Chapter 3 - "Hug Magnet Junior"
When the junior team got to Texas, Chloe was a little worried about being the one the others turned to, but she could see why Chance and Elin had given her this one to sink her teeth into. It was pretty straightforward.
"Priority's the humans they're beating up," she said as they landed. "Kaleb, anyone they've already worked over, 'port them to the jet. James and Elin, you two are on the ones they're actively beating down. The rest of us will snatch up the rest." She pointed to Sying and Gerry. "Gerry, triage the civilians. Tell Sying which ones need speedy exits first."
"If you're bringing civilians to the jet, Gerry should stay here to make sure they don't panic," Elin said, gently correcting Chloe's orders to point her in the right direction.
"Spread a little Sunshine," Gerry said with a smirk. "That's my job description."
"Well," James said, tipping his head, "that and make sure one of their plants doesn't make it in here and trash the jet."
"Yeah, if anyone tries that, I'll put them on the ground," Gerry promised.
Chloe nodded at that. "If anyone is hurt badly enough that they need an immediate evac to Hank, Kaleb, can you get the bamfs?"
"I can get one or two, but they're with Dad in Maine with the Superior Rising execution up there," Kaleb said. "If it's really bad, we can call Krissy, too. She said she's feeling confident enough that she'd be okay doing some emergency runs with the team."
Chloe nodded. "One or two bamfs should be enough, but Sying can call in Krissy if we need her." She set her shoulders as the jet came down through the clouds at the given coordinates. "Hopefully, it's not so bad an emergency that we need to pull Krissy away from Ariel."
As the crowd came into view, James frowned at the sheer size and violence of them. "Probably tell Tyler to get to Westchester," he said, and Chance went ahead and radioed in exactly that, frowning hard and already quietly making a few preparations for who besides Krissy they might need to call if their young team wasn't enough to handle the crowd.
The fringes of the crowd were extraordinarily angry — even for this group. They were shouting and screaming and waving banners and weapons, and on seeing how many in the crowd were armed, Elin made a point to hit the comm for the team. "Keep your comms on; most of them are armed, and I want to know right away if there's trouble."
When the first one took a swing at Elin, it was like throwing gas on the fire. She kicked the crap out of the guy, as expected, but shortly after the guy fell, someone tried to stab her — with zero luck. The suit held up perfectly, and the impact of the knife on the force field only tipped her off that someone had tried to do her in. Not like anyone following him did better, though. When the next guy drew a gun, she lunged at him and took him to the ground as she beat him with his own weapon.
James wasn't expecting the usual half-awed crowd he'd been snarling at when he'd broken up other rallies, and he wasn't disappointed when, instead of admirers, he had people calling him every name in the book and spitting at him. It was a pretty wicked swing, but at least he felt like they were a little more even in loathing. The Death-worship had been grating beyond belief. He pushed his way forward, fighting back the rioters, not holding back as he threw adamantium-laced punches left and right — knocking out people and breaking jaws, noses, and anything else that got in his way.
But the two ferals were cutting a wide path nonetheless. The humans that had been beaten down were more or less gathered up in one place, and even partly splattered in blood, the two of them approaching were a welcome sight. Comparatively.
The story was the same in the pockets that the others found as well. Kaleb worked to teleport anyone unconscious; Sying grabbed up anyone that looked like they weren't going to be able to make it without medical attention; and the Summers siblings were blasting though people in perfect tandem. Chloe was being a bit more vicious than her brothers or even her dad would have been, simply because she was close enough to Chance to hear all of the slurs — though the first person who managed to knock her off of her feet got a broken nose when Chance lost his temper with him too.
Of course, with that aggressive a crowd, it was really just a matter of time before they started shooting. It was Kaleb that got hit first — and of course it was under circumstances that were fitting of an old spaghetti Western. The little group he'd been so heroically twirling and bashing into suddenly backed off, and when he turned to take in his surroundings, there was a massive, bald-headed biker with an overly exaggerated handlebar moustache and a gun that he fired as soon as Kaleb locked gazes with him.
Kaleb was too close for him to teleport out of the way, which was just as good — since had he done so, one of the crowd behind him would have been shot. Instead, the bullet ricocheted right back to the shooter and hit him in the wrist.
There was a beat of silence before the crowd seemed to realize what was going on, and they switched to using the powers that they could, just trying to get something to stick against the newly powered suits.
It was a hard fight even with the new protection, simply because the X-Men were up against a crowd of powered people — and some of them did have solid powersets, even if most of them had milder ones. A handful of telekinetics were causing some real issues, since the suits didn't exactly protect against being picked up and tossed, so Chloe called out for James to take out two of them wreaking havoc even as she blasted through one who had tossed Sying.
Of course, they weren't doing much by the time he hit them like a runaway freight train, cracking them in the face one after another. The first hit was enough on the first to break half the bones in one guy's face, and the second hit narrowly missed doing the same to the guy's buddy — and only because the Superior Rising idiot had the sense to pull away and save himself some plastic surgery.
Instantly, the team members who had been floating in the air started to drop, though Kaleb made sure anyone who had been too high in the air when the telekinesis wore off was teleported to the ground safely.
"You okay now?" James called out, already turning back toward the center of the crowd — and for the first time on the run, he popped his claws to slice through a shotgun pointed at Sying.
"Much appreciated, thanks," Chloe said over the comms.
"Hey, Sying, if you want to stretch, bend those guns in half," James suggested.
"Can do," Sying called out, efficiently cutting James a path to the biggest group of prisoners.
It was a mark of what kind of humans were under attack, though, that when James caught up to another group of injured people, they cringed back from him anyhow. Even if it was painfully apparent that he wasn't there to cause them harm. "Can you walk?" he asked, trying to ignore the expressions of fear and loathing on their faces.
A few of them nodded, though others seemed reluctant to give him any information on the state they were in. "Yeah, most of us can," said one that looked braver than the rest, though he didn't look directly at James.
He let out a breath and gestured behind him. "If you can get going, the path is clear to medical attention. I'll keep them off of you."
The group still looked scared of James but didn't really see another option. Even with his promise of safety, they kept trying to look back at James. They obviously didn't quite trust mutants — even if James didn't touch them at all if he could help it.
"Gerry, I've got incoming," James said quietly. "They're not trusting me one damn bit either, so you've been warned."
"Yeah, I've got a few of those here already," Gerry replied over the comms. "Not… hateful. Just kind of... yeah. I'll keep 'em calm."
When they got within sight of the blackbird, James told them the deal. "I'm going back. That jet has a doctor on board," he said. "Do you know how many people they were working over?"
"There were a couple dozen of us to start," a braver woman said, her arms wrapped around her elbows. "Did you find the others?"
"Some of them," James answered. "I don't want to leave anyone to these creeps, though."
"My girls are there somewhere. Three and five, blue eyes, brown hair — you haven't seen them, have you?" cut in another woman, almost hanging onto the other woman's arm.
At that, James froze and turned toward her. "I'll find them," he said, barely managing to keep a growl in check. He turned and took off running hard, jaw locked as he cut a path toward what he was sure amounted to the leadership of this group.
His temper started to slip entirely as he thought about little kids being held by the idiotic hate group. He didn't even register the news choppers high overhead trying to get a scoop.
Under the crowd, in a shallow sort of pit covered by wood, he could smell someone — and after he moved part of the wood, he bit through his lip trying to keep from snarling as he picked up the first little kid. "Kaleb, I need you here now."
There was no argument from the other side, and a moment later, James heard the familiar bamf and then a gasp when Kaleb saw the little girl in James' arms.
"They have kids in a pit," James said, nearly growling as he handed the little one to Kaleb and then pulled another one out. "Got a couple more too. Can you do two at a time?"
Kaleb nodded quickly. "Yeah, I can carry two small ones. Or carry one and piggyback another," he said.
James nodded and reached down to pull the next one out before Kaleb could even teleport away. The last two girls — and they were all girls — were the ones that the woman had described, and though they helped him to get themselves out, they also all but attached themselves to him until Kaleb got there.
Kaleb frowned a bit when he saw that they looked nervous around him and smiled without showing his teeth. "It's alright. I won't hurt you," he said.
"Can you girls go with the Elf?" James asked gently. "I'll catch up."
The girls seemed reluctant but finally let go, with the older girl even smiling a bit when Kaleb pulled her onto his back first so that he could hold her sister.
When James handed the younger girl over, though, Kaleb teleported out almost as soon as he had a hold of her — simply because an overly loud gunshot startled him and he didn't want the girls to get hit.
Several more shots rang out, and since Chloe was the closest, she was the first to get there to see that James had gone down and was bleeding badly. And since he'd been shot up and was unconscious, the Superior Rising creeps that had initially scattered when he'd shown up were trying to make an example of him, kicking at him and pounding on him with whatever they could find while he was down.
"Oh, no way," Chloe muttered, blinking as her eyes went red a split second before she let out a huge optic burst that simply leveled anyone standing in the area. Which meant James was the only one she didn't hit, since he was on the ground.
The huge blast caught the others' attention, and Sying rushed over when he saw it, wide-eyed. "Holy crap," he breathed out when he saw James before he simply scooped up his uncle and slung him over his shoulder to rush back to the jet.
"Did we get everyone?" Chloe asked over the comms, jogging toward the jet.
"The ones we've got on the jet say that's everyone they know about," Gerry said, though she could hear a split second later when Sying arrived with James and he started swearing under his breath, still with the comm on when he saw the state James was in.
"Then let's get out of here," Chloe said, turning around to blast through the crowd a few more times until she felt the sharp headache that meant she was out and she ran the rest of the way.
Elin and Chance were waiting for her, keeping an eye on things — and keeping her path clear until the three of them were the last to climb aboard. "I'll get us in the air," Elin told Chance, since she knew Sying had already started prep for takeoff. "You get to talk your sister down, sweetheart."
"Remember when Cody used to be the one with the anger management issues?" Chance said dryly as he headed off to do just that.
"No, no I don't," she laughed over her shoulder. "He's an angel. What are you talking about?"
"Right, clearly I'm insane," he chuckled before he dropped down to sit next to Chloe and drape an arm over her shoulders. "Hey, keep it together, Chlo. We've still got some beat-up civilians in the jet."
"I didn't want to leave them standing if I could help it," Chloe muttered.
"Yeah, you showed them," Chance agreed. "But you're the leader now, and you need to keep your head until the mission's over — especially when there are other people watching." He tipped his head to the civilians, who were getting fussed over by the trio of Sying, Gerry, and Kaleb as Elin started preflight. "You do great with strategy, Chlo, but you need to work on the rest of it."
The jet was still taking off, with Chance taking over pilot as soon as Chloe looked a little less murderous, when Elin came out of the cockpit to get down by James. Gerry had done the initial assessment and had already put leads on him, but she was simply trying to clean him up. She had one hand on the center of his chest as she dialed up Hank on her phone, talking low and quiet to fill him in on what was going on and sounding positively livid. "They had a shot at all of us and they targeted him," she told Hank. "He's beaten to a pulp. They shot him. Again."
"They figured out the uniforms," Kaleb told her over his shoulder. "They took a shot at me and it bounced off, but it didn't bounce off James's head."
"That and they think he's a traitor," Gerry muttered. "Being a sweet little human lover and all."
Elin looked more irritated as she put an oxygen mask on her brother. "This wasn't a handgun," she said. "This was a lot bigger and nastier than that."
"They're trying to kill healers," Chance said as he came back to join them, letting Chloe take over to fly them back since she was still overly mad about everything and their family tended to cook off on the stick.
"I think Gerry's closer to it," Elin said, sitting back on her heels. "If they were trying to kill healers, they'd have gone for me, too."
"Yeah, they definitely were thicker around James and Chance, but that's no surprise," Kaleb put in.
"Excuse me, but… where are we going?" one of the humans asked, looking nervous to break into the conversation — but Gerry had been so focused on triage and then on James that no one had done the usual overview of the situation for the rescued humans.
"We'll get you to medical attention," Elin said. "And then, as soon as you're cleaned up and out of danger, we'll get you to wherever you can be safe."
"Why - I mean, why are you helping us?" one man said, looking more suspicious than nervous.
Elin did look irritated at that as she was still attending to her injured brother. "Why wouldn't we?" she replied. "You were being beaten down for your genetics. That's kind of a problem to us."
"It's in the motto," Chance added. "Pay attention."
"We knew you were humans going in," Elin said. "All of us did. So don't … ugh."
Chance put a hand on her arm but didn't drop the guy's gaze. "I don't know what more we can say or do to prove that the X-Men are on the side of peace and coexistence. If you haven't figured that out yet, after my little brother-in-law got himself shot to save your kids and we risked our necks to help? After everything else we've done before this … you're just not paying attention. But we'll get you cleaned up and on your way regardless."
The humans on the jet fell quiet after that — except for the kids, who had discovered that Kaleb would let them tackle him if they asked him to play with them. Which made it even harder for the adults to hold up any level of suspicion when there was a little blue elfling letting tiny girls pin him and tickle him.
Finally, they got back to the institute, where Tyler was the one to meet them and help to unload the kids — who by that point had completely attached to Kaleb and ran with his suggestion that Tyler needed to be used as a climbing tree. Though, of course, the littlest one stayed by James, even looking up at Elin to ask, "Does he need someone to hold his hand?"
"It wouldn't hurt," Elin told her quietly.
"Okay," the little girl said, wrapping her hand around two of James' fingers as the group went from the jet to the lab — where Hank and Tyler set to patching them up.
Elin stayed with James, knowing full well that once the people had been cleared out, they could focus on trying to get James to wake up, though that in and of itself had some of the more wary frowning at them. Especially the few who had seen James' injuries going in. The little girl was being almost obstinate about sticking with him, too. When Hank had offered to let her sit with her mom, she shook her head. "Then nobody would be holding his hand," she said.
"I'm sorry she's being like this," her mother said. "She doesn't usually talk to people she doesn't know."
Hank smiled at the woman. "It's perfectly fine. Our James is used to dealing with obstinate little girls; he has a few younger sisters of his own."
It wasn't too long before the senior team came in from their own mission. Half of them were worked over as well, though none of them expected to see the crowd that was waiting for them.
Logan and Kurt had Kate between them, since she'd insisted she could hop to the lab on the leg that wasn't a bloody mess, and both of them had silently shared a look and taken a shoulder. Though there was no way the resident Hawkeye, even with a broken leg, was going to miss the teeny companion James had. "Hug magnet junior," she sang under her breath to Logan.
"Oh, knock it off," Logan muttered as he and Kurt got her settled on her gurney, and then, he headed over to James and his new friend. He walked around to the other side of James' bed and looked him over for himself before he looked down at the little one. "What's your name, little darlin'?"
The little girl looked shy, but she didn't let go of James' hand and whispered so quietly that only he could have heard it anyway, "Ummm. Jillian."
He gave her a little smile and let his voice go just low enough that he could watch her trying to catch what he said. "Hi Jillian. You takin' care of my little boy?"
She nodded. "He needs someone to hold his hand. Because he got hurted."
"You're doin' a really good job, Jilly darlin'."
Jillian beamed up at him and then halfway hid behind James' shoulder, still grinning.
Logan smiled her way again before he turned his attention back to James, frowning at the bruising that hadn't faded just yet. "I'll be right back. Can you keep an eye on things?"
Jillian nodded. "Mmhmm."
Logan took a step back and headed right for Elin to get the story, leaving the little girl grinning next to James. It wasn't long after he found out the details, though, that he turned to the group of now-patched up victims. "Anyone that wants to leave — follow me."
Most of the group seemed to be ready to be done with the whole ordeal - though some of the parents stayed behind, since the kids were playing with Tyler, Daisy, Kaleb, whoever would give them attention. Still, some of the humans looked suspicious of Logan in particular but must have ultimately decided they would rather have an out than to deal with the cognitive dissonance of seeing so many supposed terrorists in pain and injured.
Logan waited until they were all gathered up before he led them down to the hangar again, where Sying was waiting for them. "He'll get you back to wherever you're calling home," Logan said.
With that decided, it was a matter of waiting for Tyler and Hank to finish patching up the senior squad - and for James to wake up again. Which they were alerted to when the little girl holding his hand let out a little squeak of surprise when his fingers twitched.
James turned his head toward the little girl and frowned for just a moment before he let out a raspy 'Hi' and squeezed her hand.
"Hi," she said with a wide smile.
"What are we doing …?" He waited for her name, and when her mother supplied it, James nodded and repeated it.
"Well, you got hurted, so you needed someone to hold your hand," Jillian said.
James gave her a little smile, though it still seemed overly bright to him. "Thank you. I did need someone to hold my hand."
"That's what I told Mom," Jillian said.
James shifted a little bit so he could see Jillian's mother. "Are you alright?"
Her mother nodded. "Relatively speaking," she said.
"Sorry," James said.
"No, thank you," she said softly. "For getting her out."
"Are you going back?" Logan asked as he crossed the room again from where he'd been chatting with Scott about the way the news was reporting things. "Or do you need to find a new area with less idiots?"
The woman paused as she looked over at Jillian and seemed to weigh it out. "She's all I have in this world," she said at last. "I don't want to live somewhere that she's not safe."
Logan nodded at that. "We can help you resettle," he offered. "Find a few options and let you figure it out."
"Thank you," the woman said.
"You're welcome," he said. "It's something we do for those with little ones. You've got time to pick. No pressure on that anyhow."
"I'll let Mom know we'll have a few extra mouths for dinner," Chance said with a smirk, then gave Jillian's mother an outright grin. "My mom makes the best banana bread when we've got visitors."
"Chance, why don't you show 'em up," Logan said.
"Sure thing," Chance said before he offered Jillian a hand so she could climb up on his back , and the next thing he knew, he was surrounded by kids all clamoring for his attention as he took them up to show them around.
As soon as the little ones and their moms were out of the lab and laughing their way to the elevator, Logan took a seat next to James to try and figure out exactly how bad this time was as Scott came over to get the story himself too. Both of them were frowning when they figured that it had to be almost a week wiped clean. And he was still confused.
"He shouldn't have to leave here," Logan decided. "A week isn't enough, I don't think. Just keep him out of the lab."
Scott nodded slowly. "Chloe told me he was targeted. They had high-caliber weapons, like they're trying to find the point of the healing they can break through permanently."
"I'm gonna want that round," Logan said evenly. "And a couple days."
"I'm sure Hank will give it to you," Scott said. "Kate already promised to look through their footage, too, and see who she can identify as the biggest problems."
Logan shook his head lightly. "She can do that. But I'll be quicker."
"We're looking for more than just the one shooter, Logan," Scott pointed out. "One person pulled the trigger here, but you and I both know there was more than one person trying to kill James if they got half a chance."
Logan nodded. "Oh, I know."
Scott let out a breath at that and leaned back. "Alright. Then it's up to Hank."
As soon as Logan had turned to Hank, James spoke up. "I want to help."
"James, you're missing a week," Hank told him gently. "It would be better if you gave yourself time to recover."
"But I want to help." He gestured to the three of them. "And I'm gonna go nuts sitting here like you had me do last time."
"No," Logan said flatly. "They're after you. You get to stay."
"That … completely nukes all of your arguments every time anyone went after you," James said with a little glare.
Logan narrowed his eyes for just a moment but gave James' arm a squeeze. "Yeah. But you're smarter." He didn't give him a chance to argue it before he simply turned to leave. "I'll take a look at that footage."
"Come with me to my office," Kate offered as Tyler helped her to her feet now that her leg was healed up.
"You sure you can make it, gimpy?" Logan asked, though he was ready to offer her his shoulder.
"If I can't, I have a much cuter instant transportation than anyone else in the world," Kate said, which only got a broad smile out of Kurt as he kissed her cheek.
"You know, the two of you can go on up to your room," Logan said. "I can do this just fine on my own."
"Tempting," Kurt said with a smirk.
Kate swatted him with a laugh. "No, no. Let me help," she said.
Logan smiled crookedly. "It would help me a lot if you kept your husband smiling like an idiot."
At that, Kurt broke into a laugh as he wrapped Kate up from behind. "He makes a good argument, love," he said, sweeping her up to disappear with her — to their room, not Kate's office, leaving Logan smirking to himself as he got the tapes he needed and then found his own way.
But before Logan could get even halfway through the footage, Chloe stuck her head into his office. "You need to see the latest news broadcasts."
Logan looked up and frowned at her before he went right back to taking notes. "Lil' bit busy, Chlo."
"No. Really," she said with her arms crossed.
He set his pen down and gave her a dry look. "If it doesn't work for your dad, what the hell makes you think it'll work for you?"
"I'm cuter than my dad is," she said without missing a beat.
"Low bar."
"But I'm not wrong."
Logan was just rubbing his temples when Scott shouted from his office, "Quit fighting with my daughter and get in here!"
"I hate all of you," Logan grumbled, though he did get up and headed down to see what had Scott in that kind of a mood. "What?" he asked once he got to the door.
Scott gestured wordlessly to the screen where there were once again massive crowds gathered up in protest.
"Yeah, that's not really a shock," Logan said dryly, arms crossed. "They're always pissed off about something."
"Oh, pay attention," Chloe said as she came up behind him. "They're protesting for us."
Logan gave her a look for that but turned to watch for a moment. Groups of people all over the country were demanding that Superior Rising be held accountable. Now. And the footage they were showing wasn't the usual thinly-veiled hate mongering. This time, it was actually the shot that was fired on James as he handed the little girl to Kaleb. The shooter was far enough out that there were a few seconds between the shot and when it hit — and had Kaleb not teleported, several experts were discussing how the little girl would likely have been hit as well.
And to top it off, one of the broadcasters was pointing out that this was the second human that James had been shot for.
"They were playing footage of Sying triaging people, too," Chloe said. "The whole junior squad is getting heralded — we're the heroes fighting the terrorists."
"And they're already starting to show excerpts from all of those testimonies that are still rolling in on David's website," Scott added. "The shooter has already been arrested."
"They're calling for everyone that was there to be arrested too," Chloe said. "And for Superior Rising to be reclassified as a domestic terrorist organization — or even a foreign one, since they have a reach around the world."
"That's only going to cause more trouble if they don't do the same with the FoH," Logan pointed out.
"True enough," Scott said. "And it's going to embolden Superior Rising if they're reclassified. It'll only be the more violent extremists that stick with them."
"Kind of good news, bad news," Chloe said. "We're the good guys now — but the bad guys are going to be pissed off."
But as the group was discussing it, a new breaking news banner came across that said the leader of the FoH had been caught with an underage mutant.
Chloe couldn't help but turn to Logan. "Okay. Do it again. Now I want a pony," she said straight-faced.
He blinked at her for just a moment. "Who the hell are you asking?"
"Hey, you're the one that pointed out that we needed to get the Friends of Humanity reclassified too…" She trailed off. "What else can you will into being?"
Logan stared at her as if she had a few extra heads. "I think you need to go see Hank."
"No sense of humor," she said, shaking her head at him before she simply gestured to the news again. "Anyway. Thought you'd want to know."
"Makes killing the idiot who shot James a little more complicated," Logan said, crossing his arms again. "Have to wait and see how it goes first."
"But it makes the rest of them easier to track down," Scott pointed out.
"Petey's on it, I'm sure," Logan said.
"He's already texted me," Scott agreed. He leaned back and ran a hand over his face. "Apparently, the X-Men have the full backing of SHIELD, whenever we need it, to take these guys down."
"Shocker," Logan said. "I'll tell Sadie to send her godfather something to butter him up."
"Or just send Sadie," Scott said with a smirk.
"That's what I said," Logan muttered. "She brings him James' photos. They spend time."
Scott nodded at that. "We'll watch and see if this ends up petering out again. I wouldn't be surprised if we get backlash when they get tired of playing us up as heroes."
Logan nodded and turned to go. "So … I'll be back in a few hours then," he said dryly. "How's Annie handling the crowd?"
"She's surrounded by little kids who want to lick the bowl. She's in heaven," Scott said with a little chuckle.
"Then if the boy can get upright without falling over, I'm gonna get him upstairs," Logan said.
"I'll meet you up there eventually," Scott said. "I'm sure Annie will have both of our heads if we miss dinner," he added, this time with a more obvious smirk.
"Oh sure. Guests. Can't miss that," Logan called back.