X-Men Mission: Lone Sentinel 2
Oct. 13th, 2021 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsJean is the first to engage and quickly discovers things are not what they seem.
Magneto was out in the open, standing on the roof of the building. Several of the Brotherhood were with him as he began to methodically peel back the walls and floors of the structure. Their initial attack had already demolished one full wing and now he seemed focused on tearing his way into the very heart of the research facility.
Jean's attention was focused on Magneto. With any hope if he were taken down the rest of his followers would fall without their leader. While it was a small hope, she still had to be realistic.
Belief in a cause was a powerful thing. Whether it was to hate or to heal, it was strong enough to shape someone's life when nurtured by the right person. She had seen many kinds of hate in so many months: humans, mutants, more. Different packaging and tools but still fueled by the same emotion at the core.
It was bold for Magneto to stand out in the open. Was it blind confidence, or strategic diversion?
Either way, she couldn't wait. Guess she was going to find out.
Gathering up the non-magnetic debris Magneto had so carelessly thrown about, Jean attempted to use it to trap around him.
"Not a fan of your remodeling work. You're fired."
"Jean. It is a shame you never took me up on my offer. You could do so much more for your mutant brothers and sisters." A shimmering sphere of small metal rose around him, pushing back at her telekinetic assault. "One last attempt, I suppose. Join the Brotherhood. We'll let the X-Men step down and leave without injury. You've been lied to here, Jean. You're on the wrong side of this fight."
"Lied to?" Jean scoffed. "And you're the one who knows the truth?" As she spoke, she swirled the objects around him instead, aiming to obscure.
"The world isn't that black and white. It's an uncomfortable grey."
And with that she drew a little closer launching a telekinetic blast at the sphere from below.
"I tried. Maybe after, you'll be more willing to listen to truth." Magneto said with a shake of his head. "Unascione, if you would?"
Jean was suddenly and violently yanked from her telekinetic perch, smashing her head and shoulder into the rubble and tumbling over several times as she was flung into the ground. As she tried to clear her head, a red-headed woman shrouded in crackling green energy stepped over from only a moment ago had been a concrete pillar. She didn't register at all on her telepathy.=
"Thanks for the assist, Jason. I'll take it from here." The woman, in the mid-20s at most, gave her a disdainful look. "You should have taken the old man's offer, X-Man. It would have hurt a lot less."
Glancing up at the woman, Jean wiped the blood that dripped from a cut above her eye. She tried not to focus on the lack of a mental signature coming from the woman. Right now it was mostly just trying to stop her with whatever she had left.
Her suit had absorbed some of the fall but not her head, which swam, ached, and burned at the same time. Pain was becoming a regular companion as of late. While she didn't like it, at least it made it easier to push through.
"He'll do the same to you whenever you step out of line. Don't think you're special," Jean said, aiming some of the rubble in the woman's direction. She wasn't sure what the green energy was, but it was an easier way to test what would happen if it interacted with it.
"We're mutants." She smashed aside the rubble, the green energy growing and bulking into a gauntlet like image as she crushed it. "Of course we're special. That's the point. That's why they hate us." She advanced steadily on Jean, knocking aside her other exploratory strikes.
"That's not what I was talking about and you know it. I meant Magneto. You're just a tool to him that he can use to hurt people," Jean said, feeling each strike rattle against her telekinetic shields.
"Every mutant is just a means to an end."
She let her pound on her, trying to wear her down before she built up a telekinetic blast aimed to knock the woman back.
As the blast hit her armor, it faltered somehow, as if her powers couldn't directly touch the armor. What should have been a hammerblow of force instead flowed over the woman like a stuff breeze.
"I can't believe you're the one Eric the Red said was the most dangerous X-Man. I'm not impressed." She said. She lashed out and the armor extended fist caught her with a bodyblow. Her automatic telekinetic deflection again found no purchase against the psionic field around the woman.
Jean felt the air leave her as she gasped for breath, doubled over and tried not to fall on her side. She felt a rush of anger at her words. It cut through her, causing the air around her to shimmer in heat. She looked up at the other woman, her green eyes burning orange as she launched herself at her, aiming a more powerful blow toward her. Unfortunately blinding rage and repeated failure was not a good look for her.
"Haven't figured it out, have you?" Unuscione actually seemed to buffet momentarily under the TK assault. "Your powers don't work directly against my psionic armor."
The armor reconfigured and massive claw hands suddenly emerged and grabbed her out of the air by the chest and legs. "Oh, and there's this other trick." She said as the bio-electrical energy suddenly tore through her.
Jean felt the pain seep into her bones, letting out a shriek. Every thought, every action, ceased except for the uncontrolled movement of her muscles and the unconscious rush of agony that blared out over the telepathic switchboard. Soon, darkness began to creep across her vision, and the world disappeared.
***
“The most dangerous X-Man we will face is Marvel Girl. High level telekinesis and telepathy. Other than Erik with his helmet, she can carve through any mind in sight and her TK is almost strong enough to counter Erik’s magnetic powers. More important than even that, she’ll be running the telepathic switchboard. It’s a group mind link that allows the X-Men to share updates and tactical information instantly, which is why they are so good at countering assaults and managing ambushes.” A picture of Jean flashed on the screen.
“Because she’s so powerful, her powers create a blindspot. If she doesn’t sense someone, she won’t doublecheck. And when attacked, she’ll lash out with them several times, even if it doesn’t work the first time, before she adapts her strategies. Unuscione, Mastermind will cover you hiding in the debris. With your psionic armor she can’t sense you, and while she tries to smash you directly with her TK, fry her.”
Betsy is working her way towards Magneto when the switchboard goes down and she finds herself under attack.
Psylocke had just gotten within reach of the ruined section of the facility when Jean was attacked. Over the telepathic switchboard, she caught the moment of panic turn to anger and then resolve with the counterattack. And then fire exploded inside of Betsy’s head. It was as if someone had poured acid into her nervous system, staggering her for a moment before she cut the link.
When the pain subsided Betsy found herself curled up on the ground. As her connection to the rest of the team was – once again – cut off, she was left reeling emotionally. After the last few missions she could no longer fool herself into thinking they would all come out this in one piece no matter what, and unease from being disconnected was quickly turning into panic. She tried reaching out to Jean again, putting all she had into the effort and failing to pay attention to her decrepit surroundings.
There was a sense of movement to her right, the clatter of debris then to the left, and suddenly her left leg was jerked out from under her, sending her crashing back into the ground. With a thud, a small wiry figure hopped to the top of a rubble pile beside her.
"Why do the X-Men get all the pretty ones?" He bemoaned theatrically. "I bet if Magneto had gotten to you first, you might be my girlfriend." He licked his lips with an overly large tongue.
As a telepath, Betsy was rarely left speechless, but there were so many things wrong with that sentence that she could not think of a comeback. Thinking was difficult in general over the pain flashing up from her right ankle, which was twisted under her in an unnatural angle. She decided to forego getting back to her feet and instead pushed herself back with her good leg until her back was against a wall and let the psychic blade manifest in her hand. It was dimmer than usual and flickered slightly with every breath.
Toad dropped down, alternating between two legs and crouched using all four limbs as he hopped back and forth, forcing her to track her. "You should join us. Thursday is all you can eat chicken nuggets." With his joke he darted forward. He caught her wrist just before she could wipe the blade through him, his right knee hitting her in the jaw and knocking her head off the wall behind her before bounding away.
Stars flashed through Betsy’s field of vision. She slashed the blade blindly at Toad’s last location, while covertly reaching for the tazer she had packed for long range situations with her other hand and waiting for the man to make his next move.
"No fair. Toads don't like lightning." With a disgusting hacking noise, he spit out a blob of phlegm that caught her hand with the tazer and smashed it into the wall. The phlegm instantly hardened, pinning her to the wall by one arm.
Betsy considered her position, with a possibly broken leg and immobilised hand. She was not winning this fight, but she could still make it hurt. She closed her eyes and dug deep into the small man’s mind, finding every internalised flaw and hurtful rejection she could and dragging them into the front and centre of his consciousness. This would definitely not make him like her.
"Ah-ah- " Toad recoiled for a moment, but suddenly mental shields sprung up. They weren't strong, but they were properly trained, and slowed her delve into his mind long enough for his whiptongue to snap out, striking her in the jaw and snapping the connection. "We're ready for your telepathy, mindwitch. We trained..." He said, closing on her now she was disoriented.
Keeping her mind from retreating away from the pain into the astral plane was starting to be a struggle. Betsy curled up as much as she could and kept her blade in front of her, with what meager protection it could offer. She had little idea of where the next attack would be coming from, so she concentrated on making herself as small a target as possible.
He was toying with her, his agility easily keeping him away from her blade as she tried to block him. Finally, he caught a swing from her at the wrist.
"Kisses, darling." He oozed and his tongue lashed out, catching her right between the eyes and knocking her cold.
***
“Psionics, especially telepaths are the real weakness the Brotherhood is facing. I know you’ve been training on improving your shields, but they only hold so long. So we need to get the other psion out of the fray immediately. Psylocke. Got some advanced physical training, still inexperienced in the field, but that PSI-blade of hers is deadly. She swipes you with that and not only does she own you but she can pull every piece of information out of your skull at whim.”
A shot of her came on the screen. “Fortunately, as the backup on the telepathic switchboard, it means when Marvel Girl gets hit, the feedback will hit her as well, knocking it out and disorienting her momentarily. That’s the time to strike. Get in quick and don’t give her a chance to focus. Keep her bewildered and angry before taking her out as fast as possible.”
Clarice is the next to come under fire.
Threats had blossomed for a moment before the telepathic switchboard went down, and suddenly Blink was just left with line of sight on the combat, and that only included Wolverine, off in the distance working his way into the building and carefully staying out of Magneto’s attention.
Dragoness laughed as illusions of herself popped up, swooping in to hover close. "Just you against all of us, now," she purred, sending a few low-level blasts to get a feel for the other woman's movements. "Go on, I want to see you dance."
Clarice couldn't fly per se, but wasn't flying just falling without hitting the ground? That she could do. Falling from portal to portal, bouncing around through the sky. The problem with this of course was momentum. She fell still at 9.8m/s^2 whether she liked it or not. And of course, it wasn't the fall that killed you. It was the sudden stop at the end. Normally, she didn't port through the air like this, but with Dragoness blasting her and her unable to figure out which Dragoness was the real one to take out, she had to keep going after the various ones like a perverted game of whack-a-mole. She was Not Having Fun. "This isn't my song, bitch!" she yelled back, her portal enveloping another mirage. Crap!
"More's the pity for you then!" Dragoness called out as more illusions popped into the air. She continued varying her stinger blasts, trying to keep the other woman wrong-footed as she tested the reaction of her stinger blasts on the portals. A little more power, and YES! A pyrotechnic flare flashed across the sky, a rush of light and heat that she used as cover to move.
Instinct took over as the sky lit up like a terrible storm and Clarice both flinched and ported simultaneously, trying to get away. It made her tumble through a series of portals until she could right herself by porting nearly straight up to get her bearings. She needed to stop, to find a way to slow down, to CALM down. Because her energy wasn't infinite and this was beginning to push her energy reserves already and they had only just begun!
Her eyes were calculating as she watched the purple woman fall, and Dragoness pressed her advantage, targeting higher powered blasts at the portals and causing flares of light, and lower blasts directly at her opponent. One connected, and she watched the pinwheeling woman with satisfaction.
As Clarice fell, a portal opened, swallowing her whole.
***
“Teleporters are key to most X-Men strategies. It allows them to move reinforcements around quickly, keep a top level tactical understanding of the field, and has turned the tides of a number of conflicts. While Nightcrawler is older and more experienced, as well as capable of taking over command if needed, our first target will be Blink.”
The purple mutant appeared behind him. “Blink isn’t a true teleporter in the sense that she moves herself. She opens portals that she can more through. Velocity and gravity apply, which is why she is usually aerial, using portals to translate falling through upward facing portals. The main difference is that she can open those portals anywhere, including through your neck before shutting them off. Unlike some of the others, she’s also likely to abandon the ‘X-Men don’t kill’ credo when it gets to the nuts. So, best way is to confuse and disorient her. Make her react, even panic, and eventually she’ll go through a portal the wrong way.”
Kurt scouts ahead and discovers an uncomfortable situation.
The sounds of battle rose up at once around Nightcrawler, who was scouting ahead in the building. He felt the switchboard go down and was about to teleport back out to check when he caught sight of a familiar figure – Mystique. She was assembling what could only be an explosive device. Kurt eased back, the shadows making him invisible. Regardless, she looked up directly at him.
“You might as well come out. You know you can’t hide from me. A mother always knows.” She said with a cruel smirk.
He paused, then stepped out into the light, studying the object she was working on. "You did not wish to join your comrades in the fight today?"
"I have... other priorities for now." She said, turning back to her work. "You and your X-Men shouldn't be here, Kurt. You have no idea what you're defending. Or what it could mean to your people."
He moved slowly around the room, trying to get a better look at that work. "Then if you will be honest, perhaps you could tell me."
"Always so naive. I wonder who you got that from? Certainly not your father or I." She finished whatever final calibrations and picked it up. "The government is not your friend or allies of mutants. They will always want assurances that they have the means to put us down if we ever threaten them. That's what this place makes: the means to put us down."
"They have always had that", he pointed out. "Guns will kill many, perhaps most of us with little difficulty. But there is something different here?"
"You never thought to ask until now? Just blindly followed orders to protect this place? That's also something you never got from your father or I." She smiled ruefully and came up with a gun trained on him.
"Please walk away, Kurt. You don't understand this fight and I don't have time to explain it. Don't make us hurt you."
"You know I cannot", he said quietly. "Though I have no desire to make you hurt me, as you say. If what you say is true - and I am not so naive as to think it must be without proof - I will report it to the X-Men in private, when we are home."
"No, you won't. Because then it will be too late. And unlike your X-Men, we're not willing to be. Lorelei, he's all yours."
“Of course, my dear.”
A woman appeared from the shadows behind Mystique, an almost angelic smile gracing her features and she placed a hand gently on the other woman’s’ shoulder as she walked past to square up to Kurt.
“You should listen to your mother, boy. She only wants what is best for you.”
Her voice was lyrical, the dulcet tones skipping gently through the air between them like fairy floss.
Kurt looked at her, then past her, blinking. "She has never only wanted that... Mystique, who is this?"
"A friend. Goodbye Kurt." She said, walking away from them both. Inexplicably, he couldn't seem to follow her.
“Look now, look at how upset your words have made your mother.”
Lorelei moved closer, her words almost whispered now as she spoke to Kurt, her sorrow at his actions throbbing through each syllable.
“What son treats his mother so. Do you not feel sorrow, child? Does it not make you want to cry?”
He couldn’t move, frozen to the spot, and despite himself his eyes were welling up. It was an effort to force out the next words. “A son who was abandoned and ill-used by his mother when he found her. My mother is Margali Szardos.”
“You poor child, you have been deceived.”
Lorelei’s voice throbbed with sorrow, echoing the tears of a bereft mother as she looked on him with eyes that seemed to glow from within.
“Your mother, your true mother never abandoned you. This Margali is the deceiver, the witch who pulled you from your true purpose. Surely you can feel the truth in my words. Surely you feel the pain that your heart has harbored all these years, the pain of a stolen child.”
"I am not a child. And you are... deceiving..." The words trailed off into nothing as he looked at her.
“An adult then? Surely you would do me a small favour? As a man of such high gravitas, it is well within your abilities, I assure you.”
Lorelei’s voice changed harmonics, weaving between sultry whispers and deeper notes that tripped along the nerves into the monkey brain underneath the thinking man.
“You would make me the happiest of women, Kurt.”
Deep, deep down, below even the monkey brain, something was screaming at him to run. But her voice overruled it.
"What would you have me do?"
“Why, nothing difficult, it’s very simple really. I just need you to take a few trips for me. Just to show me how very good you are, how strong and manly.”
Lorelei was closer now, standing close as she reached out a languid hand and stroked his cheek gently. She smiled like a proud parent whose child has completed a difficult puzzle.
“I just want you to teleport for me, as far and fast as you can, dear one. You can do that for me, yes?”
"I can do that for you", he echoed, and immediately teleported away...
and then back... and away again.
“Oh, brilliant, such a clever man you are.”
Lorelei clapped her hands in delight, looking nothing more than the receiver of a precious gift, a thing that they’d always wanted but hadn’t known how to ask for.
“But surely you can go further now? A strong man such as yourself must be able to go miles away.”
"I can go miles", Kurt said blankly. "And come back again?"
“Yes, my dear. Just so.”
Lorelei smiled, like a ray of sunshine after the rain, she was so beautiful.
“Quickly now, we mustn’t take all day.”
Lost in the compulsion of her voice, he simply nodded and set about doing as she asked.
Awhile later…
“Just one more, my dear. Surely you can manage another teleport for your Lorelei?”
She had been watching the man teleport back and forth at quicker intervals for awhile now and she was beginning to grow bored with the whole thing. She didn’t know why she couldn’t simply take him with them.
She was always in need of another man to serve her, and they were always so deliciously unwilling.
But, orders were orders she supposed. Maybe she’d get a chance to enjoy him some other time.
He was visibly flagging, each teleport back and forth coming slower than the last, but at the sound of her voice, he pushed himself to a last effort.
It proved to indeed be the last, as he collapsed at her feet.
Lorelei examined him as he lay unconscious at her feet, a speculative gleam in her eyes.
“It’s a pity we don’t have more time, Kurt. There’s so much fun we could have together. But, your dear mother has plans, and I mustn’t keep her waiting.”
She kicked him, choosing a particularly sensitive spot to make sure he wasn’t faking, and then watched closely for a moment more to make sure she hadn’t killed him either.
“Lovely. Do enjoy the headache you’ll have on waking. I’m told it’s particularly vile.”
Lorelei walked away, picking her way carefully through the rubble as she headed in the direction that Mystique had chosen, leaving Kurt collapsed in the dirt behind.
***
“Nightcrawler is the eyes and ears of the X-Men recon. We’ve seen his teleporting outrun a bullet and he’s a solid tactician in his own right. Of all the X-Men, he’s the main, forgive the pun, X factor. Left to his own devices on the field, he could counter the ambush on his own. So we need to give him something to focus on. Which is where Mystique comes in.”
The blue woman smiled, leaning back on her sofa. “And momma loves her baby.”
“We just need to keep him distracted and focused on the wrong thing long enough for a little psionic whammy. Kurt’s power isn’t inexhaustible. Push him to the limits and he’ll find himself stranded on the other side of the world or too tired to do more than blink for an hour.”
Magneto was out in the open, standing on the roof of the building. Several of the Brotherhood were with him as he began to methodically peel back the walls and floors of the structure. Their initial attack had already demolished one full wing and now he seemed focused on tearing his way into the very heart of the research facility.
Jean's attention was focused on Magneto. With any hope if he were taken down the rest of his followers would fall without their leader. While it was a small hope, she still had to be realistic.
Belief in a cause was a powerful thing. Whether it was to hate or to heal, it was strong enough to shape someone's life when nurtured by the right person. She had seen many kinds of hate in so many months: humans, mutants, more. Different packaging and tools but still fueled by the same emotion at the core.
It was bold for Magneto to stand out in the open. Was it blind confidence, or strategic diversion?
Either way, she couldn't wait. Guess she was going to find out.
Gathering up the non-magnetic debris Magneto had so carelessly thrown about, Jean attempted to use it to trap around him.
"Not a fan of your remodeling work. You're fired."
"Jean. It is a shame you never took me up on my offer. You could do so much more for your mutant brothers and sisters." A shimmering sphere of small metal rose around him, pushing back at her telekinetic assault. "One last attempt, I suppose. Join the Brotherhood. We'll let the X-Men step down and leave without injury. You've been lied to here, Jean. You're on the wrong side of this fight."
"Lied to?" Jean scoffed. "And you're the one who knows the truth?" As she spoke, she swirled the objects around him instead, aiming to obscure.
"The world isn't that black and white. It's an uncomfortable grey."
And with that she drew a little closer launching a telekinetic blast at the sphere from below.
"I tried. Maybe after, you'll be more willing to listen to truth." Magneto said with a shake of his head. "Unascione, if you would?"
Jean was suddenly and violently yanked from her telekinetic perch, smashing her head and shoulder into the rubble and tumbling over several times as she was flung into the ground. As she tried to clear her head, a red-headed woman shrouded in crackling green energy stepped over from only a moment ago had been a concrete pillar. She didn't register at all on her telepathy.=
"Thanks for the assist, Jason. I'll take it from here." The woman, in the mid-20s at most, gave her a disdainful look. "You should have taken the old man's offer, X-Man. It would have hurt a lot less."
Glancing up at the woman, Jean wiped the blood that dripped from a cut above her eye. She tried not to focus on the lack of a mental signature coming from the woman. Right now it was mostly just trying to stop her with whatever she had left.
Her suit had absorbed some of the fall but not her head, which swam, ached, and burned at the same time. Pain was becoming a regular companion as of late. While she didn't like it, at least it made it easier to push through.
"He'll do the same to you whenever you step out of line. Don't think you're special," Jean said, aiming some of the rubble in the woman's direction. She wasn't sure what the green energy was, but it was an easier way to test what would happen if it interacted with it.
"We're mutants." She smashed aside the rubble, the green energy growing and bulking into a gauntlet like image as she crushed it. "Of course we're special. That's the point. That's why they hate us." She advanced steadily on Jean, knocking aside her other exploratory strikes.
"That's not what I was talking about and you know it. I meant Magneto. You're just a tool to him that he can use to hurt people," Jean said, feeling each strike rattle against her telekinetic shields.
"Every mutant is just a means to an end."
She let her pound on her, trying to wear her down before she built up a telekinetic blast aimed to knock the woman back.
As the blast hit her armor, it faltered somehow, as if her powers couldn't directly touch the armor. What should have been a hammerblow of force instead flowed over the woman like a stuff breeze.
"I can't believe you're the one Eric the Red said was the most dangerous X-Man. I'm not impressed." She said. She lashed out and the armor extended fist caught her with a bodyblow. Her automatic telekinetic deflection again found no purchase against the psionic field around the woman.
Jean felt the air leave her as she gasped for breath, doubled over and tried not to fall on her side. She felt a rush of anger at her words. It cut through her, causing the air around her to shimmer in heat. She looked up at the other woman, her green eyes burning orange as she launched herself at her, aiming a more powerful blow toward her. Unfortunately blinding rage and repeated failure was not a good look for her.
"Haven't figured it out, have you?" Unuscione actually seemed to buffet momentarily under the TK assault. "Your powers don't work directly against my psionic armor."
The armor reconfigured and massive claw hands suddenly emerged and grabbed her out of the air by the chest and legs. "Oh, and there's this other trick." She said as the bio-electrical energy suddenly tore through her.
Jean felt the pain seep into her bones, letting out a shriek. Every thought, every action, ceased except for the uncontrolled movement of her muscles and the unconscious rush of agony that blared out over the telepathic switchboard. Soon, darkness began to creep across her vision, and the world disappeared.
***
“The most dangerous X-Man we will face is Marvel Girl. High level telekinesis and telepathy. Other than Erik with his helmet, she can carve through any mind in sight and her TK is almost strong enough to counter Erik’s magnetic powers. More important than even that, she’ll be running the telepathic switchboard. It’s a group mind link that allows the X-Men to share updates and tactical information instantly, which is why they are so good at countering assaults and managing ambushes.” A picture of Jean flashed on the screen.
“Because she’s so powerful, her powers create a blindspot. If she doesn’t sense someone, she won’t doublecheck. And when attacked, she’ll lash out with them several times, even if it doesn’t work the first time, before she adapts her strategies. Unuscione, Mastermind will cover you hiding in the debris. With your psionic armor she can’t sense you, and while she tries to smash you directly with her TK, fry her.”
Betsy is working her way towards Magneto when the switchboard goes down and she finds herself under attack.
Psylocke had just gotten within reach of the ruined section of the facility when Jean was attacked. Over the telepathic switchboard, she caught the moment of panic turn to anger and then resolve with the counterattack. And then fire exploded inside of Betsy’s head. It was as if someone had poured acid into her nervous system, staggering her for a moment before she cut the link.
When the pain subsided Betsy found herself curled up on the ground. As her connection to the rest of the team was – once again – cut off, she was left reeling emotionally. After the last few missions she could no longer fool herself into thinking they would all come out this in one piece no matter what, and unease from being disconnected was quickly turning into panic. She tried reaching out to Jean again, putting all she had into the effort and failing to pay attention to her decrepit surroundings.
There was a sense of movement to her right, the clatter of debris then to the left, and suddenly her left leg was jerked out from under her, sending her crashing back into the ground. With a thud, a small wiry figure hopped to the top of a rubble pile beside her.
"Why do the X-Men get all the pretty ones?" He bemoaned theatrically. "I bet if Magneto had gotten to you first, you might be my girlfriend." He licked his lips with an overly large tongue.
As a telepath, Betsy was rarely left speechless, but there were so many things wrong with that sentence that she could not think of a comeback. Thinking was difficult in general over the pain flashing up from her right ankle, which was twisted under her in an unnatural angle. She decided to forego getting back to her feet and instead pushed herself back with her good leg until her back was against a wall and let the psychic blade manifest in her hand. It was dimmer than usual and flickered slightly with every breath.
Toad dropped down, alternating between two legs and crouched using all four limbs as he hopped back and forth, forcing her to track her. "You should join us. Thursday is all you can eat chicken nuggets." With his joke he darted forward. He caught her wrist just before she could wipe the blade through him, his right knee hitting her in the jaw and knocking her head off the wall behind her before bounding away.
Stars flashed through Betsy’s field of vision. She slashed the blade blindly at Toad’s last location, while covertly reaching for the tazer she had packed for long range situations with her other hand and waiting for the man to make his next move.
"No fair. Toads don't like lightning." With a disgusting hacking noise, he spit out a blob of phlegm that caught her hand with the tazer and smashed it into the wall. The phlegm instantly hardened, pinning her to the wall by one arm.
Betsy considered her position, with a possibly broken leg and immobilised hand. She was not winning this fight, but she could still make it hurt. She closed her eyes and dug deep into the small man’s mind, finding every internalised flaw and hurtful rejection she could and dragging them into the front and centre of his consciousness. This would definitely not make him like her.
"Ah-ah- " Toad recoiled for a moment, but suddenly mental shields sprung up. They weren't strong, but they were properly trained, and slowed her delve into his mind long enough for his whiptongue to snap out, striking her in the jaw and snapping the connection. "We're ready for your telepathy, mindwitch. We trained..." He said, closing on her now she was disoriented.
Keeping her mind from retreating away from the pain into the astral plane was starting to be a struggle. Betsy curled up as much as she could and kept her blade in front of her, with what meager protection it could offer. She had little idea of where the next attack would be coming from, so she concentrated on making herself as small a target as possible.
He was toying with her, his agility easily keeping him away from her blade as she tried to block him. Finally, he caught a swing from her at the wrist.
"Kisses, darling." He oozed and his tongue lashed out, catching her right between the eyes and knocking her cold.
***
“Psionics, especially telepaths are the real weakness the Brotherhood is facing. I know you’ve been training on improving your shields, but they only hold so long. So we need to get the other psion out of the fray immediately. Psylocke. Got some advanced physical training, still inexperienced in the field, but that PSI-blade of hers is deadly. She swipes you with that and not only does she own you but she can pull every piece of information out of your skull at whim.”
A shot of her came on the screen. “Fortunately, as the backup on the telepathic switchboard, it means when Marvel Girl gets hit, the feedback will hit her as well, knocking it out and disorienting her momentarily. That’s the time to strike. Get in quick and don’t give her a chance to focus. Keep her bewildered and angry before taking her out as fast as possible.”
Clarice is the next to come under fire.
Threats had blossomed for a moment before the telepathic switchboard went down, and suddenly Blink was just left with line of sight on the combat, and that only included Wolverine, off in the distance working his way into the building and carefully staying out of Magneto’s attention.
Dragoness laughed as illusions of herself popped up, swooping in to hover close. "Just you against all of us, now," she purred, sending a few low-level blasts to get a feel for the other woman's movements. "Go on, I want to see you dance."
Clarice couldn't fly per se, but wasn't flying just falling without hitting the ground? That she could do. Falling from portal to portal, bouncing around through the sky. The problem with this of course was momentum. She fell still at 9.8m/s^2 whether she liked it or not. And of course, it wasn't the fall that killed you. It was the sudden stop at the end. Normally, she didn't port through the air like this, but with Dragoness blasting her and her unable to figure out which Dragoness was the real one to take out, she had to keep going after the various ones like a perverted game of whack-a-mole. She was Not Having Fun. "This isn't my song, bitch!" she yelled back, her portal enveloping another mirage. Crap!
"More's the pity for you then!" Dragoness called out as more illusions popped into the air. She continued varying her stinger blasts, trying to keep the other woman wrong-footed as she tested the reaction of her stinger blasts on the portals. A little more power, and YES! A pyrotechnic flare flashed across the sky, a rush of light and heat that she used as cover to move.
Instinct took over as the sky lit up like a terrible storm and Clarice both flinched and ported simultaneously, trying to get away. It made her tumble through a series of portals until she could right herself by porting nearly straight up to get her bearings. She needed to stop, to find a way to slow down, to CALM down. Because her energy wasn't infinite and this was beginning to push her energy reserves already and they had only just begun!
Her eyes were calculating as she watched the purple woman fall, and Dragoness pressed her advantage, targeting higher powered blasts at the portals and causing flares of light, and lower blasts directly at her opponent. One connected, and she watched the pinwheeling woman with satisfaction.
As Clarice fell, a portal opened, swallowing her whole.
***
“Teleporters are key to most X-Men strategies. It allows them to move reinforcements around quickly, keep a top level tactical understanding of the field, and has turned the tides of a number of conflicts. While Nightcrawler is older and more experienced, as well as capable of taking over command if needed, our first target will be Blink.”
The purple mutant appeared behind him. “Blink isn’t a true teleporter in the sense that she moves herself. She opens portals that she can more through. Velocity and gravity apply, which is why she is usually aerial, using portals to translate falling through upward facing portals. The main difference is that she can open those portals anywhere, including through your neck before shutting them off. Unlike some of the others, she’s also likely to abandon the ‘X-Men don’t kill’ credo when it gets to the nuts. So, best way is to confuse and disorient her. Make her react, even panic, and eventually she’ll go through a portal the wrong way.”
Kurt scouts ahead and discovers an uncomfortable situation.
The sounds of battle rose up at once around Nightcrawler, who was scouting ahead in the building. He felt the switchboard go down and was about to teleport back out to check when he caught sight of a familiar figure – Mystique. She was assembling what could only be an explosive device. Kurt eased back, the shadows making him invisible. Regardless, she looked up directly at him.
“You might as well come out. You know you can’t hide from me. A mother always knows.” She said with a cruel smirk.
He paused, then stepped out into the light, studying the object she was working on. "You did not wish to join your comrades in the fight today?"
"I have... other priorities for now." She said, turning back to her work. "You and your X-Men shouldn't be here, Kurt. You have no idea what you're defending. Or what it could mean to your people."
He moved slowly around the room, trying to get a better look at that work. "Then if you will be honest, perhaps you could tell me."
"Always so naive. I wonder who you got that from? Certainly not your father or I." She finished whatever final calibrations and picked it up. "The government is not your friend or allies of mutants. They will always want assurances that they have the means to put us down if we ever threaten them. That's what this place makes: the means to put us down."
"They have always had that", he pointed out. "Guns will kill many, perhaps most of us with little difficulty. But there is something different here?"
"You never thought to ask until now? Just blindly followed orders to protect this place? That's also something you never got from your father or I." She smiled ruefully and came up with a gun trained on him.
"Please walk away, Kurt. You don't understand this fight and I don't have time to explain it. Don't make us hurt you."
"You know I cannot", he said quietly. "Though I have no desire to make you hurt me, as you say. If what you say is true - and I am not so naive as to think it must be without proof - I will report it to the X-Men in private, when we are home."
"No, you won't. Because then it will be too late. And unlike your X-Men, we're not willing to be. Lorelei, he's all yours."
“Of course, my dear.”
A woman appeared from the shadows behind Mystique, an almost angelic smile gracing her features and she placed a hand gently on the other woman’s’ shoulder as she walked past to square up to Kurt.
“You should listen to your mother, boy. She only wants what is best for you.”
Her voice was lyrical, the dulcet tones skipping gently through the air between them like fairy floss.
Kurt looked at her, then past her, blinking. "She has never only wanted that... Mystique, who is this?"
"A friend. Goodbye Kurt." She said, walking away from them both. Inexplicably, he couldn't seem to follow her.
“Look now, look at how upset your words have made your mother.”
Lorelei moved closer, her words almost whispered now as she spoke to Kurt, her sorrow at his actions throbbing through each syllable.
“What son treats his mother so. Do you not feel sorrow, child? Does it not make you want to cry?”
He couldn’t move, frozen to the spot, and despite himself his eyes were welling up. It was an effort to force out the next words. “A son who was abandoned and ill-used by his mother when he found her. My mother is Margali Szardos.”
“You poor child, you have been deceived.”
Lorelei’s voice throbbed with sorrow, echoing the tears of a bereft mother as she looked on him with eyes that seemed to glow from within.
“Your mother, your true mother never abandoned you. This Margali is the deceiver, the witch who pulled you from your true purpose. Surely you can feel the truth in my words. Surely you feel the pain that your heart has harbored all these years, the pain of a stolen child.”
"I am not a child. And you are... deceiving..." The words trailed off into nothing as he looked at her.
“An adult then? Surely you would do me a small favour? As a man of such high gravitas, it is well within your abilities, I assure you.”
Lorelei’s voice changed harmonics, weaving between sultry whispers and deeper notes that tripped along the nerves into the monkey brain underneath the thinking man.
“You would make me the happiest of women, Kurt.”
Deep, deep down, below even the monkey brain, something was screaming at him to run. But her voice overruled it.
"What would you have me do?"
“Why, nothing difficult, it’s very simple really. I just need you to take a few trips for me. Just to show me how very good you are, how strong and manly.”
Lorelei was closer now, standing close as she reached out a languid hand and stroked his cheek gently. She smiled like a proud parent whose child has completed a difficult puzzle.
“I just want you to teleport for me, as far and fast as you can, dear one. You can do that for me, yes?”
"I can do that for you", he echoed, and immediately teleported away...
and then back... and away again.
“Oh, brilliant, such a clever man you are.”
Lorelei clapped her hands in delight, looking nothing more than the receiver of a precious gift, a thing that they’d always wanted but hadn’t known how to ask for.
“But surely you can go further now? A strong man such as yourself must be able to go miles away.”
"I can go miles", Kurt said blankly. "And come back again?"
“Yes, my dear. Just so.”
Lorelei smiled, like a ray of sunshine after the rain, she was so beautiful.
“Quickly now, we mustn’t take all day.”
Lost in the compulsion of her voice, he simply nodded and set about doing as she asked.
Awhile later…
“Just one more, my dear. Surely you can manage another teleport for your Lorelei?”
She had been watching the man teleport back and forth at quicker intervals for awhile now and she was beginning to grow bored with the whole thing. She didn’t know why she couldn’t simply take him with them.
She was always in need of another man to serve her, and they were always so deliciously unwilling.
But, orders were orders she supposed. Maybe she’d get a chance to enjoy him some other time.
He was visibly flagging, each teleport back and forth coming slower than the last, but at the sound of her voice, he pushed himself to a last effort.
It proved to indeed be the last, as he collapsed at her feet.
Lorelei examined him as he lay unconscious at her feet, a speculative gleam in her eyes.
“It’s a pity we don’t have more time, Kurt. There’s so much fun we could have together. But, your dear mother has plans, and I mustn’t keep her waiting.”
She kicked him, choosing a particularly sensitive spot to make sure he wasn’t faking, and then watched closely for a moment more to make sure she hadn’t killed him either.
“Lovely. Do enjoy the headache you’ll have on waking. I’m told it’s particularly vile.”
Lorelei walked away, picking her way carefully through the rubble as she headed in the direction that Mystique had chosen, leaving Kurt collapsed in the dirt behind.
***
“Nightcrawler is the eyes and ears of the X-Men recon. We’ve seen his teleporting outrun a bullet and he’s a solid tactician in his own right. Of all the X-Men, he’s the main, forgive the pun, X factor. Left to his own devices on the field, he could counter the ambush on his own. So we need to give him something to focus on. Which is where Mystique comes in.”
The blue woman smiled, leaning back on her sofa. “And momma loves her baby.”
“We just need to keep him distracted and focused on the wrong thing long enough for a little psionic whammy. Kurt’s power isn’t inexhaustible. Push him to the limits and he’ll find himself stranded on the other side of the world or too tired to do more than blink for an hour.”
