Issue # 14
By Kyle Phoenix
"Quantum Leap"
Sanctuary Base,
Australian Outback:
Jessica Drew pivoted backwards; she'd been pushing herself hard for close to an hour. Marrow dove in with bone shards in her hands, missing her but narrowly.
"You're slowing in the heat, Jessie," Marrow teased.
"Overconfident," Jessica murmured and came up inside of Marrow's wide body arc, two quick aikido taps and the shards were dropped. A sharp elbow to her midsection and then the base of her hand to the woman's chin and a quick foot swipe to leave her flat on her ass. Marrow threw her legs up in the air and flipped back onto her feet, less than a second after being knocked down. Her healing powers making this sparring heavily weighed in her favor. The only way for Jessica to stay ahead and unharmed was not to be hit or cut by Marrow.
"Nice but old. I let you get that one in," Marrow growled.
Jessica shrugged, already in her Tiger Claw crouch. "Whatever. I believe we're even again."
"Even," Marrow admitted, "that fluidic style you have makes you a slippery thing."
"My bio-electrical powers as Spiderwoman are gone but the agility, the strength, the sense of balance isn't. It's enough to have been recruited by Frost to lead you and Monet," Jessica smiled and picked up her water bottle and towel. The sharp kick to her abdomen came close to breaking a rib if she hadn't of back flipped with it. She landed on one leg, squirting her towel with water and snapping it into Marrow's eyes, blinding her long enough for Jessica to kick her knees from under her then slam a full strength right cross into the woman's chin.
Marrow slammed onto her back laughing even as blood came from her mouth. She shook her head and her vision came back almost instantly. "Nasty, bitch. But cute."
Jessica hefted her friend to her feet. "I've told you a thousand times that you telegraph on the wind with me. But you never listen."
"I'm getting better though? I almost had you this morning?" Marrow asked, picking up her own towel and water and taking a long swallow.
"Almost," Jessica acknowledged as dawn crested onto the Sanctuary base. They were half a mile outside of the town center to have privacy.
"It's weird being responsible for a group of people again," Sarah admitted. "Since the Morlocks, I never expected..... And Gene Nation, well there was a lot of rage there."
"And now?" Jessica asked.
"I trust the X-Men, I even like Emma's goals of taking care of mutants and I agree that especially after Genosha they're going to need a focus on security here."
"I agree too," Jessica sighed looking at the hundreds of people in Sanctuary being distributed goods and construction equipment by Worthington and Frost employees to build houses. Sanctuary was open twenty four hours now, barely half of the San Madre refugees had new homes constructed. Quick, pre-fab homes like Habitat for Humanity in America but still good with electrical power and air conditioning. It was estimated that all five thousand residents would be housed within another week and half. Then what? Jessica wondered. These people had worked in a sugar factory before, some sort of industry would be needed to employee them all, they couldn't exist on handouts forever.
"Looking good, ladies," Cain Marko said as he walked by, his seven foot shadow enveloping them. Jessica tensed slightly then relaxed, their battle had been years ago. And if she could reform as a spy, then why couldn't she afford him the same from his criminal Juggernaut days? Not to mention that Sarah, one of her closest friends in the past year had been a terrorist.
Sarah eagerly peeled off the rest of her X uniform, the unstable molecules best for her bone protrusions when exercising but still stifling hot when only half on. Under it she had a sports bra and jogging shorts. "Hey, big guy? How's patrol going?"
Cain shrugged his massive shoulders. "No one has gotten out of line, nor has anyone tried to get past the security screen Alex and IT have set up. Emma just got the new Cerebra down here so she's going to set up the psi misdirection field before she leaves."
"A shame she has to go," Jessica murmured. "The people trust her and we don't have an active telepath down her to monitor the outskirts. I feel better with a psi eye view as it were."
"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "But what you gonna do? X Corp and the Institute are worldwide. We're just a subsidiary down here. A hidden one at that. Emma and Xavier have a lot to manage."
"Cain, did you see the data file on the two hundred residents I okayed for training as a private police force here?" Jessica asked.
"Yeah, it looks good. You want to start the training classes tomorrow? Alex has the X Security team suits made up, Kevlar and blast proof. What the folks lack in powers with a little basic team work and self defense and body armor, they'll make up for in resilience."
"Yes, tomorrow. I don't want to have to arm them with anything but the comm links into IT as well as stun guns. Then we'll start creating outposts at half mile intervals for ten miles surrounding the town. We can use a lot of the buttes as natural guard towers. Alex and I agreed on a perimeter of three miles from the town center for houses to go up in and later this week, we'll need help laying cabling. Building a functioning connected town in less than a month is pushing everyone to their limits but I want to get this into place before you leave, Cain."
"No problem, Jess, I'll be walking my circle and back in about three hours," he grinned and strolled off. The rising blistering sun having little to no effect on him, he hadn't even broken a sweat as far as Jessica could remember, though he had visibly tanned like all of them had.
IT, the artificial intelligence linked into the Sanctuary main systems popped into view, a shimmering head that reminded Jessica of the Avenger's Vision.
"Good morning, Jessica, Sarah. Did your morning sparring session go well?"
"Great, light bulb," Sarah grinned then turned down a street towards the apartment she'd chosen for herself. The twon central reserved for the X-Men, staff and control center. Off to the side, the original landing place of San Madre was where they were buildign the civilian town center. Jessica thought it best for both security and a sense of independence.
"Well, excuse me," IT said in a slightly miffed tone. Though not "alive" in the most technical sense, IT did have an extensive personality buffer built in to him.
"Don't let her get to you, IT. Sarah is more of a warrior than a conversationalist."
"Yes, I gathered," IT said dryly. "Onto the days task then?"
"Fire away," Jessica nodded and a holographic list and schedule appeared as they headed towards her apartment for her customary shower. She mused to herself that the beauty of IT was that he or it, could follow her anywhere without her feeling self conscious as she would with a human assistant. They got their best work done in the shower.
Paris, France:
Deep in the Parisian sewers there were catacombs, built supposedly during the time of the Terror as a means of escape for the rich when the poor had rioted. They'd hadn't been used, the rich coming to bloody ends, the creators of the tunnels having their heads rolled down the streets. But Misery had found them when she'd arrived in Paris before the German Occupation. She'd found them by accident, actually, while running from a police squad that had been chasing her. That had been before she was fully aware of her complete nature. She'd been a woman in her late fifties, widowed by two husbands, childless and attacked late one night in an alleyway in Hungary. A decade later she would come to know that it was the vampire king Dracula who had attacked her. The Nazi's having almost cornered and killed him, his encounter with them initially almost his undoing. Her blood had saved him and at the same time somehow tripped a genetic switch within her, releasing her mutant abilities.
Immortality extending her life had been tempting at first but as the Nazi's grew in power, the woman who would coin herself Misery had fled to Paris, becoming a torch singer, never believing that the Nazi's would take Paris. Take it they had and she'd almost been caught by the police until she'd fallen through a storm drain into the sewers and then by chance slipped down a small tunnel. She'd found cool catacombs, a veritable treasure of gold secreted away to fund whomever had built them and her Paris base of operations. She'd patiently waited out the war, sealing off and repairing the tunnels until they were memorized and met her needs for safety and if necessary, quick escape.
Not a large woman, barely five four, she was an unassuming matriarch as she slowly built her vampiric family, her lined face and short gray hair not at all what people expected of a leader of a vampire house. But she'd taken her time and learned not only her vampiric powers well but also her strange mutant ones. With only a dozen vampires created by her she'd created underground retreats in every major city in Europe in less than twenty five years and populated them with mutant vampire offspring that she kept purposefully drugged and imprisoned until she decided how to use them. She'd considered a reign of terror on the whole of Europe, a new plague but the emergence of superhumans had halted her plans in the late 1950's. It would be a long dragged out war, she sensed to take a continent. So she'd appeased herself to have ten thousand strong, dead and slumbering, barely half a dozen attendants conscious with her at any time. She was patient, she had thousands of years to look forward to, first to see what her first one hundred brought and more importantly how the world changed.
And then the Devil found her.
"You have your orders, woman. Heed them," Wrath whispered to her in her coffin and Misery awoke, swathed in deep crimson afraid for the first time in seventy-five years. She let her mind reach out to her children and she called them to send reserves home to her in Paris.
It was time for the Festival of Mort.
New York City:
Magneto's reign of terror, or control by mutants hadn't endeared the city to mutants. To superhumans at all. But Quantum wasn't a man who cared about what people thought. He'd been born with a flexibility in his genetic code that allowed him to touch into the flexibility of everything in the universe. Through the intercession of Charles Xavier and complex, illegal drugs taken daily he'd been able to keep that part of his mind shutdown, that psionic attachment to all reality contained. Channel had offered him a way to extend his life, to live as whatever he chose and access his powers at the same time. Shadowcat of the X-Men had done something to Channel, yanked him out but at the same time left parts, fragments of the mutant left within him. Enough to yank energy out of the quantum field and snap it at his offenders. If he was to die this day, he was going to take more than just a President with him, he would raze a city.
With a sharp twist of his arms the energy scythe had flown from him, azure energy at the monument, cutting the top third of the Empire State building off and sending it plummeting towards the rush hour crowd of thousand below.
M had seen destruction before, on a large scale even but Quantum's cold rage stunned even her mutant boosted intellect. However the logical thing wasn't to falter, it was to act, to help, to serve, to save. In the second it took for his bolt to sear through the floors and begin a topple, M had devised a way to stop it. On a scale of one to ten, she felt herself, a junior telepath a strong six but she screamed with all of her mind to her teammates.
SEND ICEMAN! NOW! NOW! NOW!
"Monet!" they all reacted in sheer shock and pain from the telepathic burst as they boarded the Avery near Newark airport, tens of miles away.
NOW! NOW! NOW! M wouldn't cease in her demand as she sent images of what she was seeing and then she slowly felt Iceman's thoughts panic and fixate on her mental projection of where she was, a thousand feet about 34th Street. She felt his mind fade from far away and begin to coalesce below her, and then finally fully form. Without hesitating, she bypassed his exhaustion at instantaneous transporting of himself through moisture molecules and she forced her telepathic strength into him so that he would look up and act. Faster, faster, faster.
He'd rescued a building in a similar form of destruction before and she saw him speeding up as pure thought, ice expanding to encompass the street below, slamming into the building as a physical wave, wrapping around it in the fist shape he could think of, a giant hand and shoving it back upright. M didn't hesitate anymore, Quantum had crossed the line from being a danger to just the X-Men to being a potential mass murderer. She flew at her top speed at him, grabbing an antenna off of the building he'd just severed and impaled him, her speed carrying them further downtown.
She sensed Paulie before she heard him over the comm link and she broke off her attack and an instant later kinetic pulsing bolts smashed Quantum into the lower east side into a small park at the base of Manhattan. The Avery was already nearby, followed by military jets, M could sense. They would have to press the attack, Quantum had already ripped free the impaling metal and was almost completely healed.
Paulie slammed into Quantum like an errant meteor, and was immediately on his feet brutally pummeling the man. Lefts, rights, uppercuts that left him kneeling, seemingly beaten.
"Stay down, bitch!" Paulie warned and then actually blanched as Quantum rose up and grabbed Paulie by the throat in a grip that flashing kinetic blasts and more blows couldn't break.
"The power borrowing mutant thug again, eh?" Quantum chuckled, not even a bruise on him. "From that fighting style I would say you were a Marine, no? Pissant. Do you have any concept of how many Marines I've killed in the past twenty years? I've crawled and killed through every backwater shit hole country on this planet. Twice!"
Quantum calmly reached over and broke Paulie's forearm.
"Your flesh radiates an aura, you know? Supposedly it makes you invulnerable and yet I actually manipulate that aura. Do you understand that, jarhead? Do you understand that I negate that which you strike me with? And these pathetic gauntlets, you don't even have a concept of how to truly use them to manipulate energy. Force bolts and flying? Juvenile. They don't even look human built from the inside. I can see them from the inside you know. Have you been traveling across the stars, Xavier pup?"
Paulie was actually barely conscious, the intense pain and lack of oxygen bringing him close to blacking out but he heard whispers of the last of Quantum's threats. He heard him talking about the gauntlets and Paulie knew that there was something to be used there. With one last focused thought, he thought of the sizzling blue energy the gauntlets gave off and instead of just thinking a blast, he thought needles, fine needles. He thought about them as small as he could envision and more importantly he thought about them containing energy, containing a small payload bomb within. Thousands of energy needles surged from the gauntlets into Quantum.
"What---?!" Quantum was surprised but immediately looked at negating and controlling the energy, it was the internal explosion that he wasn't prepared for. Paulie was hurled away almost a hundred feet by the energy released from inside Quantum who looked deeply hurt, staggered on one knee.
"You may be indestructible but we've noticed even you have needs!" Northstar said as he dove down and around Quantum at superspeed, drawing out the oxygen so fast that there was a complete stillness around the man. Quantum reached out to grab or blast Northstar, trying to focus on the mutants bio-energy signature when the heat of the sun itself seemed to slice into him from above. For all the power that he could focus outward, that he could manipulate externally to his body, Quantum was still limited by his flesh. He was still human.
"Not yet, Quantum, we aren't done with you!" Sunspot shouted from above, pouring energy down into the funnel Northstar was creating. Without the buffer of oxygen, the heat quadrupled in temperature, threatening to destroy Northstar when suddenly Paulie's energy field extended around the impromptu prison they'd created. "The two of you thought it was funny keeping me prisoner while you plotted in front of me. Using my body like a plaything! Well now it's time to feel my wrath!" Sunspot raged, his anger at being possesses by Channel finally being vented.
"Good to see you caught on! Though I suspect Sunspot will be in dire need of therapy after this," Northstar said over his comm link and Paulie merely grunted, he'd ripped his jacket into a sling to support his arm and he was still seeing spots but the threat of Quantum, the damage the man had done was too great to allow pain to slow him down.
"And now the coup de grace!" Sunspot screamed and flew off as a silver shard of energy appeared next to him and then shot down into the funnel.
"Close the field, Paulie!" M shouted, coordinating the attack telepathically.
"Done!" Paulie said and Quantum was suddenly trapped inside of a column with swirling ice and snow within. He was screaming and raging but finally he fell to the ground, M sensing the brightness of his thoughts receding.
"I think we successfully overloaded him," Bobby said a moment later, having reformed in human form outside of the force field. "We better have. I can't do that again."
"His thoughts are close to human and hurt," M reported. "Without Channel he can't safely access the totality of his powers."
Then I'll have to do it unsafely, girl! Quantum raged to her mentally.
Before M could warn anyone of the thought she felt from Quantum below, energy exploded from him and almost ten blocks around him and the East River exploded. The X-Men were able to instinctively flee upwards but Quantum's energy wave was barely any higher then him in height. Yet it was deadlier than a knife through paper. It fanned out in front of him, like a solid thing, a solid thing with a razors edge. Shearing through cars, people, first floors of buildings----anything within a height of under seven feet was suddenly disintegrated. M felt the wave of the telepathic backlash of several thousand people dying, of buildings, residential, commercial, stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, crumbling with their first floors, part of their structural foundation, suddenly gone. She felt Paulie snatch her out of the air and realized she'd been plummeting towards the cutting energy below, having forgotten to fly she'd been so open telepathically, the brunt of death striking her so deeply. She was amazed that Paulie was holding an equally horrified Bobby. Paulie had leapt into the air with him like it had been an energy bolt attack, no one could've expected it was a cutting scythe of pure power. That he could expand it even larger than he had to shear off the Empire State Building. This seemed to have been blocks in magnitude and scope.
"He can't control himself, Paulie!" M shrieked as she saw the East River fill violently into the crater that had been the park and ten blocks of the lower east side, Quantum now submerged in the water. "He's building to do it again, to lash out even greater!"
"Hold still!" Bobby shouted at Paulie and waves of ice crashed down onto Quantum, the incredible heat instantly melting the ice but Bobby kept pouring it on, drawing from the East River itself to bury Quantum, to create a massive lake where the park, the lower east side had been. It wasn't enough to stop Quantum, Bobby knew but it would slow him down as he required oxygen like everyone else.
"Can you fly?" Paulie asked M, horrified as he saw the devastation below, it looked like a bomb had gone off and simply disintegrated everything except for the water, the crater was barely ten feet deep. Quantum's energy seemed to be like a knife, buildings had literally been cut off at their figurative knees. "Hold on, Bobby, I'm gonna climb high as I can, we can't be this close!"
"Dear God," Shadowcat murmured over the comm link. "Northstar, Sunspot, help the people! Now! Forget about Quantum!"
Paulie caught sight of Northstar and Sunspot flying in an arc out of the sky into the collapsed wreckages, into the screams and fires and devastation hoping to help in some way. A minute or so later it was obvious they were too late and flew back up. But it was all collapsing buildings, screams, no one to be rescued, only death witnessed.
"P-paulie?" Shadowcat called out over the comm link, unable to believe her eyes as buildings crumbled, almost of hundred of them all at once. It was too staggering to comprehend.
"I'm here. I have Monet and Bobby. She's barely conscious. I think she got a head whammy from all the----all the death," Paulie choked, flying higher and higher to evade the mushroom cloud of debris and dirt. He could make out the sleek Shi'ar designed Avery almost a two thousand feet above him, Northstar and Sunspot closer to it, being more agile in the air.
"I'm better," M said though there were tears streaking down her face and she pushed away from him, able to fly on her own. "Shadowcat----what do we do?"
Shadowcat was biting hard on her lip in the Avery two thousand feet above, a full view of the devastation below. "M, get a telepathic lock on Quantum in the water. Is he still alive?"
"Yes," M answered. "His mind is like looking into a bright flare. I can't attack it or shut it down. What do you want me to do?"
"Guide me in!" Shadowcat said as she dove through the floor of the Avery and phased until her body sped up fast enough to shoot her down at the churning water, ice and debris maelstrom. She didn't even break the water, phasing through it and then sharply changing her trajectory until she came upon Quantum who was in a geyser of superheated water. Shadowcat knew she only had seconds before she was affected, even in her intangible state so she streaked into the bubbling mess and phase din Quantum again.
Again she was in the void within him but this time she was on her knees next to Channel who was on his knees as well. He looked at her in both disgust and revulsion.
"It seems, my dear that we are cut from the same cloth. Perhaps I am the ultimate expression of your intangibility," he choked.
"No time for that, Channel. You merged with me when I yanked you out of here and were just energy for me to manipulate but Quantum literally needs you. Thousands are dead because he can't control his powers without you," Shadowcat choked, she felt like she'd been through a marathon separating from Channel.
"You are offering a truce?" Channel chuckled.
"I can't allow more people to die. I can't, Channel. Help him before he explodes again!" Shadowcat screamed.
"My presence, brings him balance. His power literally isn't strong enough for only one mind. That's what Xavier discovered. That he would have to transplant another mind, a symbiotic one into Quantum to regulate him. I've had time to marshal myself to integration with other beings. It is my nature. But what of you, Katherine? It is Katherine, isn't it? I saw your file while perusing Xavier's," Channel chuckled.
"What of me what?" Shadowcat demanded.
"Did you know that you were sought out and brought into the fold with your advanced intellect, taught languages, taught to fight and survive, taught to have an indomitable will so that you would advance to my state? So that Xavier could merge you into Quantum?" Channel laughed uproariously. "Oh, come now, think about it for a moment. Do you think it's coincidence that we're so alike? I'm merely the failed prototype of you. You're younger, stronger, you nearly consumed me by accident. When the time came to control Quantum, if requested by Xavier with the balance of potentially cities, you would've merged, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?"
KITTY! KITTY! M telepathically screamed. Get out now, he's shifting, he's shifting and vanishing, I can barely feel you at all!
Shadowcat looked into the twisted face of Channel and saw evil and the truth in his eyes and she screamed out as she forced herself from Quantum, threw herself back out and appeared as Quantum vanished, hundreds of feet underwater, solid and exhausted. She felt water rush into her lungs and panicked, thinking it impossible for her to drown, her natural state was intangible. Something had happened, negated her powers, the strain of being in Quantum as he vanished? She tried to reason it out even as her vision got darker and she realized that she was too far down to even try to swim. She was violently knocked by debris, and she thought that perhaps it was for the best. It was for the best that she die with the truth of the X-Men, of Xavier's plans in her. She saw a flash of light, a sparkling jewel over an eye and then she thought about joining her father who was deadin wherever he was at. She thought about how proud he would be that she at least tried to save people.
Her eyes fluttered open and Paulie's wet face, dripping hair was pulling away from, her lips felt bruised from his. He was covered in dirt and soot.
"CPR," he whispered and she nodded as she choked up water, they were on the other side of the river in Brooklyn. M was next to him, equally as messy and looking so deeply haggard and drawn, like she'd been grieving for years. But over her right eye was a telepathic diamond energy signature, the jewel Shadowcat had seen as darkness had taken over her. M blushed, catching the errant thought. "What else would I have as my signature? Diamonds are a girls' best friend."
"How?" Shadowcat wondered aloud, trying to breathe, spit up the last of the water and giggle at M.
"Your mind is generally slippery when you're phased, suddenly it "popped" brightly into my minds eye. So I knew you were solid. I directed Paulie to you as I shut down your autonomic functions so that you wouldn't lose anymore oxygen. Don't try to move too fast. I seized almost all of your muscles to keep them oxygenated, to keep your brain oxygen frozen. It took Paulie almost a minute to find you in the debris down there," M explained and Shadowcat clasped her hand tightly.
"Thanks," Shadowcat said as she followed M's line of sight to across the river where there were plumes of fire and smoke and a visible gash on the Manhattan coast line. "My God."
"Northstar and Sunspot have been going back in, finding some people, pulling out hundreds. But we can't stay here, I'm sensing a heavy military contingent moving in. I think the SHIELD hellicarrier or something big is happening. The military is going insane from 9/11. And the President, they think it's Magneto or worse," Paulie said frantically. "There are jets flying in from everywhere. They've got tactical nukes. They will burn us and sort it out later."
"Peter?" Shadowcat choked.
"The Avery is invisible for now and about a thousand feet over there, we can't help anymore, Kitty, we have to get out of here. To the Institute---,"M choked, tears streaking her face.
"NO! Not the Institute!" Shadowcat choked, clutching both Paulie and M, she saw the fear and confusion in their faces and shook her head. "Too dangerous. Call in Northstar and Sunspot; we have to begin immediately tracking Quantum. We can't let him get away."
M looked at her strangely and just as Shadowcat felt a slight telepathic touch from the young woman, she focused and went intangible. Her thoughts had to remain mercurial. They had to remain her own.
What are you hiding, Shadowcat? M asked her.
Not here. Not now, Shadowcat answered.
Madrid, Spain:
Slowly the doors opened into Carlos' penthouse on the top three floors of Allegra Industries and a short green skinned alien Skrull in dark slacks and a dark turtleneck smiled politely at the X-Men.
"This is Ng. He manages the apartment and my businesses while I'm away," Carlos introduced casually.
"A Skrull?" Cal'syee, wrapped in a hooded cloak sneered.
"Only when alone," Ng answered with a slight Asian accent and then shapeshifted into first a replica of Carlos and then a shorter, slim Chinese man in his late fifties. "I am who I need to be."
Warren, Johanna and Cal'syee all saw the immediate value in such an employee and servant as Carlos led them through the foyer into an enormous library. "Ng helps me maintain my presence as well as is aware of my mutation. His abilities and long lifespan make him the perfect assistant."
"Do I even want to know how you have a Skrull manservant?" Warren chuckled.
"Long story. Ng, we're going to be doing magic in the library, no disturbances," Carlos called out over his shoulder. "It may bring about guests. It may not."
"Understood. Shall I prepare a light meal?" Ng asked, quickly gathering everyone's coats.
"Yes, though we may be going right back out. Everyone's bags are in the cars downstairs, prepare the rooms for at least four more guests. I gave them the address and I downloaded their faces and names to your PDA for security clearance," Carlos said quickly as the four X-Men went into the library and he closed the door behind them.
"Move the couches, please," Carlos instructed as he went to several packed shelves and began pulling out books and old tomes. The three X-Men silently did as he said and Carlos immediately walked in a circle in the immense room. Almost a full twenty feet circle in diameter, which still left room for dozens of twenty foot high bookcases, packed with books. Behind his footsteps a slow light trail appeared until there was a soft glow from the circle he'd walked. We have to hurry and perform this magic ritual. I'm not as seasoned at this as I would like to be but I think I can do what Bissou suggested."
"Your Barnes and Noble discount must be impressive," Johanna whistled, there were at least twenty thousand books lining the shelves that rose
He chuckled at their staring at his magic and the books in the library that clearly went all the way up the entirety of the three floors to a sky light. "What else would an immortal do but read?"
"I feel something," Cal'syee said, twitching her head.
"Me too," Warren said.
"I don't," Johanna shrugged. "Ok, a little creeped out from all the magic. But I don't feel anything."
"It's the psi link," Carlos said. "Like Talisman has created a power place at the Sanctuary base, this is mine. Not nearly as strong or powerful as hers, it should accomplish our goal. I couldn't have done this is Paris. Warren, place the axe in the center of the floor. The two of you now have an affinity to my magicks because of the link."
Warren drew Marat's axe from a leather carrying case and set it on the floor.
"Link hands," Carlos said and he, Warren and Cal'syee formed a smaller circle around the axe. "Johanna, you'll act as our protector and anchor. Understood?"
"Yes," she nodded within the larger circle but not the smaller one. "Protector against what?"
Carlos had casually tossed several books within the glowing circle and now they were floating open and flipping open to certain pages. "I don't know where Danielle is or what she may be encountering. Plus my wards are----strong here. If we're attacked or subverted, try to make sure our inner circle isn't disrupted until I end it. Cal'syee, through us, feel for Danielle," Carlos instructed.
"Where?" she asked, confused. "I do not know magic, especially human magic, Carlos. I do not even know the woman we seek except from the link she has to you two and now to me. You're asking me to hunt prey I have no full concept of in a milieu I know nothing of."
Carlos nodded, understanding her frustration. He thought for a quiet moment then spoke. "Think of the axe as having her scent, if you will. Think your predatory senses at it, I'll guide you through the rapport to make the leap to see it."
"Fine," she closed her eyes then opened them again, a fierce look on her face, her teeth slightly bearing as she peered deeper at the axe.
Johanna noticed that Carlos was glowing slightly but Warren's features were slightly similar to Deathbird's, as if he were mimicking her powers. Then the axe began to glow slightly and spin on the ground. She was beginning to see that this psi link clique within the team had a possibility of a dark side. What if suddenly someone pulled all of their strings? You could turn half of the squad against the other with little to no effort.
"Nightcrawler, I can see how it touched him. His blood is on it. Not a lot, not enough to kill. It cleaves through time and space," Cal'syee grunted. "It burns under my eyes."
"I see her!" Warren shouted suddenly, though now his eyes were closed. "She's alive. Walking. DANIELLE!!"
"Hold the vision, Warren. Hold it! Don't take your mind's eye off of her!" Carlos barked. "Deathbird, feel me in the rapport, think of moving my hand onto Danielle, as if she were in front of us."
"Yes," Deathbird grunted. Her arm slowly lifting his as if directing his hand, the glow from the axe grew greater and greater and then there was a flash of intense light.
"Guys, is that you?" Danielle shrieked overjoyed from seemingly all around them. "What is that animal with you?! It's like a hawk but a person, a real person. It feels like an animal, like my rapport with animals. But it feels even more intense."
"Yes! Don't be afraid. Yes, there's a new person in the rapport. That's her intensity. We needed her to pinpoint you. She's sensed you down far better than either of us could. Don't move, I'm moving closer to you," Carlos yelled. "It takes time to do this!"
"Wow," Johanna murmured, it reminded her of the movie Poltergeist with a blinding slice in reality hovering over the axe and Dani's voice form all around. This was some incredible stuff she thought to herself then she heard a crashing sound from outside of the library doors. She was about to say something when another flash of light happened and image of Danielle appeared from the axe, intangible but clearly Psyche in animal skin top and loin cloth chaps.
"Johanna, you'll have to hold off our assailants for only a few brief minutes. Don't seriously harm them!" Carlos instructed.
"What----?!" Johanna was confused.
"Carlos, what's going on? I can feel through the rapport that you're expecting trouble, expecting this attack!" Warren said.
Suddenly the library doors shattered black clad heavily armed and masked shock troopers stood with rifles pointed. Half dropped to one knee, rifles aimed at the circle. One of them was holding an unconscious and badly beaten Ng.
"On my count!" one of the shock troopers barked, not even hesitating.
"Who the hell is that?!" Psyche said as if physically present.
"Johanna! Now! Stop them!" Carlos barked but Frenzy was already snatching off her jacket to reveal her X uniform, in particular the body armor to act as a protection and was already charging across the room at them. A dozen shots of bullets and laser fire rang out and Frenzy extended her arms wide, taking in all of the shots as she slammed at full speed into the shock troopers. Send the lot of them back into the outer area. She didn't hesitate as she used one to bat the others back and then shoved four to the far side of the apartment. There were twenty more inthe vestibule, loading weapons and surprised that it was her and not Carlos that had come crashing out. Or perhaps they were expectign a demon.
Frenzy grabbed an armoire in the hallway and used it as a battering ram to shove back more of them, plasma blasts begin to sting against her flesh. They must've increased the voltage. She got the definite feelign that these were consummate professionals as they rolled out of the way of her barrage and formed a defensive line, opening fire in stages rather than all at once.
"I'm not getting an infection reading off of her!" one of them yelled.
"She might be a thrall! Incapcitate!" another ordered. Frenzy turned just in time to see the grenade launcher fire at her, the explosive hitting her in the chest and sending her sailing into the living room area. She looked up, laying on her back, more stunned than hurt and saw the wall to ceiling windows crashing in as more troopers invaded.
What the hell was going on? Frenzy wondered.
"Ah! Blood!" Deathbird shrieked, snatching her hands free as she took to the air, spreading her wings and flying towards the troopers that Frenzy had tumbling back outside of the library.
"Dammit!" Carlos snapped, grabbing the handle of the axe. "I've almost got Danielle! That fool can't control her bloodlust!"
Deathbird swooped into the hallway in time to see Frenzy pushing several troopers back.
"She's infected!" a trooper yelled next to Deathbird and she viciously lashed out at his throat with her claws. Another one open fired on her and she spun in midair, feet over head and brought the full force of her weight down into his chest. Two more charged at her,m thinking that she was low enough to pull out of the air and she let one of her javelins snap out of her wrist holders through the stomach of one and into the chest of the one behind him. Both men were shocked at first and then horrified as she used her enhanced strength to lift them both and fire bio-electrical energy at half a dozen more troopers fromt he tip of the javelin. She laughed with glee as she kicked the two bodies off of her javelin and slashed the chest of another trooper.
Frenzy suddenly exploded in the other diretion and Deathbird squealed excitedly, more target for her without having to consider an ally in the way. She brought out her second javelin and opened fire on the men ahead of her not even aware of three lining up behind her. The plasma burst caught her square in the back and she crumpled to the floor. One of the troopers leapt onto her, pulled out his bowie knife and raised it to slit her throat.
Warren pulled the seemingly oblivious Carlos down to his knees as gunfire went above where their heads had been. Warren noticed that tables and chairs were being shattered by bullets but that the bullets bounced off of the books floating and shelved. There seemed to be some sort of force field inherent in them. He could use that he thought as he pulled Carlos behind the floating books, a temporary shield.
Dani crouched down instinctively as almost a dozen shock troopers crashed into the library through the skylight. Frenzy and Deathbird had slammed the first group back out of the library but the ones rappelling down were already taking aim as they slid in.
"I've got the airborne ones!" Warren shouted. He took Carlos' hand in his and put it around the axe handle and then from perfect musculature and nearly hollow bones leapt fifteen feet into the air, grabbing onto the ropes. Though the troopers had the advantage of weapons, Warren was able to yank his way into them, striking at whoever he pleased while using the ropes to yank himself above crossfire. He would swing into one, use the momentum of that to push off into another and then the walls themselves to maintain the speedy bouncing he'd created. Used to aerial dynamics, he didn't lose his balance or perspective as he slammed from one to the other, finally able to snatch a gun away and open fire at the rest coming in from above.
It did cross his mind that this would've been a lot easier if he still had his wings, but he'd spent so much time working on acrobatic routines with his wings that it was child's play for him to swing above and around them, sending several crashing to the ground unconscious and causing several more to shoot each other.
"Carlos, can you do this?" Danielle asked, she could feel herself slowly becoming more and more solid but she feared that the strain was killing Carlos, she could see blood coursing from cuts throughout his face and arms as the energy seemed to rip at his body.
"Shush, woman!" Carlos snapped and dipped his mind deeper into the wards around his inner sanctum, calling upon decades of layered power to hold on to her essence and draw it through with her body.
"Carlos!" Warren shrieked from above, a trooper had gotten by him, landed and drawn a Bowie knife to impale the Spaniard from behind.
"No!" Danielle screamed, created and hurled a psionic arrow into the man over Carlos' shoulder sending him flying back unconscious.
"Woman! I can't do this if you charge energy through too!" Carlos said through gritted teeth.
"I just saved your life!" Dani defended hotly, slightly amazed that she'd been able to throw a psionic arrow at what was from her perspective an illusion surrounding her as the barren desert she was in slowly faded and the library became more and more real.
"Who are these people? What's going on?" Danielle demanded.
"They are my personal guard!" Carlos said through gritted teeth. "They are assassins responsible for stopping me from performing magicks."
"What?!" Danielle recoiled slightly, feeling the truth through their link. It was bad enough the intense sense of----viciousness she was feeling from Deathbird as that woman's bloodlust and thrill of battle seeped slowly into the link with her. Then she understood, this was his inner sanctum and his magicks weren't inherent like Talisman's. His belonged to the entity inside of him, he'd installed guards around this place if such intense magic were used expecting that it would be the monster inside of him ripping it's way free which is what she sensed was happening right now.
Then Danielle felt another presence. And she knew the shit had truly hit the fan.
Marat grabbed a fist full of her unbraided hair from behind, his foot slamming into her back to try and drag her back through the dimensional rift.
"She is mine!" Marat roared.
"Not today, buddy!" Warren hollered, swinging down from above and slamming into Marat as both he and Danielle materialized in the library. Danielle fell forward into Carlos, feeling a good chunk of hair rip out into Marat's hand and more troopers dropped down from the skylight. She scrambled across the floor, not hesitating to snatch up a dropped Mac 10 and opening fire at the men above, sending several of them falling behind far desks and furniture. They had the benefit of body armor to protect them from her shots but in deerskin loin cloths she didn't. She grabbed the unconscious Carlos by the jacket and dragged him behind a table.
Warren didn't have time to land a second blow as Marat rolled easily, slamming into him and then casually tossed Warren's light body out of the library into the melee outisde.
Warren folded his body into a ball and then a a flying kick as he slammed into the trooper about to slit Deathbird's throat. He skidded to to his feet in front of her, snatched up her javelins and twirled them in his hands as several troopers surrounded him.
"This one is tainted as well," one of the black helmeted men said.
"It's not what you think," Warren tried to reason btu they charged forward anyway. He spun aside, first using the javelins as clubs and then when it became obvious that they had more vicious intent he let his mind seep into Deathbird's groggy one and found the finger coding sequence for the blasters in the javelins. He touched the tips and a blast lashed out knocking out eight of troopers to the ground. There was an explosion behind him and Warren whirled around, two troopers falling behind him, Ng standing behind them with a blaster.
"I didn't have time to warn you," Ng shrugged.
"Uhhhhh, yeah? Does this happen often? These men attacking?"
"These are an elite core or assassins trained over decades to kill Master Carlos should the Beast run free. The magical infusions with you and several of yoru compatriots makes you targets as well. You've been infected," Ng explained calmly, still in the form of a slim middle aged Asian man but he seemed stronger as he helped deathbird to her feet.
"Get off me, Skrul!" she hissed and snatched her javelins away from Warren. "What kind of leader are you? You dont' even have any abilities!"
"I saved your miserable hide!" Warren defended.
"By picking through my thoughts! Stay out of my mind, mutant or I'll cut you out of the rapport!" she growled swiping her javelin at him.
"It is an agreeable joining then, I see," Ng said sardonically.
"If Allegra uses his magicks then these bastards attack?" Deathbird asked.
"Precisely. Actually I think it would deend upon the intensity of his magicks, a margin for usage but a difference in wattage, if you will," Ng shrugged. "He must care considerably for the young woman he was bringing through."
Deathbird grinned as she felt Warren's jealousy through the rapport. "Skrull, she is Allegra's heart and soul, he loves her dearly."
Warren bristled for an instant and then they heard glass shattering in the room and Frenzy roar angrily.
"How many of these assassins are there?" Warren asked Ng.
"Mr. Allegra maintains a compliment of one thousand at all times. This entire building is mobilizing to end the threat as they perceive it in the library."
"Ng, Deathbird, disable the elevators, I'll go help Frenzy. Until we can straighten out this mess we still have Marat to deal with! The Beast isn't going anywhere or a threat at the moment! Go!"
Marat jumped up to face Danielle when he felt something creeping up his flesh. It was blood, living blood that some sort of entity was within. Energy and blood seeped into his pores, energized by the mystical circle he stood within and Marat roared angrily.
"No!" Danielle screamed, realizing that the psionic energy shift she felt was the Beast entering Marat gleefully. Marat looked back at her, his eyes a blazing crimson and then a dozen troopers charged at him only to be viciously ripped apart by his bare hands and swinging axe. Marat stalked towards Danielle and fell back on his haunches the glowing outer circle smashing him backwards.
"The spell circle was to keep the Beast in," Carlos muttered weakly, watching. "I didn't think it would be able to leave me. That it would find what it wanted in the circle. An immortal. It's left me, Danielle. It's left me for Marat!"
Marat raised his axe and smashed at the circle shield, cracks in energy appearing in mid-air.
"Carlos, you might want to do something before he gets free! Now!" Danielle said as her psi bow and arrow appeared. She knew that against Marat they were barely effective, it would be a joke to a possessed Marat but it was their last line of defense when the circle shield cracked.
"I'm trying!" Carlos said and violently jerked out his hand but instead of a book from the shelf flying into it, the book dropped to the floor. "Dammit! It enhanced me so much," Carlos said as he got weakly to his feet and ran over to the dropped book outside of the circle. There was more and more gunshots from outside of the library in the apartment and Danielle got psi glimpses of Warren, Deathbird and Frenzy fighting a desperate vicious fight against dozens of troopers.
"How many of these commandoes are on duty to stop this thing?' Danielle shouted at Carlos.
"Two hundred on five minute call, with eight hundred more being called in. They all wear specially created amulets that focuses them on the Beast so they won't try to kill me directly anymore but they will continue to fight to get in here to kill Marat."
"Ironic, no!?" Marat roared, his voice a deeper baritone as his final swing shattered the circle shield and he charged at Carlos and Danielle.
"This is never a good thing," Danielle grunted, shoving Carlos to the ground firing a psi arrow point blank into Marat's skull. It was enough to stop him in his tracks, shrieking as if scalded with hot water.
Carlos began shouting an incantation and the glowing circle seemed to coalesce into shattered shards of energy that slammed into Marat from behind and smashed him through the far walls and windows.
"Impressive," Danielle sighed as they ran to the hole and saw Marat laying unconscious on a rooftop across the way, fifteen stories below.
"The Beast is encased in the circle within Marat but we still have Marat to deal with," Carlos said weakly, then swirled his hand in the air as he grabbed her waist and the winds built up until they were swept out of the building and then landed safely on the rooftop below.
"Impressive, again," Dani said.
"I can do a lot in there," Carlos smirked nodding up at this penthouse which had a gaping hole in it.
Marat turned and stood, clutching his axe. "That thing is no longer in control within me but it whispers to me!"
"Marat, let us help you. That thing in you is by accident!" Dani said calmly, raising her hand in peace.
"Bah!" Marat snapped, waving his axe threatening at her. "It says things to me. Things that suggest greater possibilities!"
"Do not listen!" Carlos warned. "It's trying to twist you!"
Marat growled and charged towards them with his axe but was blasted backwards and over the rooftop by Deathbird's javelins. She dove down after Marat and Carlos and Dani ran to the edge of the rooftop that he'd fallen over. Deathbird swooped back up, her wings spread wide.
"He's gone! How could he be!? I had him in my sights for all but a second!' Deathbird shrieked angrily.
"Marat can teleport with his axe. It's his favorite mode of transportation," Dani explained.
"Marat is not psionically strong enough to keep the spell within him solid like I have for years. The Beast will free itself soon," Carlos said grimly. "We have to find him."
"You have greater concerns, Agent of the Beast!" a shock trooper screamed from a squad of helicopters that were approaching.
"What is he saying?" Dani demanded of Carlos.
Carlos shook his head. "The blood shared by us all, it contains portions
of the Beast. The blessed amulets allow them to see now visage but the taint of the Beast. All in the rapport, all connected by the drops of blood are now to be terminated."
"Your agents will kill you!" Deathbird half laughed. "And the rest of us for being connected to you?"
"Nice to see you've recruited the sane ones in my absence," Danielle grunted.
Four Seasons,
Paris, France:
"By the Gods!" Amara balked at the television, live feeds from New York on all the stations. Shan and Raphael stood next to her with Nemesis staring silently from a far corner.
"First Magneto's reign of terror and now this. They have pictures of this flying man, the one Channel must've possessed but luckily none of the X-Men. We should contact Kitty's team, see that they're safe," Shan said and went to her portable laptop and tried to comm link with the Avery.
"Are they alive?" Amara asked desperately, clutching Shan's shoulders. "Gods, let them be alive!"
"I'm still picking up the Avery's link as open which means the ship wasn't destroyed and now it's gone to stealth mode. Shadowcat has also shut down all communications with her team, she's gone to something called sh'nar po'tol or loose translation: "Running Black". Does anyone know what it means?" Shan asked desperately.
"It's from the Shi'ar computers. I saw it while helping to navigate Ari's ship. It means they're in pursuit of the enemy but may be considered the enemy themselves," Nemesis offered, "so to not seek them out."
"Kitty knows that only those of us affiliated with the teams or Xavier would have access to anything Shi'ar. They must in pursuit of Channel. I fought Channel, I had no idea that he was capable of such devastation. He must've possessed a mutant of immense power," Amara shook her head. "My friends, our enemies are making this world terrified of us. Between Magneto and now Channel, there must be at least forty, maybe fifty thousand dead!"
They all looked somberly at the death toll numbers at the base of the TV screen, the news services were linked into the Census Bureau and updating the numbers every minute. Ten blocks in three directions having been in the blast, so many buildings having crumbled that the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges were all in structural danger as well, the very bedrock of the lower right side of Manhattan seemingly hit by a fist. There were frantic questions about whether to evaluate the whole island as it had been plunged into near hysteria.
"Is this what it means to be a mutant?" Raphael whispered, tears streaking his face. "I can feel the pain all the way over here. It's like a wave of anguish coming across the water."
Raphael's head cocked to the side and his tone changed, obviously Tran speaking now. "The boy his highly empathic and sensitive to the world, I think that's why Holy Mother used him. I'm trying to calm him down."
"Good," Amara nodded, slightly freaked out by talking to two distinct people within one person. "We're to go to this Misery's nightclub in a few hours. We can't be weakened by him or even by what's happened in New York. It almost makes it more imperative that we stop Misery before it looks as if mutants have declared war on the planet."
Nemesis stepped closer to the television. "Amara, they have declared war. We're just triage at this point. Picking up the scattered pieces of flesh and victims."
New York City:
Kitty phased back through an alley way wall as she heard footsteps turning the corner and come closer to her.
"I am here," the deep voice said in a slight accent and Kitty phased back into view.
Storm wearing a dark coat and hood stood calmly waiting. Her eyes though were full of a smile but her face showed concern. "I got your message through Sage's private network. We were surprised to hear from you; according to Xavier's network you've gone under deep cover to capture the mutant responsible for the destruction of lower Manhattan."
"Yes, that's what I said to Xavier's. I said it for a reason," Kitty said grimly and explained her discovery of the Xavier Control files and Channels' confirmation of them as well as Xavier's knowledge of Quantum.
Storm listened quietly but Kitty could see her thinking about all the permutations of this, all the problems it created. "You believe both your sources and Channel?"
"Unfortunately it all checks out. My squad is under wraps here in New York until we locate Quantum then we're back after him but----well, Xavier has been, may have been subtly controlling us all."
Storm considered it slowly. There was a hesitation and then a grim acceptance. "It does make sense. A twisted, dark sense but sense all the same. This will rip the X-men apart, Kitty. Some might even say it would be better to kill you here and now than allow this to become public, especially after Genosha, Magneto's attack on New York and now Quantum's. Xavier is more than just our teacher now, he to many mutants is the messiah. People do not like their messiah's clay feet and tend to blame those who point it out rather than deal with the true issue. Are youwilling to die for pointing out Xavier's? At my hands? At the hands of countless others?"
There was a fierce determination in Storm's eyes that Kitty tensed slightly. Had she walked into a trap, was her oldest friend and comrade her enemy now?
Kitty nodded. "Then I'd prefer it was you and her." She glanced up at the rooftop across the street where the X-Man Sage had a scope rifle trained on Kitty.
Storm was silent for a long moment then held out her hand and Kitty gave her a cd with the information on it.
"Everyone deserves to know the truth and make their decisions for themselves," Kitty shrugged.
"Agreed. Be careful, Kitten, these are dark and dangerous times. Especially for leaders," Storm walked closer and hugged her. "Do whatever you have to do to protect your team and stay true to your own integrity. You have an ally in me in whatever shall come to pass."
"I will. Thank you. I was so...scared and angry and then this whole Quantum mess. It's so horrible," Kitty half sobbed.
"Be strong, Kitten. The changes we make in our lifetimes will not bear fruit in the days we see but perhaps in the days our children see. I will study this information and disperse it slowly, to those who can handle the truth. And then we'll deal with Xavier one day."
"Thanks again."
Storm smiled then soared up into the sky. Kitty looked at the rooftop, Sage was gone as well. She wondered for a second what the signal had been to possibly shoot her and then she phased back through the ground, worried that she suspected everyone of anything now.
Bobby sat up in his bed, covered in sweat and Jean Paul grabbed his shoulders.
"I thought we agreed you would sleep?"
"We should get back out there. Help the City," Boobby murmured weakly, he was suffering from massive dehydration an after effect of using so much power.
"Shadowcat, barely old enough to buy us a drink, God help us, is our leader. And she is correct in her estimations that there is nothing we can do but track down Channel and Quantum and prevent this from happening again."
"We've been holed up in this brownstone while a mile away the biggest evacuation of dead bodies on American soil is going on," Bobby leaned back agains the wall staring at his teammate who always seemed so blaise about damn near everything.
"At least your President isn't dead," Jean Paul smirked. "Well, perhaps that might go against his opposing parties thoughts."
"The Vice president is dead though. That's not a good thing. Quantum blew up Air Force One, the fact that the Vice President was on board is a stroke of dark luck but this country is still reeling. The anti-mutant hysteria is going to only get worse."
"Yes, and here we are in this crowded little house listening to sirens going by and wondering when will they come through the door after us, non?" Jean Paul chuckled. "How Anne Frank of us."
"Are you always this sarcastic?" Bobby grimaced. "Where's your heart?"
"I do feel, Robert. I am wearied by this madness. But I too need my rest and if you insist upon waking me up every hour with your nightmares than I will be in a foul mood. Or I will have to share a bedroom with Paulie and that borders on a mutant massacre waiting to happen. So you must deal with what is truly bothering you and stop foisting it off to the horrors of the world."
"My powers?"
"Your powers. You teleport and create immense amounts of ice that are only useful in the summer months and then you pretend your nightmares are over the Quantum battle. You have exceeded your potential five fold and you don't have your precious Xavier here to give you his Ward Cleaver speech about power and responsibility and what to do. So you sweat, toss and turn and refrain from using your powers except when in the heat of battle. Revel in them, Robert. Fast and bright lights seem to be the extent of my mutant powers."
Bobby laughed and rested his hand on Jean Paul's bare shoulder. "I can't promise you anything, JP. I'm new to this but I know that you're being cool about what we've talked about."
"I thought we were discussing mutant powers?"
"Once we agreed to share a room together, we both knew that any discussions in here with you sitting on the edge of my bed weren't going to be about mutant powers."
"I have thought about your being outside of sexuality and gender boundaries. I am not sure whether to be frightened or titillated. I've made it a point to avoid the confused and frankly, you are literally confusion personified."
Bobby touched Jean Paul's hair and smiled. "So how do we start, smartass? By both of us not being scared at potential?"
Jean Paul leaned closer. "Put your lips together with mine and do not be afraid."
"I'm horrible at relationships," Bobby admitted.
"Good. I only find you sexually attractive, not emotionally," Jean Paul climbed closer onto the bed and kissed Bobby. "Robert, you can touch more than my hair. We're now going to have sex. It's much the same as those horrid experiences you've had with women."
"Oh. Ok. I knew that. I did. Hey, what would make you think they were horrid with women?"
"Well, my hand is on your erect penis and yours is on my ass. Had they been sensational relationships that left you eager for more, I doubt you'd be doing this, non?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess you kind of have a point there. Be gentle all right, I'm a virgin."
"Really? I always thought your relationship with the Beast was suspect and homoerotic in nature and intensity," Jean Paul smiled as their lips entangled.
"Me and Hank? Really?" Bobby grimaced. "He's blue and furry. But I guess in a smart kind of way hot. I never thought about it, he is muscular though. I guess I have to rethink everyone now, huh?"
"Could you do me a favor, Bobby and actually do something with me before you start roaming mentally?" Jean Paul sighed as there kiss became deeper.
"Sorry. It does feel nice though. I think becauseit's you and not just anybody, you know?" Bobby smiled shyly. "I really do like you even if you seem to hate everyone else."
"I don't hate everyone else. I dislike strongly most people based upon hubris and the fact that you all seem to move so infernally slow in action and thought. But you, you stupid bastard, I actually like. Now you can take advantage of that an dhurt me and then I will have no choice but to hurt you back or you can be a safe space for me and I, you."
"Were you born on Vulcan or just an avid student of their ways?" Bobby laughed and when jean Paul tried to pull away, he pulled him closer. "You're just a big truculent baby, aren't you, JP?"
"I am hating you right now, Bobby. A lot," Jean paul smiled, a rare full and bashful smile, his eyes downcast.
"Oh, yeah I'm gonna turn you out like a brown paper bag," Bobby grinned and they both laughed then resumed kissing.
Cecelia sat across from Paulie in the small medical lab she'd set up in the brownstone. "Ok, this is going to hurt. Mainly because your body is so damn indestructible."
"I'm ready," Paulie grunted as M wrapped her arms under both of his arms.
Cecelia focused and psi plasma clamps appeared on her hands and then on his arm, with handles that Sunspot grabbed onto.
"Ok, we're going to gently pull in two different directions. Roberto, I'm going to slowly alter the clamps on his arm to adjust for a mild twisting of the broken bone, but don't let go."
"I won't," Sunspot, irradiated in ebony energy nodded.
Cecelia looked at Paulie, he was ashen and looked dizzy. She suspected that his body was completely normal in it's reactions to an injury, he was slipping into shock the longer his arm was un-set. The pain must've been extraordinary.
"Ok, Monet, do you thing," Cecelia nodded, consulting her Shi'ar PDA once again for the x-ray it was doing on his arm. Shi'ar technology backing her up made this a lot easier to see into a body that she couldn't even begin to fathom how she would cut open if she ever had to perform surgery on him.
Monet took a deep calming breath, a psi diamond flashing over her right eye and telepathically entered Paulie's feverish mind, she found his psi defenses uncommonly strong, somehow an after effect of his invulnerability and quickly did several exponential calculations----if his powers kept maturing, there would come a point where he would be totally indestructible. Did that mean immortal? Psychologically how did that bode for him having contact with people? She pushed the thought aside and located his pain centers and shut them down slowly and Cecelia imperceptibly nodded and Monet pulled one way and Sunspot the other, pulling the bones apart as Cecelia slowly used her energy clamps to twist Paulie and then with another nod, signal them to let his body, his arm come back together.
There was a collective sigh from them all as Roberto reverted to his human form and Kitty stepped into the room from the doorway.
"How you doing, champ?" Kitty smiled at Paulie, holding his hand.
"Itching to take that bastard Quantum back on again," he grunted as his gauntlets flashed blue sparkles and he seemed to get healthier, pinker before their eyes. Kitty glanced at Cecelia and sure enough the doctor had seen it too, the dependency Kitty had noticed first in space of Paulie to the gauntlets. The problem now was that they needed an X-Man as powerful as he was to deal with Channel and Quantum, the two a greater threat than Kitty had seen in a long time. As eager as she was to take Quantum out, she was terrified at the coming carnage it would entail. It wouldn't be an easy or gentle fight and the responsibility was sqaurely on her shoudlers. But did that mean she would keep prolonging dealing with paulie and those damn gauntlets? What was the greater good?
"We'll get him, don't worry. Cecelia, make sure he rests. That goes for you two as well," Kitty nodded at everyone then phased through the floor. A few minutes later she had gone through the basement through the tunnel system to the underground facility that housed the Avery.
It was mercilessly hot in the cavern, the energy expenditure of lower Manhattan having been cut off to shut down gas mains and errant electrical lines. Peter had pulled several viewerscreens and control panels from the Avery and set up a mini lab around it. He was also bare from the torso up and Kitty couldn't help but admire how handsome he was, hair hanging a few inches down his back and shoulders.
"How's Paulie?" he asked without even looking up.
"How'd you know I was here?" Kitty asked, impressed.
"You passed through metal. I'm kind of expanding my metal sense outwards now to try and stay in synch with the Avery and these computers."
"Nice," Kitty nodded. "Its good to hear that you're getting something out of the X-men other than just risking your life so far."
Peter smiled at her. "I know, I had hoped to be at the Institute more, learning more about my powers but being an X-man has always been my dream."
"Always?" Kitty was surprised. "Haven't you ever wanted to do or be anything else?"
Peter looked at her seriously for a long time. "I know you don't like being an X-Man. The others can't see it but I do. How tired it makes you. Because you started this young. Not that you're old now. I mean you are old but----."
"I know what you mean. It's true, I lost your dad, your aunt, a couple of best friends, my dad----all dead from the X-Men legacy. Thats hard to reconcile some days. I'm worried about you though. You need better training than you're getting. I learned on the fly too but I had Prof. Xavier to train me."
"Are you suggesting I transfer to the Institute here in New York or follow Xavier to Genosha?" Peter asked bluntly.
"No! Don't do that! It's not safe," Kitty said then caught herself. She was so tired from the constant running around and the mental fatigue of knowing that only a few blocks away emergency crews were picking up the dead they hadn't prevented. They were literally hiding on the outskirts of Manhattan that had become a graveyard.
Peter looked at her odd. "Does it have to do with Magneto's destruction of the school, Sentinel attacks or something else? The files you encrypted on all of the servers and purged?"
"You accessed those?" Kitty asked nervously, she hadn't let her sqaud in on the Xavier Control Files yet.
"No. I could've. But I didn't. We were taught honor and respect for privacy in the Beyond, particularly living on a ship on the back of a flying wolf. There wasn't much space, so privacy was a cherished ideal."
"It would be dangerous for you to know what's in those files. At least for now. It's important but I don't know how to tell everyone. Especially with Channel out there merged with Quantum."
"It's something that we all wouldn't like much?" Peter whispered.
"Yes, it is. It would hurt the X-Men too much right now."
"And what about you?" Peter asked, stepping closer to her. "It must hurt you having this secret in your heart."
Kitty took a deep breath at the nearness of him, as he gently touched her hair. "Peter, this is very confusing for me."
"The files or this?" he smiled and leaned down and kissed her gently.
Kitty pulled back from the kiss. "We're gonna go with both of those things."
"Is it because of my father?"
"Yes and no. I don't want to confuse feelings of the past with a second chance or the illusion of a second chance with you. With him. Am I making any sense?"
"Yes, of course. I look like him, I'm sure?"
"You do and yet you're completely different. You don't even have a Russian accent."
"Paulie says I sound like I grew up speaking another language and just learned Enlgish a few years ago from a Puerto Rican."
"More of a classical Spainard I would say," Kitty laughed. "Maybe Gaellic. But you do enunciate slightly differently."
"Oh, does Northstar speak differently?"
"What?" Kitty said confused.
"You said a "gaelic"?"
Kitty shook her head. "No, no, thats not what I meant. Oh God!"
Peter grinned. "Got you! I know the term Gaellic, remember, I studied your world history a long time."
They both shared a laugh and then got quiet again as Peter touched her hair again.
"Tell me about tracing quantum resonances with the Avery," Kitty smiled.
"Quantum is essentially a walking singularity. From Xavier's files on him, I would say he accesses this singularity psionically which is why he was so heavily sedated normally and now uses Channel as a circuit breaker. The event he caused seems to have been from lack of control rather than control. The Shi'ar stardrives work along the same principles to attain faster than light speed by creating a static quantum bubble around the ship and then moving it along the lines of gravity and normal space, which is how such high speeds are achieved," Peter explained leading her over to his consoles.
Kitty nodding in understanding, she looked over his consoles at several of his formulas. She was amazed at how well versed he was in so many scientific theories/studies. Metallurgy (obviously) but he was extending into electronics, computer science, biology, bio-tech, physics and now quantum physics. It all made sense with his upbringing in the Beyond but his demeanor was so naive and guileless that it was hard to get the two to agree. He was like Tom Cruise with the mind of Stephen Hawkings, it was hard to reconcile.
"Logically then we can use a Shi'ar stardrive to incapicitate him? If only we'd thought of it sooner, we could've saved a lot of lives. Damn it! Why didn't I think of it!" she slammed her fist down onto a work table, making tools and circuit boards jump.
"Kitty, don't be so hard on yourself. It's taken me twelve hours of examining Quantum's energy output signature and running test formulas to come up with this. The resonance field couldn't be set up during the heat of battle. Now with his full information in the Avery's databanks, we can do it. Beforehand? No. Unfortunately those people lives who died may be what it takes to stop him completely. According to my test formulas, he could've wiped out the Eastern seaboard----his power doesn't weaken with expenditure, it magnifies several fold. He needs Channel and for now, we need him to maintain that dependency."
"Ok, then we have to lure him somewhere that we can focus a quantum resonance field at him? A desert? Space?" Kitty wondered aloud.
"There would be very little extraneous radiation so we don't have to worry about that. The stardrive and Quantum's psi fields seem to work incredibly efficiently not to give off radiation thats harmful to lifeforms outside of their immediate vicintiy. I can't promise that we won't have to kill him to keep him in the field or that the field itself won't kill him. We have powers, he is his power."
Kitty noticed how close Peter was standing behind her, his hands rubbing her shoulders and she relaxed, she took a deep breath. It felt so good to think with someone who could move as fast as she did and at the same time, she genuinely liked. That mental simpatico had been something that she'd gotten used to not having with his father, Piotr.
"Ok. And tracking him? Where is he?"
"According to the formulas, he didn't so much of teleport as simply shift himself physically along gravitational lines away from New York. At the same time he became immaterial."
"Similar to my power?"
"Yes, I think you'll have to be the one to lure him into the bubble of the stardrive as well as keep him there," Peter's hands tightened and he removed them.
"Finish the thought, Peter. What would happen to me in the bubble?"
"I don't know. You might be able to phase against the speed of the Earh's rotation as you've been practicing with but thats such a minute number in time. Milliseconds. It could do the same to you permanently that it does to him, negate your crude, compared to his, density/quantum mass manipulation. Or as your physical being is the natural state of intangibility-----eradicate you and him at the same moment."
Kitty smiled darkly. "I suspected as much when I was in him. We're similar. Too similar. "
"Kitty, I think you might also want to accept that Xavier may've recruited you particularly for your ability to eradicate Quantum at some point if necessary as well as the possibility that you could mature into him, powerwise."
Kitty froze. Peter was an outsider to the inner circle of the X-Men and yet he'd hit the nail on the head perfectly. She tried to seem calm as she changed the subject. "How long until you can track him down?"
Peter shrugged. "I've been data transmitting this whole project to Ari and her battleship at Sanctuary. Though it was badly damaged, it's computers are much more sophisticated. Plus I'm not sure the Avery can generate enough of a static quantum bubble to permanently stop him. I think we can hurt him, we may need Ari to bring in her battlehsip to wherever the fight is to put an end to him."
Kitty phased back through him and then began climbing into the air. "I need to rest. You too. Quantum and Channel want Camus back so we have some leverage as long as we have him, they won't randomly strike again. I'm going to consult the other squads to see if we can get some back up when we pinpoint him."
Peter smiled and waved as she phased up through the cavern ceiling back into the secret X Corp brownstone above. He could see both the tenderness and steely determination that his father must've loved in her. She hadn't even blinked at knowing to stop their enemy would mean her death. He swore then to find another alternative, even if it meant sacrificing his own life instead.