcorn. Would have broken his jaw if his jaw wasn't indestructible. As it was, he did have to push it back into place roughly and wait for his healing factor to put the tendons and whatnot back into service.
He was done playing with this one.
Behind them, the young woman ran for the door, her child in her arms. The Australian eyed them for a moment, then bent down, lifting a jagged piece of the windowframe. She threw it through the air, its rapid spinning interrupted as it contacted the back of the woman's head. The civilian fell, dropping the child, who crawled a few steps away and then sat there, staring at her mother before bursting into tears.
"The only problem with this part of the operation," the Australian said, cheerfully malicious. "Not enough collateral damage."
Logan exploded into motion, ignoring the pain as the nails in his back tore at flesh and his jaw hung on for dear life. He clawed at her head, raking at her flesh, stripping her down to the bone. Possibly even a little further. All he could see in his head was that woman crumpling, the back of her head caved in, and the child's look of incomprehensible stunned disbelief as her mother fell.
#The site's clear of hostiles. Time to regroup.# Jean's telepathic voice was quiet - she'd caught sight of the scene in the apartment through Logan's eyes.
Logan walked out of the apartment with the sobbing little girl clung around his neck like a limpet. He just stroked her hair as he walked, eyes and face hard. "Shhh." he told her absently as he let the girl work it out of her system as much as she was going to. "It'll be OK." he crooned to her as he headed towards Jean and Ororo.
---
Forge took the stairs two at a time, relying on instinct as he kept scrolling through security footage displayed on one lens of his goggles. At a whispered command, a 3-D image of the school's layout was projected onto his field of vision, and he cursed at the scene he saw transmitted.
The crack of thunder shook the windows as he watched the Hungarian police swarm to surround an unassuming blonde woman dressed in black -only to find themselves thrown back by a cascading arc of electricity. She gave a glance to the camera, and then the image went to static.
Pulling his glasses down to hang from his neck, Forge ran through a mental list of options. Slowly, he walked into the hall and sat on one of the benches, leaning back against the wall and letting out a slow breath. He didn't have to wait long before the double-doors were blown off their hinges in another blast of lightning, the scent of ozone filling the air.
"Amber Hunt," he said in greeting to the woman stepping through the smoke. "It's been a while. Back in '05, little island off the Scottish coast, yeah?"
"Oh, you know perfectly well who I am," Amber said, with an odd, stiff little smile. There were people behind her, men and women dressed in black, nearly a dozen of them. Some carried guns, some didn't. One very large man wearing a ski mask paused beside her, eyes flickering to Forge. Amber shook her head. "Leave this to me," she said. "Get upstairs." She turned her attention back to Forge as the rest of her team moved past her, her smile growing a little more natural. "Don't tell me you're the rear guard. What an awful thing to do to a helpless little genius."
"You're not kidding," Forge sighed, removing his communicator earpiece and tucking it into a pocket. He remained seated on the bench, making no attempt to move towards Amber. "Seriously, I got totally screwed here. I mean, I've seen what you can do. Not firsthand, of course, but we've got our files. You took a stand-up barrage from Havok, and he's like, a walking WMD, you know?"
Without making any sudden moves, he reached into a pocket of his jacket and produced a bottle of water, showing it to Amber before he removed the cap and took a sip. "So yeah, if I try and fight you, you're going to kick the holy crap out of me, and I have absolutely no desire to be someone's speed bump. But I figure it'd take you a bit of time to do that. About, say, two minutes? So I'll make you a deal, save us both some frustration. You give me two minutes, and then I let you knock me out quick and go on to do whatever you came here to do."
"And what are you hoping to do with your two minutes?" The look in those glowing blue eyes was very much like that of a cat, content to pause and play with its prey. There was another explosion outside, and although only a handful of windows at the far end of the hall blew inward, the whole building shook. "I hope you don't think you're going to talk me around to the side of the angels or anything naive like that. Because just the thought of having to listen to that is inclining me towards knocking you out and then killing you."
Forge rolled his eyes. "Good God, no," he said while absently rubbing his left shoulder. "Last time I tried something like that, a psychotic Hungarian ripped my arm off and bashed my face in. No, I'm pretty sure you're gung-ho about what you're trying to do here. Whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish... I just want to understand it." His voice was surprisingly earnest through the fear and exhaustion. "I mean - Magneto has his manifesto, crazy as it might be. I have no idea what you're fighting for. If I'm going to be thrown out as the sacrificial lamb here, I kind of want to know why I should bother."
"This is a novel delaying tactic." Her voice was very dry, and blue light flickered back and forth between her fingers as she held out a hand. The lights in the hallway flickered and died. "Really. So original. Look, have you ever read that 'rules for evil overlords' thing that circulates on the Internet? There's one about shooting your captured adversary as soon as he says 'Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about'?"
"You'd rather try and, what, shoot me? Beat me up?" Forge replied, spreading his empty hands. "And solve what? Jesus, Amber. You're not stupid, and you're not some psycho like Ilyas Saidullayev. You don't want to mess around, fine."
He stood up, tapping the center of his chest. "Electric charge, right here. Put me into temporary defibrillation, and the AED built into my prosthetics will keep my heart going, but I'll be down. Probably in medlab for a week or so, which would keep them from throwing me under the bus like this again. You're carrying around... I'm guessing probably the energy of an entire city block the way the lights have been flashing here. I'm not stupid, Amber. I can't fight you, so I thought I might try talking to you like a fucking human being, which you know, I figured you might not get very often."
He tapped his chest again with two fingers, firmly for emphasis. "Right here, and I'm not even going to try and stop you. All I want to do is talk. Because unlike Charles Xavier and the other X-Men who follow without question? I get it, Amber. I know what it's like to want to lash out because the system fucking sucks. All they know is following what the guy in the chair tells them to do. They want to keep playing by the rules and god, sometimes it makes me sick, you know?"
He paced back and forth, running a hand through his hair, seemingly oblivious to the almost-palpable energy crackling around Amber. "I put this uniform on because I want to change things, and where does it get me?" He spread his arms again and nodded to Amber. "Speed bump. Hell of a way to treat their pet genius, right?"
"Poor baby," Amber said mockingly. There was energy crackling in her hair, now, the blonde strands themselves almost luminescent. "But see, you're useful to them - you're safe. Safe like they're trying to make telepaths, with this nonsense." She waved a hand dismissively at the upper floors, sparks flying at the gesture. "You want to know why I do what I do, Forge? Because I want a world where I don't have to be be safe in the eyes of the flatscans around me. I want a world where they're too fucking afraid of me to attack me, or the people I care about." Her voice had gotten quieter, but more vehement. "And I want a world where people like Charles Xavier don't give the rest of us false hope, then stand back and watch us destroyed for being dangerous."
Forge stopped and let Amber's words sink in. "Yeah," he finally said with a slow nod. "Yeah, I get that. I just... maybe this is going about it all the wrong way. I don't know. I don't know anymore." He looked down at his feet, seemingly conflicted. "Either way, you've been more than fair here. I suppose my two minutes are up. Thanks for... well, for treating me like a person, Amber, and not just a target."
He held his right hand out for a handshake, open and empty. "I wish things could have gone differently."
Amber drifted towards him, moving in a way that would have made it perfectly obvious to someone trained in hand-to-hand that she was moving in for the kill. "It's not like it cost me anything," she said mildly. "I'm going to go upstairs and kill every civilian I see. And you," she said, reaching for Forge's arm without hesitation, "can go up and take a look, once you wake up. Maybe you'll finish 'getting it'."
Forge slid his hand past Amber's, then drew it back swiftly, leaving a thin loop of wire around her wrist that tightened snugly as he stepped back. "I was with you up until the killing part," he said. "I wouldn't make any sudden moves if I were you."
Amber's eyes widened, her nostrils flaring. "You son of a bitch," she hissed, and energy poured down her arm like liquid fire, towards the wire around her wrist.
Forge calmly watched as the arc of energy shot down the wire and over to the metal bench he'd been sitting on, blasting harmlessly out of Amber in one massive jolt. "Very true. But the term is properly genius son of a bitch. Remember four years ago in Scotland, Amber? I was the son of a bitch who figured out how your power works. You're like a giant capacitor, storing energy and discharging it. And when you connect a high-voltage capacitor like you, to a ground - like the solid iron underpinnings of this building's foundation - using an ultra-low-resistance conductor - like that myomer wire you just grounded yourself out with..."
He walked over to tap Amber on the forehead with one metal finger, without the slightest hint of a spark. "It discharges itself completely. Drains the tank in one shot. You made your play, you lost."
Amber had gone white as a sheet, her eyes unfocusing, at the sudden discharge of all the energy she was carrying. When Forge tapped her, her knees buckled, and she crumpled to the floor, eyes sliding closed as she hit.
"And for the record," Forge said to the unconscious girl in front of him, "I'm no one's fucking speed bump."
---
The way to the back entrance was as clear as anyone could hope it would be. No students. No terrorists. Not even a spider hanging from its web. "Fucking figures," Lil grunted, giving another look around to confirm the fact she was alone. "Just because I have tits doesn't mean I can get saddled with the safe jobs." She gave the door a kick for good measure before blowing a tuff of blonde hair out of her eyes and heading back up the stairs to where they had established their base.
"Don't need to be fucking protected," the Amazon continued, speaking to herself out loud. Anyone around could probably hear her thoughts anyway so no loss of privacy there. "Hit just as fucking hard - if not harder - than them but no, I gotta go play fucking butler!"
Another growl, she started down the hallways and turning the corner, barely missed being struck in the head with a gun that had been lost by a terrorist who was being intimately introduced to the wall by Nate. "Selfish," Lil grunted with a smirk this time, hurrying to her teammate's side, eying the approching clump of black-clad figures. "Ain't no way I'm letting you go stag to this party, Dayspring."
"Enough with the chatter," he growled at her, cold gray eyes flashing to her face for a moment before he turned his attention back to the rest of the invaders. His psimitar flashed gold and the man in the lead jerked like he'd hit a wall face-first, then crumpled to the floor.
"Well, fuck you, too," the Amazon hissed under her breath, her own hard gaze moving from him to the pack where she zoned in on the largest, most imposing figure she can make out in the mass. "Keep your pointy stick from pointing in my direction," was all Lil said before charging her target.
Nathan's eyes narrowed at the continuing backtalk, but he let her engage her target, then slipped a TK shield just behind Lil and the grappling hostile, using it as a wall to shove the others back into the stairwell.
#Get down the east stairwell! Get out of the building!# he projected to the civilians. #You're clear for now, we'll cover you-#
Something expoded just on the other side of the TK shield; it was an energy projector, and Nathan swore, reeling backwards as the feedback shattered the shield. The first hostile back through the door was a tall woman, her hands sheathed in glowing energy. Nathan reached out briefly to Forge, breathing out on almost a sigh of relief as he sensed the encounter with Amber Hunt conclude in his teammate's favor.
#Forge, we've got civilians coming down the east stairs,# he sent, bringing the butt of the psimitar down hard against the floor. The carefully controlled telekinetic shockwave created spiderwebbing cracks that ended in disintegrating hardwood and two of the hostiles caught up to the knees in what was left of the floor. The energy-projector's head snapped backwards at a telekinetic blow, and she fell back against the man behind her, unconscious.
Across the hall, Lil continued to grapple with the brutish terrorist. A man who topped her size by a few inches and a good seventy-five pounds, weaponless save for his fists with which he traded her blow for blow. "Watch the tremors," the blonde hollered over her shoulder at Nate, nearly losing her footing as she tussled with a partner who was either very surprised or very annoyed that she was matching his shots. Probably both.
Nathan grunted, the blade of his psimitar starting to glow again as the hostiles started to advance again. He sent a woman trying to rush Lil from behind flying, then had to shield himself as gunfire came him way. The hair on the back of his neck was prickling. He didn't like these close quarters. The hallway was bigger, more open, than the hallway on Youra all those years ago, but it reminded him of trying to defend that bunker, to protect the innocent lives behind him...
#Then let us help protect ourselves.# It was one voice, and many, and Nathan stiffened, eyes unfocusing as the glow that filled the psychic atmosphere reached out to encompass him. One of the terrorists charged him with a yell - and bounced off a TK shield.
Landing a punch that sent her opponent staggering away, Lil's attention snapped back to where Nate was standing. Green eyes were wide, full of confusion and distrust. "Get outta my head," she growled, not at her teammate but to those she could hear, could feel but couldn't see. "Get outta my fucking head and stay out. We don't need your help." Because one of them was probably feeding information to one of the bastards trying to kill them.
#No.# The composite voice sounded hurt, almost indignant. #Never. This means too much. And we don't want anyone hurt. Not even them, misguided/foolish/not knowing what they're doing.# The brief splintering of the composite voice didn't alter its surprising weight.
But then, a link was always more than the sum of its parts. #You can't remember where you are,# it went on, gaining a deepness and a resonance that could be attributed to the Xavier-trained telepath it now encompassed. #Confused. Turned around. Where are the targets?#
The effect on the terrorists was startling, and immediate. All of them stopped, looking around in apparent bemusement. Even Lil's opponent, as he straightened, looked shocked. "~Where did the bitch go?~" he snarled in German.
One of the terrorists, another tall woman, was shaking her head doggedly. The mindlink reached out delicately, poking experimentally. #Her mind is strange/stronger than it should be/full of patterns... we know this,# it concluded, its voice abruptly sounding more like Nathan's. A telekinetic blow sent the woman back against the wall, hard, and her comrades reacted in alarm, a couple of the ones armed with guns firing wildly.
"What the fuck is going on?" Lil spat, unable to grasp what was playing out around her. The voices were still there and now the terrorists we reacting like a bunch of headless chickens. "Exactly why I don't want anyone in my head," she grunted under her breath. Eyes shot from black clad figure to black clad figure, wondering what she should do next. "You got orders for me or anything? Or am I just supposed to sit back and enjoy the show?"
"Cover them as they leave," Nathan murmured, aloud this time. There were people emerging from the rooms down the hall, cautiously but determinedly. "I'll bring up the rear. There are more coming."
Finally! Verbal orders she could handle. "Got it," the blonde answered, backing up to do as he said. The snark was gone, her voice filled with the stone cold hardness that filled Lil when she wasn't entirely comfortable with the situation. But, covering the psis while they fled was much better than standing around waiting for the terrorists to find their brains.
---
"Move quick! Find police! Go!" Forge directed the students towards an exit. He could only hope that someone spoke English, but he was thinking images as clearly and loudly as he could as the civilians moved towards a clear exit.
He turned around to check on where he'd left Amber, unconscious on the bench. Movement to his left caught his eye, and he waved a hand absently, motioning to the exit. "She's fine, you need to get out of here. Come on, move!" he barked without looking over his shoulder.
"Mmm. No," said the woman bending over Amber, "I'm in no hurry, John Henry." Tara Trask straightened, her pale eyes meeting Forge's unwaveringly as he turned back towards her. She seemed utterly, unflappably calm in the midst of the chaos, and was dressed like the professor she had been. As if she'd showed up to attend a lecture here at the university, rather than to destroy this building and everyone it contained.
"Tara Trask," Forge said in a growl, reaching for his hip. Part of him wished he could carry a gun - he was a good enough shot to outdraw almost anyone, he knew. And he wouldn't even need to carry lethal rounds, just something to even the score. He didn't have optic blasts, after all. Or claws. Or invulnerable skin, or telekinesis, or a healing factor. All he had was his mind. A brain that could work faster, shine brighter, think smarter than anyone.
Knowledge is power, right? he reminded himself, hand still moving towards the grip of a small taser. He just had to out think her. He didn't have to fight her, not with his half-crippled body. It wasn't as if the X-Men would have knowingly put him in danger if he wasn't ready. Despite what he'd bantered with Amber, they wouldn't treat him as an expendable 'speed bump'. He was valuable, too important to risk.
Another inch closer to the weapon. He'd show them. Two of the most powerful of Trask's cell, and he could take them down without a scratch. No one would doubt him then. They'd stop looking at him as the weak link, the team geek, the one they all had to protect. All he had to do was fire.
Unless he missed.
If he hit Amber, the jolt would recharge her. Probably wake her up. She wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. She'd retaliate -lethally. This wouldn't be like Vermont, no one would just show up in a helicopter and save the day. A blast of electricity and he'd have just enough time to feel all his nerves ignite, metal sparking, flesh burning. His heart would stop but his brain would stay conscious for long, painful seconds as he would be able to know exactly what it would feel like to be electrocuted from the inside out.
There was too much to lose. Too much to risk. How could they have put him in this situation? Didn't they realize what they were asking him to do? He'd already sacrificed so much for the X-Men, for mutantkind, for Xavier's dream that he wasn't even sure he believed in. His hand wavered above the taser's grip, fingers shaking. It wasn't fair.
Cable could have telekinetically slammed her through a wall. Lil could have punched her into submission. Ororo could have buffeted the hallway with an instant hurricane. Even Haller could have SOME useful option in this situation.
All Forge could do was shut his eyes and wait.
Trask had drifted across the distance between them, her eyes fixed on Forge, unblinking. She raised a hand, cool fingertips brushing his cheek. "Time for a strategic retreat?" she murmured, her tone perfectly reasonable. "You were lucky with Amber. But you know your mind is all but undefended, don't you?"
She was right. Forge knew it. For all his intellect, his mind was like an open door when it came to telepaths. She was giving him a chance, or she was toying with him. His eyes burned with shame as he flinched away, as if her touch could shred his very thoughts. He needed to retreat, find cover, some form of protection from a telepath.
Fight fire with fire.
Turning on his heel, Forge bolted for the stairs, slamming his shoulder into the stone walls of the stairwell as he hurdled them two at a time. Cable. Cable could protect him. Buy him time to fight back, to think of a solution. Time, that was it. He just needed time.
---
Someone was feeding information to the terrorists. Lil was sure of it.
Shepherding the students and staff out the back door, she noted the lack of eye contact. The tension that filled the air. The shifty one in long coats; the bold ones who strutted. All things that had her pulse racing a little fasted, her nerves a little more on edge. "Keep quiet and keep moving," she instructed them, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, prepared to launch herself at whatever or whoever caused a threat.
Which could very well be the little female with pink hair who appeared to be smirking...
Lil gave herself a mental shake. She had no proof but a feeling. No proof but her suspicions. Nate would be much better at weeding out a traitor and for half a second, she toyed with leading them all back up the steps before another thought pushed its way to the front of her mind.
Nate would cover for them.
Students. Psis.
But not innocent. One of them - oh God, maybe more - had this all in the bag. Tell the terrorists they were headed out back. Catch them like rats, surround them all for a massacre. And without anyone knowing. Without anyone hearing.
A noise came from above them and Lil's head snapped back, searching for the source of the sound. "Keep moving!" she barked, pushing past them and back up the stairs. "Keep going and don't fucking stop for anything or your exit will be through the closest window." With no way of knowing if the students understood her words, the Canadienne let her tone do the talking.
As they reached the back entrance, escaping out into an alleyway thankfully free of obvious threats, there was another building-shaking explosion, somewhere to the west. In the moment of silence afterwards, the sound of heels clicking purposefully on the floor was audible even before Tara Trask came around the corner, spotting Lil.
After flickering almost dismissively to the last of the students heading through the doors to questionable safety, Trask turned her full attention back to Lil. Her eyes were as hard as sapphires, boring into the younger woman.
"Let them go," she murmured. "Let the police sort it out. They're just waiting for you to turn your back."
"Waiting for me to... Who the fuck are you?" the taller blonde asked, squinting at the other woman. Not a student. A professor? "You need to evacuate the building with the rest of the school, lady." Evacuate. Get them out. Let the police handle it; explosions and traitors alike.
"You saw what they did upstairs. How do you know that's even the exit? They could be leading you into a trap," Trask said, and turned around, moving almost leisurely back the way she'd come. "There are other ways out," she called back over her shoulder, and as she passed by one of the windows, she stopped, leaning briefly on the windowsill and peering out at the chaos beyond.
Green eyes flicked from the woman to the door and back. "It is. I came down earlier to look. Nate sent me and there wasn't any traps. I looked." She'd looked... hadn't she? The stairwell looked the same but had she gone the right way? Taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way while she was trying to keep the students covered? Had they led her the wrong way?
Lil chewed on her bottom lip, fists balled at her side as she watched the shorter blonde staring out the window casually. "What other ways?" the Valkyrie asked finally. "Can you show me?" A way out. Another way out. One they didn't know about. One they wouldn't be able to tell the terrorists about.
"Look," Trask murmured, pointing to the fighting outside. As they watched, a figure in flames stumbled past, screaming. There were a group of police officers pinned down between the burned-out hulk of a car. Bodies laid here and there on the ground, and in the distance, the two women could hear approaching sirens. "They've won. The psis. They had to have had an edge."
Shaking her head, Lil's ponytail whipped about dangerously as she watched and listened to the scene playing out below her. "But how? The terrorists. We were supposed to save the psis. Get them outside. Get the psis away." They should have gotten away. Would haven't gotten away if... "Someone on the inside," she hissed, clenching her fists tighter. "A psi working with the terrorist, telling them what we were doing. I was right. I knew they couldn't be fucking trusted."
"It could be anyone," Trask murmured. "Nathan linked with them, didn't he? You should put a stop to that. Who knows what they could have picked up from his mind."
Very slowly, Lil felt every inch of her body go tense. Nathan. It had been his voice in her head, joined with theirs. Nathan. Ordered her to the back door, not once but twice. Had he tried to kill her? Have her trigger a trap the first time and when it failed, sent her back a second this time with those who knew. Those who knew what he'd been thinking. Had been in his head... leaving no one to stop him.
Nathan.
"He's upstairs," Lil growled. "And he must be stopped."
---
Standing over the sprawled bodies of half a dozen terrorists, breathing a little more heavily than he should have been - he was getting old, damn it - Nathan took a moment to try and center himself, so that he could reach out and find Forge and Lil. But between the absolute focus he'd had on the fight and the leftover disorientation from the now-broken mindlink, he was a little out of it. The sudden appearance of another mental imprint coming tearing up the stars took him by surprise, and the psimitar came up for a moment before he realized that it was Forge.
"Forge, what-" The state of the younger man's mind actually robbed him of speech for a moment, and almost instinctively, he reached out and enclosed Forge within his own shields. "What the hell happened?"
The sudden shift of weight in his mind was somewhat like being tossed in a lake, but in reverse, Forge thought. He stopped dead in his tracks, looked at Nathan, then dropped to his knees and heaved up what little he'd had to eat since getting off the Blackbird.
Coughing and wiping his mouth on the back of his glove, he looked up at Nathan with bloodshot eyes. "Trask," he rasped. "Got into my head. I took out Amber but... but Trask's got her again. Downstairs."
The burst of angry Askani profanity wasn't directed at Forge. Nathan reached down and grabbed his arm, hauling him upwards. "Keep close," he grated, pulling him towards the stairwell. "I can keep her out of your head if you stay close enough that I can keep you inside my shields." He didn't try to telepathically calm the younger man down, or anything like that; he suspected Forge had had quite enough mental manipulation at this point.
Without questioning, Forge slipped behind Nathan, the same way they'd practiced in the Danger Room in numerous building drills. The taser in his hand was almost a comfort, and he realized he'd been clutching it like a security blanket ever since the fog had lifted from his mind. "If she has Amber up," he said, "you need to shut her down first. I just need one shot at Trask."
They didn't run into any trouble on the way down, but Nathan jerked suddenly, shoving Forge back into the stairwell and flinging up a TK shield in time to intercept more gunfire - which was coming from police, he realized. #Friendlies!# he projected, or the telepathic equivalent. But as soon as he touched their minds he became aware that they actually knew precisely who they were firing at.
"Shit," he snarled. "She's pulling out every trick in the book this time around..." Holding the TK shield, he leveled his psimitar. Its blade spat burst of golden light, a psi-bolt for each confused and agitated police office. The gunfire abruptly fell silent. "They're all going to have a headache in the morning - oh no, you don't, Tara!" he shouted in a sudden rage, stepping out into the hall as he saw her bending over Amber's still form, something in her hand. "Back off! Right now!"
"Not a fucking chance in hell." The voice didn't come from Tara but another blonde woman who stepped out from the shadows. Lil stood in Nate's path, blocking the former professor from his view. "Fucking traitor. Surprised your little plan to send me outside and to my death with all those kids failed?" the Amazon hissed, her eyes never wavering from the telepath's face as she lifted her fists. "I'm stopping you. It ends here."
Forge's brain suddenly went into overdrive as he found himself stepping in front of Nathan in defiance of all reason. As if to explain his actions to himself, he pondered the math inherent in what he was about to do.
Fact: Lil weighs around a hundred sixty pounds.
Fact: Lil's skin reflects the kinetic energy of impact, effectively doubling the power of a punch.
Fact: Lil is one freaky strong bitch.
Fact: Lil is going to punch Cable's head off his shoulders unless something stops her.
Fact: You're about to become the world's smartest speed bump.
As the giant Canadienne stepped forward and cocked back her hand for a punch, Forge took two steps carefully and jumped slightly to make up for the height difference, twisting his waist and throwing his left arm forward in an almost picture-perfect straight jab.
Garrison would be proud, he thought right before he felt Lil's knuckles strike his.
And crumple his prosthetic arm like a tin can, splintering carbon fibers and bending metal into nearly-unrecognizable wreckage halfway up his forearm.
Nathan had frozen for precisely the wrong instant, caught between the need to pursue Trask, the knowledge that he couldn't just swat Lil aside as he would have done with anyone else, and the the problem of just how he was supposed to keep two of them clear of Trask's goddamned subconscious mojo. Forge had only needed a moment, however, and Nathan lurched forward with another curse, catching the smaller X-Man as he reeled back. Light gathered around the blade of the psimitar; if he had to, he'd shut her mind down before she could land another blow.
The punch did more than break Forge's artificial limb; it cut through her brain like a steely knife, severing the connection and Trask's influence over the Valkyrie. It wasn't what was supposed to happen. Wasn't what she'd wanted... wasn't what she'd been made to believe what she wanted. Lil blinked hard as the fog lifted, frozen to the spot for a long moment before the color drained from her face. Anger, disappointment, fear, embarrassment, all of it mixed with the sudden withdraw in a chaotic swirl that dropped the young woman, trembling to her knees. "F-Fuck."
"'Fuck' is right, you colossal bimbo!" Forge moaned, one hand clutching the elbow of his prosthetic. "Jesus, no one told me you hit that hard! God DAMN..."
Leaning up from where he lay on the ground, he gripped his wrecked arm and twisted, muttering the word "Gecko" under his breath. With a hiss of hydraulics, the ruined forearm dropped off at the elbow. Biting his lip to hold back obvious pain, Forge glared at his teammates. "I'll live, christ's sake! Get them!"
Nathan gritted his teeth and went around the kneeling Lil. Amber was still on the bench where Forge had left her - small mercies, he thought, and took off at a run as Trask vanished through a gap in the wall. She was still within reach, he told himself. He just needed to get close enough, and-
He turned to jump through the gap in the wall, and barely managed to get a TK shield up in time as a wall of blue-green energy came at him. The shield held, but the impact was enough to throw him backwards and to the ground, the shield compressing to a bubble around him.
The world was still spinning. Lil had seen Nate fly past her, had heard Forge's words but it all felt like a dream. Unreal and distant. She gave her head a little shake, hoping to clear it more but the jostle only made her more dizzy. It wasn't until she heard the dull thump behind her. "Cable!" the blonde called, trying to push herself to her feet and after failing, started crawling toward him.
Scooting along the floor, Forge pushed his way towards Nathan, his one good hand holding the taser and aiming at the gap in the wall should anything move back through it. "Cable?" he repeated Lil's exclamation in a more level, questioning tone. "Nathan, get up. We're not in a good position here, we need to link up with Storm and the others. We can-" he turned his head to see that Amber was still slumped over the bench, "-we have to regroup. We're in no shape to fight."
A quick push of telekinesis brought Nathan back to his feet. He stared out the hole in the wall, searching - gone. Out of sight, and as good as lost in the mess that was the local psychic atmosphere. "No," he said, "I have to get you two somewhere defensible and then get out there. This isn't over yet."
A Darkforce tentacle snared the remaining police officer standing with Jean, hauling him downwards. He vanished from sight with a scream, sharply cut off. Then, it wasn't just tentacles but a wave of darkness moving - or oozing - up the stairs. A hoarse laugh echoed from inside the gathered shadows.
"Run, race traitor," a rough-sounding female voice taunted - in English, with a distinctly Middle American accent. "Run for your life, before I turn your lights out for good."
Logan had found another set of stairs leading up to the next floor. As he reached the top, it became obvious what the Darkforce-wielder was doing, why she was herding people upwards. Two more mutants stepped out of one of the apartments - both women. Logan's reappearance didn't seem to throw them, either. One raised a hand, and the temperature in the hallway plummeted, a thick layer of ice sheathing the floor and walls in an instant. A thick wall of ice formed, cutting Logan off before he could get back to Jean and Ororo.
Jean had gathered Ororo to her and telekinetically leaped to a bit of floor in the hallway above that still looked stable, landing just as the ice wall rose up. Well, Logan could take care of himself for the moment, easily, which left the woman below for her. And now that the telepath blocking her was down, Jean could really focus. #You can't hide from me...# She aimed the telepathic whisper into the center of the Darkforce, testing the other woman's natural shields and training.
And there were patterns in the shadows. Familiar patterns. I'm not hiding, the woman hissed back, her mental voice startlingly clear for a non-psi. Clear enough to suggest a lot of mental discipline and training. Not hiding at all, X-Man. The shadows oozed up the stairs, tentacles exploding outward and lashing threateningly at Jean and Ororo. One shot outwards at Ororo's ankle.
The Darkforce was too slippery for Jean to get a hold of telekinetically, so for the moment all she could do was hang on to Ororo, determined the other woman would not be pulled down into that pit as she made her telepathic assualt. #No, maybe you're not...# The telepathic tone was still little more than a whisper, ghosting around the edges of the Askani shields, and Jean spared a brief moment to silently curse at Trask before something caught her attention. Not a crack, not as such, but a weakness, an opening which meant she wouldn't have to brute force her way in and possibly kill her enemy by accident. #You're so out in the open, might as well be standing in bright sunlight.# Her tone didn't change but all of a sudden she was slicing into the opening she'd found, pressing forward, searching briefly through memories and feelings until... #There we are. Good night.#
The tentacles writhed spasmodically, then the shadows collapsed inward, leaving the woman at their heart sprawled on the floor, mere feet away from Jean. There was noise from the bottom of the broken stairs, groans and a few shouts, reassuring proof than the police officers she'd sucked into her Darkforce shadows weren't all dead after all.
On the other side of the ice wall, the mutant who'd created it eyed Logan calmly, raising a hand once more. Ice spread upwards from the floor, trapping Logan's legs and rising ever higher by the instant.
"Cripes." Logan said as he popped both sets of claws and started to shave away at the ice. It quickly turned pinkish-red from the cuts he was inflicting on himself, but he was making serious headway into freeing himself. Shaved ice, anyone? He took a step forward, then another one, still hacking away at both ice and flesh to free himself from the clinging, bone-chilling cold. "Phoenix? Little help here?" he said as he slowly approached the ice-wall.
The second of the women took a run at the ice wall, her controlled slide down the icy floor only increasing in speed. But instead of smashing against the wall, she passed right through, becoming tangible for long enough to kick Logan in the head - then turning intangible again for just long enough to avoid his claws.
OK, this was definitely starting to suck. He had to keep up an assault on the intangible one, prevent her from going solid. She had to be solid to hit, which means that if he timed it very carefully and hit as she struck him, he could do some damage to her. And he'd only need one good hit to put her down. She was too dangerous to play around with. And, of course, if he was timing her attack it would crimp his attempts to carve himself out of the ice-block the other one was so determined to get him into.
The Darkforce manipulator having been subdued, Jean did a quick scan to make sure there wasn't anyone else coming up on their rear before gently let Ororo settle to the ground and then turned as she heard Logan's yell. "Wha... oh. Yes. That's a problem," Jean muttered as she saw the ice wall cutting her off from her teammate. And it looked like the wall was reaching out towards Logan. On the plus side, the woman who was manipulating the wall seemed to have failed to notice two things. First, that her backup was down. And second, that she was on the same side of the wall as the aggravated red-headed X-Man.
Jean darted down the hall towards the corner where the ice manipulator was standing and couldn't help but smile as the other woman turned at the noise; the woman's eyes widened as she turned straight into a telekinetically enhanced roundhouse that broke her concentration. And possibly her jaw.
As the ice wall crumbled inwards, it threw off the phaser's rhythm and she stumbled and went down, still perfectly tangible, and very close to being within Logan's reach. She swore and tried to roll away, and in that same moment someone came through the window at the end of the hall, a burly woman apparently unaffected by the glass she'd just plowed through.
"Thanks, Red." he said with a truly disturbing grin as his adamantium-cored fist caught the phasing woman in the jaw. Just to be sure. He turned to face the new playmate and charged, claws out and ready to party. What he wasn't expecting was to get picked up and bear-hugged, the woman obviously trying to squeeze the life out of him.Unfortunately for him, she had both his arms pinned in a bad way and he had no leverage, no way to cut her.
She gave him a shark-like grin - and flew right back out the window, into the central courtyard of the building. She flung him away, right at one of the rickety-looking balconies. The rotted wood and rusted steel collapsed under his weight, dropping him down onto the next level, which thankfully seemed to be a little sturdier.
"I think you make a good ping-ping ball, mate," she called out cheerfully to him. The accent was Australian, rather than Hungarian, but even as she delivered the taunt, she dove at him.
Logan met her dive with a boot aimed straight for her chin. He hurt, but the damage wasn't something the factor couldn't handle. What was really driving him nuts is that he had a board with some rusty nails in it embedded into his back. They hurt - a lot.
She clearly felt the blow, but she shook it off doggedly, grabbing him by the front of his leathers and flying straight upwards. They crashed through two more levels of the old balconies that wrapped around the courtyard before she put him through the concrete of one of the exterior walls and into an apartment that was, unfortunately occupied. A young woman shrieked and dove for the toddler playing placidly on the floor, trying to get out of the way of the combatants.
"I'm glad we didn't manage to blow all of you up," the Australian mutant said. "This is much more fun."
"Yeah. It's a lot more fun this way." he said, mindful of the kid and its parent. "Lady, you're going to want to..." he started to say before Big Bertha here hit him with one in the jaw that made his teeth fly like popcorn. Would have broken his jaw if his jaw wasn't indestructible. As it was, he did have to push it back into place roughly and wait for his healing factor to put the tendons and whatnot back into service.
He was done playing with this one.
Behind them, the young woman ran for the door, her child in her arms. The Australian eyed them for a moment, then bent down, lifting a jagged piece of the windowframe. She threw it through the air, its rapid spinning interrupted as it contacted the back of the woman's head. The civilian fell, dropping the child, who crawled a few steps away and then sat there, staring at her mother before bursting into tears.
"The only problem with this part of the operation," the Australian said, cheerfully malicious. "Not enough collateral damage."
Logan exploded into motion, ignoring the pain as the nails in his back tore at flesh and his jaw hung on for dear life. He clawed at her head, raking at her flesh, stripping her down to the bone. Possibly even a little further. All he could see in his head was that woman crumpling, the back of her head caved in, and the child's look of incomprehensible stunned disbelief as her mother fell.
#The site's clear of hostiles. Time to regroup.# Jean's telepathic voice was quiet - she'd caught sight of the scene in the apartment through Logan's eyes.
Logan walked out of the apartment with the sobbing little girl clung around his neck like a limpet. He just stroked her hair as he walked, eyes and face hard. "Shhh." he told her absently as he let the girl work it out of her system as much as she was going to. "It'll be OK." he crooned to her as he headed towards Jean and Ororo.
---
Forge took the stairs two at a time, relying on instinct as he kept scrolling through security footage displayed on one lens of his goggles. At a whispered command, a 3-D image of the school's layout was projected onto his field of vision, and he cursed at the scene he saw transmitted.
The crack of thunder shook the windows as he watched the Hungarian police swarm to surround an unassuming blonde woman dressed in black -only to find themselves thrown back by a cascading arc of electricity. She gave a glance to the camera, and then the image went to static.
Pulling his glasses down to hang from his neck, Forge ran through a mental list of options. Slowly, he walked into the hall and sat on one of the benches, leaning back against the wall and letting out a slow breath. He didn't have to wait long before the double-doors were blown off their hinges in another blast of lightning, the scent of ozone filling the air.
"Amber Hunt," he said in greeting to the woman stepping through the smoke. "It's been a while. Back in '05, little island off the Scottish coast, yeah?"
"Oh, you know perfectly well who I am," Amber said, with an odd, stiff little smile. There were people behind her, men and women dressed in black, nearly a dozen of them. Some carried guns, some didn't. One very large man wearing a ski mask paused beside her, eyes flickering to Forge. Amber shook her head. "Leave this to me," she said. "Get upstairs." She turned her attention back to Forge as the rest of her team moved past her, her smile growing a little more natural. "Don't tell me you're the rear guard. What an awful thing to do to a helpless little genius."
"You're not kidding," Forge sighed, removing his communicator earpiece and tucking it into a pocket. He remained seated on the bench, making no attempt to move towards Amber. "Seriously, I got totally screwed here. I mean, I've seen what you can do. Not firsthand, of course, but we've got our files. You took a stand-up barrage from Havok, and he's like, a walking WMD, you know?"
Without making any sudden moves, he reached into a pocket of his jacket and produced a bottle of water, showing it to Amber before he removed the cap and took a sip. "So yeah, if I try and fight you, you're going to kick the holy crap out of me, and I have absolutely no desire to be someone's speed bump. But I figure it'd take you a bit of time to do that. About, say, two minutes? So I'll make you a deal, save us both some frustration. You give me two minutes, and then I let you knock me out quick and go on to do whatever you came here to do."
"And what are you hoping to do with your two minutes?" The look in those glowing blue eyes was very much like that of a cat, content to pause and play with its prey. There was another explosion outside, and although only a handful of windows at the far end of the hall blew inward, the whole building shook. "I hope you don't think you're going to talk me around to the side of the angels or anything naive like that. Because just the thought of having to listen to that is inclining me towards knocking you out and then killing you."
Forge rolled his eyes. "Good God, no," he said while absently rubbing his left shoulder. "Last time I tried something like that, a psychotic Hungarian ripped my arm off and bashed my face in. No, I'm pretty sure you're gung-ho about what you're trying to do here. Whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish... I just want to understand it." His voice was surprisingly earnest through the fear and exhaustion. "I mean - Magneto has his manifesto, crazy as it might be. I have no idea what you're fighting for. If I'm going to be thrown out as the sacrificial lamb here, I kind of want to know why I should bother."
"This is a novel delaying tactic." Her voice was very dry, and blue light flickered back and forth between her fingers as she held out a hand. The lights in the hallway flickered and died. "Really. So original. Look, have you ever read that 'rules for evil overlords' thing that circulates on the Internet? There's one about shooting your captured adversary as soon as he says 'Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about'?"
"You'd rather try and, what, shoot me? Beat me up?" Forge replied, spreading his empty hands. "And solve what? Jesus, Amber. You're not stupid, and you're not some psycho like Ilyas Saidullayev. You don't want to mess around, fine."
He stood up, tapping the center of his chest. "Electric charge, right here. Put me into temporary defibrillation, and the AED built into my prosthetics will keep my heart going, but I'll be down. Probably in medlab for a week or so, which would keep them from throwing me under the bus like this again. You're carrying around... I'm guessing probably the energy of an entire city block the way the lights have been flashing here. I'm not stupid, Amber. I can't fight you, so I thought I might try talking to you like a fucking human being, which you know, I figured you might not get very often."
He tapped his chest again with two fingers, firmly for emphasis. "Right here, and I'm not even going to try and stop you. All I want to do is talk. Because unlike Charles Xavier and the other X-Men who follow without question? I get it, Amber. I know what it's like to want to lash out because the system fucking sucks. All they know is following what the guy in the chair tells them to do. They want to keep playing by the rules and god, sometimes it makes me sick, you know?"
He paced back and forth, running a hand through his hair, seemingly oblivious to the almost-palpable energy crackling around Amber. "I put this uniform on because I want to change things, and where does it get me?" He spread his arms again and nodded to Amber. "Speed bump. Hell of a way to treat their pet genius, right?"
"Poor baby," Amber said mockingly. There was energy crackling in her hair, now, the blonde strands themselves almost luminescent. "But see, you're useful to them - you're safe. Safe like they're trying to make telepaths, with this nonsense." She waved a hand dismissively at the upper floors, sparks flying at the gesture. "You want to know why I do what I do, Forge? Because I want a world where I don't have to be be safe in the eyes of the flatscans around me. I want a world where they're too fucking afraid of me to attack me, or the people I care about." Her voice had gotten quieter, but more vehement. "And I want a world where people like Charles Xavier don't give the rest of us false hope, then stand back and watch us destroyed for being dangerous."
Forge stopped and let Amber's words sink in. "Yeah," he finally said with a slow nod. "Yeah, I get that. I just... maybe this is going about it all the wrong way. I don't know. I don't know anymore." He looked down at his feet, seemingly conflicted. "Either way, you've been more than fair here. I suppose my two minutes are up. Thanks for... well, for treating me like a person, Amber, and not just a target."
He held his right hand out for a handshake, open and empty. "I wish things could have gone differently."
Amber drifted towards him, moving in a way that would have made it perfectly obvious to someone trained in hand-to-hand that she was moving in for the kill. "It's not like it cost me anything," she said mildly. "I'm going to go upstairs and kill every civilian I see. And you," she said, reaching for Forge's arm without hesitation, "can go up and take a look, once you wake up. Maybe you'll finish 'getting it'."
Forge slid his hand past Amber's, then drew it back swiftly, leaving a thin loop of wire around her wrist that tightened snugly as he stepped back. "I was with you up until the killing part," he said. "I wouldn't make any sudden moves if I were you."
Amber's eyes widened, her nostrils flaring. "You son of a bitch," she hissed, and energy poured down her arm like liquid fire, towards the wire around her wrist.
Forge calmly watched as the arc of energy shot down the wire and over to the metal bench he'd been sitting on, blasting harmlessly out of Amber in one massive jolt. "Very true. But the term is properly genius son of a bitch. Remember four years ago in Scotland, Amber? I was the son of a bitch who figured out how your power works. You're like a giant capacitor, storing energy and discharging it. And when you connect a high-voltage capacitor like you, to a ground - like the solid iron underpinnings of this building's foundation - using an ultra-low-resistance conductor - like that myomer wire you just grounded yourself out with..."
He walked over to tap Amber on the forehead with one metal finger, without the slightest hint of a spark. "It discharges itself completely. Drains the tank in one shot. You made your play, you lost."
Amber had gone white as a sheet, her eyes unfocusing, at the sudden discharge of all the energy she was carrying. When Forge tapped her, her knees buckled, and she crumpled to the floor, eyes sliding closed as she hit.
"And for the record," Forge said to the unconscious girl in front of him, "I'm no one's fucking speed bump."
---
The way to the back entrance was as clear as anyone could hope it would be. No students. No terrorists. Not even a spider hanging from its web. "Fucking figures," Lil grunted, giving another look around to confirm the fact she was alone. "Just because I have tits doesn't mean I can get saddled with the safe jobs." She gave the door a kick for good measure before blowing a tuff of blonde hair out of her eyes and heading back up the stairs to where they had established their base.
"Don't need to be fucking protected," the Amazon continued, speaking to herself out loud. Anyone around could probably hear her thoughts anyway so no loss of privacy there. "Hit just as fucking hard - if not harder - than them but no, I gotta go play fucking butler!"
Another growl, she started down the hallways and turning the corner, barely missed being struck in the head with a gun that had been lost by a terrorist who was being intimately introduced to the wall by Nate. "Selfish," Lil grunted with a smirk this time, hurrying to her teammate's side, eying the approching clump of black-clad figures. "Ain't no way I'm letting you go stag to this party, Dayspring."
"Enough with the chatter," he growled at her, cold gray eyes flashing to her face for a moment before he turned his attention back to the rest of the invaders. His psimitar flashed gold and the man in the lead jerked like he'd hit a wall face-first, then crumpled to the floor.
"Well, fuck you, too," the Amazon hissed under her breath, her own hard gaze moving from him to the pack where she zoned in on the largest, most imposing figure she can make out in the mass. "Keep your pointy stick from pointing in my direction," was all Lil said before charging her target.
Nathan's eyes narrowed at the continuing backtalk, but he let her engage her target, then slipped a TK shield just behind Lil and the grappling hostile, using it as a wall to shove the others back into the stairwell.
#Get down the east stairwell! Get out of the building!# he projected to the civilians. #You're clear for now, we'll cover you-#
Something expoded just on the other side of the TK shield; it was an energy projector, and Nathan swore, reeling backwards as the feedback shattered the shield. The first hostile back through the door was a tall woman, her hands sheathed in glowing energy. Nathan reached out briefly to Forge, breathing out on almost a sigh of relief as he sensed the encounter with Amber Hunt conclude in his teammate's favor.
#Forge, we've got civilians coming down the east stairs,# he sent, bringing the butt of the psimitar down hard against the floor. The carefully controlled telekinetic shockwave created spiderwebbing cracks that ended in disintegrating hardwood and two of the hostiles caught up to the knees in what was left of the floor. The energy-projector's head snapped backwards at a telekinetic blow, and she fell back against the man behind her, unconscious.
Across the hall, Lil continued to grapple with the brutish terrorist. A man who topped her size by a few inches and a good seventy-five pounds, weaponless save for his fists with which he traded her blow for blow. "Watch the tremors," the blonde hollered over her shoulder at Nate, nearly losing her footing as she tussled with a partner who was either very surprised or very annoyed that she was matching his shots. Probably both.
Nathan grunted, the blade of his psimitar starting to glow again as the hostiles started to advance again. He sent a woman trying to rush Lil from behind flying, then had to shield himself as gunfire came him way. The hair on the back of his neck was prickling. He didn't like these close quarters. The hallway was bigger, more open, than the hallway on Youra all those years ago, but it reminded him of trying to defend that bunker, to protect the innocent lives behind him...
#Then let us help protect ourselves.# It was one voice, and many, and Nathan stiffened, eyes unfocusing as the glow that filled the psychic atmosphere reached out to encompass him. One of the terrorists charged him with a yell - and bounced off a TK shield.
Landing a punch that sent her opponent staggering away, Lil's attention snapped back to where Nate was standing. Green eyes were wide, full of confusion and distrust. "Get outta my head," she growled, not at her teammate but to those she could hear, could feel but couldn't see. "Get outta my fucking head and stay out. We don't need your help." Because one of them was probably feeding information to one of the bastards trying to kill them.
#No.# The composite voice sounded hurt, almost indignant. #Never. This means too much. And we don't want anyone hurt. Not even them, misguided/foolish/not knowing what they're doing.# The brief splintering of the composite voice didn't alter its surprising weight.
But then, a link was always more than the sum of its parts. #You can't remember where you are,# it went on, gaining a deepness and a resonance that could be attributed to the Xavier-trained telepath it now encompassed. #Confused. Turned around. Where are the targets?#
The effect on the terrorists was startling, and immediate. All of them stopped, looking around in apparent bemusement. Even Lil's opponent, as he straightened, looked shocked. "~Where did the bitch go?~" he snarled in German.
One of the terrorists, another tall woman, was shaking her head doggedly. The mindlink reached out delicately, poking experimentally. #Her mind is strange/stronger than it should be/full of patterns... we know this,# it concluded, its voice abruptly sounding more like Nathan's. A telekinetic blow sent the woman back against the wall, hard, and her comrades reacted in alarm, a couple of the ones armed with guns firing wildly.
"What the fuck is going on?" Lil spat, unable to grasp what was playing out around her. The voices were still there and now the terrorists we reacting like a bunch of headless chickens. "Exactly why I don't want anyone in my head," she grunted under her breath. Eyes shot from black clad figure to black clad figure, wondering what she should do next. "You got orders for me or anything? Or am I just supposed to sit back and enjoy the show?"
"Cover them as they leave," Nathan murmured, aloud this time. There were people emerging from the rooms down the hall, cautiously but determinedly. "I'll bring up the rear. There are more coming."
Finally! Verbal orders she could handle. "Got it," the blonde answered, backing up to do as he said. The snark was gone, her voice filled with the stone cold hardness that filled Lil when she wasn't entirely comfortable with the situation. But, covering the psis while they fled was much better than standing around waiting for the terrorists to find their brains.
---
"Move quick! Find police! Go!" Forge directed the students towards an exit. He could only hope that someone spoke English, but he was thinking images as clearly and loudly as he could as the civilians moved towards a clear exit.
He turned around to check on where he'd left Amber, unconscious on the bench. Movement to his left caught his eye, and he waved a hand absently, motioning to the exit. "She's fine, you need to get out of here. Come on, move!" he barked without looking over his shoulder.
"Mmm. No," said the woman bending over Amber, "I'm in no hurry, John Henry." Tara Trask straightened, her pale eyes meeting Forge's unwaveringly as he turned back towards her. She seemed utterly, unflappably calm in the midst of the chaos, and was dressed like the professor she had been. As if she'd showed up to attend a lecture here at the university, rather than to destroy this building and everyone it contained.
"Tara Trask," Forge said in a growl, reaching for his hip. Part of him wished he could carry a gun - he was a good enough shot to outdraw almost anyone, he knew. And he wouldn't even need to carry lethal rounds, just something to even the score. He didn't have optic blasts, after all. Or claws. Or invulnerable skin, or telekinesis, or a healing factor. All he had was his mind. A brain that could work faster, shine brighter, think smarter than anyone.
Knowledge is power, right? he reminded himself, hand still moving towards the grip of a small taser. He just had to out think her. He didn't have to fight her, not with his half-crippled body. It wasn't as if the X-Men would have knowingly put him in danger if he wasn't ready. Despite what he'd bantered with Amber, they wouldn't treat him as an expendable 'speed bump'. He was valuable, too important to risk.
Another inch closer to the weapon. He'd show them. Two of the most powerful of Trask's cell, and he could take them down without a scratch. No one would doubt him then. They'd stop looking at him as the weak link, the team geek, the one they all had to protect. All he had to do was fire.
Unless he missed.
If he hit Amber, the jolt would recharge her. Probably wake her up. She wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. She'd retaliate -lethally. This wouldn't be like Vermont, no one would just show up in a helicopter and save the day. A blast of electricity and he'd have just enough time to feel all his nerves ignite, metal sparking, flesh burning. His heart would stop but his brain would stay conscious for long, painful seconds as he would be able to know exactly what it would feel like to be electrocuted from the inside out.
There was too much to lose. Too much to risk. How could they have put him in this situation? Didn't they realize what they were asking him to do? He'd already sacrificed so much for the X-Men, for mutantkind, for Xavier's dream that he wasn't even sure he believed in. His hand wavered above the taser's grip, fingers shaking. It wasn't fair.
Cable could have telekinetically slammed her through a wall. Lil could have punched her into submission. Ororo could have buffeted the hallway with an instant hurricane. Even Haller could have SOME useful option in this situation.
All Forge could do was shut his eyes and wait.
Trask had drifted across the distance between them, her eyes fixed on Forge, unblinking. She raised a hand, cool fingertips brushing his cheek. "Time for a strategic retreat?" she murmured, her tone perfectly reasonable. "You were lucky with Amber. But you know your mind is all but undefended, don't you?"
She was right. Forge knew it. For all his intellect, his mind was like an open door when it came to telepaths. She was giving him a chance, or she was toying with him. His eyes burned with shame as he flinched away, as if her touch could shred his very thoughts. He needed to retreat, find cover, some form of protection from a telepath.
Fight fire with fire.
Turning on his heel, Forge bolted for the stairs, slamming his shoulder into the stone walls of the stairwell as he hurdled them two at a time. Cable. Cable could protect him. Buy him time to fight back, to think of a solution. Time, that was it. He just needed time.
---
Someone was feeding information to the terrorists. Lil was sure of it.
Shepherding the students and staff out the back door, she noted the lack of eye contact. The tension that filled the air. The shifty one in long coats; the bold ones who strutted. All things that had her pulse racing a little fasted, her nerves a little more on edge. "Keep quiet and keep moving," she instructed them, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, prepared to launch herself at whatever or whoever caused a threat.
Which could very well be the little female with pink hair who appeared to be smirking...
Lil gave herself a mental shake. She had no proof but a feeling. No proof but her suspicions. Nate would be much better at weeding out a traitor and for half a second, she toyed with leading them all back up the steps before another thought pushed its way to the front of her mind.
Nate would cover for them.
Students. Psis.
But not innocent. One of them - oh God, maybe more - had this all in the bag. Tell the terrorists they were headed out back. Catch them like rats, surround them all for a massacre. And without anyone knowing. Without anyone hearing.
A noise came from above them and Lil's head snapped back, searching for the source of the sound. "Keep moving!" she barked, pushing past them and back up the stairs. "Keep going and don't fucking stop for anything or your exit will be through the closest window." With no way of knowing if the students understood her words, the Canadienne let her tone do the talking.
As they reached the back entrance, escaping out into an alleyway thankfully free of obvious threats, there was another building-shaking explosion, somewhere to the west. In the moment of silence afterwards, the sound of heels clicking purposefully on the floor was audible even before Tara Trask came around the corner, spotting Lil.
After flickering almost dismissively to the last of the students heading through the doors to questionable safety, Trask turned her full attention back to Lil. Her eyes were as hard as sapphires, boring into the younger woman.
"Let them go," she murmured. "Let the police sort it out. They're just waiting for you to turn your back."
"Waiting for me to... Who the fuck are you?" the taller blonde asked, squinting at the other woman. Not a student. A professor? "You need to evacuate the building with the rest of the school, lady." Evacuate. Get them out. Let the police handle it; explosions and traitors alike.
"You saw what they did upstairs. How do you know that's even the exit? They could be leading you into a trap," Trask said, and turned around, moving almost leisurely back the way she'd come. "There are other ways out," she called back over her shoulder, and as she passed by one of the windows, she stopped, leaning briefly on the windowsill and peering out at the chaos beyond.
Green eyes flicked from the woman to the door and back. "It is. I came down earlier to look. Nate sent me and there wasn't any traps. I looked." She'd looked... hadn't she? The stairwell looked the same but had she gone the right way? Taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way while she was trying to keep the students covered? Had they led her the wrong way?
Lil chewed on her bottom lip, fists balled at her side as she watched the shorter blonde staring out the window casually. "What other ways?" the Valkyrie asked finally. "Can you show me?" A way out. Another way out. One they didn't know about. One they wouldn't be able to tell the terrorists about.
"Look," Trask murmured, pointing to the fighting outside. As they watched, a figure in flames stumbled past, screaming. There were a group of police officers pinned down between the burned-out hulk of a car. Bodies laid here and there on the ground, and in the distance, the two women could hear approaching sirens. "They've won. The psis. They had to have had an edge."
Shaking her head, Lil's ponytail whipped about dangerously as she watched and listened to the scene playing out below her. "But how? The terrorists. We were supposed to save the psis. Get them outside. Get the psis away." They should have gotten away. Would haven't gotten away if... "Someone on the inside," she hissed, clenching her fists tighter. "A psi working with the terrorist, telling them what we were doing. I was right. I knew they couldn't be fucking trusted."
"It could be anyone," Trask murmured. "Nathan linked with them, didn't he? You should put a stop to that. Who knows what they could have picked up from his mind."
Very slowly, Lil felt every inch of her body go tense. Nathan. It had been his voice in her head, joined with theirs. Nathan. Ordered her to the back door, not once but twice. Had he tried to kill her? Have her trigger a trap the first time and when it failed, sent her back a second this time with those who knew. Those who knew what he'd been thinking. Had been in his head... leaving no one to stop him.
Nathan.
"He's upstairs," Lil growled. "And he must be stopped."
---
Standing over the sprawled bodies of half a dozen terrorists, breathing a little more heavily than he should have been - he was getting old, damn it - Nathan took a moment to try and center himself, so that he could reach out and find Forge and Lil. But between the absolute focus he'd had on the fight and the leftover disorientation from the now-broken mindlink, he was a little out of it. The sudden appearance of another mental imprint coming tearing up the stars took him by surprise, and the psimitar came up for a moment before he realized that it was Forge.
"Forge, what-" The state of the younger man's mind actually robbed him of speech for a moment, and almost instinctively, he reached out and enclosed Forge within his own shields. "What the hell happened?"
The sudden shift of weight in his mind was somewhat like being tossed in a lake, but in reverse, Forge thought. He stopped dead in his tracks, looked at Nathan, then dropped to his knees and heaved up what little he'd had to eat since getting off the Blackbird.
Coughing and wiping his mouth on the back of his glove, he looked up at Nathan with bloodshot eyes. "Trask," he rasped. "Got into my head. I took out Amber but... but Trask's got her again. Downstairs."
The burst of angry Askani profanity wasn't directed at Forge. Nathan reached down and grabbed his arm, hauling him upwards. "Keep close," he grated, pulling him towards the stairwell. "I can keep her out of your head if you stay close enough that I can keep you inside my shields." He didn't try to telepathically calm the younger man down, or anything like that; he suspected Forge had had quite enough mental manipulation at this point.
Without questioning, Forge slipped behind Nathan, the same way they'd practiced in the Danger Room in numerous building drills. The taser in his hand was almost a comfort, and he realized he'd been clutching it like a security blanket ever since the fog had lifted from his mind. "If she has Amber up," he said, "you need to shut her down first. I just need one shot at Trask."
They didn't run into any trouble on the way down, but Nathan jerked suddenly, shoving Forge back into the stairwell and flinging up a TK shield in time to intercept more gunfire - which was coming from police, he realized. #Friendlies!# he projected, or the telepathic equivalent. But as soon as he touched their minds he became aware that they actually knew precisely who they were firing at.
"Shit," he snarled. "She's pulling out every trick in the book this time around..." Holding the TK shield, he leveled his psimitar. Its blade spat burst of golden light, a psi-bolt for each confused and agitated police office. The gunfire abruptly fell silent. "They're all going to have a headache in the morning - oh no, you don't, Tara!" he shouted in a sudden rage, stepping out into the hall as he saw her bending over Amber's still form, something in her hand. "Back off! Right now!"
"Not a fucking chance in hell." The voice didn't come from Tara but another blonde woman who stepped out from the shadows. Lil stood in Nate's path, blocking the former professor from his view. "Fucking traitor. Surprised your little plan to send me outside and to my death with all those kids failed?" the Amazon hissed, her eyes never wavering from the telepath's face as she lifted her fists. "I'm stopping you. It ends here."
Forge's brain suddenly went into overdrive as he found himself stepping in front of Nathan in defiance of all reason. As if to explain his actions to himself, he pondered the math inherent in what he was about to do.
Fact: Lil weighs around a hundred sixty pounds.
Fact: Lil's skin reflects the kinetic energy of impact, effectively doubling the power of a punch.
Fact: Lil is one freaky strong bitch.
Fact: Lil is going to punch Cable's head off his shoulders unless something stops her.
Fact: You're about to become the world's smartest speed bump.
As the giant Canadienne stepped forward and cocked back her hand for a punch, Forge took two steps carefully and jumped slightly to make up for the height difference, twisting his waist and throwing his left arm forward in an almost picture-perfect straight jab.
Garrison would be proud, he thought right before he felt Lil's knuckles strike his.
And crumple his prosthetic arm like a tin can, splintering carbon fibers and bending metal into nearly-unrecognizable wreckage halfway up his forearm.
Nathan had frozen for precisely the wrong instant, caught between the need to pursue Trask, the knowledge that he couldn't just swat Lil aside as he would have done with anyone else, and the the problem of just how he was supposed to keep two of them clear of Trask's goddamned subconscious mojo. Forge had only needed a moment, however, and Nathan lurched forward with another curse, catching the smaller X-Man as he reeled back. Light gathered around the blade of the psimitar; if he had to, he'd shut her mind down before she could land another blow.
The punch did more than break Forge's artificial limb; it cut through her brain like a steely knife, severing the connection and Trask's influence over the Valkyrie. It wasn't what was supposed to happen. Wasn't what she'd wanted... wasn't what she'd been made to believe what she wanted. Lil blinked hard as the fog lifted, frozen to the spot for a long moment before the color drained from her face. Anger, disappointment, fear, embarrassment, all of it mixed with the sudden withdraw in a chaotic swirl that dropped the young woman, trembling to her knees. "F-Fuck."
"'Fuck' is right, you colossal bimbo!" Forge moaned, one hand clutching the elbow of his prosthetic. "Jesus, no one told me you hit that hard! God DAMN..."
Leaning up from where he lay on the ground, he gripped his wrecked arm and twisted, muttering the word "Gecko" under his breath. With a hiss of hydraulics, the ruined forearm dropped off at the elbow. Biting his lip to hold back obvious pain, Forge glared at his teammates. "I'll live, christ's sake! Get them!"
Nathan gritted his teeth and went around the kneeling Lil. Amber was still on the bench where Forge had left her - small mercies, he thought, and took off at a run as Trask vanished through a gap in the wall. She was still within reach, he told himself. He just needed to get close enough, and-
He turned to jump through the gap in the wall, and barely managed to get a TK shield up in time as a wall of blue-green energy came at him. The shield held, but the impact was enough to throw him backwards and to the ground, the shield compressing to a bubble around him.
The world was still spinning. Lil had seen Nate fly past her, had heard Forge's words but it all felt like a dream. Unreal and distant. She gave her head a little shake, hoping to clear it more but the jostle only made her more dizzy. It wasn't until she heard the dull thump behind her. "Cable!" the blonde called, trying to push herself to her feet and after failing, started crawling toward him.
Scooting along the floor, Forge pushed his way towards Nathan, his one good hand holding the taser and aiming at the gap in the wall should anything move back through it. "Cable?" he repeated Lil's exclamation in a more level, questioning tone. "Nathan, get up. We're not in a good position here, we need to link up with Storm and the others. We can-" he turned his head to see that Amber was still slumped over the bench, "-we have to regroup. We're in no shape to fight."
A quick push of telekinesis brought Nathan back to his feet. He stared out the hole in the wall, searching - gone. Out of sight, and as good as lost in the mess that was the local psychic atmosphere. "No," he said, "I have to get you two somewhere defensible and then get out there. This isn't over yet."
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