Atomic Angel - Battle at Fuji

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

On their way over to Japan, Jean-Paul and Marius talk for the first time since the former's rescue from Shrine and the latter's witnessing of Shrine's fate.


It wasn't easy to relax on your way to answer a distress call, but Marius was giving it his all. If a teammate was in distress it was, after all, somewhat less than wise to enter the scene a bundle of nerves. In deference to this he was instead taking the time to anticipate the metabolic needs of Angel's borrowed power and fill up on water and the admittedly unappetizing protein bars. Whilst not strictly necessary, he'd found preparation helped ease the inevitable crash that tended to accompany non-native power use. Something about possessing a different body chemistry left one with the unfortunate tendency to overexert oneself. Thusly, Marius' response to mission anxiety was to stretch across two seats, lean his back against the window, and sip from a bottle of water while half-reading from a magazine spread across his lap.

By contrast, the man approaching from the front of the plane was wound about as tightly as a human being could get without snapping, and endevoring to hide the fact. They were going to fetch another one of their own who'd lost his mind, and Jean-Paul was acutely aware of both his own uncertain mental state and the length of time that had passed since he was last part of a team in the field. He was being counted on to get through to Shiro, whom he had already failed once, atop that. The incredibly awkward conversation that he was about to initiate likely was not going to help matters.

The last time he'd seen Marius, the younger mutant had been covered in the blood of people that Jean-Paul had slaughtered in an unthinking haze of pain and base instinct. On some level, he knew that he should be horrified, sickened by that act, but the blocks that Xavier had installed were doing their work -- he remembered the facts of his rescue, but most of the connected emotions were numbed to the point of non-existence. He found himself in the odd position of being grateful for still being ashamed of trying to kill Marius along with the rest of the rescue team; so long as he still had access to that small bit of normalcy, he could at least have this talk without feeling that he'd left human emotion behind and come out the other side of things a completely cold bastard.

Even if Northstar was going to try and play the part.

"Emplate." He stopped beside Marius, standing in the aisle rather than attempting to take a seat. "I need to speak with you."

The Australian jumped slightly at the unexpected address, almost spilling his water. "Monsieur Beaubier?" Marius said, wiping his mouth. "Ah, hello." . . . person whom I have in no way been avoiding.

He wasn't afraid of the man as such -- well, no. Frankly he judged it right and proper to feel just a bit uneasy in the presence of a man whose mass slaughter one had had the misfortune to wade through. However, it had been pointed out to Marius during a rare voluntary conversation with Xavier that Jean-Paul might now present a reminder of a less than enjoyable experience in Marius' own life, which he conceded was likely. Of course, Xavier had also suggested this shared experience might serve as the basis for a dialogue between the two. Marius disagreed. If he and Jean-Paul were anything alike, their greatest commonality would be a fervent desire to not discuss the incident. Ever.

"I was under the impression that you could assimilate the powers of several other mutants at once," Northstar said. His tone was even, businesslike. "Is there a particular reason that we are going after Shiro and you are copying only Angelica's abilities?" No, he was not saying that ridiculous trainee name out loud unless he had no other option.

"Well, no, not as such," Marius admitted, relieved that this pressing business seemed to be devoid of personal feelings. "Usually I'd take a loan from Kyle as well, but luckily I have a nice bit of energy absorption goin' for me. Direct hits aren't so much an issue, an' all told I find immunity from secondary fires a fair sight preferable than the ability to regrow scorched flesh at an exceptional rate. I should be set."

Northstar's expression hardened. "Even assuming that we fail to talk Shiro down safely, you seem to be working under the assumption that we will not run into any other hostiles. Shiro has enemies in Japan and they will take advantage if they think they think they've caught him in a moment of vulnerability. We need to be as versatile as possible in our options." For a moment he paused, weighing his words, and decided not to make Marius ask. "Back in Romania, you made good use of my powers on very short notice in an unsettling situation. If things go badly, we cannot be everywhere at once, but having another speedster available would be the next best thing."

Jean-Paul's insinuation was met with one of those rare silences that occurred when Marius' brain encountered a situation where not even a glib remark could be found to cover his confusion.

"Thank you?" the Australian said automatically. Then, "Ah, that is, am I to understand you are proposing I borrow your powers as well?" Which is perfectly logical despite the fact my last acquisition of them was with the assistance of a decidedly unhygienic wall?

"Layering speed and an extra measure of durability over Angelica's abilities would be useful, yes. Not to mention that I will be focused on one target and may have to leave the group to chase him down should he try to run. I would prefer not to leave the rest of you short a power-set."

"That is a point, yes." Well, why not? Safety first and all. Jean-Paul was being quite casual about all this, though. Most people found the process a bit creepy--

Er, wait. How much does he actually know about how this works?

Marius swung his legs off the chair and put down his water bottle. "Eh," he said cautiously, "you are aware my power is blood-borne, yes? The method of introduction, that is. That is to say . . ." He held out his bare left arm. At the join of his elbow a piece of adhesive tape secured a wad of gauze. In deference to the fact he hadn't wanted to traumatize Angel, Amelia had preformed the procedure in the Medlab.

Jean-Paul glanced down at Marius' exposed arm, blinking a moment as he took in what the other man was telling him. Somehow, he'd been envisioning something more like Marie's tactile absorption, not a physical exchange of any sort. The idea left the skin on the back of his neck prickling.

'Now is not the time to get squeamish, Beaubier.' God knew he'd bled for lesser reasons -- for lesser men -- than Shiro.

"How much do you need?" He'd lowered his voice without realizing it, but didn't look away from the man in front of him. "Does it have to be a transfusion or will any open wound do?"

He'd taken that strangely well. That was a bit of a relief. "Very little, an' any open wound. Hold a moment . . ." Marius shifted enough to get to his back pocket and extracted a pocketknife. And, because this was not the field and thus there was no need to be a barbarian, a small packet of alcohol swabs.

"Always be prepared an' that," Marius said, opening the packet and whisping a swab across the knife's blade. He glanced up and offered both to Jean-Paul.

"A moment." He reached for the seam running down the front of his skinfit and undid the light armor down to his chest; a quick tug on the collar uncovered a triangular patch of throat and pectoral. Jean-Paul reached for the knife and antiseptic pad quickly, looking far more uncomfortable with this small exposure than he had at the notion that it was going to take a minor act of vampirism to lend Marius his powers. He swiped the pad over the skin of his upper chest quickly; the blade followed just as quickly, leaving a shallow cut.

"Right then." Marius retrieved the knife and, without ceremony, nicked himself on the back of his left forearm. His olive skin bore a few paler streaks to mark donations that had occurred without the accompaniment of a healing factor, but these days it caused him about as much discomfort as tearing off a hangnail. He gave Jean-Paul a small grin. "No worries. Though I will not deny the equal efficacy of oral ingestion, I find the method of carpe jugulum a bit indelicate."

Marius pressed the wound to Jean-Paul's chest. The other man could feel the tendons of his forearm twitching, but the contact itself was brief.

The Australian pulled his hand away and handed Jean-Paul another swab, taking one for himself. "Merci, that is sufficient."

"De rein." Jean-Paul cleaned the wound in a second and covered up. Part of him felt that he should say something more, at least try to apologize now that he'd achieved his primary objective, but now was not the time to bring up the rescue, even if he'd wanted to talk about it...and he really did not want to talk about it. "We should touch down in about an hour."

"And I shall be ready." Marius wiped his knife, sponged away the extra blood, and used one of the airsickness bags to dispose of all the used swabs. Unsurprisingly, he found himself feeling considerably relieved. He had forgotten how exhausting a chore absolute avoidance could be -- for Jean-Paul as well, no doubt.

Sliding the pocketknife closed, Marius smiled faintly at the older man and gave him a wordless nod. This, he suspected, was sufficient acknowledgment for the both of them.

~*~

The X-Men track down Shiro to Mount Fuji, but they're not the only ones searching for Sunfire.


Over one hundred million people visit Mount Fuji and the surrounding national parks every year, especially in the hot summer months. Many of them climb the sacred mountain to momentarily catch the most awesome and breathtaking view of the island nation, some take leisurely boat rides down the lakes formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity, and some visit the famed Hakone hot springs for rest and relaxation. The visitors from New York, though, had other business: retrieval of their wayward and sick teammate. The Blackbird landed some kilometers northeast of Mount Fuji in one of the few clearings, and five figures stepped out. Shiro's mind was too fractured to pinpoint telepathically, but his erratic energy signature was easy to follow. A Geiger counter was really all they needed to find him.

"It could be worse," Scott murmured, eyeing the Geiger counter. "He could have gone to ground somewhere more populated. Makes things a little simpler to be out here." He felt badly that he was assuming things wouldn't go smoothly, but it had just been one of those summers.

For her part, Angel was sticking rather closely to the older X-Men. As a relatively new trainee, she knew the only reason she had been brought along had been because of her powers. Beside the severe case of nerves also bubbled concern for Shiro. After all, she'd learned a lot from Shiro, and John, as her 'mentor' and she wasn't quite sure how to wrap her brain around all of this. "He's going to be okay, right?" she asked quietly, gnawing slightly on her thumb.

"No worries," Marius said as he scanned the treeline. "Let us not get ahead of ourselves. For example, nothing is yet on fire, which I take as a very excellent sign."

Zanne shot him a wry glance. "Yet?"

"Shh," Scott murmured, his attention flickering from the Geiger counter up the slope. "There," he said, spotting the glow, just visible through the dense trees. "That's him, unless there's someone out here with exactly his energy signature." He turned to the man who'd been silent up until now, raising an eyebrow. "We'll hang back, if you want."

Jean-Paul nodded. "I think you will be able to tell if I am in trouble." He brushed past Scott without hesitation, the greenery of the forest cushioning his footfalls. He couldn't afford to have doubts at the moment, not about himself, not about how Shiro would perceive him. Keep calm. Reach him somehow.

He emerged from cover into a small clearing. A pair of ancient larch trees stood at the edge of the open space, on a slope bordered by mossy stones nearly large enough to be boulders. The trees had grown together closely enough that their roots had split the rock and woven into each other, making a shallow cave in the side of the mountain. The hollow was only a few feet deep, and it was impossible to miss the glowing young man huddled into himself and facing away from the world.

Quietly, "Shiro. Shiro, here I am. I got your message."

"~A new trick, Tsurayaba, taking his voice to lure me out,~" came the reply in Japanese, muffled since his head has buried in his knees which he'd pulled up to his chest, making his already small frame even more diminutive. "~And dirty, too, even for you.~" He lifted his head and held out his hands as if ready to attack, but even though his blurred vision he could tell it wasn't the Hand's master. He blinked. "Jean-Paul?"

Jean-Paul's proficiency with Shiro's native language wasn't enough that he caught all of the accusation, but enough to know that Shiro believed himself hunted. He swallowed, trying to forget the people waiting just behind them.

"Of course it is me. Did you think I would not come for you?" He ventured a smile, drawing closer to the cave. "Come out. Let us go home."

Shiro shook his head violently. "No no no. It makes no sense, how are you here? You are from Quebec. We are not in Quebec. There are no ninja in Quebec, and there are ninja here, in Japan, trying to kill me. They want me to . . ." Any further explanation was interrupted by a sudden loud rumbling, accompanied by the thunderous crashing of a nearby tree. Shiro huddled in on himself again, and one couldn't determine if he was shaking on his own or because of the tremors.

A beastly roar, part lion and part dinosaur, rang through the forest as the tremors sent another tree to its doom. "Yoshida!" it bellowed. "Away from him, gai-jin."

Marius' head whipped around to see four figures heading for them, one of them massive and reptilian, another a bleached-blonde women, and all of them mutants. He narrowed his eyes, brain speeding to discern their powers.

"Oi, company!" He spun to the CO. "Cyclops, shapeshifter, physical augment -- suits are flyer and a geokinetic."

Scott cursed. "Get back to the Blackbird," he said to Angelica, even as he sent a warning blast at the approaching figures.

It didn't even occur to her to argue - she knew she didn't have any of the training to be able to hold her own yet. So Angel spun around and took three bounding steps to get away from the rest of the team before blasting up and off the ground with a dull roar.

~*~

Concentrating on flying helped push aside any sudden panic at the arrival of the oh so clear bad guys. All of her flight instructors had drilled it into her head that if she didn't concentrate, she'd fall or hit something, which could cause quite a bit of damage if she wasn't careful.

What it meant was that blasting her way back to the Blackbird helped clear her head, kind of like a high speed meditation. Especially since she was pretty much clear of the danger...

She cried out in surprise when a figure came up on her right, doing a barrel roll to avoid the sideways collision the other flier had been hoping for.

Angel's eyes were wide with shock - she hadn't expected that at all.

He was below her now, on his back, and she didn't like the look on his face one bit. It was placid except for that grin that was growing on his face. He was taking in her reaction, her surprise and her age and coming up with "toy".

Angel decided, without a doubt, that it was time to burn hot and fast, adding in an extra punch of fire to give her the punch to pull past him. The training was going well but she was still new and combat was something she'd been easing into. If she got into a fight with the guy now playing catchup, she'd be toast.

And not the kind of toast that was covered in jam.

He increased his speed as well, overtaking her and then pulling back, throwing himself this way and that and keeping her guessing.

The other flier was older and more experienced, powers and fighting wise. Angel's mouth was dry from fear and adrenaline as she weaved and dove, barreling along at a speed that even she found kind of unsettling. At one point, she even flung herself up and backwards in a fliers back flip when he tried to knock her out of the air but nothing seemed to be enough to even remotely shake him.

When the Blackbird appeared below, Angel whimpered in relief. It was like the last five or so minutes had been a harder workout than an hour in the Danger Room.

But she had to think because he'd seen the plane as well and had redoubled his efforts, the shield or whatever it was around him glistening in the sun as he dove down, using the sun's glare to blind and confuse her.

'Well, he wants down,' she thought suddenly, wondering exactly how Scott would kill her if he could see what she was going to do, 'let's give him down!'

Jackknifing, Angel angled her body down towards the plane and threw everything she had into the thrusters, gaining a little bit of space. But when he got close enough, she took a deep breath and turned off her powers as completely as she could.

Gravity took over and she fell but it was at a slower pace than she'd been going and the guy on her tail suddenly shot past with a burst of accidental speed. With no fire shield, there was more wind buffeting her but Angel tucked herself in and counted with an eye to the ground.

Shouting curses, the man turned on a dime and rocketed back up to her as she got to '10' and turned her powers back on.

Adrenaline, fear and a push resulted in the speed she needed to evade him, angling and curving her body right as she was about to hit the ground. She couldn't go right into the 'bird because he'd tried to come in after her so she had to make sure it was impossible for him to get close.

She deliberately stayed close to the ground, scorching her way around the Blackbird in a large circle before darting under the belly of the large plane. Dropping to her knees as her power winked out, Angel scurried further under and up against one set of wheels.

Making sure the circle was far enough away, Angel held out her hands and reignited the smoldering ground she'd gone around on, pushing fire into the divot she'd left in her wake. She couldn't direct the fire like John could but she had enough control to direct where the blasts went and it didn't take long before she'd built up a considerable wall of fire circling the plane.

The heat was too much to go through it or even drop in the top but Angel stayed where she was, stuck half between worry that the guy would manage to get in and the rest spent hoping that by the time the team got back the fire had died out...

~*~

Zanne moved to cover Angel's retreat as the group closed in on them. In the distance she coud make out the four figures, three of them clearly human in appearance, but the fourth. She sucked a breath a she realized what it was. Oh, fuck.

The draconian beast bared his teeth, in what could have been interpreted as a smile, and upon his nod, he and his three fellows charged. While they headed for the leather-clad foreigners, he felled the trees that separated him from Shiro and Jean-Paul with no apparent effort. The ground shook beneath his charge, and his roar had Shiro wailing in pain. "Get him away from me!" he pleaded, retreating as far into his makeshift shelter as he could.

"He is not going to touch you." Jean-Paul's voice sounded faint and disconnected in his own ringing ears, the words all but lost beneath the thunder of the incoming behemoth. One clawed fist swung at the speedster like a wrecking ball -- and swiffed through open air. An eyeblink later, a high-velocity missile hit the off-balance shifter, carrying him a dozen yards through the wrecked trees to leave an impressive crater in the forest floor. Northstar zipped back into his starting position, arms folded over his chest. "He really is not that impressive a man," he added, addressing Shiro over one shoulder, dismissive words carrying far more confidence than he felt. He knew better than to hope that he had actually hurt the beast, though he could feel what would surely be a bruise throbbing under his armor from shoulder to hip. He sincerely doubted he would get a chance to pull that manuever twice. He'd bought them some time, a sliver of breathing space to try and coax Shiro out of his hiding spot. That was all. "Shiro, come out of there. We will go back to the others. I will not let anything happen to you; you know I will not."

The other three Yakuza warriors neatly sidestepped the flying dragon to launch their own offensive. The geokinetic stomped a foot on the ground and sent up a blinding cloud of dust and debris. Hidden behind the shroud, the blond woman, whom Shiro had recognized as Harada's other bodyguard "Honey Lemon," leapt forth with superhuman agility and nearly took off Suzanne's head with a scythe-like kick. She recovered from the miss immediately and slammed her fists into Suzanne's chest, and without missing a beat, turned to melée Scott with equal ferocity.

The optic blast that came at her was off-center, but deliberately so; it smashed into her shoulder, and had enough force behind it to send her backwards, off-balance. "Cover Northstar and Sunfire," Scott snapped at his X-Men, then raised his voice. "NORTHSTAR! Sock him in the jaw if you have to, but we have to GO!"

Through the dust, Marius saw the flyer take off after Angel. Automatically, he turned to lunge in pursuit. "He's doin' a runner--"

The geokinetic stomped his foot again, raising a shin-high ridge right in front of the Australian, and despite his borrowed speed Marius had not yet broken himself of the habit of taking off from a running start.

Jean-Paul's reflexes were enough to ensure his knees remained attached to his body, but otherwise the outcome was unfortunate.

As Honey Lemon jumped back to her feet and quickly re-closed the distance between her and Scott and Suzanne, Baymax climbed back to his own and roared a challenge to Jean-Paul. He ripped a tree and swung it at the Canadian like an oversized baseball bat. He knew he'd miss, but that was the point; while Jean-Paul dodged, Baymax stopped mid-swing and launched the tree at the little alcove like a javelin.

The projectile exploded in golden fire, showering the area with flaming debris. Shiro still lay huddled up in the precarious structure, but now his fire form was ignited in full. "Defiler!" he cried. "Polluter! Filth and desecration."

Jean-Paul cursed. So much for knocking Shiro out if he wanted to keep his hand, not to mention the odds of calming him down enough to get him to listen to anything like reason had just gone nil.

'Dammit, Beaubier, you had one purpose to be along on this mission...'

...and an immediate threat in front of him. Fight now, blame later. Disregarding the fearless leader's orders would simply not do; someone was getting punched in the face. A rain of dozens high-velocity blows hit Baymax in the space of a second, impacting against the joint of his jaw like a jackhammer.

Despite the durability of the plate-like armor that covered his body, it was not enough to protect him from Jean-Paul's onslaught. He felt his jaw dislocate under the final punch and growled as he swatted at his attacker, King Kong battling the biplanes.

Gasping for breath, Zanne clamored back onto her feet and watched as Honey Lemon once again raced toward her. "It's not going to be so easy this time," she spat, waiting until the woman was almost upon her before setting a freeze capturing her in mid-air. Reaching behind her, Zanne slipped an unobtrusive metal tube out of a pocket and whipped it open to reveal a shining metal baton. With a swift crack, she brought it against the base of Honey Lemon's skull and watched her tumble to the ground as she broke the freeze.

The geokinetic was on Zanne even as she'd dispatched Honey Lemon. He kicked the slab he'd summoned to stop Marius, freeing it from the ground, and spun around with it balanced on his foot like a footbag. In one swift motion, he jumped and kicked again, launching the slab at Zanne and it slammed into her, crumpling her in a karmic fashion.

Marius, still hissing at the pain in his shins, growled at the geokinetic. "Oh, no you bloody don't--" Rolling to one side, the Australian raised one fist and unleashed a torrent of blue flame right at his back. The actual damage was minimal, but the sudden burst of heat startled the man into a shriek just undignified enough that Marius' self-esteem almost forgave him. Forcing himself to his feet, he moved to cover Zanne.

Spectacular clusterfuck this is becoming, Scott thought, and channeled his increasingly foul temper into a broad, full-strength optic blast at Baymax. Big guy. He could take it.

Even at full strength it was doubtful that Baymax could withstand such an attack. And now, already weakened and off center by Jean-Paul, there was nothing to prevent the blast from sweeping him up and tossing him across the forest . . . straight into the tree and rock shelter that housed Shiro. The young man shrieked as the beast came flying towards him. His bulk would surely collapse the hiding place, so Shiro did the only thing he could to protect himself: nuke it.

When the explosion cleared and everyone could see again, the shelter and several meters around it had been transformed into a shallow crater. Shiro was nowhere to be seen. Baymax and Honey Lemon lay still, knocked out, but disappeared from view as the ground beneath them opened and swallowed them. "Yoshida would have made a useful tool," the geokinetic said in heavily accented English as he began to escape, sinking into the earth like it was quicksand. "But now he must die. You have sealed his fate." And then he was gone.

Jean-Paul got to his feet from where the blast had knocked him flat and headed toward the plane without a word, albeit somewhat unsteadily and bleeding along the face and neck where he'd been pelted with rock shrapnel. He refused to accept the possibility that Shiro was beyond saving. All they had to do was find him.

Marius checked on Zanne. There was no blood or vomit, so hopefully the blow hadn't been serious. At his touch she gave a muffled groan, which was good. "Think she'll be right," he remarked. He looked up at Scott, his tone resigned. "So. Round two?"