[mental torture, pain, restraining, death, telepathic control, killing/murder, battle, blood, injuries]
The second part of the battle. It gets heated and somewhat bloody, while John's mental journey comes to an end.
"Guys, they're coming," Sage warns with fear in her voice from the control room.
"Dammit," Lorna mutters under her breath. "Reeva must have told them to meet her here. Caitlin," she says with a louder voice. "Bring the kids here. We need to be able to protect them and John. Sage, can you stall them for a minute?"
"I'm on it," Sage says. The door to the training room slams close.
Lorna and Marcos go to help Caitlin drag the children until they're leaning on the base of the table John is still chained to. His restraints aren't made of metal, so Lorna can't do anything about them, and they don't have time to worry about it.
"Mom?" Lauren asks tiredly. "What's happening?"
"We're gonna have to fight," Lorna answers before Caitlin can. "We need you two to stay out of the way."
"I can help," Lauren says.
"You can't even stand up. Protect yourselves if you can, but don't get in our way."
"Okay." Lauren snuggles up closer to her brother and lays her head on his shoulder. Lorna wonders if she's falling asleep, but her eyes stay open, alert.
"Fade?" Lorna turns to the large man.
"Do you want me to fight or to hide them? What's the priority?"
"Hide them as long as you can," Lorna decides, wondering when she became this group's leader. She's the one uniting them all, yes, but…
But she misses John. This is his job. And he's here lying on a table, restrained, not moving. Not seeing them.
She isn't given the time to further wonder what has been done to her friend. The door explodes, taking part of the wall with it. Max's power. The room doesn't allow for teleportation in and out, or Heather would have gotten them in a while ago.
A quick look behind her tells Lorna that Fade had time to hide the table and everyone who is touching it. She, Marcos and Reed move to protect the area, while Caitlin is still with her children, now invisible.
Max, Tico and Mark spread out, watching them warily. Heather disappears as soon as she's inside the room, and Lorna looks around in panic, before she finds her in the control room, an arm around Sage's throat.
"Traitors," she says, her voice resonating through the intercom. "All of you. You too, Fade, I know you're in here."
Sage fights her grip, but she only gets one hit before Heather drops her to the floor, hopefully just unconscious. Lorna makes a move toward her, but Marcos stops her. "Not now," he mutters.
Heather disappears again and reappears in front of them.
"You think you can measure up to us?" Max asks Lorna, contempt dripping from his voice. "With those guys? I should have known there was something off about you."
Lorna swishes her hands to get her knives out, letting them float in front of her.
"Oh, you have no idea," she says, shaking her head.
John carefully lays his watch on the table in his apartment, then his dog tags. He rubs his hands over the etched metal, looking at his and Gus's names on the tags for a moment. He can't give Lorna anything she can use against him, but it means abandoning that last piece of his former life. The last memory.
He's not coming back here. He doesn't know what he will do once this is done, but he can't come back. Maybe he'll die before he even makes it to Lorna.
But that's a selfish wish. Killing his best friend is the last thing he wants to do, but there's no other option left. She needs to be taken out. The Inner Circle needs to be taken out before they take over the whole world.
So John will do it, or die trying. He's the only one left standing in their way now.
His drive from the apartment to the Inner Circle headquarters goes like a dream, like time doesn't even exist.
There is no doubt in his mind, not hint of worry or surprise when the alarm system doesn't go off as he walks into the building. They are waiting for him. No obstacle stands in his way, because Reeva already knows he's coming.
Reeva and the Frosts sisters are there, standing in front of him, when he gets into the room at the top of the building. He can see the lights of the city behind them, the night sky. His last glimpse at the world he's leaving behind.
Lorna stands at the side. She's wearing the headpiece he saw her with at the Purifiers' compound. They stare at each other for a moment, and John barely registers that the Frosts and Reeva are making no move toward him.
Lorna takes a step forward.
"John?" she asks quietly. "What are you doing here?"
John closes his eyes, briefly, and lets it all go. The love he has for her, the good memories, the friendship. Only the pain and the despair can remain. He thinks about her as she dragged Marcos back into the explosion that killed him, as she pierced the Struckers' bodies with metal. As she turned her back on them and walked away, months ago in Nashville.
There's understanding, and fear, in Lorna's face when he looks at her again. Then rage. She makes a move toward the metal table behind him, but John is faster. He jumps.
Lorna may be a powerful mutant, but her body is human. Fragile. John weeps as her grabs her and, before she has time to react, snaps her neck.
She falls into his arms, and he sobs as he lets himself fall to the floor.
There. He's done it. He's killed her.
He's killed his best friend.
His sister.
Now nothing matters. Nothing can ever matter again.
His world is ashes.
Lorna cries out when something slashes her arm deeply. Heather, she understands. The bitch teleported a knife into her arm. She removes the knife with her power and sends it flying back at Heather, but the woman disappears and the knife just slides to the floor.
Lorna looks down at her arm, and almost throws up. It's gushing up blood, already soaking her sleeve. The pain is all she can focus on for a moment.
"Lorna!" Marcos yells.
"I'm okay," she say, more weakly than she intends.
She extends her other arm to get the knife back. There's too many metal weapon in the room to keep track of at the same time, between her own knife, Caitlin's two guns and everything Max's team brought in.
Mark only fights with his own strength, but he's probably stronger than John, and he certainly has enough body mass to crush someone under him. Tico's shock waves have brought them all to the floor multiple time, but without furniture for Max to charge up, their abilities aren't of much use. Heather is the real annoyance, along with Max's gun, which is what Lorna has been concentrating on.
Fade has managed to hide the others so far, so they're not in danger for now. At least until one of their enemies starts wondering where the bullets they're fielding are coming from. Several have bounced off Mark's skin already, and Max took one to the shoulder.
Lorna gathers the bullets and shell casings off the floor and starts flying them around the room, hoping to protect Caitlin. She has to be careful to avoid Marcos and Reed, and even more the invisible people in the center of the room, so she doesn't dare sending them into the fight, but it should throw their enemies off for a while.
Marcos is facing Tico, trying to advance against the shock waves, his hands lighting up. Reed has little use at a long range, so he does his best to keep Mark at bay, threatening him with his arms, now red and glowing up to his shoulders. He's clearly in pain, and he has trouble controlling it, but Lorna can't do anything about that.
It leaves her and Caitlin with Max and Heather.
"Lights!" Marcos yells. Lorna has fought enough times with him before that closing her eyes tightly is a reflex, and she does it at the same time as throwing her knife toward Max. She's rewarded with a scream, but he's not the only one to scream as the room is flooded with light.
When it recedes behind Lorna's eyelids, she opens her eyes to see Marcos standing over Tico, who is immobile on the floor, his face burned beyond repair. Lorna averts her eyes, but she can see that he's dead. Marcos looks shaken, and he falls to one knee.
"Marcos!" Lorna runs to him, after checking that no one else has recovered from the flash yet.
"I'm okay," Marcos murmurs when she reaches him. There's a large gash on the side of his face, bleeding, but he looks otherwise fine. Lorna puts her good arm around him, briefly. They don't have time for comfort yet.
She stands back up and tries to take stock. Max is injured, enough that his reaction times are slowed, but he's still dangerous if he approaches any of them. His gun is still in his hand, somehow. Heather is teleporting all over, never stopping long enough for anyone to reach her. Mark and Reed are still keeping each other at bay, Reed doing his best to protect the area where his children and wife are hiding.
They need to get out of here, fast. Reeva will be here soon, and if they're still here then, they're done. But John is still tied down to the table, and too many of them are unable to fight their way out.
Lorna hears a grunt and Caitlin's yell behind her and she turns to see that one of Heather's knives−the ones she hasn't been able to keep tracking, since Heather keeps zapping all over the room−has reached Fade. His power drops immediately, making everyone around the table visible again.
Fade falls to the floor, Heather's knife deep in his chest. "No!" Lorna yells, gathering all the metal around the room and hurling it at Heather. The woman disappears before it reaches her, of course, and reappears behind Lorna.
"Good riddance," Heather says tauntingly. "It's a good day when you can get rid of a traitor."
Lorna give a guttural cry of anger and rains the metal down on Heather again. She doesn't manage to escape it all this time, and when she reappears at the other side of the room, she falls down to one knee, bleeding.
Lorna chases her around the room for a while, hoping that Heather will tire faster than her. She's slower with every zap, faltering.
"Caitlin!" Marcos cries out before Lorna can finish her.
She whirls around. Caitlin is standing in front of her children, her guns discarded−empty, most likely. She's defenseless in front of Max, who is looking at her greedily.
"Mom," Lauren mutters, weakly. A shield forms in front of Caitlin, but it drops quickly. Another, a cutting shield, doesn't even reach Max before it disappears. Andy, shaking his head, reaches his hand out and manages to make Max stumble, but not fall.
Max has almost reached Caitlin when he's tackled to the floor. Lorna watches it with fascination, his rolling down on the floor untangled with Reed, and the struggle between their similar and incompatible powers. Max's tries to charge Reed up to kill him only makes Reed lose more control of his power, the red lighting extending to his chest. He pants and writhes on the floor, but the outcome of the battle becomes clear the moment he manages to put his hands on Max's face.
Max screams and tries to get away, but it's too late. Reed removes his hands as soon as Max stops fighting, his skin falling off. He's already dead.
The light fades from Reed's body, and he stands back up, looking at his hands, panting.
Lorna looks around just in time to see Heather grab Mark and disappear. Just like that, they're alone, and the fight is over.
"Girls, I think he's finally ready," Reeva says.
Kneeling over Lorna's body, John stills. He can feel the Frosts' intrusion in his mind, but it's strange, somehow, from the inside. As if they were already there.
That's when it rips apart. His mind, and with it the shield placed there long ago. Memories flood over him.
Evangeline. But Evangeline is dead.
Clarice. Clarice doesn't want anything to do with him. She's with the Morlocks, but that's not what the Frosts are looking for.
Marcos. Marcos is dead. Like everyone else. Gone.
Lorna.
John sobs and lets himself lie down beside her body.
Lorna switched sides, came back to Marcos. To John, even. She was there, and she hugged him.
For a moment, he's back at his apartment, lying between Lorna and Marcos in his bed.
He killed Lorna.
John doesn't scream, as he remembers. He wants to, but there's no energy, no life left in his body. He hugs Lorna's limp body and weeps until even his tears turn into ashes.
"There we go," Reeva says, standing over him. The Frosts are behind her, their eyes still glowing. "I believe we've come full circle."
"How did the Frosts know that you betrayed them?" Clarice asks. She's listened intently during Lorna's narration of the battle, gasping in the right places, looking down at her arm still in a sling, but they've fallen silent. Marcos can feel that Clarice has a lot of questions, but she doesn't quite dare ask them.
"I've thought about it a lot," Lorna answers. "I didn't do anything to tip them off, and Sage and Fade didn't give me away, I'm sure of that."
"Then what?"
Lorna hangs her head. "John. He knew. He probably tried to hide it as long as he could, and he's got some training in mental barriers, so it was longer than any of us could have. But I think they got it from his head in the end."
"John," Clarice repeats, pain in her voice. "What did they do to him?"
It's at least the third time she's asked that question, but Marcos can hardly blame her. They haven't answered, after all, not really.
"They...raped his mind," he answers. "As far as I can figure it out, they trapped him in his own nightmares until he broke, and then they took it all apart."
John wakes up in the dark. Not the dark, not exactly. It's just...blank. There's nothing.
It's not silent, but there's no sound.
No smell.
Only pain.
He's restrained on a hard surface.
It strikes a memory, but he doesn't know, anymore. A collar around his neck. The Purifiers' compound. But he got out of there.
Lorna got him out. And Clarice, and Marcos and the others.
No. Marcos is dead. Clarice is gone.
He was at the Inner Circle's headquarter. He killed Lorna. Lorna who was working with them. How did he forget?
She's dead.
And Reeva got him.
They're all gone.
John has nothing left. Whatever Reeva does to him now, it doesn't matter.
He'll take it all, and hope it doesn't last too long.
He's ready to die. He should have died a long time ago, in that explosion in the desert. He didn't, and he failed everyone who was counting on him.
Even the pain is fading, already.
John's breath hitches.
There's a hand on his shoulder.
Human contact. Alive. Real. He hasn't been touched in an eternity.
He knows that in this place, wherever this is, contact means pain, but he'll gladly welcome it.
The hand moves away, and away with it goes John's only handle on reality.
He chokes on the ashes.
John's timeline has now joined Marcos and Lorna's, sort of. Next chapter: getting out might not be as easy as it seems, because when has anything ever been easy for them?
I hope you liked this chapter, and please leave even a very short review so I know you're still reading!