Disclaimer It's all Marvel's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.
Want? Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)
Toad wasn't having a good night. On the mental black list he carried, it was ranking somewhere around the kind of night he'd had when his hot date with Mary-Sue Patterson had turned into a hot date with three of her brothers and their stink bombs while she laughed in the background so hard she fell into a rosebush. He'd been beaten long and hard when her parents had told his old man he'd pushed her.
It wasn't as bad as the night he'd first discovered green slime dripping from his tongue, which was considerably better than the one when he managed to avoid getting hit by Storm's lightning by less than an inch and still carried the white streak on his side where the remnants of electricity had marked him anyway. But, on the scale, bounding through Bayville with it's long shadows and poor streetlights with something he couldn't see hot on his tail, people screaming and cars screeching, it was rapidly earning it's place in the top three.
He didn't want to turn around, he couldn't turn around. If he did, it would catch him. It would be so terrifying and monstrous, he'd fall dead from the sight of it. Just how he knew that didn't cross his mind, terror began to swamp him and he was going so very slowly, it was like some nightmare.
As the boy thrashed and squirmed in his gunky sheets, a man stood besides the bed and watched, fiddling the lace cuffs of his shirt and smoothing the dark suede of his jacket, waiting until the mind he held hostage awoke. His captive was muttering in a fear filled voice. "Gotta run, gotta run, gotta run ..." It wouldn't be long now.
With a choked off scream that became a hoarse gasp of breath, Todd sat up in the bed. He had tripped, he remembered tripping, but he had to move and run and run and ... a man urgently held his hand towards him. He had muscles in places other people didn't even have places, and a really, really big gun. Nice gun. Good gun. "C'mon kid, it's ok, come with me."
Asking no questions, practically clutching to his kidnapper, Todd was taken to the car he saw as a tank and thrown in the back. Miserably he curled into the corner and stared out at scenery that wasn't there, gibbering to a rescuer that didn't exist. Sitting in the front of the limousine, the man smiled and picked up the archaic twenties phone attached to the dashboard. The town was left behind them as they headed for the bright lights of New York City.
"I have my catch Shaw. The files were correct; his mind was easily to take. Goddawful smell though"
Distorted by static interferance and bearing no hint of congratulations, the reply of the Black King of the Hellfire Club mocked the other's self satisfied tone. "You haven't bought him in yet Wyngarde, he has been trained by Mystique, do not underestimate him."
Jason Wyngarde grit his teeth against the words he wanted to say and was duly pleased that his voice remained smooth and confident. "Of course not, that goes without saying. Have the others bought their catch in yet, or will I be the first?"
Grudgingly Shaw came back to him. "You are the first to report a catch, but the prize isn't yours yet." Then the line became a buzz of disconnection and the self styled Master of Illusion smiled as he settled back in his seat. The whimpering conversation of Toad he replied to tersely, until finally convincing the young man to sleep away the journey.
Kitty fought the urge to cover her nose with her hand when they entered the only motel room they'd been able to find before Jean had given warning that her illusions were running on fumes. It was a dive, but only because she couldn't think of worse words to describe it.. A solitary, naked, light bulb hung on the ceiling, casting a low wattage, nicotine yellow sheen over pealing green wallpaper. A single bed, threadbare covers with dubious stains, carpeting that was thin and torn in several places. And a chair that looked like it had been built as some kind of insidious death trap by an unhinged mind. She was pretty sure she'd heard about the Fantastic Four fighting something like this. Maybe it had escaped, and was lying low whilst plotting its next nefarious scheme. It occurred to her she maybe needed to sleep. Especially when the chair seemed to glare at her.
"Uhm ... when I said I was tired enough to sleep in a trash can I, like, didn't mean it literally."
She was ignored as Scott and Logan finally lay their burden down the bed. Kurt had been slipping in and out of consciousness, muttering mostly in German. But now he seemed to sleep, curling up with a little smile.
"He'll be fine Kit, he ain't gonna fade away if you take ya eyes off him"
Logan's words were gruffly amused, if reassuring, and she could already feel the blush heating her cheeks as she nonchalantly wandered over to the window, trying to pull the blinds down. "Oh, yeah. Like I was worried. I just wondered whether he needed all those covers, 'cause sleep would be nice sometime."
Jean leant against the sticky and wobbly dresser as lightly as she could, allowing her mind to relax and recover. Scott hovered; she could sense his concern lingering in the ebbing bond she used to cover them all. It was nice, sort of sweet. She flashed him a reassuring smile and received one in return, the red glow behind his glasses intensifying for a moment.
Silence descended, not awkward exactly, but what was there to say? After a moment, Kitty crossed to the chair and gingerly sat on the very edge. When she didn't go through it, she relaxed. Logan leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Scott watched a moth flutter around the light bulb.
It was going to be a long night.
Remy liked the city best when the sun went down. He liked the glare of the lights, the way the streets glinted underfoot as the rain reflected everything above it somehow cleaner than it was. He liked the shadows that held nothing in them he had to worry about, and the way they blurred everything, just a little. But the cold he could have lived without. It cut through his coat like it wasn't there, it was hard to stop himself huddling his arms around him to keep the heat in just a little. It was late, but he didn't want to sleep, didn't have anywhere to sleep. Couldn't have slept if his life had depended on it. Something about being the business end of a chase made it hard to settle. His lips quirked into a sardonic smile. It was just like old times. At least it wasn't Assassins after him.
The temperature dropped further, but his thoughts were drifting on. Drifting south. To the warmth, and the life, that was New Orleans. He could practically smell Tante Matte's gumbo ...
In hindsight, he figured he should have been watching the skies a little better. And, if he was going to think about it more, walking in the open was a very stupid thing to do. Sleep deprivation really wasn't much of an excuse. Only the sudden intrusion on his awareness of something heading in, and fast, gave him the warning to duck and roll.
Storm pulled up sharply, ignoring the startled cries of the pedestrians who'd been treated to the sudden and unwanted appearance of an African Goddess in full fury. Lightening crackled around her as she dove in again, not giving her target the chance to reach for his cards, summoning the winds to knock him back. Back towards Evan and Rogue.
Gambit felt the air leave his lungs as he was bowled over and landed hard, but he scrambled to his feet, trying to regroup in a hurry. Jerkily he tried to latch onto his Bo staff, but his movements felt sluggish, unco-ordinated, like the time he'd ... accidently ... drunk half a bottle of Henri's reserve port when he was thirteen. Somewhere he could hear laughter but everything was becoming molasses around him. In desperation he fell to his knees, searching for anything he could charge and throw, the gutters of New York didn't fail him. A soda can, flaming pink in an instant and he turned to throw it, all his concentration on not accidentally charging, say, a city block.
Then a cool hand belonging to a body he hadn't felt the approach of clamped down on his wrist, he looked up into Rogue's wide and strangely alarmed eyes as vertigo hit. It felt like his soul was being wrenched in every direction, he was falling and flying. And then he … wasn't. His last thought was that being knocked out was becoming a bad habit he should really try to break.
Rogue screamed as the ground beneath her began to glow. She flung the unconscious thief from her, losing herself in his powers and memories as he had lost himself in her. She could feel everything around her, something above that must be Storm, the movement of people running away, the lazy fidgeting of something small nearby, a rat maybe, or a cat. Too much information, and the glow spread.
Far up the sky, Storm had not had even the chance to yell to Rogue, could only watch as she sought to end the fight her way. What had happened to Evan, she had no idea, she saw only the contact made, and heard the girl begin to shriek. As the glow began to spread further and faster, becoming a death sentence for anything touching it, she grit her teeth and called down the freeze winter was so willing to lend her.
Thick and arctic, covering the ground faster than the stolen charge and the two forms at the centre of it, an ice age came to New York. The explosion, when it came, was a dull and muted thing, cracking it's container but not the buildings. A shudder ran through the earth as it protested the direction the blast had taken, and then all was still. One second, two, passed as the Windrider allowed herself to float wearily to the street, and then what sounded like every car alarm in New York shattered the silence. Then came the distant wail of police sirens, growing closer by the moment. There was no movement at all from Rogue or Gambit as she rushed to them, both covered in a thin layer of frost.
Something told her it was going to be a long night.
Spyke shouted, yelled, beat his fists against the wall. Then he kicked it, once or twice, for good measure. It didn't make any difference, and he'd been around telepaths long enough to know it wouldn't. The wall was in his mind, on every side he turned, and he was definitely on the wrong side of it.
He'd seen Rogue run forward, just in time to abort his strike with his spikes and send them into the side of a car, rather than the side of an unlucky schoolmate and sometimes quiet ally in the prank wars against Kitty and Kurt. After that, it got a bit hazy. He had the sensation of movement now, but that might have been his own imagination getting to work.
Emma Frost smiled as she pushed the stumblingly docile body that housed Evan into the back of her car with little more than some lightweight mental suggestion. She had her catch, and it had been easy too. Easy to take over the actions of Rogue, easy to slow the thief and almost insultingly easy to evade the weather witch. Honestly, what was Xavier teaching his people? This was meant to be a challenge.
Still, she smiled as she settled in the front seat, sending Evan to sleep with the mental equivalent of a hammer to the head. Picking up the ridiculous telephone that Shaw had insisted upon in each of the Club's limousines, she settled beside him.
"Shaw? I have my catch. Am I the first?"
His voice returned warmly, as it should to his Queen.
"No, Wynegarde has his, but he hasn't returned yet. If you make due haste, you should be the first back"
Without reply, she pressed the call end button and gently replaced the receiver, raising her voice to the driver as she glanced at the boy by her side.
"Matthews? Due haste."
The deep red limo slid into the traffic and she closed her eyes. She had no idea what prize Shaw had in mind when he had devised this little competition. But she would win it. The White Queen of the Hellfire Club always won.
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Erm, that was a bit quicker ... I think (Doesn't want to be an accessory to murder and usually caves instantly under pressure) The holidays are conspiring against me :( Prolly won't be another chapter till after New Year ... but thank you very much to everyone that's reviewed!! Have a great Christmas :)
