ANNOUNCEMENT: Two new stories-Like a Boss: Tainted Love and We're in This Together Now, along with the update wave! Enjoy! :o)
Volume: 4 Arc: "midnight hour"Issue: 2/3 )
Chapter 162 : the clock strikes
"Nate, honey, please…you need to eat."
Laura was sitting by her son, who was in his almost-too-small booster seat. She held a spoon to his mouth; purple shadows encircled her eyes, and she looked drawn. Rachel sat in a seat opposite Nate, also refusing to eat.
Both Shrimps were flushed with fever, and seemed almost delirious. Their glazed eyes registered nothing in their environment.
"Bedtime, Laura," Julian said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "I've got it from here."
"But—" she looked up at him pleadingly. She hadn't slept in three days, and had refused to eat as well, anxious over the wellbeing of the Shrimps.
"No buts." Julian paused. "Don't forget that you need to take care of yourself right now."
Laura looked doubtful for a moment. "But—"
"Go to bed. I'll stay with them."
Finally she got up, her shoulders slumped and her head hung. She shuffled to the doorway, and paused. "I don't think I am, yet."
"Well, you better keep yourself in good shape, then," Julian said. "Unless you've changed your mind."
Laura promptly disappeared, and he took her seat, fixing his eyes grimly on the Shrimps. He was beginning to believe that Laura's original premonition was correct. This wasn't just a flu. This was…something else.
Dr. McCoy hadn't found anything yet. The only abnormal results he could find in his scans was that the metal deposits the children had possessed in their anatomy was now moving around. Separating from a clumped mass into tiny flecks about the size of large cells.
He had no idea why, though.
After a while of trying to feed both Shrimps—with no success—Julian held his face in his hands, pleading with a god he didn't believe in that nothing was going to go more wrong. Laura couldn't handle anything happening to the Shrimps, and he doubted if he could, either.
…
Hank McCoy leaned over the microscope, ignoring the ache in his shoulders and neck. He'd been doing so for the past eight hours, but had not noticed the time pass, his attention solely on his instrument.
Or, rather, the drop of blood on the slide beneath the lens.
Hank couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Under his lens, magnified by ten million, was a small, metal, flea-like creature, curled around a white blood cell, its incisors deep in the surface of the membrane of the cell. He watched as the cell began to change, become shiny in appearance.
"Oh my stars and fucking garters," he murmured, his paws clenching around the base of the microscope.
…
Julian didn't know what time it was when he suddenly raised his head from his arms, having fallen into a heavy, dreamless sleep. He blinked, and realized he was looking into eyes. Nate's eyes.
But not Nate's eyes.
"Wha—"
SNKTT!
In a few heartbeats, the half human, half metal creature on the table was at his throat. He barely had time to shove it away with his mind when he was hit lower. RRIIIPP! right through his shirt, his skin and muscles, his guts. He stared down at another of the strange creatures, its hands pulling out his insides.
"…urr…" he said, feeling weak. He slid off the chair and hit the ground with a wet SKA-LISSSHHH noise.
"KELLER?" Laura's voice, from the bedroom, sounding faraway. The hybrid creatures both jerked their heads around; he felt sick. Why did she have to…just then…
His eyes slid shut, and he started to float away.
"JULIAN!" Laura's scream ripped through the air, and his eyes opened a crack. He saw her rushing towards him, her hair flying like a war banner, her claws extended; he couldn't really hear what was happening, but watched in fascination as her fist plowed through one creature, fighting it off him. It reared back, the wound to its front sealing almost instantly.
The other creature stopped its advance, seeming uncertain; it eyed Laura, and Julian saw its mouth form the word: Mum?
"….fuck…" he said, in a small voice, realizing that the creature was Nate. Laura looked staggered; the creatures suddenly and swiftly hurtled towards the door. The wood was torn out of their path as though it was nothing, and Laura froze, not knowing what to do next. Attend to Julian or pursue her children?
"…L-laura…" he tried to sit up. This seemed to clear her mind; she pressed him down. "Don't move. Elixir—" she choked up, then began to scream something.
Julian saw James out of the corner of his eye, looking pale and also shouting. He passed out shortly after his brother exited the house in a run. Laura knelt in the puddle of blood, her hands shaking and hovering over his intestines, uncertain of what to do.
…
"—URRRRRRR—" Julian next sat up, gasping for air, in the infirmary, as Josh pulled his golden fingers away.
Laura was in the corner of the room, her hands on her throat. She looked as if she might be sick.
"—had us worried there," Josh was saying. "For a minute, you weren't responding to my heals. Thought you might have been too far gone—sepsis was setting in, and—"
"Nate," Julian interrupted. "And Rachel. They did this."
"I am aware." Emma Frost was also in the room, and she looked serious. "The school is on full alarm. They are—"
Laura made a strange noise. Logan, beside her, put his hand on her shoulder.
"Easy," he said.
"—sleeper agents," Emma continued, looking strained. "Their imbedded command is the same as can be found in Omega Prime Sentinels—"
"Sentinels?" Julian asked weakly.
"D-doctor McCoy says—" Snkkt, Laura's claws popping. "He said they're…"
"About an hour ago, I made a discovery," Dr. McCoy said. "A nano sentinel, converting a normal white blood cell into a micro nano bot production facility. It would seem that this is the purpose of the metal deposits in the twins' bodies." He pauses. "They are synthesizing an organic form of Adamantium."
"But—" Julian rubbed his face. "Is this a secondary mutation? Or—"
Dr. McCoy looked down. "I believe…that this is why the twins exist in the first place."
Silence.
"You mean—" Julian suddenly had a revelation, a horrible one.
"Brood parasiticism," Emma Frost murmured. "Like Cuckoos. The Facility that kidnapped you created their weapons—"
"And implanted them in Laura, trusting that she would raise them as her own," Dr. McCoy said grimly. "Just like she did."
"But—" Laura raised her head, glaring at Dr. McCoy. "They're my children now. We have to find them, we have to—"
"We are doing our best, Laura," Emma said softly. "The Cuckoos—my girls—are in Cerebra right now, searching. It won't be easy, seeing as the twins have withdrawn entirely from the psychic network."
"WHAT?" Laura shouted.
"Easy, Laura…easy," Logan said.
"Are they—" Julian asked.
"They are not dead. They have incredibly powerful mental abilities," Emma said. "Enough to completely erase their presence from Cerebra. I have not seen anyone that could do this before."
"God," Julian said. He rubbed his forehead; Emma traded significant looks with Dr. McCoy, who moved to a sink/cabinet combination. After a moment, he returned with a cup of water and a few pills in his hand.
Julian took them gratefully. He felt like his skull was about to cleave down the middle.
"But when we find them—" Laura said suddenly, obviously in shock—"They'll be okay, right? We can erase all the Sentinel stuff."
Silence.
Laura turned absolutely white, wrenched Logan's hand off of her shoulder, and tore out of the room, a high-pitched note hanging in the air behind her. Julian leaned against the counter in a sagging motion, as the full implication hit him.
"I'm so sorry—" Emma Frost began, her usually cold features softening.
"DON'T FUCKING SAY THAT!" Julian burst, and the energy he'd been struggling to keep in came out, demolishing the entire lab around him in an explosion of glass, twisting metal, and snapping bones. He floated in the middle of a smoking crater for a moment, then he was gone, his image flickering behind him as he moved faster than the light around him.
"Oh my—" Dr. McCoy said, sitting up and adjusting his glasses.
The woman-shaped diamond beside him nodded. "I sensed it coming, but I couldn't find it in me to stop him. Are you hurt, Henry?"
"Nothing life-threatening." Dr. McCoy looked around. "Sadly, one could not say that for my poor lab."
"I'm sure money will fix it just fine." Emma paused. "Would you like some?"
"I was planning to get a new microscope anyway," he replied thoughtfully.
…
Julian caught up with Laura at the school gates, moments later. He stopped, suddenly uncertain, seeing her lost, vacant look.
She sank to her knees in the middle of the driveway.
"The trail stops here," she said, her voice empty. "They…they just disappeared. Like they stepped off the face of the earth."
He floated in the air, silent, and knew that this was the final blow. There would be no chance of Laura ever feeling good again. It was worse than the first child they had lost; without the Shrimps to draw her out of her shell…
…
"-KILL YOU!" Laura roared. Her hair was disheveled and tangled; her face blotchy and her eyes raw and red from no sleep and constant tears.
"Darling, please—" Emma Frost laid her hand on the young woman's shoulder, only to have it knocked away.
Julian watched from a chair in the corner of the room, still silent. There was no other furniture present-nothing but walls and a floor. And Laura, in restraints. Still trying to fight. Still struggling and straining against the bonds.
It had been two weeks since the Shrimps had disappeared off the face of the earth, and which each elapsing day, the likelihood of finding them in a shape that could be rehabilitated seemed to decrease. Emma and the Cuckoos had theorized-four days ago-that the twins had ceased to use organic brain cells to think. This would effectively take them off the psychic roadmap, she had explained. And then Laura had had a breakdown and had tried to kill the messengers.
She hadn't come out of it.
"GOING TO-" Laura started to shout again.
/SLEEP/ Emma commanded. The girl toppled over, her eyes sliding shut.
She turned to Julian in the corner.
"I'm afraid there's..." her lips kept moving as she spoke, but he couldn't hear her anymore. All he could hear was his own thoughts-his own voice, calm and collected.
This can't be it.
You know what you have to do.
Julian got to his feet, in a surprisingly fluid movement since he hadn't slept in more than a hundred and twenty hours. He headed for the door, now unaware that Emma was trying to stop him-and somehow failing.
You know what you have to do.
...
He now stood at the door of the dark laboratory room, looking at a large tube sitting on a table. It was filled with a thick, glowing green gas, constantly shifting and shimmering. The black base at the bottom of the tube bore a brass nameplate, with two words. A name.
Quentin Quire.
"Quire, I need your help," Julian said.
The mist shape-shifted to form features: Quentin's face. Hello?
"Yeah you, dumbass. I'm going to put you together again...and you're going to help me get my kids back. Deal?"
Quire watched him, with none-existent eyeballs. Body?
"Yeah." Julian shifted, looked around the room. "First, I need you to tell me where the hell I can get some of that shit you were on."
The mist broke apart in a kind of protest, then reformed. No!
"It's the only way." He paused. "Do you want to be human again or not?"
A few moments passed, and the features in the mist bobbed up and down rapidly. A picture formed in Julian's mind, and he turned and abruptly left the laboratory room. The mist remained in the vague shape of a face for a few moments afterward, watching him go.
Then the eyes rolled, and the gas billowed against the edges of the tube, as the face dissolved.
...
"I've lost control of Hellion," Emma announced, her eyes on Scott, the length of the metal meeting table away. They were sitting in the ready room, all of the X-men-including the new ones-in uniform, their features set in grim expressions. Wolverine in particular looked exhausted, his dark hair more rumpled than usual and his hard, chiseled features especially haggard and unshaven.
Cyclops ran a hand through his hair. "This can't be good. The Cuckoos-"
"Are unable to reach him," Emma said. She pursed her lips. "I haven't the faintest clue of where he is...but I believe he is going to try something drastic."
Sofia looked down. "I knew this was coming," she said, her voice quiet.
No one spoke for a few moments.
"Alright...we should all know the drill by now," Cyclops said. "If there's any hint of the Phoenix...shoot to kill."
More silence.
"Teams are as follows," he continued. "Wolverine, Kitty, Tempest..."
...
Julian came to his senses with an inhaler in his hands, labeled with a big red X. Kick. The drug that would increase his powers times five, with one breath.
He shifted, staring at the object uncertainly, not paying attention to his surroundings-the middle of what appeared to be a warzone, but had been a warehouse when he had entered. Bodies are everywhere-strewn at haphazard angles on the edges of crates, piled on the floor, some hanging from the rafters, machine guns still hanging from straps around their torsos.
Nothing had touched Julian, who was standing in an almost opaque bubble of green force field.
He moved his fingers, his lips parting, and he swallowed. No going back, his mind told him. This is where the road leads. Take it.
Still, he hesitated.
He thought of the Shrimps, and the way they had run out of the house. The confused look on the Nate-creature's face when it had spoken to Laura.
And then there was Laura, currently sitting in the corner of a small room in the sub-basement, rocking back and forth. In restraints.
His expression darkened, and he shoved the inhaler into his mouth, then depressed the plunger once, twice, three times...four times...
