X-Men Mission: Town Called Malice - Log 10

[xp_dominion]

With Clarice sent randomly out of the tunnels, Jean is overwhelmed by her two foes.



A telekinetic blast slammed into the man, pressing him into the ceiling like something out of the Exorcist. Jean stepped into view, her eyes burning.

"She's not the only one. What did you do? Where did you send her?"

"I sent her nowhere. She sent herself." He said, his smile never changing. "So Jean Grey. Mutant. Telepath and TK. Hates herself. I think-" He touched his finger to his lips and then pointed it at her. "I think you're feeling sick."

As he did so, a wave of nausea broke over her.

The eggs, fruit, and toast Jean had for breakfast disagreed with her and she found herself expelling it all over the ground as the man she had pinned to the ceiling abruptly dropped with the break in concentration. Jean wiped her mouth in abject surprise, quickly glancing up as she flung her hand wildly at the man who made her sick to knock him backward.

"Sorry Doc." The man was tossed into the wall, but a green and white haired woman emerged from the shadows. She reached out, and Jean's inner ear turned inside out, tossing her to the floor as she couldn't figure out which way was up. "Scrambler is a cunt, but I don't want you to kill him. Yet."

Jean threw up again, though at this point there was nothing in her stomach, and she was left dry heaving. The world was on its side, and upside down, and everything but right. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus, but everytime she moved everything lurched. Her ears began to ring as she crawled, trying to remember where the woman had spoken from, to reach her mind out, but she couldn't focus.

"Laurie said you were a lot more hardcore." The woman took a brief run up and unleashed a kick that caught Jean on the point of the chin. It snapped her head back and sent her reeling down the hall. "I think we should have taken on the X-Men earlier. Scram, you want a pet?"

An explosion of pain burst across Jean's vision, and blood poured into her mouth after biting her tongue. Her X-Men suit kept her from getting scraped up but didn't stop the bruises. As she came to a stop, she coughed, spitting out the blood onto the ground. Her vision, which was already shitty to begin with, was now blurry as she wove in and out of consciousness. A gash on her chin stained her neck with tendrils of blood, and bits of her hair and dirt got caught in it from the landing.

She tried to focus again desperately. sending a desk toward where she thought the woman was.

"On the run. The big bad X-Men aren't so tough."

"Just this one. Rest of the team is having issues." Vertigo snapped off Scrambler's comments. "Let's get her. Collins says she's worth a ton to them."

Collins. That got Jean's attention. But she had more important things to focus on, like survival.

Closing her eyes, she focused on their minds instead of how she was feeling (which was damn hard). Vertigo's mind was stronger, so she went for the other one, sending a telepathic blast at him that was aimed to knock him out. One opponent was better than two.

Scrambler's scream was short and brief, but Vertigo walked over him like he never existed. "Jeanie Jean. The Jean Jeanie. This is the end." She grabbed her up by the hair and slammed a fist into her jaw. "I'm dragging you back. Letting the Doc open you up and take you apart. And when his version of you joins us... I have other ideas."

The unfortunate benefit of being grabbed by the hair was it helped one get a sense of orientation when everything was upside down. So when Vertigo grabbed her, Jean spat blood into her face, despite her vision swimming from the hit.

Then, she clenched her teeth, and used a telekinetic shield like a battering ram to yank the two of them apart, knowing fully well that she'd be ripping some hair out in the process. It was better than being vivisected. Maybe she could knock her out. Maybe there'd be backup.

There were a lot of maybes happening here.

Vertigo hit the rocks hard and spat blood. The TK field dropped her and she scurried to get her feet under her. "Scrambler, get back on your feet, you fuck..." She reached out with her powers and the Korean man shot back awake, immediately sitting up and then staggering into the wall, as if drunk as her powers woke him but also turned his inner ear against him. "Get her!"

Jean could hear the footsteps of the man against the ringing in her ears, his mind coming steadily closer. For a moment, when she hit Vertigo, things stopped being sideways, but it was back again, so she had to take a chance, and sent out a telekinetic blast to knock him backward, letting out a grunt of frustration and pain.

Scrambler took the hit, ricocheting off one side of the hallway and then the other. It stopped his charge but the other woman was using his actions to disguise her own, getting close enough to hit Jean with another blast.

There was no real way to win, Jean realized. It was now a matter of just getting out alive. Using the wall, she pulled herself up to her feet, feeling along it to try to find a way out. The wall was the only thing that was stable and wasn't upside down and inside out. All she could do was put up a telekinetic shield around herself to block any more attacks.

~This is...Phoenix...I..I..need help.~

"Now it's-" Vertigo suddenly stopped and touched her ear. "Oh fuck off. She's right here. Right- fuck." She grabbed Scrambler by the collar. "Boss says we fall back. You hear that, Grey! Next time, you're mine."

As much as Jean wanted to have some sort of, any sort of response to that, she couldn't say anything. Sliding down the wall, all she could do was listen to their footsteps as they disappeared further into the tunnels.

Comments

[xp_spectrum]

Holy crap, Mack. It's no secret that I find losing a battle more interesting than winning one some days, and this was astoundingly good. Poor Jean fought so HARD. And kudos to Dex for his socking here - and throughout the plot, tbh. His Vertigo especially is so messed up. :)