[Marius, Meggan, Namor, Hope S] Relapse

[xp_emplate]

The mission against Weapon X was a success. The consequences, however, are still unfolding.

Warning: Violence, gore.



Marius was lost.

He had no recollection of how he had come to be outside. The mission, there had been that. Coming home. Food. Sleep. Had there been a shower? Had he intended there to be a shower?

His face was warm. The sun. But he was cold.

sweating

Half-formed thoughts bobbed to the surface only to slip away before he could grasp them. Every step was like trying to walk through water. Why was he walking?

looking for

I was looking

what am I looking for

Darkness ringed his field of vision, narrowing the world. Marius paused against a tree, panting, his sweat-soaked hair a curtain before him. His bare hand curled against the bark.

or was it

getting away . . ?

The thought slipped.

Marius pushed himself from the tree. Birds shrilled.

When Meggan left the Chapel, she had determined that it would just be for a few minutes. She really just wanted a breath of fresh air, while things were a little quiet for a few minutes. She had even left a little note if someone wandered through and couldn’t find her.

Just as she was about to turn around, she heard the sound of frightened birds screeching and studied the area. She took a single step forward on the stone path, and just managed to catch the general location they were so desperate to escape. Meggan soon heard the sound of twigs breaking, and more leaves rustling.

The figure that stumbled into view was instantly recognizable as Marius, and also instantly recognizable as ill. His olive skin was pale, almost grey, with a slick of sweat that made his face look waxen. For a man so meticulously styled his appearance in nothing but a rumpled tank top and sweatpants was almost shocking. His amber eyes roved, unfocussed, until he noticed Meggan.

Marius went very still.

Meggan was about to greet him, before she got a better look and paused. She quickly took stock of the situation; she was as deeply concerned as she was wary. While he didn’t appear to be grievously hurt, he definitely looked miles away from being even charitably described as okay; she wasn’t going to ask if he was, when he so evidently wasn’t.

She wanted to at least see if he could focus on her. She needed to understand the true extent of any issues, before she did anything else. She had a niggling idea, but wanted confirmation before she gave a shout. While she took a step closer to the door, she didn't look away from where he was positioned. “Marius? Can you focus on me at all, or say something right now?”

Marius' fingers twitched. His gaze lifted to the smaller woman's face; set against his slack expression were a pair of eyes that glittered with a feverish intensity.

He took a step towards her, then another, his movements growing more purposeful with each stride. The twitching in his hands became a spasm.

“Right, you really, really can’t do that just now,” Meggan murmured as she sought to cautiously move out of range of his reach. She remembered a few things Kurt had once said about how Marius was when he was needing to feed, but this seemed a bit enhanced in scope.

If she just flew away from him, then that would leave someone else to bump into him without realizing why he was acting out of sorts. It wouldn’t be good for anyone. She needed help to get him somewhere safer, without being taken out in the process. While still facing him, she felt behind her; she was close enough to feel the door.

She heard a noise just inside, and hoped someone really was close. She gave the door three swift kicks with her right heel, followed by three knocks with her hand, in case someone thought the first set were a normal thing like the wind. All the while, she kept an eye on Marius’ approach, and darted in a diagonal motion, and hopefully just far enough out of range again.

Meggan found herself musing that the team really needed to strap a weapon to the underside of a decorative outdoor bench one of these days. Something like a staff, just in case someone unexpectedly needed to be gently whacked over the head to prevent an incident. 
The sudden movement seemed to activate something in the X-Man. He lunged forward, and as he did there was a wet, organic sound.

Blood-slicked bone claws slashed the space where Meggan had been seconds before, tearing gouges in the chapel door. It was impossible to tell whether the attack was meant to pin or maim her. Marius spun, reorienting himself towards the blonde, and now there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. His muscles bunched like a panther preparing to strike –

— and Marius was simply gone.

The sound came a heartbeat later.

A meaty BOOM that rattled the chapel doors against their hinges. Meggan’s hair whipped across her face from the displaced air alone. Somewhere in the nearby woods came the escalating crash of a body plowing through timber in rapid succession.

Namor hovered a foot above the ground where Marius had loomed a fraction of a second earlier, one arm still extended from the strike.

"Oh," he said, looking toward the forest as though mildly inconvenienced. "Heavier than expected."

His attention returned to Meggan immediately.

"Marius normally confines his violence to conversational attrition," Namor observed. His eyes narrowed. "Report."

Meggan had briefly winced as the crashing sounds started. Now, she turned to Namor. “First off? Thank you very much, and very good punching.” She gestured to the general location of where Marius had been. “He came out of there acting dazed, and he didn’t respond verbally in any way. Before the bone claws came out, I realized that he was in a very bad way.”

She paused. “I think he might need to feed. He might be a little bit calmer if he does.” She really hoped so, at any rate. Marius was dangerous just now, from what she’d experienced before Namor’s timely intervention.

Namor remained suspended in the air after the strike, his gaze fixed upon the treeline where Marius had disappeared through splintered branches and crushed undergrowth. After a moment, he descended just enough to place himself between Meggan and the disturbance without obstructing her sightline.

"Enough," he said, his voice carrying cleanly through the clearing. "Marius, you are unwell."

His eyes tracked the undergrowth for movement, sharp and unblinking.

"Meggan," he pivoted, tone almost clinical in its precision, "instead tell me what is required. Restraint. Incapacitation. Exhaustion." A pause as if to measure the variables. “If you must fetch an amuse-bouche, I will ensure he does not leave here.”

His gaze flicked back toward the trees.

Marius lurched back into view.

The X-Man's body had been torn by its violent passage through the forest. Skin hung from him in bloodless strips to expose not muscle, but rough stone shot with veins of silver. His eyes fell upon Namor, but seemed to skitter off the Atlantean like a rock across a frozen lake to focus back on Meggan. It was as if his whole world had narrowed to that single, slight woman.

Marius rushed her again, all hint of exhaustion burned away in the face of desperate need.

Namor met him in motion.

He didn’t simply intercept the charge — he stole it, one arm locking around Marius mid-stride as momentum carried them both upward and sideways in a sharp, controlled lift. Namor adjusted once, tightening his grip with clinical ease, then brought the ascent to a clean stop.

Marius dangled in open air from his hold. Namor remained steady, implacable, as if gravity had agreed to defer to him without discussion.

The captured mutant's feet wheeled for a purchase they would not find. With a snarl Marius twisted, what remained of his original skin pulling free of the stony substance beneath like the skin of a hardboiled egg. His eyes flashed grey.

The veins of metal within Marius' stone form erupted into blades. Suddenly the Atlantean found himself locked against still-swelling ridges of adamantium that tore into flesh like coils of razor wire. Once again his captive thrashed. Blood spurted.

Namor did not let go. He doubled down.

Marius’ blades carved bright, wet lines through him. Namor folded inward instead, crushing the mutant tighter against his frame. Dense. Immovable. A body built for abyssal pressure, for the slow, indifferent crush of the deep sea. Still, the new, added weight and sudden violence drove them both sideways.

They hit the chapel hard. Namor was porcupined with adamantium, blades skewering him in bright, obscene angles. Dust burst inward. Tile cracked. He rolled through it with Marius still pinned in the same locked embrace, one forearm across his throat, the other trapping a bladed wrist before it could swing.

A second blade punctured fully through Namor’s side. His breath hitched, sharp, controlled.

His breath caught sharp between his teeth.

"Meggan," Namor growled, voice strained, "if there is a faster solution than dismantling him joint by joint . . . now would be the moment to employ it."

“Restraint!" Meggan called back in reply to his earlier question. "Only for long enough, so that we can lock him up tight in a solid room for a little while,” she urged. Before he wriggled out of his skin yet again, or used another power that he hadn't already.

Marius’ fixation on inflicting grievous harm on her was just plain eerie at this point. She thought fast, even as she was increasingly concerned about Namor's injury. The basement wouldn’t be suitable with the computers and portal in there, but she had an idea. “The closest of the labs!” The walls could, hopefully, handle it. It might be good enough for now!

At that instant Marius twisted. Fresh streams of blood poured from Namor's skin as the blades bit deep, then abruptly retracted back into Marius' body. The Atlantean lost purchase on the smooth, blood-slicked stone of his captive's body, and Marius fell to the earth with the force of a boulder.

When he straightened from his crouch, his burning orange eyes were still fixed on Meggan.

The only warning anyone had of what happened next was the odd sound of displaced air. Then, as he began to rise, something hit Marius with incredible velocity; it would later be found to be a decorative memorial bench, made of stone, that was normally found at a scenic spot in the woods. It now made a makeshift cage against the wall of the chapel.

"Hey, uh, that didn't really look like training and that guy is maybe evil again, so . . . " was what Hope Summers said, dressed for a run but barely out of breath, as she jogged into earshot.

A blood-gouted cough tore from the King of Atlantis, sharp enough to stain his reply.

“It is only a flesh wound,” Namor said. “Continue.”

If Hope happened to swallow as Namor began speaking, she at least had gathered herself by the time he finished. "Ummm," she said, "Normally I'd say we should bring him in, but I kinda don't want to get any closer until he stops being Wolverine or whatever. I guess I could just float him? I have, uh . . . " She pulled out her phone for a moment, fingers moving as she counted. "Seventeen minutes of powers left today. Is that enough, or?"

“I think it'd be safest to float him,” Meggan quickly confirmed. “We need to stash him in a lab for right now, shouldn’t take so many minutes as that. Head for the second one on the left.” There might be fewer breakables, and more restraints. She glanced at Namor. She really wanted him to be patched up soon, because that looked terrible. "And then the infirmary?"

"And then the infirmary!" Hope yelped, belatedly realizing that she had left the Terror of the Seas bleeding on the ground. With no visible effort on the girl's behalf, the bench moved, allowing the garden hose Hope had spotted next to a nearby planter to loop itself around. Eventually, the bench moved away entirely, setting down a few yards out of the way and leaving Marius apparently dangling from a sprinkler. If all of this was rather more concentration than one might expect of a teenager in a matching workout set, the teenager herself seemed entirely unfazed.

Except. Hope wrinkled her nose. "Can you breathe?" she called dubiously.

Hope's only response was a feeble thrash. There was a dull glow of grey as Marius tried to engage Gaia's powers once more, but his reserves were already depleted, and he had nothing left. He strained for a few moments more, like a dying fish gasping its last, and finally fell still.

Meggan was relieved when he didn't break free. She had also already resolved that she wanted to help him if she could. If it helped to get Marius back to his senses, and away from being in such an awfully dangerous state, then she would do whatever she could, even going so far as giving a donation if that was absolutely imperative just now. She suspected it might be, given all of this.

"We can take turns shoving each other into the lake when this is all sorted out later," Meggan only half jokingly suggested to Namor.