For Treason, Act I, Scene ii
May. 2nd, 2026 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs14 is visiting Emma at Frost Enterprises, and Celeste goes to take a bio break and deal with her ringing hangover. And then things get -really- psychedelic, and she hallucinates…herself?
The restrooms at Frost Enterprises, like everything else in the offices, were full of capital-A Aesthetic. Impeccable white walls and paneling, gleaming sterling silver fixtures, tasteful crystal and muted lighting all combined to convey the highest of class and luxury without being gauche or overstated. This was absolutely not a place you would find industrial single-ply toilet paper dispensed from cheap metal rollers. Everyone poops, as the book title says, but in a Frost Enterprises restroom that was no reason to be uncomfortable.
They were also one of the only places in the building without external windows, which made them, unfortunately, the best place to try and get a migraine under control. 14 had to take Celeste away from the others, because somehow (worryingly), proximity made it radiate to her 'sisters'. Which explained why she was currently four floors and half the building away, the only sign of her discomfort the slightly too fast rhythmic clicking of her heels on the floor.
Door opened. Lights clicked off. The sound of a latch softly echoing through the room.
She does not check to make sure it's empty; If there was anyone here, she would have been reading their mind from before she stepped off the elevator. As undignified as hiding in a bathroom was, it was somehow still better than a supply closet.
The bathroom was indeed empty.
And then it was not.
In the time between blinks, between breaths, between heartbeats, the entire room went dark. Then it lit back up, revealing the walls of mirrors that seemed to extend far beyond the boundaries of the bathroom. They were all reflecting Celeste, no matter what direction she turned in.
This... was not good. This was definitely some sort of mental assault. She could not feel the rest of herselves, like the connection had fallen asleep and gone numb. And even with all that, with an icepick digging in behind her eyes and the rest of her mouths presumably full of cotton, she just could not help herselves.
"Ugh," she scoffed. "Dull." She blamed... well, not herself, obviously. But maybe she blamed this damned headache.
It really was an uninspired attack.
"Ugh," her reflections echo back. "Dull."
Her voice, a million times over, echoing around and around and around.
There was almost something... normal, about the way 14 found herself reflected in her own vision a dozen times. It dipped into the uncanny valley, though, unable to see the depth that came from 5 simultaneous points of view.
She clicked her tongue. Right. That was definitely enough of this. Someone had apparently decided that they wanted to die today, and who was she to disappoint? First things first, a little mental flex and--
The illusion (for it was very obviously that) promptly failed to shatter into a million shards as she commanded, and 14 realized that she might, might, actually be in trouble here.
One of the mirrors behind her turned as her reflection turned to look at her, a light smirk pulling on her lips.
"Ugh," the reflections repeat again. "Dull."
Scratch what she had thought earlier about someone wanting to die. Someone out there wanted to die painfully, and 14 was more and more willing to take them up on their request. Fine, if a little flex had been insufficient, she was more than capable of escalating.
This time, the mirrors cracked right down the center before exploding in a shower of mental glass, leaving her back in the bathroom. That was one annoyance dealt with. Unfortunately, the others had been clear after the last time something like this had happened, so she didn't exactly have an excuse to not pull out her phone and press the panic button built into the side. She slipped it back into her purse as she walked towards the elevators.
She failed to notice the tightness in her shoulders until she was reaching down to press the button for the top floor penthouse.
The mirror ceiling over Fourteen's head flickers, and for a moment her own reflection is moving again.
The moment the elevator reached the top floor, Celeste was out and moving. If nothing else, everyone else needed to be aware that there was someone around psychically strong enough to temporarily trap her in an illusion. She shoved her way through the double doors into the penthouse suite. The door for the meeting room was just ahead. Her heels clicked on thetile as she app--
Wait. Her hand came to rest on the door handle.
That was not the sound of tile. That was less sharp, more like concre--
The last few minutes flashed through her mind again. There was no panic button built into the side of her phone, just the power switch. She didn't bring a purse with her either, which meant her phone was probably lying in a hallway somewhere deep in the building. And she certainly wasn't tall enough to need to reach down for the top floor buttons in the elevator. And most damningly, she still could not feel her other selves.
Oh. She had been overconfident. She had been stupid. She was not on the top floor, but rather outside, which meant that this handle was not to the penthouse, but rather...
The voice that had taunted her in the bathroom spoke again.
I always forget about sounds.
The door, which was supposed to swing inwards, instead slid off to the side like the side door of a van. 14 had just long enough to realize I'm still in the illusion before she felt the needle in her neck and the hands on her arms.
Fuck.
-
Felicia and North enjoy a brunch at a favorite spot, except they get interrupted by a precognitive spike. And then a number of things go just their way, almost like they’re just lucky that way.
"-with a half dozen of the oysters of the day. For my main I'll have the eggs florentine, light on the béchamel please." Felicia closed her menu and handed it to the server as they finished scribbling in their notepad. She raised her glass, looking over expectantly at North as if he was going to order something different this time, and took a sip of her sparkling rosé.
And as expected of a man at his favourite brunch spot, North handed his untouched menu to the waitress and said: "I will have the endive salad and an eggs benedict with fries please."
"You got it," their waitress said cheerfully, putting her pad away. "Extra crispy on the bacon and the usual for dessert?"
"Yes, ple--."
North stiffened imperceptibly in his seat for several seconds, eyes glazing over as he lowered his head toward his phone on the table, hiding the milky film covering cornflower-blue irises from view.
"Actually, could we get that to go please?"
"Don't worry about the oysters, I forgot we were picnicking today," Felicia added with a friendly smile, slipping her hand under the table to gently squeeze North's knee. "And our bill when you get a chance, Nadine, thank you."
Felicia tracked their waitress' exit, her fixed smile tightening as her thumb brushed a soothing circle over his jeans. "Anything solid?" she asked, already knowing the answer to if he was okay, but saving the question for later.
"Five armed men. I'm the target," North said slowly, blinking as the vision faded and placing his hand over to give hers a reassuring squeeze. "They'll use civilians as hostages." He glanced out the windows, toward the street. "We still have about 10 minutes, but they may already be here."
"Okay. I'll give us, and the kitchen, twenty," Felicia replied, sliding her hand up his thigh with a wink to pick up her phone, the other tipping her glass back to finish her wine. "Take a Tylenol for me, babe. There's some in my purse."
Felicia slid from her leather booth seat and stood, smoothing down her mini skirt and holding her phone to her ear. "Just one minute, I'm going to get somewhere quieter," she said to the nonexistent person on the other end of the line, making her way to the front. A tall fiddleleaf that one of the staff clearly loved gave her just enough cover as she looked through the large glass entrance and down the street in either direction.
The vehicle would have been an easy spot even without her mutation thrumming, overly large even in the city with dark windows and a tense looking driver who kept looking in the rearview mirror to speak to someone, someones, in the back. A delivery cyclist brushed a little too close as they whipped past, and the dormant alarm system suddenly went off, lights flashing along with an overly loud horn. Felicia smiled as she took a photo, catching the license plate, and headed back to their table.
North was sending off a flurry of emails when she got there, an empty Tylenol blister lying next to her empty champagne glass and the paid bill. "We can go out the back in a bit," he said, almost cheerfully. "Take that shortcut to the park."
"Perfect," she replied, using the opportunity to steal a sip of his drink, the movement and her posture, one arm crossed over her chest and tapping her nails soothingly against her ribcage, the only real acknowledgement of the situation. "Aren't we lucky the weather is so nice today?"
"I'm lucky to have you here with me today," North said, putting his phone away and reaching over for her hand.
Felicia laughed, utterly charmed and rolling her eyes about it. Their food arrived at just that moment, dropping between them. “That was less luck and more very firm persistence but. Come on. We’re not out of this yet.”
-
Kyle and Terry are doing All The Wedding Planning. Current task: find a decent caterer. A van even pulls right up to them! Except those aren’t caterers, unless you count bullets…
Catering menus and cake tasting was supposed to be the -fun- part of wedding planning. The planning books (Kyle was despairing at how much of an industry this was, and yet, he wanted a -wedding-. He'd agreed to this, he'd done the dead romantic proposal, he wanted the fancy suit and the music and the cake and the live band and saying the actual words and a ring to wear. But fuck, this was so much planning.) said this was the fun part. This was supposed to be the part where he got to eat things.
It was supposed to be the fun part, and it wasn't not fun but it was also three mornings of tasting things and food costs and trying to plan menus around not just his own food restrictions but vegan and kosher and halal options and shellfish allergies and he had a -list- and yesterdays caterer had been fine but nothing he was super excited about, and so he was really hoping today would be better.
"I've got high hopes for t'carrot cake," Terry said, smiling up at Kyle. She squeezed his hand and continued, "An' after yesterday, I think we can both agree no fondant." She wiggled her fingers where she held her purse, enjoying the way her engagement ring pressed against her other fingers on the handle. Despite having refused to take it off for months now, she still wasn't quite used to it -- the newness of it.
"The marshmallow stuff smelled fine but like..." Kyle grimaced a little. "I spent at least like thirty seconds trying to get it off my claws. Aren't wedding cakes supposed to be edible by people with nails? Like, I know the groom to be coming in with an inch of nail is weird but are they not thinking about how many women have pretty nails for a wedding?" he wiggled his claws at Terry. "Reminds me, I should book a mani before, get 'em trimmed by somewhere that'll make them even. Maybe get Liam one too, and Sharon."
Terry pulled Kyle to a stop briefly and hummed herself up to give him a soft kiss. "You keep your claws just the way you want, love. We'll make the cake work, even if it means doin' a properly naked one. It's our weddin', we'll do it just as we like an' no' a bit different. Maybe we'll let people ice their own pieces... or maybe we could do a cupcake cake." She shrugged before dropping back down so her feet were on solid ground. "Though I think part o' the weddin' usually involves makin' a mess o' one another with the cake, anyway..." She tipped her head to the side. "In America, at least..."
"I think that part is optional and I would never do that to you." Kyle put his hands up a little. "Ter, I already know how much work you have to put into your hair on a lazy day. On a fancy dress fancy makeup day? I would not ruin your hair with cake." He looked lightly horrified. "Also cake smashing is over-rated unless you're super into that and if you're super into eating cake off my face, we can do that in the bedroom, without ruining your fancy hair."
"I'll remind y'you've said that," Terry said, laughing as she raised Kyle's arm just enough to tuck herself in against his side. "When y'least expect it... though it'd be off your chest... mm... or your abs. And probably hot fudge, but no' too hot, obviously..." Still half-laughing, she lifted her chin as the shop they were heading for came into view. "There we are, Magnolia M -- " The sound of squealing tires in the street and the splash of dirt-stained slush hitting others followed even as she turned herself out from under Kyle's arm so she could see what was happening behind them. "What the bleeding -- "
"The fuck?" Kyle had been halfway to "I could be into eating cake off..." and any pleasantly carnal thoughts in his head were disrupted by the sight of an armored van skidding to a stop in the alley behind them, and men - in body armor and opaque helmets rushing off the back.
Terry shouted a band of air outward, forcefully enough to slide all the innocent bystanders out of the way of the armored men. Some were knocked about a bit, but otherwise they were fine -- and not crushed by the riot shields the men wielded. Their targets were obviously, as they beelined straight for Kyle and Terry themselves, the ones still in the truck unveiling a high-tech audio cannon aimed right at them. It wouldn't have any impact on her, given her immunity to sound-based trauma because of her mutation, but Kyle was absolutely not immune. She yelled a shield up in front of him, released her hold on the barrier holding the bystanders, and barely managed to get a more substantial shield up in front of herself before bullets started flying.
Shit.
The word barely made it out past the pressure in his ears. Terry’s shield turning the rising scream of the sonic cannon into a dull, crawling numbness that felt like his hearing had fallen asleep, pins and needles where sound should be. He couldn’t tell who the target was - her, him, both? Why was not relevant. Why could be dealt with later. Uncertainty fled.
Reaction moved in. Someone was still standing too close. Kyle shoved the passerby hard enough to drop them flat on the sidewalk just as the first shots cracked through the air, and the next instant a bullet burned across his ribs in a hot, tearing graze that stole his breath.
Barely hiding a wince as bullets pinged off her shield, Terry attempted to fortify it by adding more and more soundwaves to it, thickening it until she could shove it forward, jostling several men into losing their aim while she sought to knock out the sonic weapon. While her shield hadn't affected the men much, once she released the soundwaves within it, the force of them wrecked the exterior of the weapon. It probably wasn't permanently out of commission, but it had stopped functioning for now, meaning she could release the sonic shield in front of Kyle. She took a breath, filling her lungs to form another deflective shield of pure sound in front of herself.
Kyle's clawed fingers slipped over the screen of his phone as he got back up, and his thumb smashed against the distress button hard enough to crack the case a little. Fuck, this was going to make the -news-. He lunged for Terry, to try to get both of them inside, behind walls, anywhere safer - and the bakery door slammed shut. Understandably. The graze along his rib flared hot and itchy, blood still wet on his shirt, skin already knitting. He started to pull her towards the narrow gap between buildings - get somewhere he could control the fight, reduce the number of avenues of attack, buy time.
And the second vehicle erupted into four more men, moving fast, coordinated, short ugly bursts of single gunshots before he could get Terry clear. "GO UP!"
Terry's instinctive response was, not without you, but she'd been training with the X-Men for long enough -- and reading enough past mission reports -- to suppress her instincts. She'd already been humming to keep herself floating so she'd be easier for Kyle to move, not that he needed the help, but at his directive, she flew herself straight up along the wall of the alleyway. The short bursts of bullets were already testing the limits of her shielding despite all of her practice, so when something harder and far more direct punched through her layered sonic shield, she cried out and faltered in midair, dropping even as another large caliber projectile struck the shield she was holding up by the skin of her teeth.
Kyle hit the alley at a sprint, sneakers skidding slightly as he caught the bottom rung of the fire escape with one hand. He hauled himself up two rungs at a time, intent on high ground - an exit - a vantage point - on drawing whoever these IRA, FOH, whatever-the-fuck they were away from people who didn’t need to be caught in this bullshit.
Then Terry cried out above him, sharp and piercing like a needle in his acutely sensitive ears, and the smell of blood slipped through the noise.
He didn’t truly stop climbing - he slowed. Eyes off the ladder, off the men running toward them, fixed on Terry. Was she falling? A drop or a controlled descent? Injury or just exertion? The hesitation cost him.
A crack. The acrid stink of gunfire. A hot blaze of pain, the first round through his calf, stumbling him down a rung; the second into his upper arm. His fingers spasmed loose on the metal, and he caught himself on his elbow for one brief moment of hope and fear and adrenaline until the third punched into his thigh, and gravity won.
The rapid impact of bullets into flesh seemed to echo in Terry's ears even as blood began to drip from one of her nostrils. She turned around even as she sank a foot or so in the air, catching sight of Kyle as he fell. She took a quick breath and unleashed a solid wall of sound as a scream, palms pushing outward in an effort to force it into hitting the men on the ground even harder than it normally would have. She dropped to the ground, unable to maintain flight while also attempting to send all their attackers flying backward and away from Kyle even as he stood back up on the pavement.
Inhaling again, she paused before she could scream again, hearing a vehicle skidding to a stop behind them at the other end of the alley. Terry didn't even have a chance to warn Kyle before a weapon clicked behind them and something large was flying toward them. Whatever it was, it hit her right between her shoulder blades, causing her body to arc forward as blood from her nose and mouth misted the air in front of her. Spots of it landed on the back of Kyle's shirt as she failed to catch herself before crumpling to the ground.
Shoulders on asphalt or concrete or brick - on something hard and cold beneath him. Wet heat seeped through his shirt. Gravel pressed into his cheek, scraped raw along the side of his face that had taken the fall. His nose was full of blood, the taste thick and metallic in the back of his throat—copper, iron, bile. Had he vomited?
Kyle dragged his good arm under him, mind screaming get up, get up, get up. The sting at his neck flared brighter than the bullet still lodged in his thigh, a sudden burn followed by ice flooding his veins, cold and invasive as it spread through his chest and -
-----
The blood on the asphalt was still wet, mixing with the thin trickle of spring rain and the permanent alley stench of piss and beer. Not just wet—fresh—smeared in a wide stripe leading away from where Terry lay motionless, the trail breaking apart into scattered speckles before disappearing entirely.
"Distress signal came from roundabout here," Angel said, eyes scanning the ground. "I think - aw fuck fuck fuck that's a lot of blood. Fuck. Spectrum, keep an eye out up here, make sure no one's coming toward us."
“We’ve got some civilians down at the mouth of the alley, that might distract the authorities away from you,” came Nica’s reply as she hovered, invisible, in the air above. She scanned the street, taking in the people picking themselves up off the group slowly, the closed door of the bakery… but no crowd of onlookers or the ubiquitous streamers with their cell phones raised, getting in the way. “That’s weird,” she murmured to herself. Whatever had kept them away was failing, however, as people began to stop in twos and threes, staring and curious, while the sounds of sirens drew closer. “We don’t have a lot of time. Can we move Terry out of here?”
"Don't move her. She might have suffered head or back trauma when she was hit." Kane said, looking back towards the alley before hitting his comms. "Someone track down Clarice ASAP and tell her to port in to our coordinates. She's going to need to port Terry directly to the medlab. Ask Jean to have a backboard sit up to transfer her to immediately." Kane said quickly, looking at the people starting to move and worse, the phones starting to appear.
"Nica, do something with those phones. We need to buy about three-four minutes."
"Got it, Dominion. Keep back or I'll fry your comm." Nica closed her eyes, pulling in the various EM wavelengths she could sense around. She'd been working on this with Cyclops - mostly as a way of testing the Blackbird's EM shielding - and the area she needed to hit was within her existing range, but she still needed to focus. Drawing in a deep breath (which she didn't actually need), she pushed the combined energy fields outwards.
There was an almost instantaneous response - the lights of the two stores either side of the alley winked out, followed by various voices raised in alarm as cell phones cut out and people found themselves with black screens. Nice dipped lower in the air, still invisible but struggling to hold it as she waited to recharge. "Firestar, we're clear," she said into her comm, her voice strained.
Angel was only half paying attention, guarding Terry as she looked up and down the street, noting the obvious absence. "Kyle isn't here," she reported quietly.
"I know." Garrison said quietly. "We focus on who we can save first. The rest..." He paused, not noticing his fist clenched. "The rest we figure out."
The restrooms at Frost Enterprises, like everything else in the offices, were full of capital-A Aesthetic. Impeccable white walls and paneling, gleaming sterling silver fixtures, tasteful crystal and muted lighting all combined to convey the highest of class and luxury without being gauche or overstated. This was absolutely not a place you would find industrial single-ply toilet paper dispensed from cheap metal rollers. Everyone poops, as the book title says, but in a Frost Enterprises restroom that was no reason to be uncomfortable.
They were also one of the only places in the building without external windows, which made them, unfortunately, the best place to try and get a migraine under control. 14 had to take Celeste away from the others, because somehow (worryingly), proximity made it radiate to her 'sisters'. Which explained why she was currently four floors and half the building away, the only sign of her discomfort the slightly too fast rhythmic clicking of her heels on the floor.
Door opened. Lights clicked off. The sound of a latch softly echoing through the room.
She does not check to make sure it's empty; If there was anyone here, she would have been reading their mind from before she stepped off the elevator. As undignified as hiding in a bathroom was, it was somehow still better than a supply closet.
The bathroom was indeed empty.
And then it was not.
In the time between blinks, between breaths, between heartbeats, the entire room went dark. Then it lit back up, revealing the walls of mirrors that seemed to extend far beyond the boundaries of the bathroom. They were all reflecting Celeste, no matter what direction she turned in.
This... was not good. This was definitely some sort of mental assault. She could not feel the rest of herselves, like the connection had fallen asleep and gone numb. And even with all that, with an icepick digging in behind her eyes and the rest of her mouths presumably full of cotton, she just could not help herselves.
"Ugh," she scoffed. "Dull." She blamed... well, not herself, obviously. But maybe she blamed this damned headache.
It really was an uninspired attack.
"Ugh," her reflections echo back. "Dull."
Her voice, a million times over, echoing around and around and around.
There was almost something... normal, about the way 14 found herself reflected in her own vision a dozen times. It dipped into the uncanny valley, though, unable to see the depth that came from 5 simultaneous points of view.
She clicked her tongue. Right. That was definitely enough of this. Someone had apparently decided that they wanted to die today, and who was she to disappoint? First things first, a little mental flex and--
The illusion (for it was very obviously that) promptly failed to shatter into a million shards as she commanded, and 14 realized that she might, might, actually be in trouble here.
One of the mirrors behind her turned as her reflection turned to look at her, a light smirk pulling on her lips.
"Ugh," the reflections repeat again. "Dull."
Scratch what she had thought earlier about someone wanting to die. Someone out there wanted to die painfully, and 14 was more and more willing to take them up on their request. Fine, if a little flex had been insufficient, she was more than capable of escalating.
This time, the mirrors cracked right down the center before exploding in a shower of mental glass, leaving her back in the bathroom. That was one annoyance dealt with. Unfortunately, the others had been clear after the last time something like this had happened, so she didn't exactly have an excuse to not pull out her phone and press the panic button built into the side. She slipped it back into her purse as she walked towards the elevators.
She failed to notice the tightness in her shoulders until she was reaching down to press the button for the top floor penthouse.
The mirror ceiling over Fourteen's head flickers, and for a moment her own reflection is moving again.
The moment the elevator reached the top floor, Celeste was out and moving. If nothing else, everyone else needed to be aware that there was someone around psychically strong enough to temporarily trap her in an illusion. She shoved her way through the double doors into the penthouse suite. The door for the meeting room was just ahead. Her heels clicked on the
Wait. Her hand came to rest on the door handle.
That was not the sound of tile. That was less sharp, more like concre--
The last few minutes flashed through her mind again. There was no panic button built into the side of her phone, just the power switch. She didn't bring a purse with her either, which meant her phone was probably lying in a hallway somewhere deep in the building. And she certainly wasn't tall enough to need to reach down for the top floor buttons in the elevator. And most damningly, she still could not feel her other selves.
Oh. She had been overconfident. She had been stupid. She was not on the top floor, but rather outside, which meant that this handle was not to the penthouse, but rather...
The voice that had taunted her in the bathroom spoke again.
I always forget about sounds.
The door, which was supposed to swing inwards, instead slid off to the side like the side door of a van. 14 had just long enough to realize I'm still in the illusion before she felt the needle in her neck and the hands on her arms.
Fuck.
-
Felicia and North enjoy a brunch at a favorite spot, except they get interrupted by a precognitive spike. And then a number of things go just their way, almost like they’re just lucky that way.
"-with a half dozen of the oysters of the day. For my main I'll have the eggs florentine, light on the béchamel please." Felicia closed her menu and handed it to the server as they finished scribbling in their notepad. She raised her glass, looking over expectantly at North as if he was going to order something different this time, and took a sip of her sparkling rosé.
And as expected of a man at his favourite brunch spot, North handed his untouched menu to the waitress and said: "I will have the endive salad and an eggs benedict with fries please."
"You got it," their waitress said cheerfully, putting her pad away. "Extra crispy on the bacon and the usual for dessert?"
"Yes, ple--."
North stiffened imperceptibly in his seat for several seconds, eyes glazing over as he lowered his head toward his phone on the table, hiding the milky film covering cornflower-blue irises from view.
"Actually, could we get that to go please?"
"Don't worry about the oysters, I forgot we were picnicking today," Felicia added with a friendly smile, slipping her hand under the table to gently squeeze North's knee. "And our bill when you get a chance, Nadine, thank you."
Felicia tracked their waitress' exit, her fixed smile tightening as her thumb brushed a soothing circle over his jeans. "Anything solid?" she asked, already knowing the answer to if he was okay, but saving the question for later.
"Five armed men. I'm the target," North said slowly, blinking as the vision faded and placing his hand over to give hers a reassuring squeeze. "They'll use civilians as hostages." He glanced out the windows, toward the street. "We still have about 10 minutes, but they may already be here."
"Okay. I'll give us, and the kitchen, twenty," Felicia replied, sliding her hand up his thigh with a wink to pick up her phone, the other tipping her glass back to finish her wine. "Take a Tylenol for me, babe. There's some in my purse."
Felicia slid from her leather booth seat and stood, smoothing down her mini skirt and holding her phone to her ear. "Just one minute, I'm going to get somewhere quieter," she said to the nonexistent person on the other end of the line, making her way to the front. A tall fiddleleaf that one of the staff clearly loved gave her just enough cover as she looked through the large glass entrance and down the street in either direction.
The vehicle would have been an easy spot even without her mutation thrumming, overly large even in the city with dark windows and a tense looking driver who kept looking in the rearview mirror to speak to someone, someones, in the back. A delivery cyclist brushed a little too close as they whipped past, and the dormant alarm system suddenly went off, lights flashing along with an overly loud horn. Felicia smiled as she took a photo, catching the license plate, and headed back to their table.
North was sending off a flurry of emails when she got there, an empty Tylenol blister lying next to her empty champagne glass and the paid bill. "We can go out the back in a bit," he said, almost cheerfully. "Take that shortcut to the park."
"Perfect," she replied, using the opportunity to steal a sip of his drink, the movement and her posture, one arm crossed over her chest and tapping her nails soothingly against her ribcage, the only real acknowledgement of the situation. "Aren't we lucky the weather is so nice today?"
"I'm lucky to have you here with me today," North said, putting his phone away and reaching over for her hand.
Felicia laughed, utterly charmed and rolling her eyes about it. Their food arrived at just that moment, dropping between them. “That was less luck and more very firm persistence but. Come on. We’re not out of this yet.”
-
Kyle and Terry are doing All The Wedding Planning. Current task: find a decent caterer. A van even pulls right up to them! Except those aren’t caterers, unless you count bullets…
Catering menus and cake tasting was supposed to be the -fun- part of wedding planning. The planning books (Kyle was despairing at how much of an industry this was, and yet, he wanted a -wedding-. He'd agreed to this, he'd done the dead romantic proposal, he wanted the fancy suit and the music and the cake and the live band and saying the actual words and a ring to wear. But fuck, this was so much planning.) said this was the fun part. This was supposed to be the part where he got to eat things.
It was supposed to be the fun part, and it wasn't not fun but it was also three mornings of tasting things and food costs and trying to plan menus around not just his own food restrictions but vegan and kosher and halal options and shellfish allergies and he had a -list- and yesterdays caterer had been fine but nothing he was super excited about, and so he was really hoping today would be better.
"I've got high hopes for t'carrot cake," Terry said, smiling up at Kyle. She squeezed his hand and continued, "An' after yesterday, I think we can both agree no fondant." She wiggled her fingers where she held her purse, enjoying the way her engagement ring pressed against her other fingers on the handle. Despite having refused to take it off for months now, she still wasn't quite used to it -- the newness of it.
"The marshmallow stuff smelled fine but like..." Kyle grimaced a little. "I spent at least like thirty seconds trying to get it off my claws. Aren't wedding cakes supposed to be edible by people with nails? Like, I know the groom to be coming in with an inch of nail is weird but are they not thinking about how many women have pretty nails for a wedding?" he wiggled his claws at Terry. "Reminds me, I should book a mani before, get 'em trimmed by somewhere that'll make them even. Maybe get Liam one too, and Sharon."
Terry pulled Kyle to a stop briefly and hummed herself up to give him a soft kiss. "You keep your claws just the way you want, love. We'll make the cake work, even if it means doin' a properly naked one. It's our weddin', we'll do it just as we like an' no' a bit different. Maybe we'll let people ice their own pieces... or maybe we could do a cupcake cake." She shrugged before dropping back down so her feet were on solid ground. "Though I think part o' the weddin' usually involves makin' a mess o' one another with the cake, anyway..." She tipped her head to the side. "In America, at least..."
"I think that part is optional and I would never do that to you." Kyle put his hands up a little. "Ter, I already know how much work you have to put into your hair on a lazy day. On a fancy dress fancy makeup day? I would not ruin your hair with cake." He looked lightly horrified. "Also cake smashing is over-rated unless you're super into that and if you're super into eating cake off my face, we can do that in the bedroom, without ruining your fancy hair."
"I'll remind y'you've said that," Terry said, laughing as she raised Kyle's arm just enough to tuck herself in against his side. "When y'least expect it... though it'd be off your chest... mm... or your abs. And probably hot fudge, but no' too hot, obviously..." Still half-laughing, she lifted her chin as the shop they were heading for came into view. "There we are, Magnolia M -- " The sound of squealing tires in the street and the splash of dirt-stained slush hitting others followed even as she turned herself out from under Kyle's arm so she could see what was happening behind them. "What the bleeding -- "
"The fuck?" Kyle had been halfway to "I could be into eating cake off..." and any pleasantly carnal thoughts in his head were disrupted by the sight of an armored van skidding to a stop in the alley behind them, and men - in body armor and opaque helmets rushing off the back.
Terry shouted a band of air outward, forcefully enough to slide all the innocent bystanders out of the way of the armored men. Some were knocked about a bit, but otherwise they were fine -- and not crushed by the riot shields the men wielded. Their targets were obviously, as they beelined straight for Kyle and Terry themselves, the ones still in the truck unveiling a high-tech audio cannon aimed right at them. It wouldn't have any impact on her, given her immunity to sound-based trauma because of her mutation, but Kyle was absolutely not immune. She yelled a shield up in front of him, released her hold on the barrier holding the bystanders, and barely managed to get a more substantial shield up in front of herself before bullets started flying.
Shit.
The word barely made it out past the pressure in his ears. Terry’s shield turning the rising scream of the sonic cannon into a dull, crawling numbness that felt like his hearing had fallen asleep, pins and needles where sound should be. He couldn’t tell who the target was - her, him, both? Why was not relevant. Why could be dealt with later. Uncertainty fled.
Reaction moved in. Someone was still standing too close. Kyle shoved the passerby hard enough to drop them flat on the sidewalk just as the first shots cracked through the air, and the next instant a bullet burned across his ribs in a hot, tearing graze that stole his breath.
Barely hiding a wince as bullets pinged off her shield, Terry attempted to fortify it by adding more and more soundwaves to it, thickening it until she could shove it forward, jostling several men into losing their aim while she sought to knock out the sonic weapon. While her shield hadn't affected the men much, once she released the soundwaves within it, the force of them wrecked the exterior of the weapon. It probably wasn't permanently out of commission, but it had stopped functioning for now, meaning she could release the sonic shield in front of Kyle. She took a breath, filling her lungs to form another deflective shield of pure sound in front of herself.
Kyle's clawed fingers slipped over the screen of his phone as he got back up, and his thumb smashed against the distress button hard enough to crack the case a little. Fuck, this was going to make the -news-. He lunged for Terry, to try to get both of them inside, behind walls, anywhere safer - and the bakery door slammed shut. Understandably. The graze along his rib flared hot and itchy, blood still wet on his shirt, skin already knitting. He started to pull her towards the narrow gap between buildings - get somewhere he could control the fight, reduce the number of avenues of attack, buy time.
And the second vehicle erupted into four more men, moving fast, coordinated, short ugly bursts of single gunshots before he could get Terry clear. "GO UP!"
Terry's instinctive response was, not without you, but she'd been training with the X-Men for long enough -- and reading enough past mission reports -- to suppress her instincts. She'd already been humming to keep herself floating so she'd be easier for Kyle to move, not that he needed the help, but at his directive, she flew herself straight up along the wall of the alleyway. The short bursts of bullets were already testing the limits of her shielding despite all of her practice, so when something harder and far more direct punched through her layered sonic shield, she cried out and faltered in midair, dropping even as another large caliber projectile struck the shield she was holding up by the skin of her teeth.
Kyle hit the alley at a sprint, sneakers skidding slightly as he caught the bottom rung of the fire escape with one hand. He hauled himself up two rungs at a time, intent on high ground - an exit - a vantage point - on drawing whoever these IRA, FOH, whatever-the-fuck they were away from people who didn’t need to be caught in this bullshit.
Then Terry cried out above him, sharp and piercing like a needle in his acutely sensitive ears, and the smell of blood slipped through the noise.
He didn’t truly stop climbing - he slowed. Eyes off the ladder, off the men running toward them, fixed on Terry. Was she falling? A drop or a controlled descent? Injury or just exertion? The hesitation cost him.
A crack. The acrid stink of gunfire. A hot blaze of pain, the first round through his calf, stumbling him down a rung; the second into his upper arm. His fingers spasmed loose on the metal, and he caught himself on his elbow for one brief moment of hope and fear and adrenaline until the third punched into his thigh, and gravity won.
The rapid impact of bullets into flesh seemed to echo in Terry's ears even as blood began to drip from one of her nostrils. She turned around even as she sank a foot or so in the air, catching sight of Kyle as he fell. She took a quick breath and unleashed a solid wall of sound as a scream, palms pushing outward in an effort to force it into hitting the men on the ground even harder than it normally would have. She dropped to the ground, unable to maintain flight while also attempting to send all their attackers flying backward and away from Kyle even as he stood back up on the pavement.
Inhaling again, she paused before she could scream again, hearing a vehicle skidding to a stop behind them at the other end of the alley. Terry didn't even have a chance to warn Kyle before a weapon clicked behind them and something large was flying toward them. Whatever it was, it hit her right between her shoulder blades, causing her body to arc forward as blood from her nose and mouth misted the air in front of her. Spots of it landed on the back of Kyle's shirt as she failed to catch herself before crumpling to the ground.
Shoulders on asphalt or concrete or brick - on something hard and cold beneath him. Wet heat seeped through his shirt. Gravel pressed into his cheek, scraped raw along the side of his face that had taken the fall. His nose was full of blood, the taste thick and metallic in the back of his throat—copper, iron, bile. Had he vomited?
Kyle dragged his good arm under him, mind screaming get up, get up, get up. The sting at his neck flared brighter than the bullet still lodged in his thigh, a sudden burn followed by ice flooding his veins, cold and invasive as it spread through his chest and -
-----
The blood on the asphalt was still wet, mixing with the thin trickle of spring rain and the permanent alley stench of piss and beer. Not just wet—fresh—smeared in a wide stripe leading away from where Terry lay motionless, the trail breaking apart into scattered speckles before disappearing entirely.
"Distress signal came from roundabout here," Angel said, eyes scanning the ground. "I think - aw fuck fuck fuck that's a lot of blood. Fuck. Spectrum, keep an eye out up here, make sure no one's coming toward us."
“We’ve got some civilians down at the mouth of the alley, that might distract the authorities away from you,” came Nica’s reply as she hovered, invisible, in the air above. She scanned the street, taking in the people picking themselves up off the group slowly, the closed door of the bakery… but no crowd of onlookers or the ubiquitous streamers with their cell phones raised, getting in the way. “That’s weird,” she murmured to herself. Whatever had kept them away was failing, however, as people began to stop in twos and threes, staring and curious, while the sounds of sirens drew closer. “We don’t have a lot of time. Can we move Terry out of here?”
"Don't move her. She might have suffered head or back trauma when she was hit." Kane said, looking back towards the alley before hitting his comms. "Someone track down Clarice ASAP and tell her to port in to our coordinates. She's going to need to port Terry directly to the medlab. Ask Jean to have a backboard sit up to transfer her to immediately." Kane said quickly, looking at the people starting to move and worse, the phones starting to appear.
"Nica, do something with those phones. We need to buy about three-four minutes."
"Got it, Dominion. Keep back or I'll fry your comm." Nica closed her eyes, pulling in the various EM wavelengths she could sense around. She'd been working on this with Cyclops - mostly as a way of testing the Blackbird's EM shielding - and the area she needed to hit was within her existing range, but she still needed to focus. Drawing in a deep breath (which she didn't actually need), she pushed the combined energy fields outwards.
There was an almost instantaneous response - the lights of the two stores either side of the alley winked out, followed by various voices raised in alarm as cell phones cut out and people found themselves with black screens. Nice dipped lower in the air, still invisible but struggling to hold it as she waited to recharge. "Firestar, we're clear," she said into her comm, her voice strained.
Angel was only half paying attention, guarding Terry as she looked up and down the street, noting the obvious absence. "Kyle isn't here," she reported quietly.
"I know." Garrison said quietly. "We focus on who we can save first. The rest..." He paused, not noticing his fist clenched. "The rest we figure out."
