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Chapter 7
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For Theresa, the second lunch of the day passed both quickly and smoothly. She only got a soda for herself while Hank and Cecilia dove headfirst into the meal. Cecilia had heated up a whole plate-full of taquitos in the microwave while Hank looked like he was trying to eat his own body weight in sandwiches. The three of them chatted amiably about nothing of much importance. Cecilia seemed more than slightly relieved to finally have another grown woman in the house after two weeks of trying to handle the entire female student body by herself. They were almost through with their lunch when someone else approached their table, a tall blond man with a smile on his face and a plate in his hands.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rankin," Hank greeted him. "What brings you down so late?"

The smile grew a bit. "Please, Henry, call me Calvin. Mr. Rankin is my father." He sat down with them on the other side of Theresa, setting down his sandwich and soda. "I had some errands to run and they took me longer than I had expected. Didn't get a chance to eat while I was out so believe me when I say that I am famished!" He took a big bite of his sandwich, obviously enjoying it immensely. After swallowing, he turned to Theresa, an apologetic expression on his face. "I'm very sorry, I just sat right down without even bothering to introduce myself. I'm Calvin Rankin, one of the new ones around here. And you are?"

Theresa allowed herself to return the smile. Something about this man just rubbed her the wrong way, something very small but it was there. His cheeriness seemed forced, like there was something bothering him. Like something had happened that he would rather keep to himself. "Looks like I've got ye beat on the newbie scale," she told him, watching as he laughed. The other two at the table were each listening but only with half an ear as they were already absorbed in a conversation of their own. "I'm Theresa Cassidy, but death tae he who tries tae call me 'Miss Cassidy'."

Calvin laughed again. "A sense of humor is always a good thing to have around." His smile widened further and he tousled his own hair with one hand as his gaze shifted over to where the doctors sat, engaged in some deep discussion. "They've certainly hit it off well. Wonder what they're talking about." Theresa shrugged, unable to say anything because of the soda in her mouth. "Ah well. So you're going to be teaching, I guess?" She nodded. "What subject?"

"Art," she replied. "Drawing and painting mainly, that's what I know best, but there may be some ceramics. And ye?"

"All subjects, but just for the little kids. Math, Social Studies, that sort. But," he leaned in a bit, lowering his voice. "Power-wise what do you do?"

Theresa smiled. "Same as me Pa--sonic scream. Sound waves."

His eyes went wide. "I may have to chat you up for a bit longer, then." She looked confused, so he explained. "That's my power, I can copy others. Takes an hour to really do it and even then what I have is only half as powerful as the original, but it's still really useful thing to have. I can keep up to five at once. Who's in my cache right now, hmm?" He paused, looking off into space and counting off on his fingers. "Let's see--Hank agility. Cecilia's force field. The professor's telepathy. Piotr--one of the students--got his steel form and strength. And I always keep one slot open for emergencies." He smiled at her and she managed a smile back. "But sound waves, man, sound waves? With enough power you could be a flier!"

A scuffing of chairs against the floor distracted her before she could reply. Hank and Cecilia were in the process of taking their dishes to the kitchen. They returned only moments later--that meant there hadn't been any repeat of the medlab incident, Theresa noted with a smirk. Hank smiled as he spoke, a genuine smile. "You have seen the interior of the building I trust?" She nodded. "Cecilia and I were just planning a stroll outside, if you wish to accompany us, we would be able to give you a full tour of the grounds."

She nodded once again. "Oh, aye. I would like that."

Hank returned the gesture. "Then shall we be off?"

"It was nice meeting you, Theresa," Calvin called from the table as she left. She waved good-bye, then followed out the door.

~~~

The strategist's mind never slept. Scott was already mentally going over the layout of the mansion, trying to decide how to defend it best. What made it all the more difficult was not knowing how his adversary thought--he was loath to think of a teenage girl as his enemy. But she was against him and his team and she was a danger to the mansion so he needed a plan of protection from her. He had no idea how her train of thought would go, where she would turn up, when she would attack, or how or with what. Was she going to demand to have Creed back or was she just going to barge in, figurative guns blazing, and take him.

*Blink*

Or not so figurative. Scott spun in a slow circle to come face-to-face with a gun. A slightly trembling gun, but a gun nonetheless held by the exact person he was expecting. She had both her long-fingered hands wrapped around the handle of the gun but they weren't there to keep it steady. She wasn't trembling with fright or even nervousness. Her stark white eyes were light brightly with pure rage. Even from across the medlab he could see that she had the safety off and he had just heard her cock the gun. Behind her the remains of a glowing portal were swiftly disappearing. The girl was fast and dangerous--this was going to be tricky. He had to deal as calmly as he could.

Scott smiled, putting as much warmth into the gesture as he could manage. He did not move from where he stood. Instead he stayed facing her, his feet firmly planted. "Good afternoon, Clarice," he told her, avoiding the Hannible Lector-like phrase that had first popped to mind. "You found us very quickly--good job on that. Let me guess. I'm the first one you found that you recognized." He realized he was patronizing the girl with the gun and shifted tactics. "Look--"

"--Shut up." Clarice cut him off with a hissed command, shifting her grip on the gun. "Don't give me any excuses, you murdering fuck." Some of Creed's worse qualities had obviously rubbed off on her. "I don't want to hear any--not from you, not from the rest of your band of butchers. You didn't give me any excuses when you killed Mort and I'm not going to take any now that you've killed Creed."

Wait, she thought Creed was dead? Was it even possible to kill Creed? Well, then again she had just seen him fall and not get up. It was reasonable that she could think he was dead. But who was Mort? Mort . . . Mortimer . . . Toad. That's who she was talking about. If she was with Creed while he was with the Brotherhood then she would have known Toad--Mort. God, all these things he hadn't thought of. But he had to address the most pressing issue first. "Creed's not dead," he told her emphatically.

But Clarice wasn't buying it. "One more lie and I swear I'll shoot you."

"And I swear I'll duck before you even pull the trigger. Just listen to me--"

"You want me to believe you? Fine. Show me where he is."

Scott didn't let his relief show in his smile. "Good, glad you're listening. Now if you'll just follow me." He turned towards the side room that held Creed, showing Clarice that he trusted her not to shoot him in the back. Winning her over to the school was going to be much more difficult than he had originally planned--he hadn't counted on the death of Mort. He would have to talk to Ororo about . . . no, he couldn't, could he? Fighting back a frown he opened the door, then heard Clarice's sharp intake of breath from behind him.

"What the fuck have you done to him?" she breathed, looking wild-eyed at the unconscious Creed. "Whatever it is you'd better undo it right now or so help me God I'll shoot you. If you've harmed one hair on this man's head I'll shoot the blue one. And then I get the weather-bitch that killed Mort and anyone who tries to stop me." That was more easily said than done, Scott knew. Ororo wasn't even in the mansion any more--and Cecilia and her force field weren't letting a crazy girl with a gun near Hank any time soon.

But right now he had to think fast to save his own skin. "Calm down for a little while, please. He's just sleeping. There's nothing wrong with him, I promise. Give me a few minutes--that's how long it will take for me to wake him up." Scott had been watching Clarice very carefully this whole time and had come to one, solid conclusion--she as uncomfortable with the situation as he was. Learning Creed was alive had taken some of the fight out of her and she obviously wasn't used to threatening anyone, much less threatening anyone with a gun. She probably wasn't used to combat either, but he had no doubt she could hold her own and shoot as well as anyone twice her age. Having a mentor like Creed would make sure of that. Scott edged closer to the controls she stood by, careful not to make her jumpier than before. If he just reached out towards the dial like so, and then feinted like so, he could grab the gun like--

Clarice jerked backwards with a start in a full-fledged panic. She hadn't expected him to lunge forward like that but had expected even less that the gun would go off. Involuntary reaction, really! She had thought he was trying to attack her. She was just defending herself. She was, she was . . . she was getting the hell out of here, that's what she was doing. At her command a portal opened through the glass and she edged through it--away from Scott. He wasn't dead, wasn't near dead, he had twisted out of most of the way and the gun wasn't even aimed at his heart in the first place. The bullet had lodged itself in his left shoulder and he sat on the ground, holding the wound with his good hand. "Oh shit," Clarice hissed, backing through the portal. Once on the other side she used one of her teleportation darts to take both her and Creed back home. He could wake up there, she decided.

Meanwhile Scott groped for his communicator. Why hadn't he called someone--the professor!--before it all got ugly? Self-importance, that's why. He wanted to prove that he could handle it himself. What a swell job he did. Just one mental call to the professor could have avoided this whole mess. Charles would have held her where she stood, been able to get through to her and really talk to her. Would have sorted this all out but no, Scott had gone and made an utter ass out of himself trying to show that he was the big man on campus. Still berating himself, he picked up the communicator and sent out a general call. "Kurt, Hank, Cecilia, Calvin! Come in, someone."

"Ah, I'm here." Theresa's voice was the first to come back to him. "As for Hank and Cecilia, they're slightly . . . gone?"

"Gone! Gone where? We're got more than a bit of a situation in the medlab."

"Oh, aye. We've got one too."

~~~ Earlier ~~~

Most of the grounds tour went ver smoothly. There was the boathouse, the lake, playing fields basketball courts, and row upon row of gardens. Lining one edge of the property was a fairly dense forest. Hank, Cecilia, and Theresa were just going to skirt around it but unfamiliar voices coming from inside made them want to investigate. And so they did.

There they found Calvin, speaking with a man fairly unknown to them and as soon as each group spotted the other, all hell broke loose. Hank was shouting something about a Sinister and Calvin plying double agent while Calvin himself proceeded to use their own powers against them. Theresa knew she could knock out both adversaries but no more than a scream but that would involve taking down her two teammates as well. So she tried sticking to her fists, but a blast of power from the one called Sinister sent her flying headlong out of the fray. Stunned, she could watch from where she lay on the ground as it all unfolded.

Sinister and Calvin weren't aiming to kill, only to capture and that was probably the sole reason the other two survived. Hank was the first to fall--a steel-armed blow to the back of the head laid him out quickly and cleanly. Cecilia's force field made her a bit more of a problem but Sinister had not come unprepared. Her field reacted to kinetic energy but gas passed easily through and soon she lay crumpled on the ground beside Hank. Seeming to have forgotten about the half-conscious redhead behind him, Sinister gathered up his crony and his prisoners and completely disappeared. Theresa was slowly forcing herself to her feet, massaging the spot where she had hit her head, when a fallen communicator began to beep loudly.

Scott was silent as she fed him all this information as quickly as she could. So Calvin had been in cahoots with the latest villain--he should have gotten a more thorough mind-sweep. Damn the professor's ethics! There was a time and a place for that and hiring wasn't it. Now he was wounded, Theresa was wounded, Calvin was playing for the other team, and Cecilia and Hank had been captured by God only knew who. That left Kurt and Logan as active faculty. "Things aren't usually this hectic around here," he told her, trying not to sound defeated. "But we're going to need help with this."

But whose help? To deal with the problems of here and now they needed medical experience but both their doctors were gone. There was one student who had been training with Hank--Paige Guthrie, but she was only a junior and knew just the medical basics. That would have to be enough for now. As for a rescue team? Between Kurt and the Blackbird they had transportation. Charles was the most powerful telepath in the world, he could locate their missing teammates and any possible help. Logan was brute force, and Bobby and John had been training hard with their respective powers. If Theresa had a good handle on her powers she could operate stealth, and they could enlist Kitty Pryde on that as well. "Unless we get a flood of trustworthy staff in the next twenty-four hours," he admitted, "We're going to have to use some of the older students to pull through this."