Chapter 3 - You Can't Kill An Idea

The next few team practices were different to what the junior squad was used to, and it had worn them down for a couple weeks. K was hard to keep up with; K and Natasha working in concert to put them through their paces was downright exhausting — and yet somehow fun.

It turned out that, while Gerry's powerset was excellent for this kind of thing and Elin was naturally sneaky and on her way to eventually being as good as her parents if she kept up the practice — Krissy was also good at surveillance work, to even her own surprise. Most people didn't look up, as Sying knew from hiding on the ceilings — but more than that, Krissy was good at reading people. She could tell when someone's cover had been blown or when someone was watching their hiding places — and she was excellent at dramatic distractions.

But after two weeks of more or less an intensive spy training camp, this time, when the team met up again, Scott directed them to the War Room, where K was already waiting for them.

K gave all of them a moment as she watched them file in. "First things first: no X-Men uniforms this run. No faces, no distinguishing characteristics — for your safety and for the school." She waited for any of them to object. "Your temporary uniforms are in the locker room; they might look a little familiar."

"No distinguishing characteristics — are you going to make me tuck my tail?" Krissy asked.

"It would be best, unless you can't handle it — in which case, stick to the darkest shadows," K replied.

"Try an inducer," Chance suggested. "You can keep the tail out, but no one would see it, right?"

"Unless it's programmed to make you look like a ninja, that won't work," K said. "And I'd prefer she get through this without the tech, even if you do seem to think that blondes have more fun."

"We really did," Chance smirked.

"I can tuck the tail," Krissy said. "It'll just throw off my balance a little. If we get into a fight, it needs to come back out."

K gave her a serious look. "If it's a problem, let it loose," she told her. "This shouldn't go to blows. You're just going to be doing what we've been practicing — placing bugs and setting up surveillance." She turned to Chance. "But that means no guns for you, no jokes, and Elin — no claws."

"No jokes. That's a mean rule for my first mission," Gerry said with a grin K's way.

"You can joke after, sunshine," she told him.

"You know what, just for that, I'm keeping that as my codename. No takebacks," Gerry said.

She stepped back with a little smile. "Now, unlike your usual missions, I'm not going to tell you every little step like you're all used to. I want to see how you work on your own, so however you structure yourselves best — follow whoever you think will do the best job leading."

"Sounds like you're up, El," Chance said with a tip of his head Elin's way. "You're better at the sneaky ninja stuff."

"Su-ure," Elin said, almost frowning his way. "If you say so."

"Figure it out on the way," K told them. "But have a plan. These are the maps of the place you'll be going into — and the topos of the area around it." She tipped her head to the screen behind Chance. "Take some time to familiarize yourselves with it. And when you get into the ninja gear downstairs, be sure to check each other for even so much as a stray hair sticking out."

"And try to keep your hands to yourselves," Sying said dryly Krissy and Chance's way.

"I didn't think I had to say it, but since you brought it up..." K said, shrugging. "Girls help girls, etcetera …"

"Spoilsport," Krissy said, sticking her tongue out at Syng.

"He's just trying to make sure you make it to the mission instead of a make out session," K replied without looking over at her.

"Like I said. Spoilsport."

"Didn't realize Kurt and Scott were so close to getting grandbabies," K shot back.

Krissy turned a brilliantly bright purple, and Chance turned pink beside her, though Scott looked downright shocked for a second before he switched to a dry, dry look K's way.

"Anything you want to add, Scott?" K asked casually.

Scott's dry look seemed to somehow get drier before he turned to the team. "You've all got the right training under your belts. Now's the time to prove you can use it," he said simply before he gestured to K to leave and got to his feet himself, leaving the kids to familiarize themselves and get ready.

"So. Bad guys hiding in a library basement. Sounds… cliche," Gerry said at last.

"It's an old one," Elin said. "But big basement, sub basement from what … hundred and fifty years ago or so? Nothing creepy about that at all."

"Hope you don't get scared of the dark." Gerry grinned her way.

"So, El, whatcha got?" Chance asked, tipping his head at the maps.

"I think we have a couple of entry options," she said, pointing them out. "Too old for ventilation shafts, so … sorry about your options, tinyHawks."

Gerry made a show of snapping his fingers. "Drat."

"I think … Chance, can you take Sying to cover the exits and put up the cameras outside? I think between Krissy, Gerry, and I, we can get in and out without anyone seeing us, and I don't want him to go in with less than two regulars first time out."

Chance nodded his agreement. "Plus, you three are the sneakiest. I like it."

"Some of us for more reasons than others," Elin replied with a little smirk.

Chance matched her smirk before he nodded. "Well, us non-sneaky boys got your back."

"You can play sneak next time," Elin promised. "The two of you are a better wide-angle coverage, and you know it."

"No, I like it. Play to the strengths," he agreed before he threw an arm around Sying's shoulders. "C'mon. Let's go."

Elin turned to Gerry with a much more serious look. "So, we'll get in nice and quiet, and if we have any trouble, you'll kill the lights, right? Krissy and I will take care of you. Don't worry."

"Yeah, I can handle that," Gerry promised. "I can even play with the shadows to keep the lights dimmer for us."

"Awesome," she said with a little smile. "I'll warn you about these ninja suits … you'll actually need help to get into them right, so don't zip up the neck until the hood is on too."

"So the thing about keeping our hands to ourselves was actually necessary." Gerry smirked.

"Lil bit," she said, nodding. "You know … team only has one locker room."

"Yeah… that's fun," Gerry said.

"You're next to Sying," Krissy sang out.

Gerry shook his head to himself as the team moved out, though he was glad to see, on a protective big brother level, that the girls had undershirts. Because he did not want to have to put up with trying not to knock Chance over if he was looking at his fellow Hawk too hard.

Once the group had changed — and it was clear that no one would be able to tell who they were — they met up with K in the hangar, who was similarly dressed and waiting to go. "If anything goes wrong — I'll fix it. But I'm expecting to have nothing to do tonight."

"Knock on wood and all that," Gerry said.

K shook her head at him and headed for the cockpit, though she surprised Chance by giving him a shrill whistle. "You're up."

Chance paused for only a second before it was obvious he was grinning even through the gear. "Sweet," he said, almost vaulting into his seat.

They set down far enough out from the old building that no one would notice them, and once they were set, they split into their separate groups, Chance and Sying circling around the outside while Elin led the other two into the library and down the basement steps.

Once the sneaky group was in the library, the comms were a no-go — they couldn't get through to the other team. But considering everyone had a bamf with them, the boys on the outside had to wait.

"Saw the new name on the ship," Chance said in a whisper to Sying once they'd gone through to place their cameras and had a good spot to watch the exits. "Fitting."

"Yeah, I wanted something a little more…"

"Fiery?"

"Yeah. And less like it was the name of an Antarctic exploration craft," Sying said with a smirk.

Chance snorted out a laugh. "Hey, I like the Marvel and the Wonder."

"I like the Shanghai too. Didn't want to go with Jolly Roger?"

"I like the other nickname better," Chance said with a smile.

"It fits."

"Well, how'd you wind up with Cherry Bomb?"

"Listening to music with—"

"—with Penny, got it." Chance nodded. "That's kind of sweet, you know."

"She was there for the christening," Sying said with a smile that read all kinds of trouble.

There was a small click on the comms, but no other sound came though, and the panic light didn't go off, so it sounded more like someone had hit it on accident than had tried to reach out.

Sying glanced over at Chance. "Should we…"

"Let's give it a minute," Chance said, though the earlier teasing mood had evaporated as they paid closer attention now.

The darkness around them didn't seem to darken, and the crickets were still chirping, with no sign of anything amiss for the longest time. Until there was a shout from the building that was most definitely not their teammates.

As the two of them started to head toward the building; there were several muted bamf's that echoed the night around them, and it took a moment to see three black figures in the dark.

"Run!" Krissy's voice was obvious, and her tail was out of her outfit to help her run faster without the risk of stumbling.

"No! Hide!" Elin hissed back, her sword drawn as she headed toward the trees. "Sunshine, move it!" A moment later, the comms with Chance and Sying lit up. "Hide. We're not going to the jet until they disperse."

Chance and Sying glanced at each other before Sying nodded once. "Up high?"

"Yeah," Chance said before, in a second, Sying had grabbed him and the two boys were on the top of the library, laid out flat on the roof so that they were invisible from the ground.

The men filing out of the building were trying to do a good job of keeping quiet, even if, clearly, they were in a state of excitement as they searched around the building and out into the woods nearby. The wait seemed to stretch on forever, until finally, Gerry managed to redirect them with a shadow that looked like someone darting into hiding farther out from their positions and well away from where they'd see anyone on the team.

As soon as the men, all of them wearing deep red underneath their coats, had gotten far enough away, Krissy and the bamfs took that as a cue to get out, and they all wound up in poofs of smoke in the jet a moment later.

"How badly did it go for an entrance like this?" K asked, frowning at the group of them. "And what did they have down there to kill the comms?"

"Some kind of spell," Krissy said, her tail twitching irritatedly, though her voice rang with worry.

"Spell?" K asked, looking much more focused on the young Elfling an instant before she snapped her fingers at Chance and pointed to the cockpit.

As Chance vaulted into the pilot's chair, Krissy pulled on the end of her tail. "It was some kind of… illusion. Once one of us walked through, we couldn't see or hear the other until they were on the other side too."

"Okay, save it for Scott," K said, shaking her head before she radioed to let him know what was going on.

With Sying in copilot, Gerry was watching the two girls that he'd gone in with and wearing more of a frown than the usually upbeat kid pulled off, and it seemed that both Krissy and Elin were upset about whatever had been back there.

Krissy kept pulling on her tail, Elin was unconsciously clenching and unclenching her hands, and both of them were staring more or less forward and worrying their lips. Their expressions didn't change all the way down to the War Room to meet up with Scott, though by then, Sying and Chance had noticed it and looked fairly worried about what exactly had been going on in the library.

Scott didn't miss the looks on the girls' faces either, and he inclined his head toward Elin, since she was in charge of the mission. "What happened?"

"For starters, they were using magic to keep their secret meeting secret," Elin said. "Speaking in a dead language, chanting, and calling for Azazel, more or less."

Scott sat up straighter. "I thought he was dead."

"He wasn't there," Krissy said, though that didn't seem to lessen her anxiety.

"I think they were trying to summon him," Elin said. "Just because he's dead doesn't mean they know that."

Scott frowned deeper at that. "Alright. I need anything you can give me — pictures, footage, bugs — and I'll run it by Wiccan and Dr. Strange to see what, exactly, they plan to do."

Elin slid the device that activated the bugs his way. "Good luck. The spell they were using screwed up all of our phones, and I doubt that the bugs will pick up anything, since we couldn't even check in."

Scott frowned at that. "That's going to make this more difficult."

"But I'll answer any questions you can give me — or that they can give me," Elin promised.

"I want all three of you to talk to Jubilee while this is still fresh and see if she can get anything from your memories on runes or any other details," Scott said. He turned to K. "I'll call Billy, but you should be linked in too. You're the one who picked up the mistranslated runes."

"Kind of a big job for Jubilee on her own, isn't it?" K said.

Scott let out a breath. "She's been working with the twins."

"Yeah, but jailbreaking into my head is hard enough, Elin won't likely be much better, and that's just the two of us."

"If you think we need to pull Rachel in, send a bamf."

"I do. And you need a hug from her anyhow," K said without missing a beat. "Besides, with her, we can pull in the other two boys that didn't get to see what was happening. The more eyes on this, the better our chances will be to catch signs of it earlier."

Scott nodded. "I'll set it up. And you should probably talk to Kurt. Even if they didn't get through, he should know."

K nodded just as the flirty bamf appeared in front of her to pick up her hand and kiss it. "Yes. We can go," she said, shaking her head. "This is what happens when you allow them into the briefings."

"Yeah, and it speeds things along anyway," Scott said.

"Only because they're not flirting with you," K pointed out before she and the bamf disappeared.

While Scott was fretting and making arrangements with Rachel, K appeared just outside of the Wagner's room. She was sure to kiss the little bamf before she knocked. "If I'm interrupting, I can come back in fifteen minutes."

She somehow wasn't surprised to hear Kate start laughing or by the fact that Kurt took a minute before he appeared outside, shaking his head at her with a grin.

"I said I can come back. You have important work to do there."

Kurt grinned again and shook his head. "Yes, I did - now what can I do for you?"

K tried to keep the smile, but it just wasn't gonna happen. "We have a situation."

Kurt's smile dropped, and he put a hand on her shoulder. "What kind of situation?"

"Obviously, nothing so dire that I wouldn't tease," she pointed out. "But there is a cult that's taken up residence in Salem Center that, as far as we can decipher so far, is trying to summon your father." She held up both hands. "I know he's dead, but that doesn't change the fact that they're trying all the same."

Kurt frowned at K for a long moment. "So, when do we leave?"

"We don't yet," she told him. "Scott's bringing in Billy and Strange … maybe Illyana if she's not … being … her. And Rachel should be here soon to do a major link up, that you might want in on."

"It sounds like I should be," Kurt agreed. "War Room, ja?" When K nodded, he simply teleported them both to where the others were, one hand on her back to keep her steady until she sat down. He looked around the room at the members of the junior squad and then sat down beside Krissy, with Elin on his other side as he put a hand on Elin's shoulder and Krissy leaned into him.

Rachel arrived a moment later and had only just stopped to give Scott a passing hug before Billy appeared with Strange, though Billy looked agitated.

"There is just no way they can bring him back," he said. "It's not possible. I would know — I did that spell myself. I rewrote his reality myself. He is never. Coming. Back."

"Didn't think so," K promised. "I was thinking more about a way to get around their magic silence zone. But by all means … keep reassuring the girls. They need to hear it."

For a moment, Billy paused now that he realized no one was questioning the spell or Azazel's return and then turned to Krissy and Elin, who did, in fact, look harangued. "I swear, if there was even the remotest possibility that he could come back, I'd have been here to warn you about it. These guys are looking for a king that will never answer them. I made sure he can't even come back as a spirit to communicate. Just can't cross the barrier. He's not. Coming. Back."

Krissy let her shoulders drop and leaned further into her father, closing her eyes and nodding. Elin looked as if she was steeling herself for a moment before she nodded once but didn't drop his gaze.

"We're more worried about what they'll get up to chasing their so-called king," Scott admitted. "We can't get any tech through their spell, so Rachel will link us up."

With everyone seated, then, Rachel wasted no time in linking up the minds of everyone present so that they could walk through what the three kids who had gone into the library had seen.

It was standard fare for creepy cults, really. The men were all wearing the same deep red that Azazel had once been and were chanting, as Elin had described — but the focus for the rest of the onlookers was now on the runes and the spell itself.

When they had walked through the memories all the way up until the moment Krissy's unconscious little noise of panic and fear when she heard Azazel's name gave them away and the group of junior X-Men had to book it out of there, they left the memory, and Strange was the first to speak.

"They know what they're doing," he admitted. "Those spells, those runes — they would absolutely have summoned the old demon king were it possible."

"Or if they were pronouncing it right," K said with her nose scrunched up.

Strange couldn't help but smile her way. "Yes, I did say the spells were right, not the practitioners," he said before he let out a breath. "The spell to knock out your communications is exceedingly simple and therefore hard to fight. It simply does not recognize any objects made beyond a certain time period. Cameras, phones, anything past the era of the Vikings doesn't register in that field. Add in a simple illusion and they are effectively hidden."

"Can you counter it?" Scott asked.

"I can fool the spell into thinking specific objects are from earlier centuries, yes," Strange said.

"What about putting the right rune on something?" K asked. "There are a few older ones that aren't in their syllabary."

Strange gestured to her with one hand. "Exactly."

"In what language was that the same thing?" K asked, looking up at him with an expression of sheer disbelief.

"You say potato; he says tomato," Billy whispered to her with a smirk.

Scott shook his head at them and then looked to Strange. "Alright. Let's keep tabs on these guys, smuggle in some surveillance through their spell, and make sure when they inevitably escalate their attempts to contact him, we can contain it."

K picked up a pen and a piece of paper and drew out half a dozen different runes and slid them to Strange. "Pick out your favorite for this application."

Strange hardly glanced down before he tapped one on the top row and one in the middle. "These are closer to the… approximation of the spells they're using," he said with a small smirk.

"Closer …" she said, narrowing her eyes for a minute before she set the paper down and drew out three more. "How about a steel cage then?"

Strange smiled and nodded. "Any of these will fool the spell," he said to the group at large. "And as their attempts to summon him will constantly be thwarted, it's only a matter of ensuring that they don't turn to other methods. Sacrifice — a life for a life — would be a common conclusion. Or a vessel of some kind."

"It won't work, but the people they try to screw with are a different story," Billy said.

"Half-informed idiots," K muttered. "Missing the whole point entirely."

"Those are usually the most dangerous," Strange pointed out.

"If their cult is built around the religion itself — or their understanding of it — then you'll be able to see most of their steps coming from lore," Billy said K's way. "But if it's built around the demon king and they're just using runes and religion as a tool, then I wouldn't be surprised if they branched out."

"I'm wondering if they aren't trying to re-trace his steps somehow," K said.

"He had plenty of followers who knew nothing about him," Kurt said with a serious glare.

"Yeah, but how many of them knew he was digging up old runebooks trying to get his immortality back?" she asked.

"I'll investigate whether there were any witnesses to the villages he left in his wake at the time," Kurt said.

"I'll go with you," she offered. "You don't speak it."

"And before that, he was in Mongolia," Kurt continued. "Whatever he was looking for there didn't work out, but if they are retracing his steps, that would be the next place to look for."

"Charlie's tracer is still active," Scott said. "She dropped it into one of their bags. We'll monitor them to see if they start in that direction, but I'm more concerned about what they're doing here."

"It's not like he wasn't here before," Krissy pointed out softly.

"And there was blood magic here," Billy said in an undertone to K.

She nodded her head. "Got it. They want to die. I can arrange that."

Billy smirked. "Yeah. That's exactly it."

"So, we're just going to wait them out?" Chance asked.

"We don't know how widespread they are," Scott pointed out. "I want to monitor them for a while, keep tabs on their movements and communications and make sure we know if there are enclaves in other places. Mongolia, Sweden, whatever. We move now and we get these guys but not necessarily the rest." He leaned back a bit. "In the meantime, we'll watch the places we do know they've gone — any missing persons, suspicious activities."

With that decided, the group broke up to head their separate ways, but just as Krissy asked Elin where she was headed, Rachel caught up with her. "I've got her, Krissy," Rachel told her. "She can talk to you tomorrow." The two girls waved, and before Elin could head down to the locker room, Rachel pulled her back to a more private, intimate setting. "I think you and I need to have a chat."

Elin let out a breath, sure that she knew what Rachel was getting at, since it was going to be a recurring theme with Krissy stuck on her wanting to sneak away for more private settings with Nolan. But … she didn't count on Rachel taking a totally different angle.

She led Elin to a private room, not that she needed it, considering that she made sure to block out everyone from finding them and blocked the twins and Jubilee from being able to reach out to them for this little chat. "You can't keep ignoring what happened when you manifested," Rachel said right out of the gate.

"I'm not."

"You are, and you need some help — or you wouldn't be shutting down like you are."

Elin stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, and it wasn't until just then that Rachel realized that the young woman simply didn't realize she was doing it, which at least meant that she could try to ease her through it. "I'm going to have my dad send you to Chicago once a week. We can ball up a few things — time with me, Kitty wanted to work with you too, and I think it would do you good to get away from this building a little more."

"And you think he'll go for that?" Elin asked with a frown.

"I don't see why not. Your whole family is on edge, and Kitty really does want to work with you."

Elin thought it over for a long moment, but Rachel draped her arm around her shoulders as she led her back toward the door. "You're supposed to be getting ready for leadership training. I know Storm worked with you already — and was happy with your results. Let's not change anyone's opinion unless you don't want to. This will be good all the way around."