Breakdown - Logs 13-17
Jul. 27th, 2021 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_phoenix posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsWith Jean guiding her telepathically, Maya uses her powers to disarm the bomb.
In the summer the maintenance area on the south side of the building where the heaters were housed didn't see much traffic, making it easier to hide things, like something else that would create a lot of heat. The feeling of tension was palpable in the air.
Maya pushed the Purifier hard in the back as they walked, weaponless but no less effective for it given her powers. Any kind of nonsense the man in front of her tried, she could easily prevent.
"Don't even think of pulling any bullshit on me. You don't need your face to be pretty to do what we want."
He stumbled forward slightly at the push from behind, then spat on the ground once he'd regained his balance. He thought long and hard about turning around and spitting on his captor but chickened out at the last second.
"Bullshit or no, I ain't gonna do what you want anyway." It was an empty threat since they had him right where they wanted him, but nothing was saying he had to make it easy on them.
Maya, having no idea he was even talking to her, pushed him to get him moving.
“Get a move on.”
~Can you still hear me?~ Maya asked Jean, wondering what Jean’s range with telepathy was.
~Can you see what I’m seeing?~
Silent for a moment or two, Jean finally spoke. ~Yeah. Just keep thinking really loud okay?~ The girl's thoughts were already problematic to read but it was even worse now.
~You don't want to know what he's thinking about you.~
Biting his lip, the bomb maker waited until he thought Maya was paying the least amount of attention, then pushed them out of his way as best he could and made a bolt for the nearest exit. He ducked and tried to stay low as he ran as if that could help somehow.
Maya had been so directed to keeping her mental voice loud enough for Jean to catch that it took her a moment to notice the Purifier moving away from her, and her hand as she reached out to grab him was a fraction too slow.
"Fucker"
She lunged, reaching for him again to miss again but took off after him at a dead run, following him down the hospital corridor while trying to keep her thoughts open for Jean to see what was going on. It wasn't what she'd trained on, and her mind split between the two made it impossible for her power to work at all.
~Jean! Help!~
Luckily the hallway was in the line of sight from where Jean was sitting in a wheelchair. The doorway swung shut as the bomb-maker started to make his retreat.
~He's coming back your way.~
Maya looked around, wondering if there was a way to lock him in and give them a chance to think of a better option. She couldn't let him reach the alarm and Jean had cut off the only other way out from here. It was almost by chance that she noticed the metal pipe stacked across the room. Someone must have left it there during the day, maybe a construction project? Whatever it was, it was like the Spirits were smiling on her and she had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
She rushed across the room, scooping up the smallest pipe she could find, and then lunged into the next room, slamming the door shut behind her. It took a second for her to slide the bar home and jam the door from her side, but just in time for the Purifier as he banged furiously from the other side. She was now in this room, and he was in a corridor locked from both ends.
"Too bad, so sad."
The Purified continued to bang on the door, not only mad that he'd been made a fool of, but to be made one by a mutant? He screamed something incoherent and slammed his body against the door a few more times before stopping, bending over and panting hard. "Fuckin' mutants," was all he could manage in between sharp intakes of breath.
Jean wheeled herself closer to where Maya and the person who made the bomb were. ~Do you see the bomb?~ she asked Maya.
“I don’t know. Can you get what it looks like from him?”
Maya looked around the room, it wasn’t a large space but cluttered and slightly smelly from the cleaning fluids they must use to keep the place from becoming a stew of bacteria.
Letting out a breath, Jean wiped the sweat from her forehead before it dripped into her eyes. "Yeah, give me a minute," she said. She reached out her mind. Given that blowing shit up was this man's whole life it was somewhat easy to pull the information from him.
"It's in the corner. directly to your right, beside one of the building support beams," she said grimly.
"I'll send you what I can from him on how to disarm it."
~See if you can get a mental video of him making the bomb, I’ll be able to backtrack from that.~
Luckily, Maya had divested the bomb maker of his backpack when she first managed to find him, if luck was with her, he’d have tools stuffed into it.
Fortunately, luck was. While the tools weren't extensive, it was enough to create some damage, or in this case, reverse it.
"I found it," Jean said. "Are you ready?"
No, she wanted to say. How could she ever be ready to defuse a bomb with no formal training and only having touched on her abilities and what she could do with them. Sure, she was trained, sort of, had started training as an X-man, anyway, and she'd had all that training with Gen-X but nowhere in the guidebook had it included 'will be called on to defuse a bomb with only the power of your abilities and the guidance of a telepath who wasn't even in the room'.
If she fucked this up, it would just be her blown to bits, it would be everyone else as well. It wasn't fair to expect this of her, they shouldn't be asking this of her.
Maya closed her eyes and took a deep breath, counting down from ten despite the urgency before she answered. Getting a grip of herself was as much a part of this as allowing Jean to continue accessing her mind.
~I'm ready. Go ahead.~
Closing her eyes, Jean sent Maya the memory from the maker of the bomb-maker toiling away in his garage while he listened to fiery racist religious ramblings from a video featuring an older bearded man wearing glasses with a southern drawl. The man's workshop was well equipped, his table spread out with all sorts of gadgetry. On the wall was a flag with the Purifiers' symbol on it. His tech was surprisingly well put together despite the surroundings. After about 20 minutes in real time he had put together the bomb. "Time to blow those freaks sky high," he said with a grin.
The memory faded.
~I found something else to be nauseated about.~ Jean said.
~I'll book us both in with my therapist after all this.~
Maya took a deep breath, reaching for that place in her mind that allowed her to switch over to another skill. It was like walking through a set of rooms almost, different doors leading to different 'libraries' that she could rifle through to find the set of movements she needed. It had taken her a long time working with Jean and others to build the hallways and libraries of her mind, it wasn't something that had come naturally or fast. Each new skill had to be fished out of what had become a well at the center and 'walked' to its new place before she could integrate it into something she could reach easily.
In this case, she reached for that well, allowing herself to mesh with the memory and work it backward as she felt her hands begin to move, pulling the correct tools from the bag as she worked the problem, feeling vaguely sick as the man's mind and ideals came along with his skills. She could tell now why Jean had felt she needed to be sick afterward. It was a different feeling to picking up something externally, this came along with feelings and thoughts.
She couldn't get away from any of it if she didn't want to make a mess of disarming the bomb. People were counting on her for their lives. Her mind shuddered at the pressure, a dull throbbing beginning before her eyes as her psyche fought with her mutant ability, wanting to get away, wanting to leave behind a mind so alien to what she believed or thought.
~No. I have to. ~
~You can do this.~ Jean said. She hadn't intentionally been spying, only keeping her mind open in case she needed help. But it was a lot to ask, especially with the lives of so many in Maya's hands.
~I'm here if you need me.~
Back in the hiding spot, Nica has to go to drastic lengths to stop a stressed Esme from blowing them all to smithereens.
"Esme, you need to breathe. I'm sure your daughter's fine, please, calm down," Nica repeated the same soothing words she'd been saying for a few minutes now, seeing the other woman getting more and more agitated.
Esme couldn't hear the young woman's words, not when her daughter's cries so fully filled her head. God, when did she get so weak? She sobbed loudly, not caring anymore.
She looked up at the sky, refusing to tamp down her feelings. Why was Maria crying? Was she hurt? Scared? Of course she was, and it was Esme's fault. If she didn't have these... powers...
Her fists clenched and through her sadness, she could feel a slight flicker of anger, of an overwhelming itch inside that she'd tried to quell.
"You don't understand," she whispered roughly. "How could you? You don't know what it means to be a mother..."
"No, I don't. But I know one thing. If you don't calm down, you're going to blow up a hospital full of people. Parents, children... fuck, even those Purifiers. You can't do that."
"The Purifiers don't deserve sympathy," Esme said, her anger flaring around her. "Not for what they did. Someone needs to stop them, stop them from doing this again. I can do that, I can end it now, I need to do something. They took my DAUGHTER from me!!!"
"And the rest of us? Do we..." Nica cut herself off. Arguing with the walking bomb was NOT the best strategy. "All I'm saying is you need to calm down. I'm sure they'll get her out and we'll be able to shut down this shielding and you'll be with her again. But that's not going to happen if you blow the whole place up. So, please can you try?"
"WHY?" Esme glared at Nica. Esme could feel a power growing inside, being fed continuously by her anger and frustration. "Why?? Who are you to tell me what to do?" The loss of control, her helplessness in the situation was building. "I can do what I want, and what I want is to punish everyone!!!!"
Okay, talking wasn't working here. And with the way Esme was getting worked up, there wasn't much time to spare. Nica was going to have to do something drastic... and possibly on the grey side of morality. She gulped, then shifted into x-ray wavelengths and without giving herself or Esme time to think, she stepped into the other woman's body.
While she'd been working with Hank and Reed, they'd taught her that the human body had its own electrical current. And in the case of some mutants, that current was instrumental in their powers. Energy projectors especially. And while Nica focused mainly on the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that she could control and project, theoretically she could absorb most wavelengths. Including bioelectricity.
She hoped.
Concentrating fiercely, Nica focused her attention on her powers, specifically absorbing as much of Esme's energy as possible without actually hurting her.
It felt like a switch had suddenly and abruptly gone off. She was Esme again, not a walking bomb, and the release caused Esme to slump immediately, losing most of her control as she laid down. Not only did she feel drained of power, she felt almost drained of emotions. Was she finally cried out? That was a very real possibility. "I don't know what to do anymore..."
Nica stepped out of Esme's body, tingling all over. Not in a good way, either - it was more like she'd licked a light socket. Still, she tried a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Hey, I'm sorry. But you'll see your daughter again, I'm sure. She'll be fine..." she babbled inanely, not really aware of what she was saying. Fortunately, the phone, which was lying on the floor, crackled into life:
"I swear we need a better phone package, eh? I can barely- hello? Nica?" She grabbed and and blurted out an affirmative. "Good. We have Maria. We're going to take a few minutes and give her a quick medical, but she looks unhurt. Just a little shocked and scared. Where should we meet you?"
"Claremont Hospital. We're still trapped in here, so we might need you help us drop the shielding." Nica glanced over at Esme. "I'm going to put Maria's mother on the phone - she really needs to talk to her." But before she handed over the phone, she added to Esme: "I'm going to go check up on how Maya's doing. Stay here and take care of Jean. You can talk to Maria as well, okay?"
Esme couldn't even wait to say a word. She snatched the phone right out of Nica's hand and said with a wavering voice, "Marita? Hija, is that you?"
And then she heard the most beautiful sound ever.
"Mom!"
A flood of relief washed throughout her. Her daughter was safe. It was all going to be over soon. She looked over at Jean and mouthed "Thank you" as she heard the greatest sound a mother could hear. Her daughter's voice.
The Purifers’ back up bomb is disarmed, but there’s still the matter of the shield over the hospital.
Nica breathed a sigh of relief as Maya cut the last wire and the device seemed to shut down. No more beeping and flashing lights, at least. "Is it done?" she asked Maya, keeping her firm hold on the bound Purifier responsible for the bomb.
Maya hadn't heard her, too busy trying to reach Jean who had dropped off at the end, and who Maya was increasingly frightened would not make it out of here alive with the rest of them. She looked up at Nica and the Purifier she held, anger the predominant emotion as she stood and moved toward them.
"Give me one damn reason I shouldn't beat the absolute hell out of you and leave you here to die."
"Because that's not what we do." Nica made sure she made eye contact this time so Maya could read her lips. "We can stash him somewhere safe and let the cops find him. Once we figure out a way to drop this damn shield."
The bomb maker chuckled at that last part, shaking his head while making a tsk-ing sound at them. "Someone sounds pretty damn overconfident to me."
“There’ll be something keeping it going. They’d have wanted to keep it close?” Maya replied, having been focused on Nica and unable to see or hear what the Purifier had said. “We could ask this guy? I’m pretty sure X-men aren’t above a little rough justice as long as we don’t kill him.”
Nica bit her tongue. As much as she wanted to admonish Maya for her un-X-Men-like attitude, she didn't want to give the bomb maker the satisfaction. "We won't need to," she said instead. "Something like this has to use a hell of a lot of power to keep going, which means a huge energy signature. Which is my jam." She shot the bomb maker a look. "Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but you Purifiers are totally screwed."
He blinked at the mention of a huge energy signature, then tried to regain his composure, too slowly to truly hide that they'd caught on to him. "I'll believe it when I see it, damn muties." He laughed, though it was a lot less confident one than his previous attempts to laugh things off.
"And there's all that confidence, gone in a second," Maya noted with a raised eyebrow, watching him closely as she walked forward to take him from Nica's hands, gesturing for her to do her thing while Maya took care of the trash. "Don't worry, lil buddy. You and I are gonna get along just fine while my friend here finds your little device."
Nica nodded, closing her eyes for a moment to focu her concentration. Switching electromagnetic frequencies had become second nature, but using them to track objects was a little newer. She let her powers guide her, reaching out for that particular hum of something drawing on - and emitting - energy, rejecting the various equipment stored in the basement, the furnace... A sudden jolt of EMP made her snap her eyes open, and she grinned. "Got it."
"Y'ain't got nothin'," he growled, though his eyes flicked back and forth between them just the same. "Besides, even if you did find something, you wouldn't even know how to turn it off anyway, muties or no." He kept quiet then, holding onto that desperate hope despite all that he'd seen them do thus far.
“Yeah, not so much. Come on, time to go on a wondrous journey to the nearest janitors closet.”
Maya pushed him toward the exit, she’d noticed a storeroom not far from where they were that she’d be able to lock him into quite handily.
“Don’t save the world while I’m gone or anything. I’d hate to miss more heroics.”
There was no fear of that. When Maya returned, Nica was still pondering the device with a frustrated look on her face. "That jerk was right," she said with a half-growl. "This stupid thing doesn't have an off switch."
“Just smash it.”
Maya had finished stuffing the bad guy into the nearest closet and made it back to see Nica’s frustration with the device, even if she couldn’t hear her words.
“Here, I’ll start.”
Maya walked over and slammed a boot down on the top of the device, aiming for what looked like a vulnerable spot.
Nica watched Maya stomp the machine several times. She seemed to be having fun, at the least? And with a shrug, Nica picked up a random piece of pipe and joined in with a will.
The cavalry has arrived! Kurt, Sooraya and Betsy get Nica and Maya out and Esme has one surprise left.
The scene around the hospital was chaos. Hastily erected police barricades were set up all around the blocks it occupied, with a mix of police, fire, and emergency services milled, trying to make sense of just how to handle the bizarre shiny dome that blocked off the building. A few people snuck in for selfies in front of the ambulance near the emergency exit, that had been so precisely cut in half by the dome that it looked like it had been done with a scalpel. As they got close, Kane disappeared for a moment, reappearing in a suit and tie.
"Police and FBI will be here, and SHIELD too, I bet. I'm going to go through official channels with Maria. You guys get inside and get Jean and the others out of there as soon as the shield drops." Kane said to Kurt, just as behind him, the shield disappeared like a soap bubble popping. "Fuck, alright, move."
Kurt nodded and reached out for Betsy and Sooraya's hands for the teleport. "Psylocke, please send me a view of where they are."
Locating the other X-Men was straightforward, their minds appearing as beacons of familiarity amidst the crowd. Betsy borrowed Nica’s eyes for long enough to pass the layout of their surroundings to Kurt and sent her a quick heads up that they were on their way.
In the shadowy corner of the basement furnace room where the bomb and the shield generator had been planted, Nica straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes and shifting the pipe she'd been using to her other hand. "I think that did it," she told Maya, making sure she had the other girl's attention on her face. "If this shield thing is still working after all that, I wanna meet the manufacturer," she said with a grin. Then she heard Betsy's voice in her head and yelped, dropping the pipe with a clang.
"Um, the cavalry's coming," she continued, looking a little sheepish. "Psylocke just pinged me." Nica tapped her forehead to indicate the telepathic link.
“Oh good. Just in time for all the actual work to have been done.” Maya snarked, but the look of relief on her face was unmistakable despite the words. “Guess we better go find the others then, or are we meant to stay where we are?”
She'd barely finished the sentence when there was a burst of reeking blue smoke and Kurt appeared with Betsy and Sooraya at his sides. "Time to leave, ladies, before the police find you here. Who would like to go first?"
"That smells disgusting," Maya wrinkled her nose at the smell from Kurt's appearance but she grinned suddenly, almost giddily as the result of her prolonged power usage started to catch up. "Sorry if I puke on your shoes but I just had to defuse a bomb and I may be about to have a major panic attack aaaaannnnyyyy minute now.”
"We can't go without Esme and Quentin," Nica responded. "Jean's hurt and she's being treated, but we need to get the other two.”
"Blink and Wolverine are working on getting them out. We're not leaving them here." Sooraya explained. "You two did great with bringing down the shield, but now we need to go before the feds get here. Nightcrawler..." She quickly turned: "Why don't you take Maya and Psylocke first? Worst comes to worst, Nica and I can get ourselves out if need be."
Kurt nodded and turned to Maya and Betsy. “Whenever you are ready, then, take my hands. I will forgive you if you throw up on my shoes.”
“I will keep the link up in case there is any trouble, but I won’t be able to maintain it with your sand or light forms. If anything happens, please let me know before you transform,” Betsy warned Sooraya and Nica. Then she grabbed hold of Kurt’s outstretched hand, briefly marvelling at the velvety texture of the blue fuzz that covered it, before adding: “Not that anything will happen. Everything will go just fine.”
"Famous last words," Nica replied with a grin as Kurt, Maya and Betsy vanished in a cloud of noisome smoke. Now the X-Men were here, she could relax from the intense responsibility of being the defacto leader once Jean and Quentin had gone down. "And after all the powers use today, I am beat. Time for food and an extended time lying in the sun for me."
Sooraya put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Try to stay sharp a little bit longer. We're not quite done yet." The sounds of metal on metal sounded... seemingly still pretty far away, but after a long moment the screech of metal on metal could be heard again and it sounded a little closer. "And I'm not liking the sounds of that. Psylocke, what's Nightcrawler ETA?" She spoke both mentally and outloud for Nica's benefit.
~We’ve just made it, so he'll be right back,~ Betsy replied, then turned to Kurt to check she wasn’t making false promises. “Nightcrawler, are you OK to go pick up the others straight away? They’re in the clear for now but Dust sounded pretty eager to get out.”
Kurt nodded and immediately vanished, reappearing next to Nica and reaching for her hand. Before he could reach out to Sooraya, however, there was a crash and the sound of shouting voices. "Police! Stay where you are!"
"Go!!! I'll find you." Sooraya called out before she shifted and her sand form exploded outwards. The sand pulled together just as quickly, forming a thin, but dense barrier between the armed cops and her teammates.
Nica nodded, too tired to even attempt to phase. Instead she grabbed Kurt's hand tightly and shut her eyes as the smoke of his teleportation surrounded them. When she opened them again, she was outside in the muggy New York night air. On the far side of the parking lot, red and blue light bounced crazily from the walls and windows as police and emergency services surrounded the building. Not too far away, she saw Esme, tightly hugging a young girl that had to be her daughter.
"Esme! Are you okay?"
Esme nodded gratefully. She covered her daughter's face in frantic kisses, murmuring softly in Spanish. "Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, pulling back a little to stare into Maria's eyes. "I have my girl again."
A cloud of sand flowed from an unobtrusive grill close to the ground, the exit of the ventilation system she has retreated into after the arrival of the officers, to a quiet spot at the far end of the parking place and after checking for a moment that she was unobserved, the cloud concealed into Sooraya crouching down. She quickly rose and strode over to her teammates watching Esme reunite with her daughter. "Did we get everybody out?"
Maya looked over at Sooraya, having been watching the reunited family with a twinge of jealousy as she thought of her own family who was still, even after all these years, unable to come home with the price on Willy's head.
"Yeah, we're all here now."
Peeking over her daughter's shoulder, Esme looked at the scene with clarity. It was chaos. It was mayhem. There were men with guns. There were crying people. Ambulances. And even though she did this for good reasons.... she had a level of responsibility to this. The idea of leaving her daughter when she just got her back was unbearable, but how would Esme be able to live with herself if she didn't hold herself accountable. What message was she teaching if she didn't? "I want to turn myself in," she blurted out to the group. "I was just as responsible." Her words were saying one thing, and her body was betraying her as she held her daughter even tighter...but it was the right thing to do.
There was a moment of confusion before Sooraya pulled out her comm and a few moments later, Kane appeared. His FBI ID was clipped to his jacket and a couple of police officers followed him.
"Esme Fernando? I'm Special Agent Garrison Kane. I'm afraid I need to detain you for questioning regarding your involvement in this incident. Several agents would like to ask you some questions regarding your involvement with this incident." Kane said quietly, out of earshot of the other police.
"I also want you to know that you have rights. If you don't want to answer any questions or wish to wait until you have an attorney present, we will have to formally place you under arrest. There's, uh..." His eyes flicked back to the damaged hospital. "There's definitely a few charges we can go with. I've already spoken with them about the kidnapping of your daughter so it is clear you acted under duress. If you're willing to trust me and answer some questions, I will do everything possible to get your charges reduced."
Esme nodded. How was it that not even 24 hours ago, her life was normal -- well, as close to normal as it could be, and now she was being taken away by the FBI. Kissing the top of Maria's head fiercely, she murmured a few things into her daughter's ear. It was clear Maria was terrified of letting her go, almost as terrified as Esme was walking away, but it had to happen. "These people... they're good people. They will watch you while I am with Agent Kane. It will be fine, hijita." It had to be. And if it wasn't ...well, at least they had each other. And that was more than she thought possible a few hours before.
Swallowing thickly, she took a shuddering breath before gently disentangling herself from her daughter. "I will go with you and tell you all that I have. There is nothing for me to hide." Her chin jutted out proudly. "I did what I had to do to get my daughter back."
In the summer the maintenance area on the south side of the building where the heaters were housed didn't see much traffic, making it easier to hide things, like something else that would create a lot of heat. The feeling of tension was palpable in the air.
Maya pushed the Purifier hard in the back as they walked, weaponless but no less effective for it given her powers. Any kind of nonsense the man in front of her tried, she could easily prevent.
"Don't even think of pulling any bullshit on me. You don't need your face to be pretty to do what we want."
He stumbled forward slightly at the push from behind, then spat on the ground once he'd regained his balance. He thought long and hard about turning around and spitting on his captor but chickened out at the last second.
"Bullshit or no, I ain't gonna do what you want anyway." It was an empty threat since they had him right where they wanted him, but nothing was saying he had to make it easy on them.
Maya, having no idea he was even talking to her, pushed him to get him moving.
“Get a move on.”
~Can you still hear me?~ Maya asked Jean, wondering what Jean’s range with telepathy was.
~Can you see what I’m seeing?~
Silent for a moment or two, Jean finally spoke. ~Yeah. Just keep thinking really loud okay?~ The girl's thoughts were already problematic to read but it was even worse now.
~You don't want to know what he's thinking about you.~
Biting his lip, the bomb maker waited until he thought Maya was paying the least amount of attention, then pushed them out of his way as best he could and made a bolt for the nearest exit. He ducked and tried to stay low as he ran as if that could help somehow.
Maya had been so directed to keeping her mental voice loud enough for Jean to catch that it took her a moment to notice the Purifier moving away from her, and her hand as she reached out to grab him was a fraction too slow.
"Fucker"
She lunged, reaching for him again to miss again but took off after him at a dead run, following him down the hospital corridor while trying to keep her thoughts open for Jean to see what was going on. It wasn't what she'd trained on, and her mind split between the two made it impossible for her power to work at all.
~Jean! Help!~
Luckily the hallway was in the line of sight from where Jean was sitting in a wheelchair. The doorway swung shut as the bomb-maker started to make his retreat.
~He's coming back your way.~
Maya looked around, wondering if there was a way to lock him in and give them a chance to think of a better option. She couldn't let him reach the alarm and Jean had cut off the only other way out from here. It was almost by chance that she noticed the metal pipe stacked across the room. Someone must have left it there during the day, maybe a construction project? Whatever it was, it was like the Spirits were smiling on her and she had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
She rushed across the room, scooping up the smallest pipe she could find, and then lunged into the next room, slamming the door shut behind her. It took a second for her to slide the bar home and jam the door from her side, but just in time for the Purifier as he banged furiously from the other side. She was now in this room, and he was in a corridor locked from both ends.
"Too bad, so sad."
The Purified continued to bang on the door, not only mad that he'd been made a fool of, but to be made one by a mutant? He screamed something incoherent and slammed his body against the door a few more times before stopping, bending over and panting hard. "Fuckin' mutants," was all he could manage in between sharp intakes of breath.
Jean wheeled herself closer to where Maya and the person who made the bomb were. ~Do you see the bomb?~ she asked Maya.
“I don’t know. Can you get what it looks like from him?”
Maya looked around the room, it wasn’t a large space but cluttered and slightly smelly from the cleaning fluids they must use to keep the place from becoming a stew of bacteria.
Letting out a breath, Jean wiped the sweat from her forehead before it dripped into her eyes. "Yeah, give me a minute," she said. She reached out her mind. Given that blowing shit up was this man's whole life it was somewhat easy to pull the information from him.
"It's in the corner. directly to your right, beside one of the building support beams," she said grimly.
"I'll send you what I can from him on how to disarm it."
~See if you can get a mental video of him making the bomb, I’ll be able to backtrack from that.~
Luckily, Maya had divested the bomb maker of his backpack when she first managed to find him, if luck was with her, he’d have tools stuffed into it.
Fortunately, luck was. While the tools weren't extensive, it was enough to create some damage, or in this case, reverse it.
"I found it," Jean said. "Are you ready?"
No, she wanted to say. How could she ever be ready to defuse a bomb with no formal training and only having touched on her abilities and what she could do with them. Sure, she was trained, sort of, had started training as an X-man, anyway, and she'd had all that training with Gen-X but nowhere in the guidebook had it included 'will be called on to defuse a bomb with only the power of your abilities and the guidance of a telepath who wasn't even in the room'.
If she fucked this up, it would just be her blown to bits, it would be everyone else as well. It wasn't fair to expect this of her, they shouldn't be asking this of her.
Maya closed her eyes and took a deep breath, counting down from ten despite the urgency before she answered. Getting a grip of herself was as much a part of this as allowing Jean to continue accessing her mind.
~I'm ready. Go ahead.~
Closing her eyes, Jean sent Maya the memory from the maker of the bomb-maker toiling away in his garage while he listened to fiery racist religious ramblings from a video featuring an older bearded man wearing glasses with a southern drawl. The man's workshop was well equipped, his table spread out with all sorts of gadgetry. On the wall was a flag with the Purifiers' symbol on it. His tech was surprisingly well put together despite the surroundings. After about 20 minutes in real time he had put together the bomb. "Time to blow those freaks sky high," he said with a grin.
The memory faded.
~I found something else to be nauseated about.~ Jean said.
~I'll book us both in with my therapist after all this.~
Maya took a deep breath, reaching for that place in her mind that allowed her to switch over to another skill. It was like walking through a set of rooms almost, different doors leading to different 'libraries' that she could rifle through to find the set of movements she needed. It had taken her a long time working with Jean and others to build the hallways and libraries of her mind, it wasn't something that had come naturally or fast. Each new skill had to be fished out of what had become a well at the center and 'walked' to its new place before she could integrate it into something she could reach easily.
In this case, she reached for that well, allowing herself to mesh with the memory and work it backward as she felt her hands begin to move, pulling the correct tools from the bag as she worked the problem, feeling vaguely sick as the man's mind and ideals came along with his skills. She could tell now why Jean had felt she needed to be sick afterward. It was a different feeling to picking up something externally, this came along with feelings and thoughts.
She couldn't get away from any of it if she didn't want to make a mess of disarming the bomb. People were counting on her for their lives. Her mind shuddered at the pressure, a dull throbbing beginning before her eyes as her psyche fought with her mutant ability, wanting to get away, wanting to leave behind a mind so alien to what she believed or thought.
~No. I have to. ~
~You can do this.~ Jean said. She hadn't intentionally been spying, only keeping her mind open in case she needed help. But it was a lot to ask, especially with the lives of so many in Maya's hands.
~I'm here if you need me.~
Back in the hiding spot, Nica has to go to drastic lengths to stop a stressed Esme from blowing them all to smithereens.
"Esme, you need to breathe. I'm sure your daughter's fine, please, calm down," Nica repeated the same soothing words she'd been saying for a few minutes now, seeing the other woman getting more and more agitated.
Esme couldn't hear the young woman's words, not when her daughter's cries so fully filled her head. God, when did she get so weak? She sobbed loudly, not caring anymore.
She looked up at the sky, refusing to tamp down her feelings. Why was Maria crying? Was she hurt? Scared? Of course she was, and it was Esme's fault. If she didn't have these... powers...
Her fists clenched and through her sadness, she could feel a slight flicker of anger, of an overwhelming itch inside that she'd tried to quell.
"You don't understand," she whispered roughly. "How could you? You don't know what it means to be a mother..."
"No, I don't. But I know one thing. If you don't calm down, you're going to blow up a hospital full of people. Parents, children... fuck, even those Purifiers. You can't do that."
"The Purifiers don't deserve sympathy," Esme said, her anger flaring around her. "Not for what they did. Someone needs to stop them, stop them from doing this again. I can do that, I can end it now, I need to do something. They took my DAUGHTER from me!!!"
"And the rest of us? Do we..." Nica cut herself off. Arguing with the walking bomb was NOT the best strategy. "All I'm saying is you need to calm down. I'm sure they'll get her out and we'll be able to shut down this shielding and you'll be with her again. But that's not going to happen if you blow the whole place up. So, please can you try?"
"WHY?" Esme glared at Nica. Esme could feel a power growing inside, being fed continuously by her anger and frustration. "Why?? Who are you to tell me what to do?" The loss of control, her helplessness in the situation was building. "I can do what I want, and what I want is to punish everyone!!!!"
Okay, talking wasn't working here. And with the way Esme was getting worked up, there wasn't much time to spare. Nica was going to have to do something drastic... and possibly on the grey side of morality. She gulped, then shifted into x-ray wavelengths and without giving herself or Esme time to think, she stepped into the other woman's body.
While she'd been working with Hank and Reed, they'd taught her that the human body had its own electrical current. And in the case of some mutants, that current was instrumental in their powers. Energy projectors especially. And while Nica focused mainly on the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that she could control and project, theoretically she could absorb most wavelengths. Including bioelectricity.
She hoped.
Concentrating fiercely, Nica focused her attention on her powers, specifically absorbing as much of Esme's energy as possible without actually hurting her.
It felt like a switch had suddenly and abruptly gone off. She was Esme again, not a walking bomb, and the release caused Esme to slump immediately, losing most of her control as she laid down. Not only did she feel drained of power, she felt almost drained of emotions. Was she finally cried out? That was a very real possibility. "I don't know what to do anymore..."
Nica stepped out of Esme's body, tingling all over. Not in a good way, either - it was more like she'd licked a light socket. Still, she tried a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Hey, I'm sorry. But you'll see your daughter again, I'm sure. She'll be fine..." she babbled inanely, not really aware of what she was saying. Fortunately, the phone, which was lying on the floor, crackled into life:
"I swear we need a better phone package, eh? I can barely- hello? Nica?" She grabbed and and blurted out an affirmative. "Good. We have Maria. We're going to take a few minutes and give her a quick medical, but she looks unhurt. Just a little shocked and scared. Where should we meet you?"
"Claremont Hospital. We're still trapped in here, so we might need you help us drop the shielding." Nica glanced over at Esme. "I'm going to put Maria's mother on the phone - she really needs to talk to her." But before she handed over the phone, she added to Esme: "I'm going to go check up on how Maya's doing. Stay here and take care of Jean. You can talk to Maria as well, okay?"
Esme couldn't even wait to say a word. She snatched the phone right out of Nica's hand and said with a wavering voice, "Marita? Hija, is that you?"
And then she heard the most beautiful sound ever.
"Mom!"
A flood of relief washed throughout her. Her daughter was safe. It was all going to be over soon. She looked over at Jean and mouthed "Thank you" as she heard the greatest sound a mother could hear. Her daughter's voice.
The Purifers’ back up bomb is disarmed, but there’s still the matter of the shield over the hospital.
Nica breathed a sigh of relief as Maya cut the last wire and the device seemed to shut down. No more beeping and flashing lights, at least. "Is it done?" she asked Maya, keeping her firm hold on the bound Purifier responsible for the bomb.
Maya hadn't heard her, too busy trying to reach Jean who had dropped off at the end, and who Maya was increasingly frightened would not make it out of here alive with the rest of them. She looked up at Nica and the Purifier she held, anger the predominant emotion as she stood and moved toward them.
"Give me one damn reason I shouldn't beat the absolute hell out of you and leave you here to die."
"Because that's not what we do." Nica made sure she made eye contact this time so Maya could read her lips. "We can stash him somewhere safe and let the cops find him. Once we figure out a way to drop this damn shield."
The bomb maker chuckled at that last part, shaking his head while making a tsk-ing sound at them. "Someone sounds pretty damn overconfident to me."
“There’ll be something keeping it going. They’d have wanted to keep it close?” Maya replied, having been focused on Nica and unable to see or hear what the Purifier had said. “We could ask this guy? I’m pretty sure X-men aren’t above a little rough justice as long as we don’t kill him.”
Nica bit her tongue. As much as she wanted to admonish Maya for her un-X-Men-like attitude, she didn't want to give the bomb maker the satisfaction. "We won't need to," she said instead. "Something like this has to use a hell of a lot of power to keep going, which means a huge energy signature. Which is my jam." She shot the bomb maker a look. "Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but you Purifiers are totally screwed."
He blinked at the mention of a huge energy signature, then tried to regain his composure, too slowly to truly hide that they'd caught on to him. "I'll believe it when I see it, damn muties." He laughed, though it was a lot less confident one than his previous attempts to laugh things off.
"And there's all that confidence, gone in a second," Maya noted with a raised eyebrow, watching him closely as she walked forward to take him from Nica's hands, gesturing for her to do her thing while Maya took care of the trash. "Don't worry, lil buddy. You and I are gonna get along just fine while my friend here finds your little device."
Nica nodded, closing her eyes for a moment to focu her concentration. Switching electromagnetic frequencies had become second nature, but using them to track objects was a little newer. She let her powers guide her, reaching out for that particular hum of something drawing on - and emitting - energy, rejecting the various equipment stored in the basement, the furnace... A sudden jolt of EMP made her snap her eyes open, and she grinned. "Got it."
"Y'ain't got nothin'," he growled, though his eyes flicked back and forth between them just the same. "Besides, even if you did find something, you wouldn't even know how to turn it off anyway, muties or no." He kept quiet then, holding onto that desperate hope despite all that he'd seen them do thus far.
“Yeah, not so much. Come on, time to go on a wondrous journey to the nearest janitors closet.”
Maya pushed him toward the exit, she’d noticed a storeroom not far from where they were that she’d be able to lock him into quite handily.
“Don’t save the world while I’m gone or anything. I’d hate to miss more heroics.”
There was no fear of that. When Maya returned, Nica was still pondering the device with a frustrated look on her face. "That jerk was right," she said with a half-growl. "This stupid thing doesn't have an off switch."
“Just smash it.”
Maya had finished stuffing the bad guy into the nearest closet and made it back to see Nica’s frustration with the device, even if she couldn’t hear her words.
“Here, I’ll start.”
Maya walked over and slammed a boot down on the top of the device, aiming for what looked like a vulnerable spot.
Nica watched Maya stomp the machine several times. She seemed to be having fun, at the least? And with a shrug, Nica picked up a random piece of pipe and joined in with a will.
The cavalry has arrived! Kurt, Sooraya and Betsy get Nica and Maya out and Esme has one surprise left.
The scene around the hospital was chaos. Hastily erected police barricades were set up all around the blocks it occupied, with a mix of police, fire, and emergency services milled, trying to make sense of just how to handle the bizarre shiny dome that blocked off the building. A few people snuck in for selfies in front of the ambulance near the emergency exit, that had been so precisely cut in half by the dome that it looked like it had been done with a scalpel. As they got close, Kane disappeared for a moment, reappearing in a suit and tie.
"Police and FBI will be here, and SHIELD too, I bet. I'm going to go through official channels with Maria. You guys get inside and get Jean and the others out of there as soon as the shield drops." Kane said to Kurt, just as behind him, the shield disappeared like a soap bubble popping. "Fuck, alright, move."
Kurt nodded and reached out for Betsy and Sooraya's hands for the teleport. "Psylocke, please send me a view of where they are."
Locating the other X-Men was straightforward, their minds appearing as beacons of familiarity amidst the crowd. Betsy borrowed Nica’s eyes for long enough to pass the layout of their surroundings to Kurt and sent her a quick heads up that they were on their way.
In the shadowy corner of the basement furnace room where the bomb and the shield generator had been planted, Nica straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes and shifting the pipe she'd been using to her other hand. "I think that did it," she told Maya, making sure she had the other girl's attention on her face. "If this shield thing is still working after all that, I wanna meet the manufacturer," she said with a grin. Then she heard Betsy's voice in her head and yelped, dropping the pipe with a clang.
"Um, the cavalry's coming," she continued, looking a little sheepish. "Psylocke just pinged me." Nica tapped her forehead to indicate the telepathic link.
“Oh good. Just in time for all the actual work to have been done.” Maya snarked, but the look of relief on her face was unmistakable despite the words. “Guess we better go find the others then, or are we meant to stay where we are?”
She'd barely finished the sentence when there was a burst of reeking blue smoke and Kurt appeared with Betsy and Sooraya at his sides. "Time to leave, ladies, before the police find you here. Who would like to go first?"
"That smells disgusting," Maya wrinkled her nose at the smell from Kurt's appearance but she grinned suddenly, almost giddily as the result of her prolonged power usage started to catch up. "Sorry if I puke on your shoes but I just had to defuse a bomb and I may be about to have a major panic attack aaaaannnnyyyy minute now.”
"We can't go without Esme and Quentin," Nica responded. "Jean's hurt and she's being treated, but we need to get the other two.”
"Blink and Wolverine are working on getting them out. We're not leaving them here." Sooraya explained. "You two did great with bringing down the shield, but now we need to go before the feds get here. Nightcrawler..." She quickly turned: "Why don't you take Maya and Psylocke first? Worst comes to worst, Nica and I can get ourselves out if need be."
Kurt nodded and turned to Maya and Betsy. “Whenever you are ready, then, take my hands. I will forgive you if you throw up on my shoes.”
“I will keep the link up in case there is any trouble, but I won’t be able to maintain it with your sand or light forms. If anything happens, please let me know before you transform,” Betsy warned Sooraya and Nica. Then she grabbed hold of Kurt’s outstretched hand, briefly marvelling at the velvety texture of the blue fuzz that covered it, before adding: “Not that anything will happen. Everything will go just fine.”
"Famous last words," Nica replied with a grin as Kurt, Maya and Betsy vanished in a cloud of noisome smoke. Now the X-Men were here, she could relax from the intense responsibility of being the defacto leader once Jean and Quentin had gone down. "And after all the powers use today, I am beat. Time for food and an extended time lying in the sun for me."
Sooraya put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Try to stay sharp a little bit longer. We're not quite done yet." The sounds of metal on metal sounded... seemingly still pretty far away, but after a long moment the screech of metal on metal could be heard again and it sounded a little closer. "And I'm not liking the sounds of that. Psylocke, what's Nightcrawler ETA?" She spoke both mentally and outloud for Nica's benefit.
~We’ve just made it, so he'll be right back,~ Betsy replied, then turned to Kurt to check she wasn’t making false promises. “Nightcrawler, are you OK to go pick up the others straight away? They’re in the clear for now but Dust sounded pretty eager to get out.”
Kurt nodded and immediately vanished, reappearing next to Nica and reaching for her hand. Before he could reach out to Sooraya, however, there was a crash and the sound of shouting voices. "Police! Stay where you are!"
"Go!!! I'll find you." Sooraya called out before she shifted and her sand form exploded outwards. The sand pulled together just as quickly, forming a thin, but dense barrier between the armed cops and her teammates.
Nica nodded, too tired to even attempt to phase. Instead she grabbed Kurt's hand tightly and shut her eyes as the smoke of his teleportation surrounded them. When she opened them again, she was outside in the muggy New York night air. On the far side of the parking lot, red and blue light bounced crazily from the walls and windows as police and emergency services surrounded the building. Not too far away, she saw Esme, tightly hugging a young girl that had to be her daughter.
"Esme! Are you okay?"
Esme nodded gratefully. She covered her daughter's face in frantic kisses, murmuring softly in Spanish. "Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, pulling back a little to stare into Maria's eyes. "I have my girl again."
A cloud of sand flowed from an unobtrusive grill close to the ground, the exit of the ventilation system she has retreated into after the arrival of the officers, to a quiet spot at the far end of the parking place and after checking for a moment that she was unobserved, the cloud concealed into Sooraya crouching down. She quickly rose and strode over to her teammates watching Esme reunite with her daughter. "Did we get everybody out?"
Maya looked over at Sooraya, having been watching the reunited family with a twinge of jealousy as she thought of her own family who was still, even after all these years, unable to come home with the price on Willy's head.
"Yeah, we're all here now."
Peeking over her daughter's shoulder, Esme looked at the scene with clarity. It was chaos. It was mayhem. There were men with guns. There were crying people. Ambulances. And even though she did this for good reasons.... she had a level of responsibility to this. The idea of leaving her daughter when she just got her back was unbearable, but how would Esme be able to live with herself if she didn't hold herself accountable. What message was she teaching if she didn't? "I want to turn myself in," she blurted out to the group. "I was just as responsible." Her words were saying one thing, and her body was betraying her as she held her daughter even tighter...but it was the right thing to do.
There was a moment of confusion before Sooraya pulled out her comm and a few moments later, Kane appeared. His FBI ID was clipped to his jacket and a couple of police officers followed him.
"Esme Fernando? I'm Special Agent Garrison Kane. I'm afraid I need to detain you for questioning regarding your involvement in this incident. Several agents would like to ask you some questions regarding your involvement with this incident." Kane said quietly, out of earshot of the other police.
"I also want you to know that you have rights. If you don't want to answer any questions or wish to wait until you have an attorney present, we will have to formally place you under arrest. There's, uh..." His eyes flicked back to the damaged hospital. "There's definitely a few charges we can go with. I've already spoken with them about the kidnapping of your daughter so it is clear you acted under duress. If you're willing to trust me and answer some questions, I will do everything possible to get your charges reduced."
Esme nodded. How was it that not even 24 hours ago, her life was normal -- well, as close to normal as it could be, and now she was being taken away by the FBI. Kissing the top of Maria's head fiercely, she murmured a few things into her daughter's ear. It was clear Maria was terrified of letting her go, almost as terrified as Esme was walking away, but it had to happen. "These people... they're good people. They will watch you while I am with Agent Kane. It will be fine, hijita." It had to be. And if it wasn't ...well, at least they had each other. And that was more than she thought possible a few hours before.
Swallowing thickly, she took a shuddering breath before gently disentangling herself from her daughter. "I will go with you and tell you all that I have. There is nothing for me to hide." Her chin jutted out proudly. "I did what I had to do to get my daughter back."
