Rahne recognised the distinctive whine of the helicopter immediately. She was out on the landing field and waiting expectantly before the rotors had even stopped spinning. A figure stepped down from the cockpit and was mobbed by an enthusiastic wolf girl before walking two paces. "Betsy! You're back!"
"Whoa there, Sparky.…" Betsy disentangled herself from the younger girl, but she was grinning. "Did you miss me by any chance?"
"You've been gone for over a week!" Rahne said accusingly, but she laughed along with Betsy at her own impatience. The opportunity to have someone else to talk to and take her mind off everything was too much of a relief to allow any resentment at Betsy's extended absence for the moment.
"Yeah, sorry about that, luv," said Betsy. "Been tied up on a shoot in London."
It was still odd for Rahne to imagine cynical, down-to-earth, purple-haired Betsy as a successful fashion model, but it was undeniable that she had all the self-assurance and poise required. And the extremely healthy ego….
"Oi! I heard that!" Betsy still often refused to be bound by any moral standards regarding telepathy. But perhaps she had been reading more deeply than Rahne's surface thoughts, because after a moment's silence she asked quietly: "How've you been, luv?"
Rahne hesitated, her good mood snuffed out just as suddenly as it had appeared. She didn't feel like discussing her mental state. But there was no point in anything other than honesty when talking to a telepath. "Not so good," she admitted. Tony had stopped her spiralling black thoughts for a time, and she felt better knowing that she still had at least one friend in Ullapool, but his visit hadn't removed any of the underlying causes of her depression: her parents were still dead, her home was still gone, Reverend Craig was still free. And her powers were still locked away.
……
It was a mark of the novelty of Betsy's visit that she and Rahne found Teresa waiting for them when they entered the building. There were very few things these days that could separate the Irish girl from her books. And when Moira appeared at the other end of the hallway, Rahne wondered if the other residents of Muir Island had been waiting for a distraction from their obsessions just as much as she had. But her foster mother paused only briefly to give Betsy a distracted greeting before kissing Rahne on the top of the head, saying goodbye and hurrying out the door to the helicopter, murmuring to herself all the while.
"Where's she off to?" asked Teresa.
"Moisy's going to be an expert witness for the Jono Starsmore trial," Betsy informed them. "She's got a meeting with the defense lawyer." So that was it, Rahne thought bitterly. Betsy was just here to babysit the dangerous depressed girl while Moira was away, just because they were still scared…. Stop that luv! Betsy spoke in her mind. Even you don't really believe more than half of it, and I wanted to come anyway.
"Did you do something?" Teresa asked Betsy. "I mean, Moira barely said a word to you – why was she so rude?"
That wasn't right. Rahne shook her head. "She wasn't annoyed. She was distracted, and worried, and… scared?" She frowned, confused. Her foster-mother's scent had been a jumble of so many different elements that she'd barely noticed at the time, but it had been there – the brittle note of fear. She'd smelled that particular scent too much to mistake it for anything else.
Betsy eyed her with a considering grasp. "Not bad, Sparky. You sure you're not telepathic?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Well, you guys know about…," she paused, and Rahne could have almost sworn she felt a light brush on her mind. "Oh. You don't. Well, it's not my place to tell." Rahne and Teresa shared a questioning glance. The older girl hesitated, as though weighing up her words. "People getting hurt by mutants who can't control their powers just always gets Moira worried," she said finally. "She's devoted her life to studying mutants, to showing that we're not a threat. This kind of thing endangers all her work." Rahne frowned - Betsy wasn't precisely lying – her scent was clean of the stink of a lie - but Rahne knew there was something that she wasn't telling. The fear that she'd smelled on Moira wasn't that of a scientist, however devoted, worrying about their work – it had been personal.
"What's it like on the mainland at the moment?" Teresa inquired once they'd got into the kitchen, their traditional place of conversation. She and Rahne both looked at Betsy expectantly – neither of them had been inclined to watch the news reports after Carson's display and they were consequently starved for current events.
"Well I won't lie luv, it's not good," Betsy replied. "This whole Jono Starsmore incident's sent everyone into a right panic – seeing dangerous mutants everywhere, worrying they'll all be murdered in their beds, that type of thing. Brian's been doing his hero deal, trying to create a positive image for mutants, but…," she stopped short, eyes focused inward, listening to some unheard voice. "…Well, speak of the devil – that's Bri." She cocked her head, as though receiving instructions. "He's got a situation in Liverpool that's getting nasty, and he needs some help."
It took less than ten minutes for Betsy and Teresa to alert Sean and get the official Excalibur jet prepped and ready to launch. Rahne trailed after the others in a daze, unsure of what to do. She and the other New Recruits had always kept out of the way when the X-men were preparing for missions. Not wanting to disturb anyone's concentration, she hung back and wondered what kind of situation would make Captain Britain, the champion of the Islands, call for help.
"Rahne! You coming luv?" Betsy yelled, jerking her back into the present. She hesitated, but the older girl grabbed her hand and pulled her into the jet.
"So what exactly is going on, Psylocke?" Sean asked as Betsy fed him the co-ordinates for their destination from whatever connection she was maintaining with her brother in her mind.
"I'm not a hundred percent sure, to be honest," she replied. "Bri was in some bar watching the FA cup when the game went to hell – Liverpool was losing and a bunch of yobbo's decided to take it out on an Asian bloke who was there by himself. Apparently he was ignoring them pretty well till someone called him a 'bloody Paki' or some such. The guy snapped - and blasted out one of the pub's walls. That's when Bri called me, and things went downhill from there, far as I can make out."
Sean gave a low whistle. "I'll bet. But surely Brian can handle a few drunken football fans by himself? What's he doin' in a pub anyway?"
"Captain Britain involved in a bar room brawl? Not good for publicity…," Betsy retorted. "As for why he was there in the first place: who knows? Maybe he just wants to rub shoulders with the common folk every once and a while, or maybe my brother's a flaming alcoholic…."
"But why would the other man flip out at being called a 'Paki'?" Rahne asked. It didn't seem a killing insult in the scheme of things.
"He's probably Indian," Sean answered. Comprehension failed to dawn for Rahne. "Put it this way," he continued. "Imagine someone had called y' English… it's pretty much the same idea."
Rahne sat back, appalled. "That's terrible," Teresa exclaimed, her horrified face mirroring Rahne's. Sean nodded, and the three of them shared a mutual shudder at the awfulness of that thought.
Betsy rolled her eyes. "Oh give it a rest, would you? We're not the epitome of evil you know…."
……
The scene that greeted them on one of the backstreets of Northern Liverpool struck a chilling note in Rahne. Outside a gaping hole in a row of terrace buildings a mob had gathered. She could smell the stale scent of dulled anger emanating from the crowd. There was little fear, any apprehension sparked by the violent display of the mutant's power having been drowned by the haze of alcohol. But the pub's patrons seemed to still have some measure of the sober virtue of prudence – they had surrounded the mutant, whose dark complexion contrasted strongly with the pale skins of his drunken aggressors, but there was a wide ring of empty space between him and the mob, well-defined by a series of scorch marks burned deep into the street. The mutant's right hand was raised threateningly, but the other arm hung limp at his side. Neither he nor the mob made any overt moves. Still, the signs were there – the situation was poised: one spark and the mob would erupt, fire blasts or no fire blasts.
"Where's Brian?" Sean asked briskly, surveying the scene.
"In the building," Betsy replied. She looked down at the two strange looking helmets she had taken from the jet. "Well, he'll just have to cover his ears… Rahne, you put this on." She handed one of the helmets to the Scottish girl, and then slipped the other onto her head.
"But why?" Rahne asked, looking down at the oddly padded metal shell.
Betsy didn't seem to hear, but Sean answered. "Shields y' from what we're about t' do." Still not completely understanding, Rahne slipped the helmet on. She watched as Sean nodded at Teresa, then the two opened their mouths.
No sound made it through the helmet, but the effects of the sonic screams were obvious. The crowd froze suddenly, the restless shifting of the mob instantly quelled and the mutant's wary circling stopped dead. Sean pushed his way through the crowd, who offered no more resistance than crash-test dummies, and lifted the unresponsive mutant onto his shoulders. He called out something, but no sound reached Rahne.
Hey luv, you can take the helmet off now. Rahne turned to look at Betsy, who had already shed her own helmet, and sheepishly removed the sound-dampening headgear.
Noise rushed back into the world – the rushing sound of her own breathing, the distant drone of cars and the hum of the industrial centres, the rustle of air as Sean walked past still carrying the unconscious man and the ominous rumble nearby… wait… what ominous rumble? Rahne looked around, frantically trying to pinpoint the sound without pointed ears designed for aural triangulation.
Her eyes came to rest on the remains of the ruined pub. The street wall had a two metre-wide hole blown out of it, but the rest of the building had held so far. However, it appeared that the strain was taking its toll on the old stone edifice. Rahne could see the beginnings of stress cracks running along the remaining structure. She stood transfixed, watching the lines run and grow…. What if Brian was still in there? She reassured herself that Captain Britain's force field could protect him from a collapsing wall, but then she noticed something else. Standing paralysed beside the gap in the wall, another man was in danger from the imminent collapse of the building.
Rahne was close enough to save him – at least she was if she transformed. One leap to grab him, push him out of the way with her lupine strength – that was all it would take. Just like she'd done for Claire. Yes, just like she'd done for Claire, a treacherous voice reminded her. And what had happened then?
With a deceptively small shower of dust, the damaged wall began to crumble. The man stayed standing where he was, trapped in the path of the masonry by whatever sonic pulse Banshee and Siryn had emitted. And Rahne froze.
NB: Another canon character here, but I'll introduce him later. And the bit about Betsy being a fashion model is canon too, and it made me laugh for some reason, so I chucked it in. (Obviously this is a very thoughtfully crafted story, huh? Yeah right).