Fiddler's Green: Hold The Line
Jul. 20th, 2009 09:57 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe X-Men continue to fight the children they've come to save, but manage to turn the tide. Alpha and Trask finally pay for their crimes, and Nathan is surprised in a way he never expected.
Everyone was in place. Time to play rear guard. Scott's real eye was quite literally flashing red as he turned back towards Tabitha. "You," he said sharply, "stick with me. We can't cover every exit to that place, but we can cut down on runners." The last was tossed over his shoulder as he headed up the slope as fast as he could, thankful for the extra support in his leathers that kept his knee from giving out on him.
Head still ringing from how quickly things had gone South, Tabitha sprinted after Scott. "On your heels," she replied, grim and trying to find that mental place where things were cool and calm.
The facility was quite literally built into the side of the mountain; Scott had no idea what its 'cover' had been, there simply hadn't been time to find out. What mattered now was that it was large, had multiple levels and exits, and he was not letting any of those kids run loose. Or any of the bastards who ran the program escape.
"There," he barked at Tabitha, indicating a rocky outcropping that would make a perfect sniper's perch. They could even duck down for cover if they needed it - and they needed it nearly immediately as a man in body armor came through a broken window and started firing his weapon at the sight of them.
Her body reacted before her brain registered what it saw. A flash-bomb sailed through the air as she dove behind the indicated pile of stone. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare of the bomb before peeking around the side of their cover.
And the gunman was down, if still moving feebly. "Good shot," Scott said curtly, and focused on the closest set of doors. There were noises coming from inside the facility - gunfire, shouting, the unmistakable sounds of energy of various sorts being discharged. Images were flashing through his mind, passed down the switchboard, and he gritted his teeth. "This is going to be a mess," he said, just as the doors burst open. It was a kid, a teenager in a gray bodysuit chasing a screaming woman in a labcoat. Scott moved quickly, trying to get into position, but even as his carefully measuring optic blast knocked down the operative, the kid got off a blast of blue plasma at his target. The woman fell, screaming and thrashing, and Scott swore. "Shit!"
Tabitha crafted her bombs carefully, upping the air content to have a better "push." She targeted the clusters of pursuers, breaking apart the gang-mentality she thought. In the back of her mind she heard her team leader curse, but seeing no apparent damage to his person, she ignored it. Her next bomb blew one of the fleeing scientists off of his feet.
"Smaller bombs, goddamnit!" Scott barked at her, and ran for the prone operatives. "Husk," he said over the coms as he ran, "you need to get a triage area started! SHIELD's got medical staff on their response team, recruit them-" One of the operatives struggled up to a sitting position. Unfortunately, it was the plasma-thrower, and Scott cursed again. He dropped beneath the poorly targeted blast, rolling and firing even as he came up. His optic blast caught the boy in the shoulder, hurling him back against the rocky ground.
The blonde mutant shot a dirty look at her mentor before jumping down to his side. She grabbed a wounded man by the shoulders and dragged him back to cover right behind Scott. "Some of the kids are hurt too," she said. "Should we leave them?"
"Hell no," Scott said, "they're the priority. Unless any of the grown-up bastards are dying, just get them out of sight!" They didn't know if this was some sort of scorched-earth thing, like at Youra, and Jean had gone quiet, but it seemed like a safe assumption to work with. He knelt down beside the boy he'd just knocked out, heart pounding erratically in his chest as he leaned over to check for a pulse.
Tabitha snorted and started piling bodies like Lincoln Logs in their former hiding spot. One of them tried to struggle, she resisted the urge to knock her right back out. "Quiet, you," she hissed.
Alive. Thank God, he was alive. Scott's breathing didn't grow any steadier. "Husk, there's a spot downslope, not far from where our command post was," he said over the coms raggedly. "Best spot for it. I'll try and organize people to start shuttling down wounded." Clarice, definitely, once the east wing was clear. He would had said more, but a good chunk of the wall beside him abruptly blew out, the force of the blast slamming him to the ground.
"Gah!" Tabitha ducked over an unconcious kid, debris pelting the back of her leathers. "Shit, Scott!" She yelled as she looked back up. "Talk to me, you all right?" She double checked that the kid under her still breathed.
Scott didn't hear her. His ears were ringing, and frankly, he wasn't sure which way was up right this second. Unfortunately, the lanky teenager who stumbled out of the hole he'd just made was considerably more alert than the X-Men leader, even under the influence of Trask's manipulations. He extended his arms, bringing his hands together in a gesture like a simple clap. The sonic blast that erupted at Scott and the downed operative sounded like a crack of thunder.
Tabitha hit the kid with a force just short of a Giants' linebacker, knocking him onto his face and the breath from his body. Before he could gather himself, she had his wrists in her hands up in the small of his back. With a quick, silent thanks to whoever first though it up, she wrapped a heavy-weight zip-tie around the kid's wrists.
No boom if he could clap. "You just stay put," she ordered the kid. Without another glance at him, she went for the team leader.
Scott flinched away from the hands that came down on his shoulders, not sure who it was. But they were pulling him off the boy fairly gently, and Scott caught a flash of blonde hair in his peripheral vision. "Check the kid," he mumbled.
A quick glance at the struggling, brainwashed child assured her. "He's fine, you're the one that took all the damage." How do you check a one-eyed man for a concussion? she wondered.
"Had worse shaving," Scott muttered, interpreting the concerned look rather than hearing her words. His ears had sort of gone beyond ringing at this point. Now it was sort of a high-pitched whine. He shook his head as to clear out the cobwebs. "Help me up," he said in what he thought was a more normal voice, not realizing he'd just raised the volume. "Got work to do." He spotted the restraints on the sonic-blasting mutant, and a crooked smile tugged at his lips as Tabitha helped him back to his feet. "And just when I was thinking you were slowing down in your old age..."
Tabitha shot a narrow eyed glance at her mentor. "If there weren't half a dozen people line up to kick your ass at this very moment, I'd have to do it for them."
---
Cyclops's voice was in both his head and his ear, ordering him to do what he could to link up with the first squad and provide the telepaths with more cover. Getting to their position was easier said than done, however; there seemed to be young operatives popping up everywhere, all of them attacking anything that moved.
"I can't get anywhere", he subvocalised, frustrated. "Not without gettin' in a fight every two minutes... any word on the secret weapon?"
"Nothing from Phoenix yet," was the overly-loud reply. "Do your best!"
No sooner had the order been given than Angelo found himself targeted by two of the operatives, both easily a foot taller than him and far heavier. Despite the identical looks of blind rage on their faces, they still somehow managed to attack as a unit, bracketing Angelo in the narrow confines of the corridor.
Angelo took a breath, looked from one to the other, and grinned viciously. "Bring it on, guys." One of them promptly got spin-kicked in the face.
The operative seemed to register the kick only briefly, rocking backwards and spitting blood before he came at Angelo again. His companion's advance hadn't stopped or slowed at all, and he hit Angelo from the left just as the other slammed into him from the right. Angelo wasn't knocked unconscious, but he was definitely dazed by the double blow... and besides, he had better things to do than engage these two in combat. He dropped to the ground and lay there, eyes closed and not moving.
Playing 'dead' didn't work. Instead of leaving him, they continued to advance, their minds so twisted by whatever had gone wrong that they defaulted to their training. A kick landed in Angelo's ribcage, the impact barely blunted by the leathers.
He grunted and rolled with the kick, then lashed out at both of them at once, in an attempt to pin them against the wall until they passed out from the lack of oxygen.
The gunfire came out of nowhere - and not from more operatives. The gunmen were obviously security of some sort, trying to clear a route down the hall for the man they were protecting. And while there was still no picture of the third man in the X-Men's files, the sketch based on Nathan's description from earlier in the year had always been quite good.
Despite everything going on around him, Alpha seemed utterly calm. He shot the blockade of bodies an annoyed look before transferring his ire to the gunmen flanking him. "Drop them," he said sharply, as if reinforcing the existing orders would sharpen the aim of his guards.
One of the young operatives was hit, and fell across Angelo, bleeding heavily from the neck. The other struggled to get free from the web of skin trapping him, trying to turn to face the new threat. Angelo stayed down, making it seem he was struggling as he tried to get a skin tourniquet across the wounded boy's neck. He didn't let the other one go, and didn't try to disguise his fury as he stared at Alpha. It might even help him fit in.
There was a flicker of color and movement along the corridor wall, and a shaven-haired girl who couldn't have been older than thirteen stepped out of the concrete, directly beside one of Alpha's bodyguards. Before the man could react, her hand lashed out, sinking into his chest. The man screamed, trying to pull away, and only worsening the situation as the girl yanked.
Alpha side-stepped as his remaining guard tried to get a bead on the girl currently dragging her half-phased form through his dying partner's body. A burst of strength sent her leaping out of the man, trailing blood and bone. Her hooked fingers pressed into the remaining guard's skull as his gunfire went wild, causing even the seemingly unflappable man in gray to stumble back.
He should have paid better attention, as his move took him to standing over Angelo... and the X-Man erupted upwards in one sharp move, planting his foot solidly and deliberately between Alpha's legs from below.
Alpha lurched away from the pile of bodies tangled around Angelo, his face pale and his entire demeanor suggesting that he might vomit. He managed to keep his feet, and glared at Angelo, furious...and somehow indignant. He groped for his sidearm with clumsy fingers, drew, and leveled the gun at the youth...then paused. Angelo was tied up with one furious mutant and trying to stop a second from bleeding out, while, just behind them, a third had almost finished the job of killing Alpha's last guardsman.
Still breathing hard, he reholstered the gun. "You make a better target alive." And he was going to need as much of a head-start as he could get.
"Good luck gettin' out of here", Angelo returned, focusing on his patient even before Alpha had gone. "An' if you do, I'll be seein' you."
The phaser stepped through the body of the last guard, eyeing Angelo, her features twisted in a snarl. She didn't run at him, however, but at the operative he'd pinned back against the wall, grasping the front of the boy's bodysuit and phasing him with her - pulling him free.
Which left one heavily-bleeding operative, one X-Man still trying to save him, and two more operatives, now free to act.
A fireball added to that equation, exploding at the feet of the two drones. Shiro in his fire form seemed to appear out of nowhere and didn't hesitate to follow up the first attack with a torrent of flame, aiming to slam them into the wall behind them and incapacitate them.
"Sunfire", Angelo said, looking up at him with some relief. "You any good at cauterisin' wounds with that fire? This kid's shot. Also, Alpha went that way."
"I cannot," Shiro replied, already turned around to pursue Alpha. "If the bullet is lodged in there then it will be dangerous or it might get infected. Take him to Husk, she can help."
That got a curt nod of agreement. "Go get the bastard. I'll come back for these two when I've got him safe."
---
No sooner had they taken up defensive positions in the hall outside the door than the sound of screaming and running footsteps got closer - as in, coming up the stairs at the end of the hall 'closer'. Had the two telepaths in the room behind them had the time and attention to spare from their own tasks, they would have been able to tell their teammates that the incoming opposition was being quite deliberately directed, Trask whispering into the subconscious minds of the young operatives.
But it hardly mattered. Because they were already here. A blast of gale-force wind screamed down the hallway, followed up by a peppering of concussive force blasts. And there were other kids in bodysuits outpacing the long-distance types, running right for their targets and wearing identical expressions of twisted rage.
"I guess we're babysitting." Garrison muttered, flexing his hands under the gloves and watching the tide of young mutants close the distance. In a way, he was glad of their tactics. The mutants in front were forcing the energy casters to aim high, limiting their field of fire. When your job was to stop a mass while stuck in a narrow hallway, the last thing you wanted was a clean line of sight.
The secondary problem, of course, was that homicidal or not, their attackers were the victims here, which meant going through them with maximum damage involved wasn't an option. Being careful made it a lot more likely they'd pay the price for it.
With fists balled at her side, Lil gave herself another mental shake. First psis and now kids. She swallowed hard past the tightness in her throat, visions of her first Danger Room experience flashing through her head. Only this time, it was the children who were the attackers - and it wasn't a simulation. "I really fucking hate this job sometimes," she replied, cracking her knuckles and forcing down the nauseous swirl in her stomach. Even knowing she and Garrison could take mostly anything the young mutants could pitch at them, playing human shield was never fun but given her powers, it was thankfully all she could do; the blonde wasn't sure had she been a projector she could have fired on the approaching horde.
"Tell me about it. This deserves at least time and a half." Kane said, as the first line reached them. They were obviously physically enhanced mutants, from the way the brick shattered under the punch aimed at his head. But Garrison's chip had already run the fight a hundred different ways in his mind, and between that and his training, the punch had as much chance of landing as an instant solution to this fight turning up.
Garrison grabbed the elbow of the child, twisting it painfully back towards him and then driving his shoulder into his chest. The boy ricocheted back into the crowd, bowling down several and making the confused melee at the turn in the hall even more so. "Lil, push 'em back! Any that leak past you, I'll put back on the pile!" He yelled, spraying the next child in the face with his pepper spray, sending him into a strieking heap against the side of the wall.
The giantess made a strangled sound and floundered for a moment in hesitation. They were children, for fuck's sake! A narrowly avoided shot aimed at her head brought Lil back to her task. Conditioned children. Made into weapons, she reminded herself as she turned to absorb a blast with her back. Lil caught another trying to push through; a short, round boy with spikes that she caught squarely in the chest with her foot to send him stumbling backward.
"It just keeps getting better. You know what this reminds me of?" Kane said between clenched teeth as a spate of poisoned barbs buried themselves into his chest, just stopped by the uniform armor. He slammed his forearm into the lead child's chest, sending her reeling back, and used her to topple several others with a shove.
"That fundraiser at YTV. You know, when one of the little bastards got her sticky sugar covered hands stuck in Marie's hair, and the eight year old copped the feel off you?" Kane's mouth seemed utterly disconnected with his movements, as the Canadian blocked attacks and pushed back the horde or scrambling, screaming attackers.
Lil had never been more grateful for the chatter. They'd worked long enough for him to know her style; the little quips and digging snark that served to keep her from thinking too much or losing herself in the heat of it all. The situation was uncomfortable and without the little slice of familiarity, she would have been a flailing mess.
"Neither of them were as bad as the little brunette who though Juddsie was a living doll," she replied, smirking to herself despite their situation.
She was cut off as a concussive shock rippled down the hallway, blasting them both off their feet. The mass of children had exploded out of the way, slamming into walls and the ceiling with sickening thuds.
Garrison shook his head, trying to clear it. Obviously their resistance was getting to the point that they weren't satisfied trying to simply mob them, and sent in some big guns. He staggered to his knees, trying to pick out the source of the attack, when a blonde teen stepped out from behind a pile of wounded children and raised his hands.
Kane had just enough time to cross his forearms in front of his face before he disappeared under a wall of fire.
Any amusement that came with the memory of their former mentor surrounded by a dozen or so ankle biters disappeared when the fireball erupted, pushing her back against the wall.
Little hands grabbed at her arms, her legs, but all Lil could focus on was the spot where her teammate stood only a moment before. "Gar!"
"fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccCCCKKKKKKKK!" The howl pierced the roar of the flames, and as they abated, Kane was still standing. His face was twisted into a rictus of pain, and his suit was smouldering and riddled with burn holes. However, beyond his charred hair, the Canadian's skin was only tinged pink, instead of charred black and to the bone. "Okay, that one hurt, you little bastard."
---
Jean hadn't let go of the psimitar. Nathan met her eyes across its glowing length, swallowing hard as he heard the sound of fighting in the hall outside. #You're going to have to go after her,# he sent, his mental voice weak and thready; too much of his badly flagging strength was still going into the steady projection of the Trojan Horse. #I'm not up for astral combat, and she's got too many ways through my shields even when they're not in pieces.#
Jean nodded, her eyes dark. #I have seriously had enough of this bitch. She wants to play hardball, fine, we play hardball. And if her brain melts in the process, that's not my problem anymore.#
#Be careful.# It seemed like such an unnecessary thing to say - as if Jean couldn't handle Trask, one-on-one or any other way. A sign of how badly his confidence was flagging, maybe. Because his shields were in pieces, and everything around him felt so much like Youra.
#I will be,# Jean said, her tone confident and reassuring. #You keep up the projection as best you can; there's always a chance I can distract her and she'll slip in the fight, and any chance we get needs to be taken straight away.#
Nathan drew back from the link, retaining only a thin thread - like a lifeline? - as Jean's psychic presence turned away. #She's going from mind to mind,# he murmured shakily. #Feel her? Bouncing back and forth...#
#Not strong enough to do it all at once,# was Jean's reply, and it was more than a bit smug. Already her 'self' was becoming more diffuse, drifting out and reaching into the corners of the Astral plane here. #If I go extra crazy, you get to 'splain to Scott...# The smallest fraction of her attention was on Nathan, but she wasn't letting go entirely.
Trask was a flickering silvery presence that some, not knowing her or what she was doing, might have called angelic-looking. She drifted across the astral plane with uncanny speed, so fast that her passing left an afterimage as she moved from mind to mind, 'playing' the young operatives like a talented musician who knew exactly what kind of music she wanted to create.
The presence paused as Jean approached - and then rushed at her, blazing brightly.
The astral plane was Trask's playground, there was no question - she moved with utmost confidence, knowing every move, every path, every way. Defeating her on her own ground would have been a nearly insurmountable task for almost any psi. But where the astral plane was Trask's playground, after her decades of training with Xavier, the most powerful psi on the planet, and particularly after the events in Wakanda, it had become Jean's plaything. #Can't run through sand,# Jean sent, thought stabbing like a knife as she twisted the pure form of the astral plane, shifting it away from Trask's grasp.
The silvery presence flailed for purchase, then retreated warily. That's fine, Jean, that familiar cool voice 'said'. I've done what needed to be done. Very little stopping it, now...
#Stopping it is not why I'm here, Tara. I'm stopping you. No more of this - it ends here and now.# The sword which appeared in her hand clearly had a wickedly sharp blade, and so it was possibly somewhat ironic that the grip was formed by two snakes twisting together down to a pair of outstretched wings.
You have to catch me first, Jean. And Tara shot away, reaching out to brush the minds she passed, driving them into deeper and deeper agitation, operative and non-operative alike. Even a couple of the X-Men. It created enough tumult on the astral plane to manifest as billowing clouds of frantic light, almost - if not quite - hiding her passage.
---
Shiro was gone down the hall before Angelo even finished. This one man had plagued and tormented the X-Men for too long, and now he was within reach. He was not going to get away this time, not when justice was so close. Turning a corner, he was greeted by the bullet-riddled corpses of another couple of young operatives. A door slammed shut at the end of the hallway, and Shiro snarled. He burst forth from the debris seconds later.
Alpha turned and snapped off a pistol shot at his pursuer without a break in his limping stride. One more operative on the floor made no difference at this stage.
Maybe the only thing that saved Shiro from following the kids' fate was his own attack, launched when he recognized Alpha. The drop of molten lead that had been the bullet fell to the ground. With a roar, he blasted again, the normally controlled torrent gone wild.
The older man threw himself to one side to escape the scorching heat, bringing his gun up once more. His finger flexed on the trigger...and nothing but silence. His eyes widened a moment, then flicked to the nearest exit.
"Oh, no," Shiro warned. He was on top of Alpha a moment later and slammed a flaming fist against his jaw. He was rewarded with a pleasant cracking sound. "I have been fantasizing about this encounter for weeks."
The scents of burned hair and seared flesh hung in air as Alpha reeled back from the fiery human form, the skin of his jaw and cheek blistering over the bruised flesh and cracked bone. Recognition clicked in the cold rage of his eyes. The rage in this mutant had been familiar enough -- he'd seen it a dozen times on his way through the halls and extinguished much of it -- but his operatives were bestial in their sounds. "I see." The words were sloppy; his mouth wasn't closing properly. "You're one of Dayspring's."
Shiro offered Alpha another taste of his fist. The fully illuminated power indicator made the blood on Alpha's face shine. "Almost. Beaubier's, actually. Does that name sound familiar, kisama?"
The force of the blow drove Alpha back against the wall, blood dripping from torn and scorched lips. He spat to clear his mouth; a tooth clattered across the floor. He forced himself upright again, glaring at the flame-wreathed creature he could not escape and could not strike back without doing as much damage to himself. For a moment, his gaze moved past Shiro...and he smiled.
The girl gliding down the hallway towards Shiro was a sight to behold. Gauzy streamers of energy floated around her, seemingly emanating from her wrists. It was oddly beautiful. But the look on her face was the same twisted mask of rage as all the others had been wearing, and she swept an arm back and forward, the energy-streamers flaring brighter. Turning into whips, that slashed across the back of Shiro's leathers, soundless but cutting through the body armor like butter.
Alpha had only himself to thank that Shiro wasn't cut to pieces along with his armor. Shiro had seen enough bad action movies to know what that kind of smile meant, and as soon as it appeared on Alpha's face, Shiro twisted and flew back. His solar panels weren't spared though, and he had to quickly rip the remnants off of his uniform so they wouldn't hinder him. Freed, he retaliated with a plasma blast.
The girl raised both hands defensively and the energy-streamers echoed the motion, creating almost a shield, if a shield could be made of glowing white ribbons. The plasma blast hit it squarely, enough getting through to singe the arms of her bodysuit, but the bulk of it was blocked. One streamer freed itself, shooting out looping around Shiro's ankle - and pulling.
As soon as the X-Man was no longer a direct obstacle, another streamer lashed out, barely missing Alpha, who was already moving to make his escape. He moved quickly, though not quite in a straight line, obviously feeling the effects of his injuries, but unwilling to fall to them. He vanished around the corner of the hall.
Shiro howled as the energy strip cut into his ankle and tossed him up bodily into the air. He twisted and lashed out with his free leg, kicking up an arc of flame that sliced through the ribbon and freed him. He righted himself in midair and fired off blasts with both hands. One slammed into her shield as predicted, but he focused on the other and curved its path around it, striking at the ground beneath her feet.
It tossed her backwards like a rag doll, and she landed in a crumpled heap, the energy ribbons flailing for a moment before they faded. Without her surrounding lightshow, the girl looked smaller and younger than she had, maybe twelve at the most.
"You son of a bitch," Shiro growled upon seeing just how truly young his opponent was. Younger than his sister, even. He landed next to her to ensure that she would be okay, but thought better of it when pain shot through his injured ankle and so took back to the air. Part of him knew that his first priority was to this girl, to get her to Husk to ensure her health and safety. But Alpha was so close, and with those injuries he couldn't get far. And of course, if he were to escape, then there was no telling how many more lives he'd ruin.
And he still had to pay for what he'd done to Jean-Paul, that nasty voice in his head raged.
Sunfire sped off in pursuit.
Alpha hadn't gotten far. Down the hall and around the corner - and directly into three young operatives roaming the hall as a miniature pack. At the sight of Alpha, they froze. A presence brushed across their subconscious, calmly triumphant and subtly vindictive, and pushed, bringing carefully-buried hatred up to the surface, fanning its flames in a briskly efficient fashion.
And the three youngsters charged their maker, screaming incoherently.
The youth with the faceted, chalk-white skin was the first to reach him, the length of his stride more than making up for any hinderence his bulk might have posed. Alpha's reactions were slowed from exhaustion and his injuries; one huge, granite-hard hand closed around his upper arm. There was a muffled crunch as the grip pulped bone and crushed veins, but no time for Alpha to scream before the identical boys clad in dark, velvety fur leapt upon him, their red bush-baby eyes gleaming with hatred. They lost no time going to work with needle-sharp teeth and claws, drawn instinctively to the softer, unprotected parts of their prey.
Then his screaming began.
Shiro exploded around the corner and into the next hallway, holding what amounted to a miniature star in his right hand. The screaming, he'd thought, was coming from a teammate or one of the children fallen victim to Alpha. But the scene that appeared before him was entirely unexpected. Alpha instead was the victim and was being torn to bits. There wasn't much time. Even if Shiro could incapacitate all three of the operatives instantly, there was no guarantee that Alpha could be saved and brought to face justice.
Shiro's fire form dissipated, finally revealing his face to the torturer. He wore no expression as his eyes met Alpha's. He just shook his head.
Alpha's face was barely human, blackened in spots, bone showing through the shredded flesh at his temple. There was pain, horror -- but no incredulity on the part of the dying man, no disbelief that help was being withheld just beyond arm's reach. He'd have expected nothing less. Their gazes held for a long moment, but then Shiro was unimportant again as the twins continued to strip the flesh from his bones.
Had Shiro been a second faster, a second less hesitant, then maybe Alpha could have lived. But he wasn't. He knew even as he realized what was happening that there were no guarantees. His teammates talked about these moments often, when someone they were supposed to look after fell through because they couldn't do enough. Add another to the list. But this time without any regret.
He threw up his arms and called up twin crescents of fire that slammed into the two ferals, knocking them away from Alpha's corpse (but bringing bits and pieces with them). As the larger one turned his attention to Shiro, he blasted him in the face. As the kid flailed, Shiro flew up behind him and pulled him into a sleeper hold. He strained against the kid's bulk but didn't let up, heating the air around them to an unbearable and unbreathable temperature to hasten unconsciousness.
The kid followed his comrades in a few seconds, and pulled Shiro down with him. He hissed as he fell on his ankle, but forced the pain aside and awkwardly got back to his feet. "Cyclops," he panted in his comm, "This is Sunfire. Alpha is down. I repeat, Alpha is down." He surveyed the scene: three children tortured into pure animalistic rage, and the eviscerate of the man who had done this to them. "I think this is a victory."
---
Tara could disturb the minds which made up the astral plane and create effects that way, but Jean could manipulate pure thought at its most basic. She didn't even bother to run as she chased after the other woman, her slow measured steps covering a measureless space which was both minuscule and endless. #I'm done with chasing you, Tara. You are not getting away because there is no where for you to go.# Indeed, the open plane was shifting, walls coalescing around them and forming into a giant, twisting maze.
And how many of your friends will die while you spend your time chasing me? How many of these children you claim to be here to rescue? Tara sent back, an ugly note to her mental voice. She sank into the fabric of the astral plane, a ripple marking the point of entry. It's very easy for you to become myopic, isn't it, Jean?
The little smile twisting Jean's face didn't even have a passing resemblance to pleasant. #Oh, you want to talk about myopia, do you?# Her hair was suddenly twisting in wind which wasn't there, crackling like fire as her feet sank a few inches into the ground and suddenly Trask was being forcibly separated from the pure astral matter as though by a sieve, dragged up out of the ground and then Jean was simply standing in front of her, eyes dark with fury. #You think you can push your guilt on to me? I am not the one so thoroughly convinced of my own righteousness that I would use children in a war. You will answer for your crimes, Trask.#
Will I? Will I, indeed, telepath... you feel such empathy for them? Let me help you with that... What Trask did then was something that a telepath could not have done. There was a hole beneath them, suddenly. A portal, like a shortcut through the astral plane that reached up and swallowed them, dropping them directly into the mind of one of the young operatives.
The girl's thoughts were shredding apart from the internal pressure, the emotions driving her a mixture of blind fury and wrenching despair. There was nothing in her mind but the need to lash out at everyone and anyone who had hurt her. It was like being dropped into an inferno, seeing the flames eating away at what little existed of the girl's personality.
There might, possibly, have been an alternate universe in which this wasn't the absolute dumbest thing Trask could have done, but if so it was clear that this was not that universe. The girl's emotions and thoughts, the chaos in her mind, in another universe could well have been enough to distract Jean, could have overwhelmed her with their intensity and given Trask the chance she needed to escape.
Instead the psionic fire danced about Jean's feet, swirled along the length of her sword and, at a gesture, wrapped itself tightly around Trask's feet and hands as the telepath ripped open the other woman's mental shields to expose her fully to the agony of the mind they were inside. No icy golden cage for this woman, for her crimes she would know every inch of the burning pain she had caused.
Trask screamed and retreated at speed, barely making it out of the girl's mind. You won't stop me, she howled at Jean, you won't! And suddenly, the silver, gossamer presence was no longer angelic. It swelled into immensity, warping and twisting, and horrifyingly, looked like nothing so much as a giant spider, digging its legs and fangs into the minds around it, white flame spreading downwards. Turning the fraying patterns of children's minds into ashes.
#That's ENOUGH!# Jean sent, and the vile spider form gave her the key she needed, the shift in her astral representation showing Jean her opening. Fast as thought she had Trask by the neck, the astral spider disintegrating as Jean propelled herself forward through the door she had seen, shoving the other woman back, farther and farther into the deepest, darkest pits of her own mind, locking them away from the astral plane. Jean continued forward, pushing on until she felt Tara slam into the walls of her own subconscious and then held her there, letting her inner fears press insidiously against her as Jean pinned her there, the blade of her sword pressing into her stomach, more promise than threat.
Trask hissed, something like hands reaching out and plunging into Jean's astral form. Glowing tendrils wormed their way red-gold light like creeping parasitical vines. I'll tear your heart out, Grey--
#Why, jealous 'cause you haven't got one, bitch? Just be glad I'm not gonna make you suffer like you should.# And without a pause she slammed the sword home, twisting it as it went it.
The psychic wail the attack provoked was almost enough to satisfy even the darkest part of Jean's psyche. Almost. But Trask's astral form only started to glow brighter, as if she was drawing strength from desperation, or maybe just being back within her own mind. The tendrils increased in number and strength, more forcing their way into Jean's astral form, others wrapping around her neck.
And each and every single one of them was razor-edged. I'll take you with me- Trask's mental voice was breathy, pained. Her astral form blazed like the heart of the sun, all at once. I've seen the underside of this world, ~sister~... the darkness where no telepath goes...
#You think I don't know darkness,# Jean snarled back, lip curling over her teeth partly in pain but mostly in rage. #You think being a telepath is anything other than constantly living every moment of every day with every man, woman and child's on earth? You play games, stirring emotion to see which way they will jump, I breathe in pain and love and fear and hatred and exultation. You think you would ever have been strong enough to bring about ~the Mother's future~? You have no strength. You are nothing, you never were.# And Jean ripped the sword out of Trask's stomach, slicing sideways as she did so, gutting the core of her astral self.
Fire faded to mist; mist started to drift away on the invisible breeze. For a moment, there was something almost like a face in the light - Trask's face, staring at Jean in blank shock.
And then the breeze blew harder, and what had been Tara Trask became only the memory of light.
Jean took a deep, figurative breath as the pressure of Trask's mind surrounding her evaporated, releasing her back on to the pure, if turbulent, astral plane. She was briefly tempted to spit on Tara's remains, but there weren't any and it would have been petty. Besides, there were other, greater concerns. She'd gone far from Nathan and her body, she could tell, the tendril connecting her to the physical plane thinner than it had been in a while, but the speed of thought would return her in relative moments, although it was always hard to know what they were relative to. Regardless, this time she did run, her sword fading away into thought as she raced along mental pathways, vaguely aware that the external forces driving the rage which permeated the astral plane was gone and it's result, the blind fury of the children, was fading. Jean could only hope it faded fast enough.
---
Kane rushed forward at the stunned teen, going slightly past with his enhanced speed, and coldcocking him at the back of the head. He crumpled like a ragdoll, and they had a moment to take a breath while the controlled children and teens fought to clear a path to them through the choked hallway. Kane turned to Lil, almost comic with the smoke still raising from his head and facial hair.
"Vikks is going to kill me for not having a camera to capture this moment," Lil told him with a hint of a smirk coming to her lips. It the situation hadn't been as seriously as it was, she would have laughed but the bodies of unconscious children laying slumped nearby kept the amusement at bay. "At least you still have your eyebrows?"
"Barely. Oh, that stings." He muttered, looking back down the hall. Sickeningly, they'd decided to clear the blockage by putting their enhanced strength child in front, and they could hear the crunch of bone and wet smacks of flesh on concrete as the unconscious ones were casually wrenched aside and thrown out of the way.
Worst of all, there wasn't a thing they could do to stop it from happening.
"C'mon guys. Shut these kids down." Garrison waved Lil back a bit, now getting very close to their last ditch postion in front of the door.
Taking up her spot just behind him and a little to the left, Lil frowned at the regrouping horde. "Worst babysitting job ever," she muttered. "Gotta be fucking karma for half the shit I did as a kid." Fleetingly, the giantess' hand ran along the back of his arm before balling into a fist at her side. "You ready to end this if they can't, Gar? Show the little brats how to really raise some Hell?"
"We're not there yet." Kane reply wasn't as certain as the words. They were rapidly running out of options, and the opposition had seized on the fact that swamping them wasn't going to work. Instead, it looked like they were getting the right powers mix in place, and both X-Men were pinned to a defensive position. "I think we're about to get the concussive kid again, and then they rush us."
He pulled the pepper spray canister from his suit and thumbed a hole in the concrete wall, wedging it in. "When they rush, go left and flank them."
There wasn't time for an argument as the concussive wave rippled down the hallway again. Kane felt himself lifted, and caught sight of Lil being flung as well before he smashed into the far wall. The impact drove the breath from him, but he managed a smile as the follow up rush ran straight into the hissing cloud of pepper gas from the cannister that the wave had snapped in half where it was lodged in the wall. It blunted the wave slightly, buying them a few more seconds.
Lil let out a vicious curse as she rolled into a crouching position, staying under the chaos and commotion of gas, powers and falling debris before skirting along the wall then into the mass of blind and staggering children. "I've had enough of this shit," she growled, banging the skulls of two older looking boys together. They dropped, adding two more unconscious bodies to the floor as the blonde woman spun, catching a third one in the face with her elbow before reaching the back of the horde to cut off any retreat - or head off another incoming wave, need be.
One of the mutants made a puching gesture with his hands, and Kane felt the telekinetic shove slam into him. He braced himself, fighting against it, and saw Lil doing the same. The problem was that there was no where to fall back to. Garrison could take the kid out, but only by letting the blow flow past him, and straight towards the room that Jean and Nathan were in. He cast about for a moment, but could see no alternative.
"Sorry Lil." He muttered, as his skin changed again, and the telekinetic force flowed around him like a suddenly opened dam. It was only a matter of seconds before he dropped the mutant with a blow, but the sounds of shattered masonary behind him made perfectly clear what had happened when his enhanced strength had been suddenly removed from fighting the force.
Garrison turned slowly, as the waves of children closed on him from all three sides. There wasn't an escape, but he could continue to distract them, give the others more time. Hopefully Lil wasn't too dazed by the impact to run the last line of interference. The Canadian suddenly grinned savagely in the face of his certain impending death at the hands of brainwashed kids. If you're going to go out, might as well go out with a--
"Say. Isn't this a school day?"
Bang.
---
Jack side-stepped another body, senses open to anything that might be moving. The screams must have begun to die down while he was distracted with the feral; the complex was mostly quiet now. He suspected the triggered children were running out of victims.
There running water somewhere ahead. The next turn revealed the crumpled body of a guard, its head and ribcage crushed. Marks in the wall above the corpse indicated an aggressive physical attack, and one blow had punched through the wall to split a waterpipe. Under the jet of water was the body of another guard, a gun in its hands. Worryingly, this one had no visible wounds.
The only other living person in the corridor had been so still he didn't even notice them until it surged to its feet. The boy had been crouching next to the body of a young girl with muscular arms and a bullet wound through the side of her head.
The boy's eyes burned into Jack, baleful, and the jet of water started to move. It twined sinuously around him, the 'thread' thickening and the speed of the water increasing. "Enemeeee," he said, the word slurred and his voice rough as if he wasn't used to using it. He looked down at the still girl, then back at Jack, his expression going flat.
"Not on my part, kiddo," Jack said, watching the water. It was registering for him, but the sensation was only a ghost compared to the boy controlling it. Jack didn't shift his posture just yet, but the guards' clothing and the debris in the hallway began to stir with the rising eddies of telekinesis.
"Enemeeee." The water coalesced - and hit Jack in the face with the force of a water cannon. Except that the stream a water cannon produced didn't generally force itself into your mouth and nose with tendrils that seemed to have a life of their own.
The attack caught Jack completely unprepared -- not because he hadn't seen it coming, but because it had never even occurred to him his own shields wouldn't stop it. Through his bewilderment, he made one crucial connection:
--it's not solid enough to catch--
He flung the hydrokinetic away with a desperate burst of telekinesis, breaking the boy's concentration. Any advantage this may have provided was sacrificed to the necessity of vomiting up the water that had been forced down his nose and throat.
The boy hit the concrete floor hard, with a whimper that turned into a growl as he came back up to all fours, a strangely animal-like posture. The water that had fallen to the ground collected itself into a floating sphere, which moved through the air with jerky speed and enclosed Jack's head in a near-perfect seal.
This time it was himself he moved. A blind jolt of telekinesis threw his body backwards and all the way down the hallway. It freed his head from the bubble, but only luck kept him from cracking it open when he struck the opposite wall. If there hadn't been a mind driving the water than maybe -- but it didn't matter, the boy had recovered from the surprise and now the water was coming again, and here was something he couldn't hold hold hold hold it I can hold it
A split-second before the globe could make impact, Haller's eyes flashed green.
There had been no plan. One moment Jack was out, and the next it was Cyndi at the forefront. And now, somehow, Cyndi holding the sphere of water two feet from Haller's face.
Another growl came from the boy, and the sphere tried to wrench itself out of Cyndi's grasp. Tried, and failed, and with a snarl, he drew on more of the water coming out of the burst pipe, more tentacles reaching for Haller.
The sphere had begun to distort during the struggle, and with the hydrokinetic's release lost all cohesion. Some of it dissolved into something like a cloud. The rest simply dropped. Cyndi scrambled to her feet, sweat streaming down her forehead and soaking the front of her leathers. She could grip it, but -- moving, she couldn't move mass, that was Jack--
Tendrils punched through the cloud, and Cyndi instinctively threw her arms over her face. The water froze in place, but under her inexperienced grip the clear, thick streams began to shiver apart at the edges. Sharp pops began to riddle the corridor as her panic began to manifest itself as small bursts of fire, immediately extinguished in the moisture-laden air. For the first time ever, fire couldn't help her.
Jack! Cyndi lost her grip on the strands as the boy unleashed a barrage like the jet of a firehose. Cyndi threw herself to the side, so desperate she was almost in tears. Goddammit, Jack, do something! I can't move things this big, I don't know how to do this!
"Yes you do." Jim? But that was so wrong. Cyndi was down on her knees in a corridor full of water that was trying to punch her in the face and even now she knew how wrong that was. Jim didn't have clue one how to use telekinesis. He always left it to Jack and Cyndi.
But now he seemed to have abandoned that plan, and was still talking. "Look, you're trying to think of the world like Jack does. Don't. Think like you do.
"Even what looks whole is made of parts."
How she looked at the world? What did he mean by . . . oh--
The internal struggle gave the boy a chance to make more progress in his attack. Water-tentacles thickened, wrapping around Haller's wrists and ankles and slamming him back against the wall. Once he was pinned, the main stream of water came at him more forcefully, slamming into his face and chest.
This time, it did not have the intended effect.
Immediately the hydrokinetic could sense something wrong with the water aimed at the telekinetic's face; though the stream was uninterrupted, a thin layer was forming a barrier around the nose and mouth, and the effect was spreading. In a moment the pressure no longer pinned the older man to the wall, and, as the hydrokinetic watched, his arms came forward trailing the remnants of watery shackles.
Cyndi wondered why she'd been trying to treat all that water as a single mass. Jack's fault, probably. God, she was so stupid. She wasn't moving one big thing, just lots and lots of little ones. Once she'd realized that, it had been . . . obvious.
The stream of water curled away from her, and she took a step towards the boy. This was the hard part. She was used to a constant awareness of the world around her, but active control was another matter. Small things, short bursts, that was her speciality. Just this once, she let Jack have a little input. Slowly, inexorably, power began to suffuse the corridor.
"One chance, okay?" she said, trying to sound calm. "Just come with me, and we'll help." It was kind of pointless to make this offer to a kid who was clearly brainwashed, but she felt like she had to make it. Around them the water was reacting, mimicking the shapes Cyndi knew best. The liquid rose, twisting like fire, dancing across the walls before it bled into mist. Cyndi stretched out a hand to the quivering boy. "Okay?"
The boy took a step - backwards, unfortunately, his lips drawing back in a snarl. A different sort of power started to affect the air, creating additional moisture - additional weapons. Bullet-like drops of water shot at Haller, hissing into mist. The boy kept it up, however. "Enemeee!"
Yeah, that probably didn't work even when they weren't brainwashed. Oh well.
The liquid flames spiraled like drops of ink in a bowl of water. Tendrils crept from the walls, threadier than his but no less effective. Lips thinned in concentration, Cyndi roped the boy in place.
He struggled, thrashing and panting against the thin threads of water like a trapped animal. Cyndi moved up to him, shining tongues of water dancing at her feet.
She was trying to figure out the best angle to hit him when the boy froze, all the fight suddenly gone from his eyes. Cautiously, Cyndi followed his gaze to look behind her. There was nothing. She frowned, but she couldn't take the chance.
"Nighty night," she muttered. A little clumsily, she swung the edge of her hand right for the cluster of nerves behind the boy's ear like they'd been taught. He went out like a light.
Cyndi released her control over the water and lowered the boy to the ground as gently as possible, uneasy. Now that she could think about it, something felt . . . different, as if the air had somehow lightened. Could the Trojan Horse thing have done that? Whatever it was, she hoped this was a good thing.
She straightened and raised one hand, palm up, and pulled in a small sphere of water. It unfolded into the shape of a flickering flame, exuding mist like smoke. Cyndi allowed herself a moment of pride, then tipped the water back onto the floor. Later she could gloat. Right now she should probably find somebody who knew what was going on.
---
Nathan had no sooner sensed Jean starting back - across a frightening long astral distance - when he sensed the force behind the resistance to the Trojan Horse falter. She's done it. He didn't stop to think about just what Jean might have done to Trask. No time. Had to do this, now...
He'd just started to coax a clearer, stronger projection of the Trojan Horse out of his subconscious when the wall exploded inwards. The force of the explosion slammed him to the floor, driving the air from his lungs. He laid there stunned, shouting echoing in his ears and stars dancing in front of his eyes. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't make his lungs work...
"Get up," a voice hissed through the space that had been a concrete barrier only shortly before. "Get up, Cable!"
Supporting the dead weight of Garrison, Lil climbed precariously through the hole, leaving behind a hallway full of rubble, smoke and sprawled children's bodies. "Dayspring, get your ass off the floor and fucking finish this thing. They're only gonna stay down for so long and I can't drag all of your asses out of here." Her voice lacked the lighthearted snark it normally would have held as she adjusted her hold on her countryman.
The sense of deja vu was terrifying. He was on the floor, and his psimitar was out of reach. There were bodies piled up in the hall, and he had to move, had to...
He heaved himself onto his side, something grinding in his chest as he moved, and reached out with his good hand to grab his psimitar. It flared star-bright for an instant, reacting to the jolt of adrenaline coursing through his system.
One more time. It had to work. It...
... worked. But he felt something different, as he slammed the Trojan Horse home into the minds of the children of Taygetos (fewer than there had been, only a few minutes before). Instead of obliterating the conditioning, it sent seismic shocks through it. Cracks appeared in the foundations, whole portions of those malign and elegant psionic structures collapsing inwards.
But their psi-imprints remained. The core patterns, and definite flickers of conscious thought. Color. Life. Still there. Still intact.
The lights haven't gone out, Nathan thought disjointedly, and passed out.
Everyone was in place. Time to play rear guard. Scott's real eye was quite literally flashing red as he turned back towards Tabitha. "You," he said sharply, "stick with me. We can't cover every exit to that place, but we can cut down on runners." The last was tossed over his shoulder as he headed up the slope as fast as he could, thankful for the extra support in his leathers that kept his knee from giving out on him.
Head still ringing from how quickly things had gone South, Tabitha sprinted after Scott. "On your heels," she replied, grim and trying to find that mental place where things were cool and calm.
The facility was quite literally built into the side of the mountain; Scott had no idea what its 'cover' had been, there simply hadn't been time to find out. What mattered now was that it was large, had multiple levels and exits, and he was not letting any of those kids run loose. Or any of the bastards who ran the program escape.
"There," he barked at Tabitha, indicating a rocky outcropping that would make a perfect sniper's perch. They could even duck down for cover if they needed it - and they needed it nearly immediately as a man in body armor came through a broken window and started firing his weapon at the sight of them.
Her body reacted before her brain registered what it saw. A flash-bomb sailed through the air as she dove behind the indicated pile of stone. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare of the bomb before peeking around the side of their cover.
And the gunman was down, if still moving feebly. "Good shot," Scott said curtly, and focused on the closest set of doors. There were noises coming from inside the facility - gunfire, shouting, the unmistakable sounds of energy of various sorts being discharged. Images were flashing through his mind, passed down the switchboard, and he gritted his teeth. "This is going to be a mess," he said, just as the doors burst open. It was a kid, a teenager in a gray bodysuit chasing a screaming woman in a labcoat. Scott moved quickly, trying to get into position, but even as his carefully measuring optic blast knocked down the operative, the kid got off a blast of blue plasma at his target. The woman fell, screaming and thrashing, and Scott swore. "Shit!"
Tabitha crafted her bombs carefully, upping the air content to have a better "push." She targeted the clusters of pursuers, breaking apart the gang-mentality she thought. In the back of her mind she heard her team leader curse, but seeing no apparent damage to his person, she ignored it. Her next bomb blew one of the fleeing scientists off of his feet.
"Smaller bombs, goddamnit!" Scott barked at her, and ran for the prone operatives. "Husk," he said over the coms as he ran, "you need to get a triage area started! SHIELD's got medical staff on their response team, recruit them-" One of the operatives struggled up to a sitting position. Unfortunately, it was the plasma-thrower, and Scott cursed again. He dropped beneath the poorly targeted blast, rolling and firing even as he came up. His optic blast caught the boy in the shoulder, hurling him back against the rocky ground.
The blonde mutant shot a dirty look at her mentor before jumping down to his side. She grabbed a wounded man by the shoulders and dragged him back to cover right behind Scott. "Some of the kids are hurt too," she said. "Should we leave them?"
"Hell no," Scott said, "they're the priority. Unless any of the grown-up bastards are dying, just get them out of sight!" They didn't know if this was some sort of scorched-earth thing, like at Youra, and Jean had gone quiet, but it seemed like a safe assumption to work with. He knelt down beside the boy he'd just knocked out, heart pounding erratically in his chest as he leaned over to check for a pulse.
Tabitha snorted and started piling bodies like Lincoln Logs in their former hiding spot. One of them tried to struggle, she resisted the urge to knock her right back out. "Quiet, you," she hissed.
Alive. Thank God, he was alive. Scott's breathing didn't grow any steadier. "Husk, there's a spot downslope, not far from where our command post was," he said over the coms raggedly. "Best spot for it. I'll try and organize people to start shuttling down wounded." Clarice, definitely, once the east wing was clear. He would had said more, but a good chunk of the wall beside him abruptly blew out, the force of the blast slamming him to the ground.
"Gah!" Tabitha ducked over an unconcious kid, debris pelting the back of her leathers. "Shit, Scott!" She yelled as she looked back up. "Talk to me, you all right?" She double checked that the kid under her still breathed.
Scott didn't hear her. His ears were ringing, and frankly, he wasn't sure which way was up right this second. Unfortunately, the lanky teenager who stumbled out of the hole he'd just made was considerably more alert than the X-Men leader, even under the influence of Trask's manipulations. He extended his arms, bringing his hands together in a gesture like a simple clap. The sonic blast that erupted at Scott and the downed operative sounded like a crack of thunder.
Tabitha hit the kid with a force just short of a Giants' linebacker, knocking him onto his face and the breath from his body. Before he could gather himself, she had his wrists in her hands up in the small of his back. With a quick, silent thanks to whoever first though it up, she wrapped a heavy-weight zip-tie around the kid's wrists.
No boom if he could clap. "You just stay put," she ordered the kid. Without another glance at him, she went for the team leader.
Scott flinched away from the hands that came down on his shoulders, not sure who it was. But they were pulling him off the boy fairly gently, and Scott caught a flash of blonde hair in his peripheral vision. "Check the kid," he mumbled.
A quick glance at the struggling, brainwashed child assured her. "He's fine, you're the one that took all the damage." How do you check a one-eyed man for a concussion? she wondered.
"Had worse shaving," Scott muttered, interpreting the concerned look rather than hearing her words. His ears had sort of gone beyond ringing at this point. Now it was sort of a high-pitched whine. He shook his head as to clear out the cobwebs. "Help me up," he said in what he thought was a more normal voice, not realizing he'd just raised the volume. "Got work to do." He spotted the restraints on the sonic-blasting mutant, and a crooked smile tugged at his lips as Tabitha helped him back to his feet. "And just when I was thinking you were slowing down in your old age..."
Tabitha shot a narrow eyed glance at her mentor. "If there weren't half a dozen people line up to kick your ass at this very moment, I'd have to do it for them."
---
Cyclops's voice was in both his head and his ear, ordering him to do what he could to link up with the first squad and provide the telepaths with more cover. Getting to their position was easier said than done, however; there seemed to be young operatives popping up everywhere, all of them attacking anything that moved.
"I can't get anywhere", he subvocalised, frustrated. "Not without gettin' in a fight every two minutes... any word on the secret weapon?"
"Nothing from Phoenix yet," was the overly-loud reply. "Do your best!"
No sooner had the order been given than Angelo found himself targeted by two of the operatives, both easily a foot taller than him and far heavier. Despite the identical looks of blind rage on their faces, they still somehow managed to attack as a unit, bracketing Angelo in the narrow confines of the corridor.
Angelo took a breath, looked from one to the other, and grinned viciously. "Bring it on, guys." One of them promptly got spin-kicked in the face.
The operative seemed to register the kick only briefly, rocking backwards and spitting blood before he came at Angelo again. His companion's advance hadn't stopped or slowed at all, and he hit Angelo from the left just as the other slammed into him from the right. Angelo wasn't knocked unconscious, but he was definitely dazed by the double blow... and besides, he had better things to do than engage these two in combat. He dropped to the ground and lay there, eyes closed and not moving.
Playing 'dead' didn't work. Instead of leaving him, they continued to advance, their minds so twisted by whatever had gone wrong that they defaulted to their training. A kick landed in Angelo's ribcage, the impact barely blunted by the leathers.
He grunted and rolled with the kick, then lashed out at both of them at once, in an attempt to pin them against the wall until they passed out from the lack of oxygen.
The gunfire came out of nowhere - and not from more operatives. The gunmen were obviously security of some sort, trying to clear a route down the hall for the man they were protecting. And while there was still no picture of the third man in the X-Men's files, the sketch based on Nathan's description from earlier in the year had always been quite good.
Despite everything going on around him, Alpha seemed utterly calm. He shot the blockade of bodies an annoyed look before transferring his ire to the gunmen flanking him. "Drop them," he said sharply, as if reinforcing the existing orders would sharpen the aim of his guards.
One of the young operatives was hit, and fell across Angelo, bleeding heavily from the neck. The other struggled to get free from the web of skin trapping him, trying to turn to face the new threat. Angelo stayed down, making it seem he was struggling as he tried to get a skin tourniquet across the wounded boy's neck. He didn't let the other one go, and didn't try to disguise his fury as he stared at Alpha. It might even help him fit in.
There was a flicker of color and movement along the corridor wall, and a shaven-haired girl who couldn't have been older than thirteen stepped out of the concrete, directly beside one of Alpha's bodyguards. Before the man could react, her hand lashed out, sinking into his chest. The man screamed, trying to pull away, and only worsening the situation as the girl yanked.
Alpha side-stepped as his remaining guard tried to get a bead on the girl currently dragging her half-phased form through his dying partner's body. A burst of strength sent her leaping out of the man, trailing blood and bone. Her hooked fingers pressed into the remaining guard's skull as his gunfire went wild, causing even the seemingly unflappable man in gray to stumble back.
He should have paid better attention, as his move took him to standing over Angelo... and the X-Man erupted upwards in one sharp move, planting his foot solidly and deliberately between Alpha's legs from below.
Alpha lurched away from the pile of bodies tangled around Angelo, his face pale and his entire demeanor suggesting that he might vomit. He managed to keep his feet, and glared at Angelo, furious...and somehow indignant. He groped for his sidearm with clumsy fingers, drew, and leveled the gun at the youth...then paused. Angelo was tied up with one furious mutant and trying to stop a second from bleeding out, while, just behind them, a third had almost finished the job of killing Alpha's last guardsman.
Still breathing hard, he reholstered the gun. "You make a better target alive." And he was going to need as much of a head-start as he could get.
"Good luck gettin' out of here", Angelo returned, focusing on his patient even before Alpha had gone. "An' if you do, I'll be seein' you."
The phaser stepped through the body of the last guard, eyeing Angelo, her features twisted in a snarl. She didn't run at him, however, but at the operative he'd pinned back against the wall, grasping the front of the boy's bodysuit and phasing him with her - pulling him free.
Which left one heavily-bleeding operative, one X-Man still trying to save him, and two more operatives, now free to act.
A fireball added to that equation, exploding at the feet of the two drones. Shiro in his fire form seemed to appear out of nowhere and didn't hesitate to follow up the first attack with a torrent of flame, aiming to slam them into the wall behind them and incapacitate them.
"Sunfire", Angelo said, looking up at him with some relief. "You any good at cauterisin' wounds with that fire? This kid's shot. Also, Alpha went that way."
"I cannot," Shiro replied, already turned around to pursue Alpha. "If the bullet is lodged in there then it will be dangerous or it might get infected. Take him to Husk, she can help."
That got a curt nod of agreement. "Go get the bastard. I'll come back for these two when I've got him safe."
---
No sooner had they taken up defensive positions in the hall outside the door than the sound of screaming and running footsteps got closer - as in, coming up the stairs at the end of the hall 'closer'. Had the two telepaths in the room behind them had the time and attention to spare from their own tasks, they would have been able to tell their teammates that the incoming opposition was being quite deliberately directed, Trask whispering into the subconscious minds of the young operatives.
But it hardly mattered. Because they were already here. A blast of gale-force wind screamed down the hallway, followed up by a peppering of concussive force blasts. And there were other kids in bodysuits outpacing the long-distance types, running right for their targets and wearing identical expressions of twisted rage.
"I guess we're babysitting." Garrison muttered, flexing his hands under the gloves and watching the tide of young mutants close the distance. In a way, he was glad of their tactics. The mutants in front were forcing the energy casters to aim high, limiting their field of fire. When your job was to stop a mass while stuck in a narrow hallway, the last thing you wanted was a clean line of sight.
The secondary problem, of course, was that homicidal or not, their attackers were the victims here, which meant going through them with maximum damage involved wasn't an option. Being careful made it a lot more likely they'd pay the price for it.
With fists balled at her side, Lil gave herself another mental shake. First psis and now kids. She swallowed hard past the tightness in her throat, visions of her first Danger Room experience flashing through her head. Only this time, it was the children who were the attackers - and it wasn't a simulation. "I really fucking hate this job sometimes," she replied, cracking her knuckles and forcing down the nauseous swirl in her stomach. Even knowing she and Garrison could take mostly anything the young mutants could pitch at them, playing human shield was never fun but given her powers, it was thankfully all she could do; the blonde wasn't sure had she been a projector she could have fired on the approaching horde.
"Tell me about it. This deserves at least time and a half." Kane said, as the first line reached them. They were obviously physically enhanced mutants, from the way the brick shattered under the punch aimed at his head. But Garrison's chip had already run the fight a hundred different ways in his mind, and between that and his training, the punch had as much chance of landing as an instant solution to this fight turning up.
Garrison grabbed the elbow of the child, twisting it painfully back towards him and then driving his shoulder into his chest. The boy ricocheted back into the crowd, bowling down several and making the confused melee at the turn in the hall even more so. "Lil, push 'em back! Any that leak past you, I'll put back on the pile!" He yelled, spraying the next child in the face with his pepper spray, sending him into a strieking heap against the side of the wall.
The giantess made a strangled sound and floundered for a moment in hesitation. They were children, for fuck's sake! A narrowly avoided shot aimed at her head brought Lil back to her task. Conditioned children. Made into weapons, she reminded herself as she turned to absorb a blast with her back. Lil caught another trying to push through; a short, round boy with spikes that she caught squarely in the chest with her foot to send him stumbling backward.
"It just keeps getting better. You know what this reminds me of?" Kane said between clenched teeth as a spate of poisoned barbs buried themselves into his chest, just stopped by the uniform armor. He slammed his forearm into the lead child's chest, sending her reeling back, and used her to topple several others with a shove.
"That fundraiser at YTV. You know, when one of the little bastards got her sticky sugar covered hands stuck in Marie's hair, and the eight year old copped the feel off you?" Kane's mouth seemed utterly disconnected with his movements, as the Canadian blocked attacks and pushed back the horde or scrambling, screaming attackers.
Lil had never been more grateful for the chatter. They'd worked long enough for him to know her style; the little quips and digging snark that served to keep her from thinking too much or losing herself in the heat of it all. The situation was uncomfortable and without the little slice of familiarity, she would have been a flailing mess.
"Neither of them were as bad as the little brunette who though Juddsie was a living doll," she replied, smirking to herself despite their situation.
She was cut off as a concussive shock rippled down the hallway, blasting them both off their feet. The mass of children had exploded out of the way, slamming into walls and the ceiling with sickening thuds.
Garrison shook his head, trying to clear it. Obviously their resistance was getting to the point that they weren't satisfied trying to simply mob them, and sent in some big guns. He staggered to his knees, trying to pick out the source of the attack, when a blonde teen stepped out from behind a pile of wounded children and raised his hands.
Kane had just enough time to cross his forearms in front of his face before he disappeared under a wall of fire.
Any amusement that came with the memory of their former mentor surrounded by a dozen or so ankle biters disappeared when the fireball erupted, pushing her back against the wall.
Little hands grabbed at her arms, her legs, but all Lil could focus on was the spot where her teammate stood only a moment before. "Gar!"
"fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccCCCKKKKKKKK!" The howl pierced the roar of the flames, and as they abated, Kane was still standing. His face was twisted into a rictus of pain, and his suit was smouldering and riddled with burn holes. However, beyond his charred hair, the Canadian's skin was only tinged pink, instead of charred black and to the bone. "Okay, that one hurt, you little bastard."
---
Jean hadn't let go of the psimitar. Nathan met her eyes across its glowing length, swallowing hard as he heard the sound of fighting in the hall outside. #You're going to have to go after her,# he sent, his mental voice weak and thready; too much of his badly flagging strength was still going into the steady projection of the Trojan Horse. #I'm not up for astral combat, and she's got too many ways through my shields even when they're not in pieces.#
Jean nodded, her eyes dark. #I have seriously had enough of this bitch. She wants to play hardball, fine, we play hardball. And if her brain melts in the process, that's not my problem anymore.#
#Be careful.# It seemed like such an unnecessary thing to say - as if Jean couldn't handle Trask, one-on-one or any other way. A sign of how badly his confidence was flagging, maybe. Because his shields were in pieces, and everything around him felt so much like Youra.
#I will be,# Jean said, her tone confident and reassuring. #You keep up the projection as best you can; there's always a chance I can distract her and she'll slip in the fight, and any chance we get needs to be taken straight away.#
Nathan drew back from the link, retaining only a thin thread - like a lifeline? - as Jean's psychic presence turned away. #She's going from mind to mind,# he murmured shakily. #Feel her? Bouncing back and forth...#
#Not strong enough to do it all at once,# was Jean's reply, and it was more than a bit smug. Already her 'self' was becoming more diffuse, drifting out and reaching into the corners of the Astral plane here. #If I go extra crazy, you get to 'splain to Scott...# The smallest fraction of her attention was on Nathan, but she wasn't letting go entirely.
Trask was a flickering silvery presence that some, not knowing her or what she was doing, might have called angelic-looking. She drifted across the astral plane with uncanny speed, so fast that her passing left an afterimage as she moved from mind to mind, 'playing' the young operatives like a talented musician who knew exactly what kind of music she wanted to create.
The presence paused as Jean approached - and then rushed at her, blazing brightly.
The astral plane was Trask's playground, there was no question - she moved with utmost confidence, knowing every move, every path, every way. Defeating her on her own ground would have been a nearly insurmountable task for almost any psi. But where the astral plane was Trask's playground, after her decades of training with Xavier, the most powerful psi on the planet, and particularly after the events in Wakanda, it had become Jean's plaything. #Can't run through sand,# Jean sent, thought stabbing like a knife as she twisted the pure form of the astral plane, shifting it away from Trask's grasp.
The silvery presence flailed for purchase, then retreated warily. That's fine, Jean, that familiar cool voice 'said'. I've done what needed to be done. Very little stopping it, now...
#Stopping it is not why I'm here, Tara. I'm stopping you. No more of this - it ends here and now.# The sword which appeared in her hand clearly had a wickedly sharp blade, and so it was possibly somewhat ironic that the grip was formed by two snakes twisting together down to a pair of outstretched wings.
You have to catch me first, Jean. And Tara shot away, reaching out to brush the minds she passed, driving them into deeper and deeper agitation, operative and non-operative alike. Even a couple of the X-Men. It created enough tumult on the astral plane to manifest as billowing clouds of frantic light, almost - if not quite - hiding her passage.
---
Shiro was gone down the hall before Angelo even finished. This one man had plagued and tormented the X-Men for too long, and now he was within reach. He was not going to get away this time, not when justice was so close. Turning a corner, he was greeted by the bullet-riddled corpses of another couple of young operatives. A door slammed shut at the end of the hallway, and Shiro snarled. He burst forth from the debris seconds later.
Alpha turned and snapped off a pistol shot at his pursuer without a break in his limping stride. One more operative on the floor made no difference at this stage.
Maybe the only thing that saved Shiro from following the kids' fate was his own attack, launched when he recognized Alpha. The drop of molten lead that had been the bullet fell to the ground. With a roar, he blasted again, the normally controlled torrent gone wild.
The older man threw himself to one side to escape the scorching heat, bringing his gun up once more. His finger flexed on the trigger...and nothing but silence. His eyes widened a moment, then flicked to the nearest exit.
"Oh, no," Shiro warned. He was on top of Alpha a moment later and slammed a flaming fist against his jaw. He was rewarded with a pleasant cracking sound. "I have been fantasizing about this encounter for weeks."
The scents of burned hair and seared flesh hung in air as Alpha reeled back from the fiery human form, the skin of his jaw and cheek blistering over the bruised flesh and cracked bone. Recognition clicked in the cold rage of his eyes. The rage in this mutant had been familiar enough -- he'd seen it a dozen times on his way through the halls and extinguished much of it -- but his operatives were bestial in their sounds. "I see." The words were sloppy; his mouth wasn't closing properly. "You're one of Dayspring's."
Shiro offered Alpha another taste of his fist. The fully illuminated power indicator made the blood on Alpha's face shine. "Almost. Beaubier's, actually. Does that name sound familiar, kisama?"
The force of the blow drove Alpha back against the wall, blood dripping from torn and scorched lips. He spat to clear his mouth; a tooth clattered across the floor. He forced himself upright again, glaring at the flame-wreathed creature he could not escape and could not strike back without doing as much damage to himself. For a moment, his gaze moved past Shiro...and he smiled.
The girl gliding down the hallway towards Shiro was a sight to behold. Gauzy streamers of energy floated around her, seemingly emanating from her wrists. It was oddly beautiful. But the look on her face was the same twisted mask of rage as all the others had been wearing, and she swept an arm back and forward, the energy-streamers flaring brighter. Turning into whips, that slashed across the back of Shiro's leathers, soundless but cutting through the body armor like butter.
Alpha had only himself to thank that Shiro wasn't cut to pieces along with his armor. Shiro had seen enough bad action movies to know what that kind of smile meant, and as soon as it appeared on Alpha's face, Shiro twisted and flew back. His solar panels weren't spared though, and he had to quickly rip the remnants off of his uniform so they wouldn't hinder him. Freed, he retaliated with a plasma blast.
The girl raised both hands defensively and the energy-streamers echoed the motion, creating almost a shield, if a shield could be made of glowing white ribbons. The plasma blast hit it squarely, enough getting through to singe the arms of her bodysuit, but the bulk of it was blocked. One streamer freed itself, shooting out looping around Shiro's ankle - and pulling.
As soon as the X-Man was no longer a direct obstacle, another streamer lashed out, barely missing Alpha, who was already moving to make his escape. He moved quickly, though not quite in a straight line, obviously feeling the effects of his injuries, but unwilling to fall to them. He vanished around the corner of the hall.
Shiro howled as the energy strip cut into his ankle and tossed him up bodily into the air. He twisted and lashed out with his free leg, kicking up an arc of flame that sliced through the ribbon and freed him. He righted himself in midair and fired off blasts with both hands. One slammed into her shield as predicted, but he focused on the other and curved its path around it, striking at the ground beneath her feet.
It tossed her backwards like a rag doll, and she landed in a crumpled heap, the energy ribbons flailing for a moment before they faded. Without her surrounding lightshow, the girl looked smaller and younger than she had, maybe twelve at the most.
"You son of a bitch," Shiro growled upon seeing just how truly young his opponent was. Younger than his sister, even. He landed next to her to ensure that she would be okay, but thought better of it when pain shot through his injured ankle and so took back to the air. Part of him knew that his first priority was to this girl, to get her to Husk to ensure her health and safety. But Alpha was so close, and with those injuries he couldn't get far. And of course, if he were to escape, then there was no telling how many more lives he'd ruin.
And he still had to pay for what he'd done to Jean-Paul, that nasty voice in his head raged.
Sunfire sped off in pursuit.
Alpha hadn't gotten far. Down the hall and around the corner - and directly into three young operatives roaming the hall as a miniature pack. At the sight of Alpha, they froze. A presence brushed across their subconscious, calmly triumphant and subtly vindictive, and pushed, bringing carefully-buried hatred up to the surface, fanning its flames in a briskly efficient fashion.
And the three youngsters charged their maker, screaming incoherently.
The youth with the faceted, chalk-white skin was the first to reach him, the length of his stride more than making up for any hinderence his bulk might have posed. Alpha's reactions were slowed from exhaustion and his injuries; one huge, granite-hard hand closed around his upper arm. There was a muffled crunch as the grip pulped bone and crushed veins, but no time for Alpha to scream before the identical boys clad in dark, velvety fur leapt upon him, their red bush-baby eyes gleaming with hatred. They lost no time going to work with needle-sharp teeth and claws, drawn instinctively to the softer, unprotected parts of their prey.
Then his screaming began.
Shiro exploded around the corner and into the next hallway, holding what amounted to a miniature star in his right hand. The screaming, he'd thought, was coming from a teammate or one of the children fallen victim to Alpha. But the scene that appeared before him was entirely unexpected. Alpha instead was the victim and was being torn to bits. There wasn't much time. Even if Shiro could incapacitate all three of the operatives instantly, there was no guarantee that Alpha could be saved and brought to face justice.
Shiro's fire form dissipated, finally revealing his face to the torturer. He wore no expression as his eyes met Alpha's. He just shook his head.
Alpha's face was barely human, blackened in spots, bone showing through the shredded flesh at his temple. There was pain, horror -- but no incredulity on the part of the dying man, no disbelief that help was being withheld just beyond arm's reach. He'd have expected nothing less. Their gazes held for a long moment, but then Shiro was unimportant again as the twins continued to strip the flesh from his bones.
Had Shiro been a second faster, a second less hesitant, then maybe Alpha could have lived. But he wasn't. He knew even as he realized what was happening that there were no guarantees. His teammates talked about these moments often, when someone they were supposed to look after fell through because they couldn't do enough. Add another to the list. But this time without any regret.
He threw up his arms and called up twin crescents of fire that slammed into the two ferals, knocking them away from Alpha's corpse (but bringing bits and pieces with them). As the larger one turned his attention to Shiro, he blasted him in the face. As the kid flailed, Shiro flew up behind him and pulled him into a sleeper hold. He strained against the kid's bulk but didn't let up, heating the air around them to an unbearable and unbreathable temperature to hasten unconsciousness.
The kid followed his comrades in a few seconds, and pulled Shiro down with him. He hissed as he fell on his ankle, but forced the pain aside and awkwardly got back to his feet. "Cyclops," he panted in his comm, "This is Sunfire. Alpha is down. I repeat, Alpha is down." He surveyed the scene: three children tortured into pure animalistic rage, and the eviscerate of the man who had done this to them. "I think this is a victory."
---
Tara could disturb the minds which made up the astral plane and create effects that way, but Jean could manipulate pure thought at its most basic. She didn't even bother to run as she chased after the other woman, her slow measured steps covering a measureless space which was both minuscule and endless. #I'm done with chasing you, Tara. You are not getting away because there is no where for you to go.# Indeed, the open plane was shifting, walls coalescing around them and forming into a giant, twisting maze.
And how many of your friends will die while you spend your time chasing me? How many of these children you claim to be here to rescue? Tara sent back, an ugly note to her mental voice. She sank into the fabric of the astral plane, a ripple marking the point of entry. It's very easy for you to become myopic, isn't it, Jean?
The little smile twisting Jean's face didn't even have a passing resemblance to pleasant. #Oh, you want to talk about myopia, do you?# Her hair was suddenly twisting in wind which wasn't there, crackling like fire as her feet sank a few inches into the ground and suddenly Trask was being forcibly separated from the pure astral matter as though by a sieve, dragged up out of the ground and then Jean was simply standing in front of her, eyes dark with fury. #You think you can push your guilt on to me? I am not the one so thoroughly convinced of my own righteousness that I would use children in a war. You will answer for your crimes, Trask.#
Will I? Will I, indeed, telepath... you feel such empathy for them? Let me help you with that... What Trask did then was something that a telepath could not have done. There was a hole beneath them, suddenly. A portal, like a shortcut through the astral plane that reached up and swallowed them, dropping them directly into the mind of one of the young operatives.
The girl's thoughts were shredding apart from the internal pressure, the emotions driving her a mixture of blind fury and wrenching despair. There was nothing in her mind but the need to lash out at everyone and anyone who had hurt her. It was like being dropped into an inferno, seeing the flames eating away at what little existed of the girl's personality.
There might, possibly, have been an alternate universe in which this wasn't the absolute dumbest thing Trask could have done, but if so it was clear that this was not that universe. The girl's emotions and thoughts, the chaos in her mind, in another universe could well have been enough to distract Jean, could have overwhelmed her with their intensity and given Trask the chance she needed to escape.
Instead the psionic fire danced about Jean's feet, swirled along the length of her sword and, at a gesture, wrapped itself tightly around Trask's feet and hands as the telepath ripped open the other woman's mental shields to expose her fully to the agony of the mind they were inside. No icy golden cage for this woman, for her crimes she would know every inch of the burning pain she had caused.
Trask screamed and retreated at speed, barely making it out of the girl's mind. You won't stop me, she howled at Jean, you won't! And suddenly, the silver, gossamer presence was no longer angelic. It swelled into immensity, warping and twisting, and horrifyingly, looked like nothing so much as a giant spider, digging its legs and fangs into the minds around it, white flame spreading downwards. Turning the fraying patterns of children's minds into ashes.
#That's ENOUGH!# Jean sent, and the vile spider form gave her the key she needed, the shift in her astral representation showing Jean her opening. Fast as thought she had Trask by the neck, the astral spider disintegrating as Jean propelled herself forward through the door she had seen, shoving the other woman back, farther and farther into the deepest, darkest pits of her own mind, locking them away from the astral plane. Jean continued forward, pushing on until she felt Tara slam into the walls of her own subconscious and then held her there, letting her inner fears press insidiously against her as Jean pinned her there, the blade of her sword pressing into her stomach, more promise than threat.
Trask hissed, something like hands reaching out and plunging into Jean's astral form. Glowing tendrils wormed their way red-gold light like creeping parasitical vines. I'll tear your heart out, Grey--
#Why, jealous 'cause you haven't got one, bitch? Just be glad I'm not gonna make you suffer like you should.# And without a pause she slammed the sword home, twisting it as it went it.
The psychic wail the attack provoked was almost enough to satisfy even the darkest part of Jean's psyche. Almost. But Trask's astral form only started to glow brighter, as if she was drawing strength from desperation, or maybe just being back within her own mind. The tendrils increased in number and strength, more forcing their way into Jean's astral form, others wrapping around her neck.
And each and every single one of them was razor-edged. I'll take you with me- Trask's mental voice was breathy, pained. Her astral form blazed like the heart of the sun, all at once. I've seen the underside of this world, ~sister~... the darkness where no telepath goes...
#You think I don't know darkness,# Jean snarled back, lip curling over her teeth partly in pain but mostly in rage. #You think being a telepath is anything other than constantly living every moment of every day with every man, woman and child's on earth? You play games, stirring emotion to see which way they will jump, I breathe in pain and love and fear and hatred and exultation. You think you would ever have been strong enough to bring about ~the Mother's future~? You have no strength. You are nothing, you never were.# And Jean ripped the sword out of Trask's stomach, slicing sideways as she did so, gutting the core of her astral self.
Fire faded to mist; mist started to drift away on the invisible breeze. For a moment, there was something almost like a face in the light - Trask's face, staring at Jean in blank shock.
And then the breeze blew harder, and what had been Tara Trask became only the memory of light.
Jean took a deep, figurative breath as the pressure of Trask's mind surrounding her evaporated, releasing her back on to the pure, if turbulent, astral plane. She was briefly tempted to spit on Tara's remains, but there weren't any and it would have been petty. Besides, there were other, greater concerns. She'd gone far from Nathan and her body, she could tell, the tendril connecting her to the physical plane thinner than it had been in a while, but the speed of thought would return her in relative moments, although it was always hard to know what they were relative to. Regardless, this time she did run, her sword fading away into thought as she raced along mental pathways, vaguely aware that the external forces driving the rage which permeated the astral plane was gone and it's result, the blind fury of the children, was fading. Jean could only hope it faded fast enough.
---
Kane rushed forward at the stunned teen, going slightly past with his enhanced speed, and coldcocking him at the back of the head. He crumpled like a ragdoll, and they had a moment to take a breath while the controlled children and teens fought to clear a path to them through the choked hallway. Kane turned to Lil, almost comic with the smoke still raising from his head and facial hair.
"Vikks is going to kill me for not having a camera to capture this moment," Lil told him with a hint of a smirk coming to her lips. It the situation hadn't been as seriously as it was, she would have laughed but the bodies of unconscious children laying slumped nearby kept the amusement at bay. "At least you still have your eyebrows?"
"Barely. Oh, that stings." He muttered, looking back down the hall. Sickeningly, they'd decided to clear the blockage by putting their enhanced strength child in front, and they could hear the crunch of bone and wet smacks of flesh on concrete as the unconscious ones were casually wrenched aside and thrown out of the way.
Worst of all, there wasn't a thing they could do to stop it from happening.
"C'mon guys. Shut these kids down." Garrison waved Lil back a bit, now getting very close to their last ditch postion in front of the door.
Taking up her spot just behind him and a little to the left, Lil frowned at the regrouping horde. "Worst babysitting job ever," she muttered. "Gotta be fucking karma for half the shit I did as a kid." Fleetingly, the giantess' hand ran along the back of his arm before balling into a fist at her side. "You ready to end this if they can't, Gar? Show the little brats how to really raise some Hell?"
"We're not there yet." Kane reply wasn't as certain as the words. They were rapidly running out of options, and the opposition had seized on the fact that swamping them wasn't going to work. Instead, it looked like they were getting the right powers mix in place, and both X-Men were pinned to a defensive position. "I think we're about to get the concussive kid again, and then they rush us."
He pulled the pepper spray canister from his suit and thumbed a hole in the concrete wall, wedging it in. "When they rush, go left and flank them."
There wasn't time for an argument as the concussive wave rippled down the hallway again. Kane felt himself lifted, and caught sight of Lil being flung as well before he smashed into the far wall. The impact drove the breath from him, but he managed a smile as the follow up rush ran straight into the hissing cloud of pepper gas from the cannister that the wave had snapped in half where it was lodged in the wall. It blunted the wave slightly, buying them a few more seconds.
Lil let out a vicious curse as she rolled into a crouching position, staying under the chaos and commotion of gas, powers and falling debris before skirting along the wall then into the mass of blind and staggering children. "I've had enough of this shit," she growled, banging the skulls of two older looking boys together. They dropped, adding two more unconscious bodies to the floor as the blonde woman spun, catching a third one in the face with her elbow before reaching the back of the horde to cut off any retreat - or head off another incoming wave, need be.
One of the mutants made a puching gesture with his hands, and Kane felt the telekinetic shove slam into him. He braced himself, fighting against it, and saw Lil doing the same. The problem was that there was no where to fall back to. Garrison could take the kid out, but only by letting the blow flow past him, and straight towards the room that Jean and Nathan were in. He cast about for a moment, but could see no alternative.
"Sorry Lil." He muttered, as his skin changed again, and the telekinetic force flowed around him like a suddenly opened dam. It was only a matter of seconds before he dropped the mutant with a blow, but the sounds of shattered masonary behind him made perfectly clear what had happened when his enhanced strength had been suddenly removed from fighting the force.
Garrison turned slowly, as the waves of children closed on him from all three sides. There wasn't an escape, but he could continue to distract them, give the others more time. Hopefully Lil wasn't too dazed by the impact to run the last line of interference. The Canadian suddenly grinned savagely in the face of his certain impending death at the hands of brainwashed kids. If you're going to go out, might as well go out with a--
"Say. Isn't this a school day?"
Bang.
---
Jack side-stepped another body, senses open to anything that might be moving. The screams must have begun to die down while he was distracted with the feral; the complex was mostly quiet now. He suspected the triggered children were running out of victims.
There running water somewhere ahead. The next turn revealed the crumpled body of a guard, its head and ribcage crushed. Marks in the wall above the corpse indicated an aggressive physical attack, and one blow had punched through the wall to split a waterpipe. Under the jet of water was the body of another guard, a gun in its hands. Worryingly, this one had no visible wounds.
The only other living person in the corridor had been so still he didn't even notice them until it surged to its feet. The boy had been crouching next to the body of a young girl with muscular arms and a bullet wound through the side of her head.
The boy's eyes burned into Jack, baleful, and the jet of water started to move. It twined sinuously around him, the 'thread' thickening and the speed of the water increasing. "Enemeeee," he said, the word slurred and his voice rough as if he wasn't used to using it. He looked down at the still girl, then back at Jack, his expression going flat.
"Not on my part, kiddo," Jack said, watching the water. It was registering for him, but the sensation was only a ghost compared to the boy controlling it. Jack didn't shift his posture just yet, but the guards' clothing and the debris in the hallway began to stir with the rising eddies of telekinesis.
"Enemeeee." The water coalesced - and hit Jack in the face with the force of a water cannon. Except that the stream a water cannon produced didn't generally force itself into your mouth and nose with tendrils that seemed to have a life of their own.
The attack caught Jack completely unprepared -- not because he hadn't seen it coming, but because it had never even occurred to him his own shields wouldn't stop it. Through his bewilderment, he made one crucial connection:
--it's not solid enough to catch--
He flung the hydrokinetic away with a desperate burst of telekinesis, breaking the boy's concentration. Any advantage this may have provided was sacrificed to the necessity of vomiting up the water that had been forced down his nose and throat.
The boy hit the concrete floor hard, with a whimper that turned into a growl as he came back up to all fours, a strangely animal-like posture. The water that had fallen to the ground collected itself into a floating sphere, which moved through the air with jerky speed and enclosed Jack's head in a near-perfect seal.
This time it was himself he moved. A blind jolt of telekinesis threw his body backwards and all the way down the hallway. It freed his head from the bubble, but only luck kept him from cracking it open when he struck the opposite wall. If there hadn't been a mind driving the water than maybe -- but it didn't matter, the boy had recovered from the surprise and now the water was coming again, and here was something he couldn't hold hold hold hold it I can hold it
A split-second before the globe could make impact, Haller's eyes flashed green.
There had been no plan. One moment Jack was out, and the next it was Cyndi at the forefront. And now, somehow, Cyndi holding the sphere of water two feet from Haller's face.
Another growl came from the boy, and the sphere tried to wrench itself out of Cyndi's grasp. Tried, and failed, and with a snarl, he drew on more of the water coming out of the burst pipe, more tentacles reaching for Haller.
The sphere had begun to distort during the struggle, and with the hydrokinetic's release lost all cohesion. Some of it dissolved into something like a cloud. The rest simply dropped. Cyndi scrambled to her feet, sweat streaming down her forehead and soaking the front of her leathers. She could grip it, but -- moving, she couldn't move mass, that was Jack--
Tendrils punched through the cloud, and Cyndi instinctively threw her arms over her face. The water froze in place, but under her inexperienced grip the clear, thick streams began to shiver apart at the edges. Sharp pops began to riddle the corridor as her panic began to manifest itself as small bursts of fire, immediately extinguished in the moisture-laden air. For the first time ever, fire couldn't help her.
Jack! Cyndi lost her grip on the strands as the boy unleashed a barrage like the jet of a firehose. Cyndi threw herself to the side, so desperate she was almost in tears. Goddammit, Jack, do something! I can't move things this big, I don't know how to do this!
"Yes you do." Jim? But that was so wrong. Cyndi was down on her knees in a corridor full of water that was trying to punch her in the face and even now she knew how wrong that was. Jim didn't have clue one how to use telekinesis. He always left it to Jack and Cyndi.
But now he seemed to have abandoned that plan, and was still talking. "Look, you're trying to think of the world like Jack does. Don't. Think like you do.
"Even what looks whole is made of parts."
How she looked at the world? What did he mean by . . . oh--
The internal struggle gave the boy a chance to make more progress in his attack. Water-tentacles thickened, wrapping around Haller's wrists and ankles and slamming him back against the wall. Once he was pinned, the main stream of water came at him more forcefully, slamming into his face and chest.
This time, it did not have the intended effect.
Immediately the hydrokinetic could sense something wrong with the water aimed at the telekinetic's face; though the stream was uninterrupted, a thin layer was forming a barrier around the nose and mouth, and the effect was spreading. In a moment the pressure no longer pinned the older man to the wall, and, as the hydrokinetic watched, his arms came forward trailing the remnants of watery shackles.
Cyndi wondered why she'd been trying to treat all that water as a single mass. Jack's fault, probably. God, she was so stupid. She wasn't moving one big thing, just lots and lots of little ones. Once she'd realized that, it had been . . . obvious.
The stream of water curled away from her, and she took a step towards the boy. This was the hard part. She was used to a constant awareness of the world around her, but active control was another matter. Small things, short bursts, that was her speciality. Just this once, she let Jack have a little input. Slowly, inexorably, power began to suffuse the corridor.
"One chance, okay?" she said, trying to sound calm. "Just come with me, and we'll help." It was kind of pointless to make this offer to a kid who was clearly brainwashed, but she felt like she had to make it. Around them the water was reacting, mimicking the shapes Cyndi knew best. The liquid rose, twisting like fire, dancing across the walls before it bled into mist. Cyndi stretched out a hand to the quivering boy. "Okay?"
The boy took a step - backwards, unfortunately, his lips drawing back in a snarl. A different sort of power started to affect the air, creating additional moisture - additional weapons. Bullet-like drops of water shot at Haller, hissing into mist. The boy kept it up, however. "Enemeee!"
Yeah, that probably didn't work even when they weren't brainwashed. Oh well.
The liquid flames spiraled like drops of ink in a bowl of water. Tendrils crept from the walls, threadier than his but no less effective. Lips thinned in concentration, Cyndi roped the boy in place.
He struggled, thrashing and panting against the thin threads of water like a trapped animal. Cyndi moved up to him, shining tongues of water dancing at her feet.
She was trying to figure out the best angle to hit him when the boy froze, all the fight suddenly gone from his eyes. Cautiously, Cyndi followed his gaze to look behind her. There was nothing. She frowned, but she couldn't take the chance.
"Nighty night," she muttered. A little clumsily, she swung the edge of her hand right for the cluster of nerves behind the boy's ear like they'd been taught. He went out like a light.
Cyndi released her control over the water and lowered the boy to the ground as gently as possible, uneasy. Now that she could think about it, something felt . . . different, as if the air had somehow lightened. Could the Trojan Horse thing have done that? Whatever it was, she hoped this was a good thing.
She straightened and raised one hand, palm up, and pulled in a small sphere of water. It unfolded into the shape of a flickering flame, exuding mist like smoke. Cyndi allowed herself a moment of pride, then tipped the water back onto the floor. Later she could gloat. Right now she should probably find somebody who knew what was going on.
---
Nathan had no sooner sensed Jean starting back - across a frightening long astral distance - when he sensed the force behind the resistance to the Trojan Horse falter. She's done it. He didn't stop to think about just what Jean might have done to Trask. No time. Had to do this, now...
He'd just started to coax a clearer, stronger projection of the Trojan Horse out of his subconscious when the wall exploded inwards. The force of the explosion slammed him to the floor, driving the air from his lungs. He laid there stunned, shouting echoing in his ears and stars dancing in front of his eyes. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't make his lungs work...
"Get up," a voice hissed through the space that had been a concrete barrier only shortly before. "Get up, Cable!"
Supporting the dead weight of Garrison, Lil climbed precariously through the hole, leaving behind a hallway full of rubble, smoke and sprawled children's bodies. "Dayspring, get your ass off the floor and fucking finish this thing. They're only gonna stay down for so long and I can't drag all of your asses out of here." Her voice lacked the lighthearted snark it normally would have held as she adjusted her hold on her countryman.
The sense of deja vu was terrifying. He was on the floor, and his psimitar was out of reach. There were bodies piled up in the hall, and he had to move, had to...
He heaved himself onto his side, something grinding in his chest as he moved, and reached out with his good hand to grab his psimitar. It flared star-bright for an instant, reacting to the jolt of adrenaline coursing through his system.
One more time. It had to work. It...
... worked. But he felt something different, as he slammed the Trojan Horse home into the minds of the children of Taygetos (fewer than there had been, only a few minutes before). Instead of obliterating the conditioning, it sent seismic shocks through it. Cracks appeared in the foundations, whole portions of those malign and elegant psionic structures collapsing inwards.
But their psi-imprints remained. The core patterns, and definite flickers of conscious thought. Color. Life. Still there. Still intact.
The lights haven't gone out, Nathan thought disjointedly, and passed out.
Tags:
- c: angelo espinosa,
- c: david haller,
- c: garrison kane,
- c: scott summers,
- z p1: c: .npc,
- z p1: c: .retired: jean grey,
- z p1: c: .retired: nathan dayspring,
- z p1: c: .retired: paige guthrie,
- z p1: c: .retired: tabitha smith,
- z p1: c: lillian crawley-jeffries,
- z p1: c: shiro yoshida,
- z p1: p: taygetos: fiddler's green
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