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xp_logsNathan arrives to trade himself for Moira. He neglects to mention to the Mistra team that he didn't, in the end, come alone.
Moira shivered slightly--it was either the warehouse getting colder or the fear spreading through her, she couldn't tell. Experimentally, she tugged on the ropes that bound her again and sighed. There was no way she'd be able to get out of them, not without help or a sharp instrument. And no one watching her would give her either.
She glanced around, frowning. They were watching her but only in a half-hearted sort of way. They knew she wasn't going anywhere, so they were spread out, ignoring her. Her head dropped slightly and she forced herself to take a shakey breath. 'Now wha'?' she thought, suddenly very much afraid. If not for her safety, than for Nathan's. 'I know he's goin' ta come--but God, I wish 'e wasnae.'
Morgan glanced at her, then at his watch. Forty-five minutes, he thought. Surely Nathan would be here on time. He hoped he would. Despite the orders burned into his mind, the knowledge that he had no choice in the matter, the idea of walking over to the woman tied to that chair and killing her, even quickly and as painlessly as possible, was enough to turn his stomach.
Her mouth felt dry, she thought distantly, drooping a bit in the chair. Her thoughts were torn between not wanting Nathan to come and wanting to be rescued by him. Feeling selfish, Moira pushed the latter thoughts to the side and bit her lip, feeling guilty. It was _normal_ but she knew that this was not a normal situation. With some effort, she raised her head and stared at the one called Morgan and just watched.
Simon, sitting on his crate, stood up abruptly. "He's here," he said to Morgan and then walked away, vanishing back into the shadows.
Morgan nodded, looking around at the other operatives arrayed throughout the warehouse. "Everyone on their toes," he ordered, all of his qualms and nervousness vanishing as he kicked down to Zen level. One thing at a time. They could make this work, still. Do it right. "Objective's not achieved yet."
Moira straightened like a shot, ignoring the screaming pain in her head from hitting the floor earlier. "God, nay," she whispered, fighting back tears. "Damn it, Nathan--please--"
The sliding doors at the front of the warehouse opened, and Nathan stood there for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness inside. His gaze moved over the Mistra operatives, then settled on Moira. Despite the need to keep himself under control, to stall while the X-Men got into position, he felt a sudden surge of rage at the sight of the bruises and blood on her face.
"Who did that to her?" he asked sharply, focusing on Morgan as he stepped into the warehouse.
"Does it matter?" his former student asked calmly, although the tightness around his eyes suggested to Nathan that it had mattered to Morgan.
Straining against the ropes, she stared at him, trying to just will him to turn back around and go before they got their claws into him. But she knew he would never leave her, not like this or in any other situation. Moira couldn't help a surge of aggravation and frustration at the link being blocked--the need to touch him, even mentally, was overwhelming.
"Of course it matters." Nathan advanced slowly into the warehouse, wishing he had taken Betsy up on her offer of a temporary link. He hadn't wanted to chance the possibility that there was another telepath here who might detect it. But it would have been reassuring to know what the team was doing. Reassuring to know that they were there on more than just the intellectual level. "Since when do we abuse hostages?"
"We?" one of the other operatives asked calmly.
Nathan glanced at him. "Well, I'm here, aren't I, Mick?" he asked almost tiredly. Tired, resigned, he told himself. That was how he needed to come across. As if he'd surrendered to the inevitable.
Finally, Moira couldn't stand it. The waiting, the guilt. "Nay! Nathan, go!" she snapped, turning her head to glare back at Case, unable to stop a flicker of savage satisfaction at how badly his arm looked. Everything else Morgan had done to him, but the damage to the arm should have made her feel bad--but it didn't.
Nathan ignored her, despite the stab of pain at her obvious willingness to be left to her fate if only he got away. The link was definitely blocked; a psi-dampener in the room somewhere? He couldn't be sure. "So how do we do this?" he asked Morgan as coolly as he could.
Morgan glanced significantly at Adams, who went and got the medkit he'd used to tend to Case earlier. "I was thinking knocking you out for safe transport would probably the best idea all around," he said without heat, looking back at Nathan.
"No objections to that," Nathan lied, his expression still neutral. "But how do I know you're going to let Moira go?"
Moira sat back in her chair, blinking back the tears she'd been trying to hold in for hours. None of them were going to listen to her at this point, so all she could do was watch and absorb as much information about everything as she could. She found herself staring, watching Nathan, trying to see how this would play out.
"I don't suppose you'd settle for my word?" Morgan asked.
Nathan's eyes narrowed. "Your word's not yours to give," he snapped, willing Haroun to just get his ass in here already. He started to drift to the left, farther away from Moira's chair, and watched as the other operatives started to rearrange themselves in response. Pulling away from Moira as well.
No person in their right mind would call Moira a stupid woman and she tensed, watching as everyone spread out, following Nathan's movements. She calmed her breathing again, suddenly grateful for memorizing all those exercises for her patients, and waited, eyes still glued on one person only.
"Look, Nathan," Foley said, his jaw clenching. "No one wants to see what happened seven years ago happen again." Case snorted, raising an eyebrow, and the older operative gave him a chilling look. "None of us in our right minds." He looked back at Nathan. "I will walk her out of here and leave her somewhere safe. You can scan me to make sure I'm telling the truth if you want."
"Or I'll do it," Morgan said immediately.
There was a vague feeling in her stomach that they probably shouldn't have mentioned Aliya, not now, not even how they phrased it.
"I always wondered why the two of you weren't on that team," Nathan said quietly. Too quietly. His eyes moved back and forth between Morgan and Foley. Both of an age, both people he had genuinely liked. Friends. "Or you, Lense," he said, eyeing the gravity manipulator in the corner. Not quite a friend, but far from an enemy. "Don't tell me the directors decided to have a heart."
"Ours is not to reason why," Lense said softly.
"Ours is but to do and die," Nathan said with a flash of bitter humor. "Yeah, I remember."
"Stop it," Morgan said, with a sort of calm resolve that wasn't echoed by the almost desperate look in his eyes. "You're coming home, Nathan. We'll make sure she gets away safely. It'll be all right."
Moira opened her mouth to speak again but shut it when she caught the quick glance from Nathan. So she settled for trying to force the ropes again. With everyone distracted, she might have a better chance at loosening them to the point where she might be able to slip out of them. In the end, it was simply something for her to preoccupy herself with and to take away her focus from the standoff in front of her.
Nathan glanced back at the open doors, then turned back to Morgan. "I don't think it will be," he said, his throat tightening as he spoke. "I really don't."
And with a roar, Haroun came through the open doors, blazing through the air towards Moira. He made a hairpin turn, reaching out to grab her chair as he did, and lifted it right off the ground as he swung around to blast back through the doors. In and out with blinding speed. One of the Mistra operatives, a youngster Nathan didn't recognize, started to pursue, turning into a blur. But thought beat superspeed, again, and Nathan flung up a shield over the doors. Just for a moment, just for long enough to bounce the kid right back off it.
Then he heard Betsy in his mind. Telling him that Haroun was clear of the warehouse. "I neglected to mention that I didn't come alone," Nathan said as steadily as he could, looking back at Morgan. In his mind, he was imagining Haroun carrying Moira into the jet, where she would be safe. Safe. No matter what happened...
"You brought the X-Men," Morgan responded, his face pale, but his expression set.
"Tim," Nathan said, deliberately using Morgan's first name. "I am an X-Man." And he lashed out at Morgan with every bit of telekinesis he had, sending him flying through the air and back into a pile of crates. He launched himself through the air after him, focusing solely on the other telekinetic. The other operatives soon had more than enough to occupy them, as the rest of the team moved in.
---
More than he'd thought. Should have brought everyone, Cyclops told himself, hitting one of the Mistra operatives with a full-strength optic blast and turning for another target. The only blessing was that this wasn't as enclosed as the tunnels had been, but he wasn't sure that worked in their favor. /Don't get pinned down!/ he subvocalized urgently.
He blasted at another operative, a young man who shifted away into a blur, but even as he expected the operative to come back at him, it didn't happen. Scott's head whipped from side to side as he got a quick look at the situation, taking in all the details at once. Except he didn't see everyone - where were Northstar and Phase?
There was a resounding crash from the other side of the warehouse, and Scott looked in that direction just in time to see the telekinetic with the exoskeleton pick up the SUV and throw it at Cable, who deflected it with apparent ease. He gritted his teeth and started in that direction, all too aware that this could end badly. Nathan needed to get out of here, away from the Mistra operatives...
Before he could go ten steps, he was intercepted.
---
Case gritted his teeth, hearing Cable's words to Morgan as the older telekinetic lashed out at the field leader. "Fucking bastard," he grated, and turned to face the black-uniformed X-Men advancing into the warehouse. He spotted one, a young woman with distinctive green hair. Lorna Dane... Polaris, he remembered from the briefing. Newbie, so they hadn't necessarily been expecting her if this happened, but the briefing officer had been fairly specific on what to do if they saw her. The phrase 'take her down immediately' had come up. One did not fuck around with a magnokinetic. He concentrated, then let off a full-strength plasma blast in her direction.
The hell? Lorna had about two seconds to react. She wasted half a second studying the magnetic fields around her before wrapping them into a tight stream and flinging herself out of the way, encased in a force shell. Around her hands, she pooled power until it sparks like green lightning. She rolled to her feet and shoved the build up of magnetic energy at the operative who had attacked her.
Well, fuck me, Case thought and dove out of the way, wincing as he hit the ground and rolled. And thanks bunches, Morgan, you bastard.. Knocking him around in advance of possible combat was just downright low. He came back to his feet beside a stack of crates, launching another ball of bluish plasma at her before diving for cover.
Lorna repeated her force shielded dodge. Thought these guys were good. She was having a hard time believing he'd just ducked behind what was essentially scrap wood when you removed the nails. Which she did, flinging the brightly humming metal at his more dimly sensed form. Dodge that, you bastard.
Case gritted his teeth and cut loose, a wave of plasma sweeping outwards from where he was kneeling, incinerating the nails in mid-air. He pushed it out further, towards Polaris.
Can't dodge that. Hope this works. She shoved down and leaped straight up, over the wave of superheated plasma. She'd been burned by such before, she didn't even want to contemplate it happening again. Luckily, the magnetic fields caught her and held her suspended out of danger. Of course, it also made her a target. She concentrated hard and grasped the operative's personal magnetic field and yanked it back toward the wall.'
Case gritted his teeth as he hit the wall, hard. "You hit like a girl, bitch," he hissed, launching another plasma wave, wider and higher this time, that incinerated everything between him and where Polaris still floated.
"I'd say the same of you but you keep missing." She dropped back under the wave and yanked him forward again, trying to run him into the back of his own attack. She was really liking this flying thing. It made dodging a hell of a lot easier.
Immune to his own powers, Case passed through the wave without difficulty. He rolled and came back to his feet, letting off plasma streamers that flashed off in erratic paths, unpredictable.
Lorna bit off a scream as one lashed her arm. A quick glance showed the leather smoking. She pulled her force shield tightly around her. "I know a totally untrained kid who can do better than that," she taunted as she scanned the area. She smiled grimly and yanked a long forgotten pipe from its home in the concrete floor and up into his stomach.
Fuck this, Case thought as he staggered, gasping for air. The body armor had blunted some of the impact, but not nearly enough. Lashing out with everything he had, he wrapped her shields in plasma fire, cranking the intensity up a few notches until the plasma went from blue to white. Let's see how well your shields hold again this...
---
~Move in! Now!~
And with that, worries and concerns were pushed aside for the moment as she slid through the shadows and made her way towards the side of the warehouse, Dazzler raced to find her appointed target. Find Cable. Get him out. If he's down, provide cover until assistance gets there. That was the long and the short of it really, and the simplicity of it wasn't at all how she was expecting things to go down.
Heart beating slightly above what it normally should have she paused on the edge, hearing Haroun's jets fill the hangar with a thundering noise she fed off of without a second thought, even though her energy reserves were already as high as anything--better overcharge, especially since from the sounds that suddenly erupted within, her entrance wouldn't need to be subtle.
Beth Corcoran spotted the familiar face. Alison Blaire - Dazzler. Likely to be here if the X-Men were, the briefing officer had said. The electrokinetic smirked briefly and sent a bolt of crackling power right at the blonde woman. The world could use one less washed-up rock star...
The sound of electricity was one thing - loud. Alison threw herself to the side into a neat tuck and roll, letting that feed her as well, light dancing around her and trailing in her wake, a definite sigh that she was getting overcharged. The familiar buzz that usually came along with this state of affairs drew a small smile from her as she took aim even as her shoulder impacted the floor, solid light slamming right back towards her current dance partner. Hard.
The solid light smashed her to the ground, and Corcoran spat blood, pushing herself back up and grinning fiercely as she saw Blaire doing the same. "Come on, bitch," she invited, throwing bolts with both hands this time. Blaire dodged them both, moving like a dancer. "That the best you've got?"
Close hand combat with this one was out of the question - being fried on touch was not something Dazzler fancied. Instead she kept her distance, not at all inclined to let this linger on. "So nice of you to ask," she called out, and whoever had said she had to play fair? Light blazed around them both, twirling in mad kaleidoscopic patterns, wrapping them in a tight cocoon of intensity luminosity designed to send the electrokinetic to the ground in heartbeats from the sheer nauseating effect of the crazily dancing illumination. And just in case that didn't effect the woman quickly enough, Alison brought both hands together, pointing in a gun like motion, lasers lancing into the concrete area under her opponent's feet.
No. She didn't care to simply carve a hole through her, no matter how quickly that would have settled matters.
Corcoran stumbled, her stomach twisting, and the ground beneath her feet seemed to disintegrate. She fell, broken concrete slicing into her hands, and sheer discipline alone kept her from heaving the contents of her stomach onto the ground in front of her.
Source of the light, the tactical part of her brain analyzed rapidly. Focus on the X-Man's own bioelectric field. She sent power through the floor beneath her bleeding hands, a crackling bolt of electricity that
sliced through concrete.
Being able to see through any source of light without being blinded was, in Dazzler's personal opinion, a continued blessing. She hastily twisted to the side, sheating herself in light as she flipped out of the way - the electricity trailing up and following her of all things, dancing nastily at the edges of her hand before she realized that it was her own field drawing it towards her. She cut off on emitting any sort of light for a moment, her hands numb for a heartbeat before they started tingling madly.
Fuck, Corcoran thought dizzily, letting the electricity die as she lost her lock on her target. She staggered back to her feet, seeing nothing but spots, and tried to listen. Sounds of fighting going on from every direction, and she'd be damned if she could tell where Blaire might be. Concentrating, she started to draw on her powers again, to construct an electrical field around herself. Harder than it should have been, she was still disoriented...
The hand clapping down on her shoulder firmly likely came as a surprise then, since her opponent had seemingly insisted on keeping things long range up until now. "So. That the best you got?" The mocking undertone in Dazzler's voice was undeniable, but more noticeable was the fist she slammed into Corcoran's temple, the knuckles wrapped in a protective casing particular to Dazzler's suit - and as a result, making her strike all the more effective.
Corcoran crumpled, not having the opportunity to reflect on how this was the second time she'd been knocked out today and it really kind of sucked. A few last crackling streamers of electricity lashed outwards from her body as she fell.
One of the random strikes hit Alison squarely, sending her tumbling back with an airless squawk of protest, hair standing neatly on end. "Gah!" She shivered spasmodically, unable to control the tremors racing through her limbs for a few moments while the thankfully far from full powered bolt of energy slowly ran out.
---
John Lense spared a moment to grimace as the situation went from 'under control' to 'shitstorm' in the space of about five seconds. Should have figured Cable wouldn't play fair, he thought grimly, and activated his gravity-manipulating power, sending a hail of crates and old machinery at his ex-field leader... who had just TK-whapped his current field leader halfway across the warehouse. Charming. He grimaced again as the projectiles slammed into Cable's shield and bounced back off.
Paul slid in through a shattered window and crouched down to watch the scene play out. A storm of objects hit Nathan's shields and he winced. That needed to stop. He could read body language well and the man in the shadow of a pillar some five yards away had that peculiar flex and tense that many telekinetics and other manipulators had when they were moving things. There was an advantage to being fast. But would it protect him across the distance? He'd have to see. He gauged the gap and moved.
Lense was about to launch some more distractions Cable's way - he was moving in on Morgan, which was not at all acceptable - when he caught a blur in his peripheral vision and lashed out instantly, amping up the gravity four or five times.
The change hit Paul like a fist. He wasn't sure what was wrong, spell or telekinetic drag, and he didn't care. He could fight it. Even slowed and weighted as he was, he could move. Moving at the speed of a normal person now, he fought the pull and persisted, feeling his tendons and joints strain. He needed to remove the man, whatever he was doing was a little too much and could crush another person.
Lense tried to pour on more gravity, but the X-Man - Northstar, he recognized in a flash from the briefing documents - reached him anyway. And then he was suddenly airborne, heading for the roof. The sudden departure of his feet from the ground broke his concentration, and he struggled to get it back.
Paul got his hands knotted around the other man's biceps and lifted. He wondered how he was gong to take them both up if it got worse, just for a moment, and then it broke and they were shooting up and out through the frosted skylight overhead. They moved so fast that fragments followed them up in a comet trail for a moment before falling down to join the long glass daggers that had shuddered loose from the now-twisted frame. The people below would just have to fend for themselves, Paul told himself. He needed to get the upper hand here. Remembering that Nathan could keep himself aloft, Paul made to fling the other man away from him.
Lense reversed gravity immediately, made himself the next thing to weightless. He twisted in the air, gritting his teeth again as he got a glimpse of the X-Man and poured on the gravity again. More Gs. Definitely more Gs. Trust him to wind up with one of the X-Men's pros.
---
Jetstream had gotten Moira to safety, which meant that all that was left was to clean up. It sounded simple on paper, until you remembered exactly what kinds of people you were dealing with - present, and behind the scenes - so it was definitely a good idea to be paying lots of attention.
Rather than entering the warehouse from any of the more expected venues, Phase chose to move inside a wall, passing through it and silently thanking his luck - noone seemed to be right on top of his position, and he could see Nathan from where he was, already involved with one of the Mistra operatives in a rather holy smackdown. So far, everything seemed to be going rather well.
That's when Phase realized something very, very perplexing. He wasn't intangible anymore, and he most definitely did not flick the off-switch himself. Brow knitting in confusion, he cast a quick look around, and located the source of his problem.
"Confused?" The man approaching him was almost Nathan's height, wearing the same black body armor as the Mistra operatives outside. Foley regarded him with a cool, appraising look that reminded Shinobi alarmingly of Nathan. "Shinobi Shaw. Density manipulation. But you can't phase if you can't think." The air around him rippled, pure sound blasting at the younger man.
That was worrisome - but slightly less worrisome than the way the air was moving. Phase didn't have much time to dwell on the specifics before his awareness was exploding with sound, somewhat literally. With a yelp of surprise, and no small amount of pain, Phase clamped his hands down over his ears shortly before the ripple on the air plowed into his chest, sending him quite solidly back into the wall he had entered through.
True to the operative's word, thinking was proving itself to be a supremely difficult task. Intangibility was clearly not going to be happening until he did something to shut this guy up.
Foley kept up the sonic assault, pinning the kid against the wall. What were these X-Men doing, sending teenagers into battle without the benefits of conditioning to protect them? He moved slowly towards Phase, willing him to just pass out already. He didn't actually enjoy beating up on children.
But Phase was being quite adamant about staying awake. Blinking rapidly to try and get his vision to focus, focus, for God's sake FOCUS on the blurry form approaching, he hazily managed to count out three of the man's steps before sucking in a breath. Okay, Phase - move.
With a scream that was just as much attributed to the ringing in his ears as it was the effort to move, Phase launched himself away from the wall and towards his attacker, one hand balling itself into a fist while the other reached out for something, anything, on the man's person to latch onto. If he couldn't drop him the quick way, he'd just have to do it the hard way.
"Persistent," Foley said, sidestepping and slamming a fist into the kid's solar plexus, even as he kept up the subsonics at a punishing level. "Just stay down, kid," he said. "Don't actually have orders to kill you, so don't make me."
Bless the uniform and its ability to suck up so much force. Phase definitely felt the fist was it impacted against his solar plexus, and it, compared with everything else, was enough to make him lose his already precarious balance and drop to the ground like a very pained sack of potatos. "You aren't getting him back," Phase wheezed, quickly shaking his head as he tried to peer back up at the man, frantically trying to regain some semblance of focus. "If I wasn't willing to die to see to that, I wouldn't be here." A pause, and then he lashed out with a foot, trying to catch the man's knee with his heel.
Foley rocked back out of the way, shaking his head. "You have no idea what you're talking about, boy," he said, his voice almost pained, and let him have another full-strength blast, upping the subsonics another few notches.
"Then enlighten me!" Phase countered, his voice rather loud as he tried to speak loudly enough to hear himself talk, which was definitely not easy. Especially not with both hands clamped down over his ears again. This was going phenomenally badly. Need to delay him, need to think of something..
Okay, this was getting increasingly aggravating. Still blasting him with subsonics, Foley reached down and hauled the kid to his feet. He really didn't want to kill him, but he wasn't leaving a fucking density-manipulator conscious at his back. Morgan would understand, and the other first-gen operatives on the team. All the little second-gen psychos could go to hell, like the cannon fodder they were.
"Bringing our wandering general home where he belongs," he said curtly, and even as he kept up the subsonic attack, landed a flurry of physical blows that had the kid reeling backwards, yet somehow stubbornly staying on his feet.
His ribs could wait to bitch at him until he was home again - for now, Phase was ignoring them, which was made easier by the sound-manipulator's continued assault. His ears could wait to bitch, too, though there was a trickle of blood beginning to make its way from his ears and down his jaw.
"He doesn't want to be there," Phase grated out once he was satisfied he'd caught his balance, drawing in a deep breath as his eyes made a somewhat unfocused attempt at cataloguing his surroundings. "He doesn't need to be there. He's no danger to innocents - Columbia was all you people."
Crap! Foley thought, exasperated. He could have cranked the subsonics up far enough to turn the kid's brain into jelly, but.. no. He didn't need to kill him. But he could feel the tactical imperatives kicking in, demanding that he do it now and make it conclusive, and he fought against them with everything he had. Didn't need lethal force. Wasn't needed elsewhere right this second. Didn't have to kill the kid.
Did have to put him down hard and keep him there, though. There was a step or two of space between them. Enough. He blasted him again. "Just go down," he muttered, low enough that he knew the kid wouldn't hear him. "Please..."
With a pained cry, Phase staggered back - but only a step. The pair of mutants were in agreement on one thing: enough was enough. Snarling, he lurched forward again, with a better grasp of his surroundings and balance this time, taking another try at sending a fist into the man's nose. "Go down!"
Foley, startled by the sudden aggressive movement, wasn't quite fast enough. The blow glanced off his jaw, enough to make him stumble and go to one knee. Enough to make him lose his concentration. His subsonics died, and he gritted his teeth and did what he could to buy himself a moment to fire them back up again. He lashed out with a leg as Phase moved in to press the attack, sweeping the kid's feet out from under him.
The sudden lack of pressure on his head was disorienting enough that the leg caught him behind the ankles, and Phase's back was reintroduced to the warehouse floor. "I really am sorry about this," he grit out, and sent a foot towards whatever of the man he could reach - ideally, his foot wouldn't be solid at the time. Focus, focus, focus..
Something glanced against his shoulder, and Foley let out a scream. He was suddenly toppling backwards, his muscles spasming and his subsonics, barely firing, dying again.
Phase took the opportunity to roll back to his feet, only taking a moment to regain his balance before he was on the move again. This time, however, he was very, very solid - a mobile brick wall which was quite determined to make the noise stay gone. We'll start with the kidney. "Stay down," he muttered, ignoring the pained waver in his voice. "For God's sake, stay down!"
"They d-don't... wire us that way, kid..." Even as he started to push himself upwards, Foley fired up not just his subsonics but the whole range, and blasted the X-Man with almost everything he had.
"Then cut the damn wires! Nathan di--" Well, Phase started to tell him that Nathan did it well enough, anyway, but then someone went and opened the floodgates. With his fist halfway to its target, he had just enough time to see the air beginning to ripple again before the sound plowed into him like a speeding truck, and sent him sailing away from the man. When he hit the ground, he was already out cold.
Foley staggered back to his feet. His arm wasn't working, but he barely registered the pain and the numbness. "I'm sorry..." He stared at the kid for long enough to reassure himself that he was still breathing, then turned, looking for another target.
---
Nathan gritted his teeth as he blocked yet another swipe from the clawed hand of Morgan's exoskeleton, his mind screaming with the feedback. "Almost like... old times, isn't it?" he gritted out and then lashed out, sending the exoskeleton toppling, seeing one of the arms wink out as Morgan hit the ground. "I beat you once," Nathan said hoarsely, imagining an even larger hand, one that closed around the other telekinetic, squeezing his exoskeleton inwards. Around him, he could hear the X-Men fighting the other Mistra operatives, but he shut them out. They could handle the others. Morgan was the biggest threat here. "Don't make me do it again. Don't make me kill you this time." Part of him was surprised by how truly he meant that, how much he didn't want to hurt the other man, despite what he'd threatened to do to Moira.
There was a figure there in his peripheral vision, someone who hadn't been there a moment ago.... no. Just someone he hadn't seen, Nathan thought, panic flooding through him as he sensed the unmistakable presence of another telepath. Without releasing his grip on Morgan he started to turn, to lash out at this new threat.
#Never waver or retreat,# a voice said in his mind before he could attack, a familiar quiet voice unheard in years and yet recognized instantly.
Simon Carey.
Aliya's partner among the instructors.
Simon, who had been a friend... there at their wedding...
#Feel your anger swell. There is no place in combat for love of life.#
His mind started to go blank at the words - another poem, another damned poem... he thought faintly - and as Simon reached the end of the verse, Nathan released his grip on Morgan and stood there. Waiting for orders.
---
Her mind had splintered and compartmentalized into different areas during the attack. Mistra. Her fellow X-Men. And her own survival.
At the start of the battle, Betsy had been cornered by two Mistra operatives and after she took the first one out with a jab to the throat, she knocked the other out with a round house kick. By then, she took to assessing the situation again, her purple eyes ablaze. These bastards would regret going for Moira. She searched out Scott in the fray, and found him working his way toward her position.
But something in the recessess of her mind screamed. A light growing dim on the astral plane. Nathan... Betsy's eyes darted in his direction. Watching, as Nathan stood over the telekinetic known as Morgan. Motionless, his eyes glazed over in submission. Betsy ran toward him, her mind finding the familiar pathways and connecting to him. # Nathan, don't listen to them! Please fight! #
Simon sensed another telepath, his eyes widening fractionally. Oh, shit, he thought, and turned his attention back to Nathan, pushing the rest of the poem at him, trying to activate the trigger fully.
Betsy stopped abruptly, searching the area. There. She found the telepath, causing the psychic anomaly. She lashed out at him, psychically, as she tried to disengage him from Nathan's mind.
Simon found himself trying to defend himself at the same time he was trying to finish the job. Wasn't going to work. She was too strong. Entirely too determined. Desperately, he rammed the last of the trigger verse into Nathan's mind, feeling the last of his resistance go, and then was falling himself as the X-Man's attack sliced through his shields.
Morgan struggled back to his feet, wild hope blazing in his eyes as he saw the blank look on Nathan's face. "Cable, groundburst," he said, rapidly and breathlessly. "Anyone in an X-Man uniform!"
Betsy broke through a series of mental dams before finding Simon, seeing his intentions. She was too late to stop his plan and watched as he forced the last part of the trigger at Nathan. Betsy turned as Morgan regained his composure and released the final command. She took off at a run towards Nathan, feeling her right hand tingling with a familiar energy. Her mind repeating one imperative. Nathan had to be taken out, whatever it took. Betsy had to protect them all.
---
Cyclops downed the energy projector with a carefully targeted optic blast, and turned as he heard an unfamiliar voice shouting an order - to Cable? He saw the situation in an instant. The blank look on Cable's face as white-gold radiance started to gather around him. Mistra's field leader standing right there, making no move to attack him. And Betsy, running toward them both...
She was never going to reach them in time. And if she was almost there, if she was right on top of them when Cable cut loose... Scott spared one instant for an optic blast, aimed right at Cable. When it glanced off a shield, he took off at a run instead, headed right for Betsy. Salvage what he could.
"Down!" he subvocalized frantically over the throat mike. "Everyone down - take cover, now!"
If only she could reach him in time, she could knock out Nathan before he had a chance. Betsy ran even as the energy began to swirl around the telekinetic. #Nathan. I know you can hear me. I can feel you behind all of this. Stop, please! #
She realized as Nathan's power steadily built that she might not survive the blast. It was then, she heard Scott send the command to retreat. But it was too late....
Scott reached Betsy perhaps twenty feet short of where Cable and the Mistra field leader stood. Without hesitation, he tackled her, bearing her to the ground.
And then the world blew up around them.
---
Ian Piers saw both Corcoran and the X-Man Dazzler go down and ran for them. As Dazzler got back up he came at her from behind, slicing with his claws across the back of her uniform. Whatever the X-Men's garb was made out of it, it resisted cutting, but like Kowalski, who had died at Columbia, his claws were only slightly less hard than diamond.
The strike nonetheless drove the wind from Dazzler's lungs and she half-stumbled, half-lunged forward from the unexpected attack - but those events had been typical of the Argard brawls that seemed to take life around her each time she stepped in a mead hall, and with a twist she finished the motion, facing him.
Not giving her the chance to react, Piers threw himself at her in a flurry of blows and claws, knowing he couldn't let her get breathing space. Not ideal, matching a physical mutation against an energy projector, but the situation had already gone to hell. Improvisation was called for.
With a grunt Dazzler blocked the first blow with her forearms, one bracing the other, the uniform oh so thankfully absorbing a large portion of the impact. Reflexes took over, taking her back to the training room - body tucking to the side to absorb a strike she couldn't block, anticipating the next and dancing with it, neatly evading the strength of the hit although she didn't manage to pull him entirely off balance.
Piers landed a few good blows, but she was fast, a lot faster than he'd expected, and he didn't manage to get her with his claws more than glancingly. I am about to get my bell rung, he thought, seeing the spark growing in her eyes. Instinctively, he disengaged and tried to leap out of the way, but he'd made the mistake of getting in too close already.
Light flared from her eyes and hit him dead on, Dazzler smiling tightly the last thing he saw before his eyesight overloaded. "Friend taught me this," she offered, shifting her weight slightly and delivering a quick front snap kick to his stomach.
Blinded, Piers staggered backwards, unable to defend himself against the kick to the stomach. But his training had included lots and lots of practice fighting when one of his senses was no longer available to him - enhanced, they were also more susceptible to situations just like this - and as he stumbled back his hand shot out and grabbed her foot, giving one good yank with all his strength.
Ungraceful was one way of describing what happened next. The grip on her ankle was rock solid and with her only source of support yanked from underneath her, Dazzler went flying, arms windmilling briefly before she landed solidly on her back.
Piers rose, still seeing spots, and tried to locate her scent. There, on the ground. Didn't hear her moving, either. "Friend didn't teach you not to turn it into an opening, though," he said as his vision cleared. He straightened, striding forward and reaching for her.
/Down!/ Scott's voice suddenly came over the coms. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/
Catching a different source of light at the corner of his vision, Piers glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he saw Nathan and Morgan, the situation coming clear in an instant. He was already running when the golden light started to expand outwards from Nathan's form.
Dazzler didn't even want to look really, the urgency in Cyclops' voice more than clear. A quick glance showed her that scrambling back outside wouldn't happen - the fights had taken her deeper into the warehouse and she couldn't even see the exit from here. Light started to grow and she rolled instead towards some of the crates piled nearby, using them as some sort of cover as best she could, shielding her head with her arms and using the last of her energy to create a light shield around her body which would hopefully take the brunt of the impact of what was to come.
---
Even through the shields, it was too hot, too close. Memories of burning made Lorna scream and reach out to stop the heat the swiftest way she knew. Spinning the magnetic fields that surrounded the operative, channeled the resulting electro-magnetic force directly into his brain, firing every synapse at once. It might kill him. Right then, she didn't care.
Case slumped to the ground, the plasma fire winking out, dying with him. Before Polaris could catch her breath, a blur shot across the warehouse and slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. The blur resolved into Adams, who stood over her, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face before he shifted into a blur again as he reached for her, throwing her into another stack of crates.
Fast. She lifted herself about ten feet in the air. He was sending eddies through the EM field as he moved but she was having trouble getting a grip on his personal field. She settled again and quickly set up a field to lock her in place. Hitting her wouldn't budge her in the slightest. Hopefully he'd stop long enough for her to get a sense of him.
Adams kept moving. It was the one thing he knew he had to do, no matter what - physically speaking, he was only marginally good at hand-to-hand combat and powers like hers could kill him even more easily than they had Case - and he wasn't sure he would have stopped running even if that had been a viable tactical decision. Why did this have to be my first mission? he thought miserably, running around and around in circles around her, pushing his speed to its max.
She kept her shield tight against her. Moving at that speed, if he decided to hit her again, it would seriously hurt. She didn't dare try to hit him, she'd probably just break her arm. Come on, think. If he kept this up he was going to wear a rut in the floor. "Hey, kid. You just going to run?"
Adams had been waiting for that. A flash of impatience - an opening, maybe. He peeled off at a ninety degree angle and then came back right at her, slamming into her at full speed.
Even with the shield that hurt but, still grounded by her EM field, she didn't move. Gasping for air, she shoved out at him, knowing he probably wouldn't be there but having to try anyway. Green lightning crackled from her hands again, seeking a way back stillness.
Adams, bounced off her shield, barely managed to stay on his feet and get out of the way of the energy discharge. Can't do this, he thought, running in circles again. Can't think of a way through, too strong for me, need Morgan or someone... But Morgan was fighting with Cable on the other side of the warehouse, he saw as he blazed through a turn, and... wait...
Cable was turning away from Morgan, and Simon was right there, too. Golden radiance started to gather around him, power coalescing, and Adams promptly did the smart thing, peeling off and vacating the warehouse in a flash.
/Down!/ Scott's voice came over the coms. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/
She followed the speedster's gaze and started to swear. All around her the metal started to complain, resisting the sudden pull. She would have bet quite a lot that it had everything to do with the golden light spreading out from Nathan. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on holding up the whining metal. The large chunk of concrete that landed next to her revealed the flaw in her plan.
Lorna swore again and sprinted for the nearest team member, expanding her force shield as she ran. Every chunk of rock and glass that struck the little dome made her flinch. Then the roof came down.
---
Heavy? That was okay. Paul threw a fistful of light at Lense, hitting him in the face as gravity slammed him down toward the earth. Falling was never a problem, it was the landing that could kill you. No sense panicking too soon.
The burst of light sent Lense twisting backwards through the air, briefly out of control, until he adjusted his own gravity and managed to land on the roof of the adjoining warehouse. Northstar was nowhere to be seen, and Lense gritted his teeth. Had he managed to knock him out of the air before he'd lost his concentration again?
Paul stopped himself just below the treeline. This ... it felt like he was being pulled, not pushed. He got heavier and slower, like gravity increased. He spun slowly and watched Lense land. The roof was an interesting battleground. He needed to incapacitate Lense, and fast, so he could get back to the other. He could see an open window, and gauged Lense as being only feet from another skylight. Lense was disoriented and not likely to catch sight of him. Paul readied himself and took off like a shot toward the window, fast and silent.
Something slammed into him from behind, and Lense had no time to react, no time to adjust as the skylight approached at dizzying speed. He threw up an arm to shield his face. It didn't really help. Glass and wood shredded at his body armor, and the pain disoriented him further. He wasn't sure where he was, what direction he was facing, and he couldn't risk dropping, not when he didn't know what was below...
The hole in one skylight had been too good to resist. Paul shot through the warehouse and back out with a rush of turbulence and there was Lense, looking away from him. He hit Lense from behind, spun him, and smashed him back through the next pane. The warehouse was huge and the cursory glance Paul had gotten as he passed through told him no one was at this end. He drove Lense toward the floor, making sure not to let the man get a grip on him, lest he reverse their roles and plaster Paul against the concrete below.
The impact was sudden and crushing, driving the breath from his lungs and any idea of fighting back from his brain, although Lense heard the back-of-his-mind voice of his tactical imperatives insisting he get up, keep fighting, even as everything else faded. Primary objective achieved, he hoped, with the last conscious thought left him. Otherwise this had all been for nothing...
Lense hit the concrete hard and went limp in Paul's hands, Paul's knee grinding hard into the small of the man's back to keep him down until he was completely unconscious. Blood trickled out from under his cheek and Paul hoped he'd gauged things right. Then he shot back up and out, scanning the area for the warehouse where the others were still engaged.
/Down!/ Scott's voice came over the coms, sounding frantic. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/ Golden light like the rising sun blazed through the windows of the warehouse where all of this had started. Then the windows blew out as it expanded, telekinetic force tearing through the walls of the warehouse, until it all came tumbling down.
Paul braced himself against the blast, shielding his face as the wave of force washed over him. "Scott?" He spoke into the communicator. "Someone give me something," he said, diving for the rubble. Damn. "First come, first served." He tried to keep it light.
---
Her head felt like it was broken in several places. Betsy moaned. She tried moving, but there was an incredible weight on her. She opened her eyes, to take in her surroundings, and all she saw was dark. Panic set in when she felt Scott coming to.
Needed to wake up. He needed to wake up, but it was almost impossible to struggle up out of the dark, to think... #Betsy?# he thought weakly, feeling someone shift beneath him. Even sending the thought that slight distance made the pain in his head swell.
She heard Scott and felt his pain travel down the length of the link. Betsy opened her eyes and saw a bright light protruding from just below eye level. Yet she could not move. She closed her eyes, hesitantly, trying to grasp what had happened. #Scott, are you alright?#
#Uhh... no?# But even as he sent the answer back he was moving, or trying to, pushing desperately at the debris covering them.
#Scott, don't move. Lemme check something..# Betsy took to scanning him, her mind focusing on the pressure on his body and his points of pain. She realized that nothing was truly harmed, a few bruises and contusions. Remembering his rush toward her, Betsy shuddered. #What made you do such a thing, Scott. I almost was almost there...#
#Wouldn't have reached him.# He had seen the distance, her speed, her trajectory... #You would have been right on top of....# He had broken through the top layer of debris with one determined push, and was struck dumb at what he saw, even through the choking haze of dust.
The warehouse was gone.
#I promised....# Betsy felt the weight lifted off her and let out a sound of anguish. Whether it was over Nathan or the pain she felt from her right arm, she wasn't sure. Her mind was hazy and she felt lightheaded as Scott sent back his thoughts. The warehouse was gone? Struggling not to pass out, she reached out with her mind, searching for the rest of the X-Men.
Moira shivered slightly--it was either the warehouse getting colder or the fear spreading through her, she couldn't tell. Experimentally, she tugged on the ropes that bound her again and sighed. There was no way she'd be able to get out of them, not without help or a sharp instrument. And no one watching her would give her either.
She glanced around, frowning. They were watching her but only in a half-hearted sort of way. They knew she wasn't going anywhere, so they were spread out, ignoring her. Her head dropped slightly and she forced herself to take a shakey breath. 'Now wha'?' she thought, suddenly very much afraid. If not for her safety, than for Nathan's. 'I know he's goin' ta come--but God, I wish 'e wasnae.'
Morgan glanced at her, then at his watch. Forty-five minutes, he thought. Surely Nathan would be here on time. He hoped he would. Despite the orders burned into his mind, the knowledge that he had no choice in the matter, the idea of walking over to the woman tied to that chair and killing her, even quickly and as painlessly as possible, was enough to turn his stomach.
Her mouth felt dry, she thought distantly, drooping a bit in the chair. Her thoughts were torn between not wanting Nathan to come and wanting to be rescued by him. Feeling selfish, Moira pushed the latter thoughts to the side and bit her lip, feeling guilty. It was _normal_ but she knew that this was not a normal situation. With some effort, she raised her head and stared at the one called Morgan and just watched.
Simon, sitting on his crate, stood up abruptly. "He's here," he said to Morgan and then walked away, vanishing back into the shadows.
Morgan nodded, looking around at the other operatives arrayed throughout the warehouse. "Everyone on their toes," he ordered, all of his qualms and nervousness vanishing as he kicked down to Zen level. One thing at a time. They could make this work, still. Do it right. "Objective's not achieved yet."
Moira straightened like a shot, ignoring the screaming pain in her head from hitting the floor earlier. "God, nay," she whispered, fighting back tears. "Damn it, Nathan--please--"
The sliding doors at the front of the warehouse opened, and Nathan stood there for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness inside. His gaze moved over the Mistra operatives, then settled on Moira. Despite the need to keep himself under control, to stall while the X-Men got into position, he felt a sudden surge of rage at the sight of the bruises and blood on her face.
"Who did that to her?" he asked sharply, focusing on Morgan as he stepped into the warehouse.
"Does it matter?" his former student asked calmly, although the tightness around his eyes suggested to Nathan that it had mattered to Morgan.
Straining against the ropes, she stared at him, trying to just will him to turn back around and go before they got their claws into him. But she knew he would never leave her, not like this or in any other situation. Moira couldn't help a surge of aggravation and frustration at the link being blocked--the need to touch him, even mentally, was overwhelming.
"Of course it matters." Nathan advanced slowly into the warehouse, wishing he had taken Betsy up on her offer of a temporary link. He hadn't wanted to chance the possibility that there was another telepath here who might detect it. But it would have been reassuring to know what the team was doing. Reassuring to know that they were there on more than just the intellectual level. "Since when do we abuse hostages?"
"We?" one of the other operatives asked calmly.
Nathan glanced at him. "Well, I'm here, aren't I, Mick?" he asked almost tiredly. Tired, resigned, he told himself. That was how he needed to come across. As if he'd surrendered to the inevitable.
Finally, Moira couldn't stand it. The waiting, the guilt. "Nay! Nathan, go!" she snapped, turning her head to glare back at Case, unable to stop a flicker of savage satisfaction at how badly his arm looked. Everything else Morgan had done to him, but the damage to the arm should have made her feel bad--but it didn't.
Nathan ignored her, despite the stab of pain at her obvious willingness to be left to her fate if only he got away. The link was definitely blocked; a psi-dampener in the room somewhere? He couldn't be sure. "So how do we do this?" he asked Morgan as coolly as he could.
Morgan glanced significantly at Adams, who went and got the medkit he'd used to tend to Case earlier. "I was thinking knocking you out for safe transport would probably the best idea all around," he said without heat, looking back at Nathan.
"No objections to that," Nathan lied, his expression still neutral. "But how do I know you're going to let Moira go?"
Moira sat back in her chair, blinking back the tears she'd been trying to hold in for hours. None of them were going to listen to her at this point, so all she could do was watch and absorb as much information about everything as she could. She found herself staring, watching Nathan, trying to see how this would play out.
"I don't suppose you'd settle for my word?" Morgan asked.
Nathan's eyes narrowed. "Your word's not yours to give," he snapped, willing Haroun to just get his ass in here already. He started to drift to the left, farther away from Moira's chair, and watched as the other operatives started to rearrange themselves in response. Pulling away from Moira as well.
No person in their right mind would call Moira a stupid woman and she tensed, watching as everyone spread out, following Nathan's movements. She calmed her breathing again, suddenly grateful for memorizing all those exercises for her patients, and waited, eyes still glued on one person only.
"Look, Nathan," Foley said, his jaw clenching. "No one wants to see what happened seven years ago happen again." Case snorted, raising an eyebrow, and the older operative gave him a chilling look. "None of us in our right minds." He looked back at Nathan. "I will walk her out of here and leave her somewhere safe. You can scan me to make sure I'm telling the truth if you want."
"Or I'll do it," Morgan said immediately.
There was a vague feeling in her stomach that they probably shouldn't have mentioned Aliya, not now, not even how they phrased it.
"I always wondered why the two of you weren't on that team," Nathan said quietly. Too quietly. His eyes moved back and forth between Morgan and Foley. Both of an age, both people he had genuinely liked. Friends. "Or you, Lense," he said, eyeing the gravity manipulator in the corner. Not quite a friend, but far from an enemy. "Don't tell me the directors decided to have a heart."
"Ours is not to reason why," Lense said softly.
"Ours is but to do and die," Nathan said with a flash of bitter humor. "Yeah, I remember."
"Stop it," Morgan said, with a sort of calm resolve that wasn't echoed by the almost desperate look in his eyes. "You're coming home, Nathan. We'll make sure she gets away safely. It'll be all right."
Moira opened her mouth to speak again but shut it when she caught the quick glance from Nathan. So she settled for trying to force the ropes again. With everyone distracted, she might have a better chance at loosening them to the point where she might be able to slip out of them. In the end, it was simply something for her to preoccupy herself with and to take away her focus from the standoff in front of her.
Nathan glanced back at the open doors, then turned back to Morgan. "I don't think it will be," he said, his throat tightening as he spoke. "I really don't."
And with a roar, Haroun came through the open doors, blazing through the air towards Moira. He made a hairpin turn, reaching out to grab her chair as he did, and lifted it right off the ground as he swung around to blast back through the doors. In and out with blinding speed. One of the Mistra operatives, a youngster Nathan didn't recognize, started to pursue, turning into a blur. But thought beat superspeed, again, and Nathan flung up a shield over the doors. Just for a moment, just for long enough to bounce the kid right back off it.
Then he heard Betsy in his mind. Telling him that Haroun was clear of the warehouse. "I neglected to mention that I didn't come alone," Nathan said as steadily as he could, looking back at Morgan. In his mind, he was imagining Haroun carrying Moira into the jet, where she would be safe. Safe. No matter what happened...
"You brought the X-Men," Morgan responded, his face pale, but his expression set.
"Tim," Nathan said, deliberately using Morgan's first name. "I am an X-Man." And he lashed out at Morgan with every bit of telekinesis he had, sending him flying through the air and back into a pile of crates. He launched himself through the air after him, focusing solely on the other telekinetic. The other operatives soon had more than enough to occupy them, as the rest of the team moved in.
---
More than he'd thought. Should have brought everyone, Cyclops told himself, hitting one of the Mistra operatives with a full-strength optic blast and turning for another target. The only blessing was that this wasn't as enclosed as the tunnels had been, but he wasn't sure that worked in their favor. /Don't get pinned down!/ he subvocalized urgently.
He blasted at another operative, a young man who shifted away into a blur, but even as he expected the operative to come back at him, it didn't happen. Scott's head whipped from side to side as he got a quick look at the situation, taking in all the details at once. Except he didn't see everyone - where were Northstar and Phase?
There was a resounding crash from the other side of the warehouse, and Scott looked in that direction just in time to see the telekinetic with the exoskeleton pick up the SUV and throw it at Cable, who deflected it with apparent ease. He gritted his teeth and started in that direction, all too aware that this could end badly. Nathan needed to get out of here, away from the Mistra operatives...
Before he could go ten steps, he was intercepted.
---
Case gritted his teeth, hearing Cable's words to Morgan as the older telekinetic lashed out at the field leader. "Fucking bastard," he grated, and turned to face the black-uniformed X-Men advancing into the warehouse. He spotted one, a young woman with distinctive green hair. Lorna Dane... Polaris, he remembered from the briefing. Newbie, so they hadn't necessarily been expecting her if this happened, but the briefing officer had been fairly specific on what to do if they saw her. The phrase 'take her down immediately' had come up. One did not fuck around with a magnokinetic. He concentrated, then let off a full-strength plasma blast in her direction.
The hell? Lorna had about two seconds to react. She wasted half a second studying the magnetic fields around her before wrapping them into a tight stream and flinging herself out of the way, encased in a force shell. Around her hands, she pooled power until it sparks like green lightning. She rolled to her feet and shoved the build up of magnetic energy at the operative who had attacked her.
Well, fuck me, Case thought and dove out of the way, wincing as he hit the ground and rolled. And thanks bunches, Morgan, you bastard.. Knocking him around in advance of possible combat was just downright low. He came back to his feet beside a stack of crates, launching another ball of bluish plasma at her before diving for cover.
Lorna repeated her force shielded dodge. Thought these guys were good. She was having a hard time believing he'd just ducked behind what was essentially scrap wood when you removed the nails. Which she did, flinging the brightly humming metal at his more dimly sensed form. Dodge that, you bastard.
Case gritted his teeth and cut loose, a wave of plasma sweeping outwards from where he was kneeling, incinerating the nails in mid-air. He pushed it out further, towards Polaris.
Can't dodge that. Hope this works. She shoved down and leaped straight up, over the wave of superheated plasma. She'd been burned by such before, she didn't even want to contemplate it happening again. Luckily, the magnetic fields caught her and held her suspended out of danger. Of course, it also made her a target. She concentrated hard and grasped the operative's personal magnetic field and yanked it back toward the wall.'
Case gritted his teeth as he hit the wall, hard. "You hit like a girl, bitch," he hissed, launching another plasma wave, wider and higher this time, that incinerated everything between him and where Polaris still floated.
"I'd say the same of you but you keep missing." She dropped back under the wave and yanked him forward again, trying to run him into the back of his own attack. She was really liking this flying thing. It made dodging a hell of a lot easier.
Immune to his own powers, Case passed through the wave without difficulty. He rolled and came back to his feet, letting off plasma streamers that flashed off in erratic paths, unpredictable.
Lorna bit off a scream as one lashed her arm. A quick glance showed the leather smoking. She pulled her force shield tightly around her. "I know a totally untrained kid who can do better than that," she taunted as she scanned the area. She smiled grimly and yanked a long forgotten pipe from its home in the concrete floor and up into his stomach.
Fuck this, Case thought as he staggered, gasping for air. The body armor had blunted some of the impact, but not nearly enough. Lashing out with everything he had, he wrapped her shields in plasma fire, cranking the intensity up a few notches until the plasma went from blue to white. Let's see how well your shields hold again this...
---
~Move in! Now!~
And with that, worries and concerns were pushed aside for the moment as she slid through the shadows and made her way towards the side of the warehouse, Dazzler raced to find her appointed target. Find Cable. Get him out. If he's down, provide cover until assistance gets there. That was the long and the short of it really, and the simplicity of it wasn't at all how she was expecting things to go down.
Heart beating slightly above what it normally should have she paused on the edge, hearing Haroun's jets fill the hangar with a thundering noise she fed off of without a second thought, even though her energy reserves were already as high as anything--better overcharge, especially since from the sounds that suddenly erupted within, her entrance wouldn't need to be subtle.
Beth Corcoran spotted the familiar face. Alison Blaire - Dazzler. Likely to be here if the X-Men were, the briefing officer had said. The electrokinetic smirked briefly and sent a bolt of crackling power right at the blonde woman. The world could use one less washed-up rock star...
The sound of electricity was one thing - loud. Alison threw herself to the side into a neat tuck and roll, letting that feed her as well, light dancing around her and trailing in her wake, a definite sigh that she was getting overcharged. The familiar buzz that usually came along with this state of affairs drew a small smile from her as she took aim even as her shoulder impacted the floor, solid light slamming right back towards her current dance partner. Hard.
The solid light smashed her to the ground, and Corcoran spat blood, pushing herself back up and grinning fiercely as she saw Blaire doing the same. "Come on, bitch," she invited, throwing bolts with both hands this time. Blaire dodged them both, moving like a dancer. "That the best you've got?"
Close hand combat with this one was out of the question - being fried on touch was not something Dazzler fancied. Instead she kept her distance, not at all inclined to let this linger on. "So nice of you to ask," she called out, and whoever had said she had to play fair? Light blazed around them both, twirling in mad kaleidoscopic patterns, wrapping them in a tight cocoon of intensity luminosity designed to send the electrokinetic to the ground in heartbeats from the sheer nauseating effect of the crazily dancing illumination. And just in case that didn't effect the woman quickly enough, Alison brought both hands together, pointing in a gun like motion, lasers lancing into the concrete area under her opponent's feet.
No. She didn't care to simply carve a hole through her, no matter how quickly that would have settled matters.
Corcoran stumbled, her stomach twisting, and the ground beneath her feet seemed to disintegrate. She fell, broken concrete slicing into her hands, and sheer discipline alone kept her from heaving the contents of her stomach onto the ground in front of her.
Source of the light, the tactical part of her brain analyzed rapidly. Focus on the X-Man's own bioelectric field. She sent power through the floor beneath her bleeding hands, a crackling bolt of electricity that
sliced through concrete.
Being able to see through any source of light without being blinded was, in Dazzler's personal opinion, a continued blessing. She hastily twisted to the side, sheating herself in light as she flipped out of the way - the electricity trailing up and following her of all things, dancing nastily at the edges of her hand before she realized that it was her own field drawing it towards her. She cut off on emitting any sort of light for a moment, her hands numb for a heartbeat before they started tingling madly.
Fuck, Corcoran thought dizzily, letting the electricity die as she lost her lock on her target. She staggered back to her feet, seeing nothing but spots, and tried to listen. Sounds of fighting going on from every direction, and she'd be damned if she could tell where Blaire might be. Concentrating, she started to draw on her powers again, to construct an electrical field around herself. Harder than it should have been, she was still disoriented...
The hand clapping down on her shoulder firmly likely came as a surprise then, since her opponent had seemingly insisted on keeping things long range up until now. "So. That the best you got?" The mocking undertone in Dazzler's voice was undeniable, but more noticeable was the fist she slammed into Corcoran's temple, the knuckles wrapped in a protective casing particular to Dazzler's suit - and as a result, making her strike all the more effective.
Corcoran crumpled, not having the opportunity to reflect on how this was the second time she'd been knocked out today and it really kind of sucked. A few last crackling streamers of electricity lashed outwards from her body as she fell.
One of the random strikes hit Alison squarely, sending her tumbling back with an airless squawk of protest, hair standing neatly on end. "Gah!" She shivered spasmodically, unable to control the tremors racing through her limbs for a few moments while the thankfully far from full powered bolt of energy slowly ran out.
---
John Lense spared a moment to grimace as the situation went from 'under control' to 'shitstorm' in the space of about five seconds. Should have figured Cable wouldn't play fair, he thought grimly, and activated his gravity-manipulating power, sending a hail of crates and old machinery at his ex-field leader... who had just TK-whapped his current field leader halfway across the warehouse. Charming. He grimaced again as the projectiles slammed into Cable's shield and bounced back off.
Paul slid in through a shattered window and crouched down to watch the scene play out. A storm of objects hit Nathan's shields and he winced. That needed to stop. He could read body language well and the man in the shadow of a pillar some five yards away had that peculiar flex and tense that many telekinetics and other manipulators had when they were moving things. There was an advantage to being fast. But would it protect him across the distance? He'd have to see. He gauged the gap and moved.
Lense was about to launch some more distractions Cable's way - he was moving in on Morgan, which was not at all acceptable - when he caught a blur in his peripheral vision and lashed out instantly, amping up the gravity four or five times.
The change hit Paul like a fist. He wasn't sure what was wrong, spell or telekinetic drag, and he didn't care. He could fight it. Even slowed and weighted as he was, he could move. Moving at the speed of a normal person now, he fought the pull and persisted, feeling his tendons and joints strain. He needed to remove the man, whatever he was doing was a little too much and could crush another person.
Lense tried to pour on more gravity, but the X-Man - Northstar, he recognized in a flash from the briefing documents - reached him anyway. And then he was suddenly airborne, heading for the roof. The sudden departure of his feet from the ground broke his concentration, and he struggled to get it back.
Paul got his hands knotted around the other man's biceps and lifted. He wondered how he was gong to take them both up if it got worse, just for a moment, and then it broke and they were shooting up and out through the frosted skylight overhead. They moved so fast that fragments followed them up in a comet trail for a moment before falling down to join the long glass daggers that had shuddered loose from the now-twisted frame. The people below would just have to fend for themselves, Paul told himself. He needed to get the upper hand here. Remembering that Nathan could keep himself aloft, Paul made to fling the other man away from him.
Lense reversed gravity immediately, made himself the next thing to weightless. He twisted in the air, gritting his teeth again as he got a glimpse of the X-Man and poured on the gravity again. More Gs. Definitely more Gs. Trust him to wind up with one of the X-Men's pros.
---
Jetstream had gotten Moira to safety, which meant that all that was left was to clean up. It sounded simple on paper, until you remembered exactly what kinds of people you were dealing with - present, and behind the scenes - so it was definitely a good idea to be paying lots of attention.
Rather than entering the warehouse from any of the more expected venues, Phase chose to move inside a wall, passing through it and silently thanking his luck - noone seemed to be right on top of his position, and he could see Nathan from where he was, already involved with one of the Mistra operatives in a rather holy smackdown. So far, everything seemed to be going rather well.
That's when Phase realized something very, very perplexing. He wasn't intangible anymore, and he most definitely did not flick the off-switch himself. Brow knitting in confusion, he cast a quick look around, and located the source of his problem.
"Confused?" The man approaching him was almost Nathan's height, wearing the same black body armor as the Mistra operatives outside. Foley regarded him with a cool, appraising look that reminded Shinobi alarmingly of Nathan. "Shinobi Shaw. Density manipulation. But you can't phase if you can't think." The air around him rippled, pure sound blasting at the younger man.
That was worrisome - but slightly less worrisome than the way the air was moving. Phase didn't have much time to dwell on the specifics before his awareness was exploding with sound, somewhat literally. With a yelp of surprise, and no small amount of pain, Phase clamped his hands down over his ears shortly before the ripple on the air plowed into his chest, sending him quite solidly back into the wall he had entered through.
True to the operative's word, thinking was proving itself to be a supremely difficult task. Intangibility was clearly not going to be happening until he did something to shut this guy up.
Foley kept up the sonic assault, pinning the kid against the wall. What were these X-Men doing, sending teenagers into battle without the benefits of conditioning to protect them? He moved slowly towards Phase, willing him to just pass out already. He didn't actually enjoy beating up on children.
But Phase was being quite adamant about staying awake. Blinking rapidly to try and get his vision to focus, focus, for God's sake FOCUS on the blurry form approaching, he hazily managed to count out three of the man's steps before sucking in a breath. Okay, Phase - move.
With a scream that was just as much attributed to the ringing in his ears as it was the effort to move, Phase launched himself away from the wall and towards his attacker, one hand balling itself into a fist while the other reached out for something, anything, on the man's person to latch onto. If he couldn't drop him the quick way, he'd just have to do it the hard way.
"Persistent," Foley said, sidestepping and slamming a fist into the kid's solar plexus, even as he kept up the subsonics at a punishing level. "Just stay down, kid," he said. "Don't actually have orders to kill you, so don't make me."
Bless the uniform and its ability to suck up so much force. Phase definitely felt the fist was it impacted against his solar plexus, and it, compared with everything else, was enough to make him lose his already precarious balance and drop to the ground like a very pained sack of potatos. "You aren't getting him back," Phase wheezed, quickly shaking his head as he tried to peer back up at the man, frantically trying to regain some semblance of focus. "If I wasn't willing to die to see to that, I wouldn't be here." A pause, and then he lashed out with a foot, trying to catch the man's knee with his heel.
Foley rocked back out of the way, shaking his head. "You have no idea what you're talking about, boy," he said, his voice almost pained, and let him have another full-strength blast, upping the subsonics another few notches.
"Then enlighten me!" Phase countered, his voice rather loud as he tried to speak loudly enough to hear himself talk, which was definitely not easy. Especially not with both hands clamped down over his ears again. This was going phenomenally badly. Need to delay him, need to think of something..
Okay, this was getting increasingly aggravating. Still blasting him with subsonics, Foley reached down and hauled the kid to his feet. He really didn't want to kill him, but he wasn't leaving a fucking density-manipulator conscious at his back. Morgan would understand, and the other first-gen operatives on the team. All the little second-gen psychos could go to hell, like the cannon fodder they were.
"Bringing our wandering general home where he belongs," he said curtly, and even as he kept up the subsonic attack, landed a flurry of physical blows that had the kid reeling backwards, yet somehow stubbornly staying on his feet.
His ribs could wait to bitch at him until he was home again - for now, Phase was ignoring them, which was made easier by the sound-manipulator's continued assault. His ears could wait to bitch, too, though there was a trickle of blood beginning to make its way from his ears and down his jaw.
"He doesn't want to be there," Phase grated out once he was satisfied he'd caught his balance, drawing in a deep breath as his eyes made a somewhat unfocused attempt at cataloguing his surroundings. "He doesn't need to be there. He's no danger to innocents - Columbia was all you people."
Crap! Foley thought, exasperated. He could have cranked the subsonics up far enough to turn the kid's brain into jelly, but.. no. He didn't need to kill him. But he could feel the tactical imperatives kicking in, demanding that he do it now and make it conclusive, and he fought against them with everything he had. Didn't need lethal force. Wasn't needed elsewhere right this second. Didn't have to kill the kid.
Did have to put him down hard and keep him there, though. There was a step or two of space between them. Enough. He blasted him again. "Just go down," he muttered, low enough that he knew the kid wouldn't hear him. "Please..."
With a pained cry, Phase staggered back - but only a step. The pair of mutants were in agreement on one thing: enough was enough. Snarling, he lurched forward again, with a better grasp of his surroundings and balance this time, taking another try at sending a fist into the man's nose. "Go down!"
Foley, startled by the sudden aggressive movement, wasn't quite fast enough. The blow glanced off his jaw, enough to make him stumble and go to one knee. Enough to make him lose his concentration. His subsonics died, and he gritted his teeth and did what he could to buy himself a moment to fire them back up again. He lashed out with a leg as Phase moved in to press the attack, sweeping the kid's feet out from under him.
The sudden lack of pressure on his head was disorienting enough that the leg caught him behind the ankles, and Phase's back was reintroduced to the warehouse floor. "I really am sorry about this," he grit out, and sent a foot towards whatever of the man he could reach - ideally, his foot wouldn't be solid at the time. Focus, focus, focus..
Something glanced against his shoulder, and Foley let out a scream. He was suddenly toppling backwards, his muscles spasming and his subsonics, barely firing, dying again.
Phase took the opportunity to roll back to his feet, only taking a moment to regain his balance before he was on the move again. This time, however, he was very, very solid - a mobile brick wall which was quite determined to make the noise stay gone. We'll start with the kidney. "Stay down," he muttered, ignoring the pained waver in his voice. "For God's sake, stay down!"
"They d-don't... wire us that way, kid..." Even as he started to push himself upwards, Foley fired up not just his subsonics but the whole range, and blasted the X-Man with almost everything he had.
"Then cut the damn wires! Nathan di--" Well, Phase started to tell him that Nathan did it well enough, anyway, but then someone went and opened the floodgates. With his fist halfway to its target, he had just enough time to see the air beginning to ripple again before the sound plowed into him like a speeding truck, and sent him sailing away from the man. When he hit the ground, he was already out cold.
Foley staggered back to his feet. His arm wasn't working, but he barely registered the pain and the numbness. "I'm sorry..." He stared at the kid for long enough to reassure himself that he was still breathing, then turned, looking for another target.
---
Nathan gritted his teeth as he blocked yet another swipe from the clawed hand of Morgan's exoskeleton, his mind screaming with the feedback. "Almost like... old times, isn't it?" he gritted out and then lashed out, sending the exoskeleton toppling, seeing one of the arms wink out as Morgan hit the ground. "I beat you once," Nathan said hoarsely, imagining an even larger hand, one that closed around the other telekinetic, squeezing his exoskeleton inwards. Around him, he could hear the X-Men fighting the other Mistra operatives, but he shut them out. They could handle the others. Morgan was the biggest threat here. "Don't make me do it again. Don't make me kill you this time." Part of him was surprised by how truly he meant that, how much he didn't want to hurt the other man, despite what he'd threatened to do to Moira.
There was a figure there in his peripheral vision, someone who hadn't been there a moment ago.... no. Just someone he hadn't seen, Nathan thought, panic flooding through him as he sensed the unmistakable presence of another telepath. Without releasing his grip on Morgan he started to turn, to lash out at this new threat.
#Never waver or retreat,# a voice said in his mind before he could attack, a familiar quiet voice unheard in years and yet recognized instantly.
Simon Carey.
Aliya's partner among the instructors.
Simon, who had been a friend... there at their wedding...
#Feel your anger swell. There is no place in combat for love of life.#
His mind started to go blank at the words - another poem, another damned poem... he thought faintly - and as Simon reached the end of the verse, Nathan released his grip on Morgan and stood there. Waiting for orders.
---
Her mind had splintered and compartmentalized into different areas during the attack. Mistra. Her fellow X-Men. And her own survival.
At the start of the battle, Betsy had been cornered by two Mistra operatives and after she took the first one out with a jab to the throat, she knocked the other out with a round house kick. By then, she took to assessing the situation again, her purple eyes ablaze. These bastards would regret going for Moira. She searched out Scott in the fray, and found him working his way toward her position.
But something in the recessess of her mind screamed. A light growing dim on the astral plane. Nathan... Betsy's eyes darted in his direction. Watching, as Nathan stood over the telekinetic known as Morgan. Motionless, his eyes glazed over in submission. Betsy ran toward him, her mind finding the familiar pathways and connecting to him. # Nathan, don't listen to them! Please fight! #
Simon sensed another telepath, his eyes widening fractionally. Oh, shit, he thought, and turned his attention back to Nathan, pushing the rest of the poem at him, trying to activate the trigger fully.
Betsy stopped abruptly, searching the area. There. She found the telepath, causing the psychic anomaly. She lashed out at him, psychically, as she tried to disengage him from Nathan's mind.
Simon found himself trying to defend himself at the same time he was trying to finish the job. Wasn't going to work. She was too strong. Entirely too determined. Desperately, he rammed the last of the trigger verse into Nathan's mind, feeling the last of his resistance go, and then was falling himself as the X-Man's attack sliced through his shields.
Morgan struggled back to his feet, wild hope blazing in his eyes as he saw the blank look on Nathan's face. "Cable, groundburst," he said, rapidly and breathlessly. "Anyone in an X-Man uniform!"
Betsy broke through a series of mental dams before finding Simon, seeing his intentions. She was too late to stop his plan and watched as he forced the last part of the trigger at Nathan. Betsy turned as Morgan regained his composure and released the final command. She took off at a run towards Nathan, feeling her right hand tingling with a familiar energy. Her mind repeating one imperative. Nathan had to be taken out, whatever it took. Betsy had to protect them all.
---
Cyclops downed the energy projector with a carefully targeted optic blast, and turned as he heard an unfamiliar voice shouting an order - to Cable? He saw the situation in an instant. The blank look on Cable's face as white-gold radiance started to gather around him. Mistra's field leader standing right there, making no move to attack him. And Betsy, running toward them both...
She was never going to reach them in time. And if she was almost there, if she was right on top of them when Cable cut loose... Scott spared one instant for an optic blast, aimed right at Cable. When it glanced off a shield, he took off at a run instead, headed right for Betsy. Salvage what he could.
"Down!" he subvocalized frantically over the throat mike. "Everyone down - take cover, now!"
If only she could reach him in time, she could knock out Nathan before he had a chance. Betsy ran even as the energy began to swirl around the telekinetic. #Nathan. I know you can hear me. I can feel you behind all of this. Stop, please! #
She realized as Nathan's power steadily built that she might not survive the blast. It was then, she heard Scott send the command to retreat. But it was too late....
Scott reached Betsy perhaps twenty feet short of where Cable and the Mistra field leader stood. Without hesitation, he tackled her, bearing her to the ground.
And then the world blew up around them.
---
Ian Piers saw both Corcoran and the X-Man Dazzler go down and ran for them. As Dazzler got back up he came at her from behind, slicing with his claws across the back of her uniform. Whatever the X-Men's garb was made out of it, it resisted cutting, but like Kowalski, who had died at Columbia, his claws were only slightly less hard than diamond.
The strike nonetheless drove the wind from Dazzler's lungs and she half-stumbled, half-lunged forward from the unexpected attack - but those events had been typical of the Argard brawls that seemed to take life around her each time she stepped in a mead hall, and with a twist she finished the motion, facing him.
Not giving her the chance to react, Piers threw himself at her in a flurry of blows and claws, knowing he couldn't let her get breathing space. Not ideal, matching a physical mutation against an energy projector, but the situation had already gone to hell. Improvisation was called for.
With a grunt Dazzler blocked the first blow with her forearms, one bracing the other, the uniform oh so thankfully absorbing a large portion of the impact. Reflexes took over, taking her back to the training room - body tucking to the side to absorb a strike she couldn't block, anticipating the next and dancing with it, neatly evading the strength of the hit although she didn't manage to pull him entirely off balance.
Piers landed a few good blows, but she was fast, a lot faster than he'd expected, and he didn't manage to get her with his claws more than glancingly. I am about to get my bell rung, he thought, seeing the spark growing in her eyes. Instinctively, he disengaged and tried to leap out of the way, but he'd made the mistake of getting in too close already.
Light flared from her eyes and hit him dead on, Dazzler smiling tightly the last thing he saw before his eyesight overloaded. "Friend taught me this," she offered, shifting her weight slightly and delivering a quick front snap kick to his stomach.
Blinded, Piers staggered backwards, unable to defend himself against the kick to the stomach. But his training had included lots and lots of practice fighting when one of his senses was no longer available to him - enhanced, they were also more susceptible to situations just like this - and as he stumbled back his hand shot out and grabbed her foot, giving one good yank with all his strength.
Ungraceful was one way of describing what happened next. The grip on her ankle was rock solid and with her only source of support yanked from underneath her, Dazzler went flying, arms windmilling briefly before she landed solidly on her back.
Piers rose, still seeing spots, and tried to locate her scent. There, on the ground. Didn't hear her moving, either. "Friend didn't teach you not to turn it into an opening, though," he said as his vision cleared. He straightened, striding forward and reaching for her.
/Down!/ Scott's voice suddenly came over the coms. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/
Catching a different source of light at the corner of his vision, Piers glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he saw Nathan and Morgan, the situation coming clear in an instant. He was already running when the golden light started to expand outwards from Nathan's form.
Dazzler didn't even want to look really, the urgency in Cyclops' voice more than clear. A quick glance showed her that scrambling back outside wouldn't happen - the fights had taken her deeper into the warehouse and she couldn't even see the exit from here. Light started to grow and she rolled instead towards some of the crates piled nearby, using them as some sort of cover as best she could, shielding her head with her arms and using the last of her energy to create a light shield around her body which would hopefully take the brunt of the impact of what was to come.
---
Even through the shields, it was too hot, too close. Memories of burning made Lorna scream and reach out to stop the heat the swiftest way she knew. Spinning the magnetic fields that surrounded the operative, channeled the resulting electro-magnetic force directly into his brain, firing every synapse at once. It might kill him. Right then, she didn't care.
Case slumped to the ground, the plasma fire winking out, dying with him. Before Polaris could catch her breath, a blur shot across the warehouse and slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. The blur resolved into Adams, who stood over her, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face before he shifted into a blur again as he reached for her, throwing her into another stack of crates.
Fast. She lifted herself about ten feet in the air. He was sending eddies through the EM field as he moved but she was having trouble getting a grip on his personal field. She settled again and quickly set up a field to lock her in place. Hitting her wouldn't budge her in the slightest. Hopefully he'd stop long enough for her to get a sense of him.
Adams kept moving. It was the one thing he knew he had to do, no matter what - physically speaking, he was only marginally good at hand-to-hand combat and powers like hers could kill him even more easily than they had Case - and he wasn't sure he would have stopped running even if that had been a viable tactical decision. Why did this have to be my first mission? he thought miserably, running around and around in circles around her, pushing his speed to its max.
She kept her shield tight against her. Moving at that speed, if he decided to hit her again, it would seriously hurt. She didn't dare try to hit him, she'd probably just break her arm. Come on, think. If he kept this up he was going to wear a rut in the floor. "Hey, kid. You just going to run?"
Adams had been waiting for that. A flash of impatience - an opening, maybe. He peeled off at a ninety degree angle and then came back right at her, slamming into her at full speed.
Even with the shield that hurt but, still grounded by her EM field, she didn't move. Gasping for air, she shoved out at him, knowing he probably wouldn't be there but having to try anyway. Green lightning crackled from her hands again, seeking a way back stillness.
Adams, bounced off her shield, barely managed to stay on his feet and get out of the way of the energy discharge. Can't do this, he thought, running in circles again. Can't think of a way through, too strong for me, need Morgan or someone... But Morgan was fighting with Cable on the other side of the warehouse, he saw as he blazed through a turn, and... wait...
Cable was turning away from Morgan, and Simon was right there, too. Golden radiance started to gather around him, power coalescing, and Adams promptly did the smart thing, peeling off and vacating the warehouse in a flash.
/Down!/ Scott's voice came over the coms. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/
She followed the speedster's gaze and started to swear. All around her the metal started to complain, resisting the sudden pull. She would have bet quite a lot that it had everything to do with the golden light spreading out from Nathan. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on holding up the whining metal. The large chunk of concrete that landed next to her revealed the flaw in her plan.
Lorna swore again and sprinted for the nearest team member, expanding her force shield as she ran. Every chunk of rock and glass that struck the little dome made her flinch. Then the roof came down.
---
Heavy? That was okay. Paul threw a fistful of light at Lense, hitting him in the face as gravity slammed him down toward the earth. Falling was never a problem, it was the landing that could kill you. No sense panicking too soon.
The burst of light sent Lense twisting backwards through the air, briefly out of control, until he adjusted his own gravity and managed to land on the roof of the adjoining warehouse. Northstar was nowhere to be seen, and Lense gritted his teeth. Had he managed to knock him out of the air before he'd lost his concentration again?
Paul stopped himself just below the treeline. This ... it felt like he was being pulled, not pushed. He got heavier and slower, like gravity increased. He spun slowly and watched Lense land. The roof was an interesting battleground. He needed to incapacitate Lense, and fast, so he could get back to the other. He could see an open window, and gauged Lense as being only feet from another skylight. Lense was disoriented and not likely to catch sight of him. Paul readied himself and took off like a shot toward the window, fast and silent.
Something slammed into him from behind, and Lense had no time to react, no time to adjust as the skylight approached at dizzying speed. He threw up an arm to shield his face. It didn't really help. Glass and wood shredded at his body armor, and the pain disoriented him further. He wasn't sure where he was, what direction he was facing, and he couldn't risk dropping, not when he didn't know what was below...
The hole in one skylight had been too good to resist. Paul shot through the warehouse and back out with a rush of turbulence and there was Lense, looking away from him. He hit Lense from behind, spun him, and smashed him back through the next pane. The warehouse was huge and the cursory glance Paul had gotten as he passed through told him no one was at this end. He drove Lense toward the floor, making sure not to let the man get a grip on him, lest he reverse their roles and plaster Paul against the concrete below.
The impact was sudden and crushing, driving the breath from his lungs and any idea of fighting back from his brain, although Lense heard the back-of-his-mind voice of his tactical imperatives insisting he get up, keep fighting, even as everything else faded. Primary objective achieved, he hoped, with the last conscious thought left him. Otherwise this had all been for nothing...
Lense hit the concrete hard and went limp in Paul's hands, Paul's knee grinding hard into the small of the man's back to keep him down until he was completely unconscious. Blood trickled out from under his cheek and Paul hoped he'd gauged things right. Then he shot back up and out, scanning the area for the warehouse where the others were still engaged.
/Down!/ Scott's voice came over the coms, sounding frantic. /Everyone down - take cover, now!/ Golden light like the rising sun blazed through the windows of the warehouse where all of this had started. Then the windows blew out as it expanded, telekinetic force tearing through the walls of the warehouse, until it all came tumbling down.
Paul braced himself against the blast, shielding his face as the wave of force washed over him. "Scott?" He spoke into the communicator. "Someone give me something," he said, diving for the rubble. Damn. "First come, first served." He tried to keep it light.
---
Her head felt like it was broken in several places. Betsy moaned. She tried moving, but there was an incredible weight on her. She opened her eyes, to take in her surroundings, and all she saw was dark. Panic set in when she felt Scott coming to.
Needed to wake up. He needed to wake up, but it was almost impossible to struggle up out of the dark, to think... #Betsy?# he thought weakly, feeling someone shift beneath him. Even sending the thought that slight distance made the pain in his head swell.
She heard Scott and felt his pain travel down the length of the link. Betsy opened her eyes and saw a bright light protruding from just below eye level. Yet she could not move. She closed her eyes, hesitantly, trying to grasp what had happened. #Scott, are you alright?#
#Uhh... no?# But even as he sent the answer back he was moving, or trying to, pushing desperately at the debris covering them.
#Scott, don't move. Lemme check something..# Betsy took to scanning him, her mind focusing on the pressure on his body and his points of pain. She realized that nothing was truly harmed, a few bruises and contusions. Remembering his rush toward her, Betsy shuddered. #What made you do such a thing, Scott. I almost was almost there...#
#Wouldn't have reached him.# He had seen the distance, her speed, her trajectory... #You would have been right on top of....# He had broken through the top layer of debris with one determined push, and was struck dumb at what he saw, even through the choking haze of dust.
The warehouse was gone.
#I promised....# Betsy felt the weight lifted off her and let out a sound of anguish. Whether it was over Nathan or the pain she felt from her right arm, she wasn't sure. Her mind was hazy and she felt lightheaded as Scott sent back his thoughts. The warehouse was gone? Struggling not to pass out, she reached out with her mind, searching for the rest of the X-Men.
Tags:
- c: scott summers,
- z p1: c: .npc,
- z p1: c: .retired: alison blaire,
- z p1: c: .retired: betsy braddock,
- z p1: c: .retired: jean-paul beaubier,
- z p1: c: .retired: lorna dane,
- z p1: c: .retired: moira mactaggart,
- z p1: c: .retired: nathan dayspring,
- z p1: c: haroun al-rashid,
- z p1: c: shinobi shaw,
- z p1: p: gtts: trojan horse,
- z p1: t: x-men
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