![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ax_magik posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ax_mainWhen the team from Xavier's arrives at the facility where Tommy was held, they run into the unexpected.
The sky was overcast when a nondescript gray van pulled up at the chain link fencing surrounding the facility. At first glance, it looked like any other private research facility, with beige walls, a large loading dock, and a limited number of windows on the first floor. The second sported the windows the first lacked, no doubt designed to house private offices.
A second look, however, revealed the not only was the chain link fencing unusually high, it was topped with barbed wire. A large "Private Property" sign hung from one corner, the rest having been ripped apart as if by some force tearing it in two. Moreover, an unusual black cloud of smoke hung over one of the buildings, billowing with the wind but not growing especially larger, as if from a controlled campfire.
Illyana wrinkled her nose at the smell - not that of a campfire, but that she'd associate more with a burning building, and turned to Jean-Paul. Who was leading this "mission", for whatever reason had made sense to the Professor. Personally, she was hoping the signs of forced entry just meant they could all head back home. "Wouldn't you think a research place would have an automatic sprinkler system? I mean, I know the Prof said it was abandoned, but seriously. Who'd take that along?" She pointedly avoided looking at Tommy, who she figured wouldn't want anyone drawing attention to any reaction he might be having. He'd made that much clear the night before, and while he might have talked to her, a little, she doubted he'd want to be discussing it with anyone else. Especially now that they were here.
"The water's probably shut off." Jean-Paul (formerly Martin, recently Beaubier, and now, it seemed, Northstar), lead the way out of the van. "But that's one more reason to give this place a look over. I want to know who else has an interest in a lab for mutants." He nodded at the wreck of the fence. "It doesn't look like they were authorized either. Let's go."
Tommy had been ready for this – he’d made up his mind the night before not to run, he’d put the past firmly behind him where it belonged. Right? Not right.
The closer the van had come to the facility the more restless he’d become, keeping up a running stream of commentary as a way to avoid watching the world slip by outside the window. He’d had a moment of excitement, a burst of oh thank fuck when he’d seen the smoke, followed a second later by an equally potent twist in his gut when he realized that whole place hadn’t gone up after all.
That was fine; that was totally fine. He’d just make sure to do the job right on the way out. As for now –
“Lock and load, oh captain my captain,” Tommy drawled, because it was all rolling right off his back. No big. Focus on the knowledge that he’d been absolutely right about the ‘strike team’ thing, and he could gloat at Shen for doubting him later. “Who’s doing initial recon, you or me?”
Jean-Paul considered. Tommy knew the layout better, but sending the guy alone back into a place where he'd been a prisoner? Even with backup standing by, that was fucked up. And asking him if he wanted to go was practically the same as implying he was a chickenshit in front of the rest of their team, wasn't it? Even if he and Tommy were still feeling out the whole idea of friendship, he hadn't done anything to deserve that.
"I've got this one." Team leader and all that shit. "If I'm not back in literally two minutes, assume I fucked up."
It didn't take half the time Jean-Paul had allotted himself to find out what was going on; he was back in thirty seconds.
"More mutant kids in there. At least, I think they are. One of them's torching the place."
Kitty frowned as she surveyed the facility. "That's bad. If there's anything viable in there to take back with us, it's not gonna survive fire. Do you think they were kept here too? Why would they leave them behind?"
"Maybe they took off, too? And just came back to burn the place down?" Illyana suggested.
Remy had spent the trip over endlessly toying with a deck of cards. He'd seemed perfectly cheerful, just lost in thought. The idea that there were other mutants didn't really seem to faze him, apart from the fact that his hands stopped fiddling with the cards. "Whatever they're here for, what're the chances that they'll play nice and let us poke round their barbecue?" Remy at least didn't really believe they'd be that lucky.
"Probably pretty low," Jean-Paul said. "If nothing else, I bet they're not supposed to be around here anymore than we are. That'll probably have them on the defensive before we say anything."
He looked over to Illyana. "Could you bring all of us along at once if we need to get out of there quick?"
Illyana bit at her lip, then nodded. "Yeah. You're not going to much like the ride, though," she warned.
"Yeah, but not as unhappy as if we get made into mutant bar-b-que." He nodded back to the building. "OK. Let's go say hello."
Tommy's shoulders wanted to crawl up around his ears; his feet wanted to bolt in the opposite direction. He didn't let either of those things happen. He'd promised to see this through. He glanced over at Illyana--maybe for his own reassurance that she was there, maybe to reassure her that things would work out alright. Either way, it eased some of the tight-awful inside.
He'd braced for something more momentous when they crossed through the fence -- cameras whirring into life, or a laser grid, or guards appearing out of nowhere with weapons trained on them all -- but for the first moment, at least, there was nothing. Tommy oriented himself, then pointed. "The labs were that way; the other side was cells and storage. But if there's anything left at all, I'd bet it would be in the security station."
"Okay, so the question is, are we going as a group or splitting up? If Tommy's right, then I want to head to the security station and check it out. Maybe the labs too," Kitty pointed out.
"Splittin' up sounds like that start of a horror movie." Remy remarked with crooked smile. "But since we got a tortoise an' th' hare situation wit' our people here, maybe we should do it anyway."
Pietro still wasn't sure how, exactly, Eileen--aka Phantazia--could always tell when there were people around, but she could, and her word was enough for him. And at that word--just a few of them--he sped off without consulting the rest of his "brotherhood".
He appeared before them and smirked. It was those nerds from the news--a few of them. No wait, that wasn't a girl, but he looked like the girl in the news. Whatever, that platinum wannabe was there. If he thought he was faster than Quicksilver, he had another thing coming. "Hey, losers." Pietro gave a backwards peace sign, aka fuck off. "What took ya so long?"
Tommy had seen the guy coming, wondered briefly if it was some kind of trick, and then found himself staring into a weirdly familiar sort of face. Of all the things Tommy had been bracing for, the possibility of another speedster - white hair, green eyes, what the fuck? - had not even remotely crossed his mind.
...Did they steal my powers after all, give copies to someone else?
At least he knew what to do when someone was shit-talking him. "Please; you're not worth rushing for," he scoffed, ready on the balls of his feet, his fists closing, in case the asshole tried something other than words. "Lemme know when someone comes by who's worth the effort."
"Deja-vu," Jean-Paul muttered, looking between the two of them. Were twins actually a speedster thing? Fuck, he'd have to worry about that later.
"We were wondering about the cook-out, actually," he said, speaking at normal volume and trying to look startled by the new boy's speed. "And wondering if you had some reason to hold a grudge against this place too."
Illyana's eyes flicked from the newcomer to Tommy and back again, and she took a step closer to Kitty. "I'm...not imagining this, right?" she whispered. Because - okay, they didn't look exactly the same, and the newcomer was taller and looked as if he was maybe a little older. But there was way too close a resemblance for chance.
Kitty side-whispered at Illyana, all big eyes and biting at a knuckle to cover: "Totally not imagining this. Is it weird that I think the taller one's cute?"
"It'd be weirder if you didn't, because he definitely is," Illyana replied at the same volume, then fell silent, waiting to hear what came next.
Remy looked from one silver haired speedster to the other and then back again. Yep, that was definitely weird. He'd stopped fiddling with his cards, but was holding two of them in one hand, like he was planning to do something with them. For now the only thing he DID do was snort like he was trying to suppress a laugh. He glanced over at Yana and Kitty with an amused expression. Apparently someone had good ears.
Pietro narrowed his eyes at the wannabe, then rolled them at the jibe. Oh, Pietro would give him something "worth the effort"... Then he was distracted by the boy-version elf. "You the spokesmodel, huh? Welllllll, if you wanna know, there's one way to find out." He winked at the elf-boy (then again at the girls), and crooked his finger at them. Come and see.
Like hell Tommy was going to follow this guy - a mad-scienced second-generation copycat - through a facility that he'd lived in for months. "Yeah, I got this. If he turns left at the stairs, he's fucking with you." And he took off towards the fire at close to his top speed, because if he stayed still any longer he was going to explode.
find them, punch someone if I have to, pull hard drives for Kitty, get the fuck out again. keep it simple.
He didn't glance back. 'Yana had found him on the roof yesterday, she could track him again if she needed to.
Jean-Paul thought to make a grab for Tommy, but opted not to. For one thing, it was better to keep some element of surprise. For another, Tommy knew where he was going (or so he fucking hoped). And finally, having his arm snapped off if he timed it wrong would not improve the day.
He shrugged. "If you're going to play tour guide, I'm not going to complain." Complaint would come in the form of a brawl if this kid screwed with them. "Lead on."
Pietro watched the wannabe go, frowning at his speed. Not faster than him, was he? No. Definitely not. Not possible. "He's gonna be disappooooointeddddddd," he sing-songed, just to be a dick. He had no idea what the kid was looking for, but there was always a chance Pyro had already torched it.
Pietro hoped so, anyhow. Just on principle. Jerk, stealing his look.
"You, I like," Pietro said to the elf-boy. "Try and keep up, okay?" He sped to the hallway, then waited at the end of it--as far as he could go without losing them.
Illyana's eyes flicked from the last spot where she'd seen Tommy, towards his older doppleganger, and finally to Kitty. Her forehead furrowed. "Do we follow Jea - umm, Northstar? Or Speed?" she asked.
"Divide and conquer?" Kitty suggested. "Gambit and I can go with Northstar, and you can make sure Speed's not getting into too much trouble?"
"Sounds like a party." The fact that there were other mutants here made the situation more serious. Not that Remy hd to acknowledge that! "Or you two can team up if you wan' try an' find the tall cute one." He snarked cheerfully.
**********************
Once they'd acquired the information the Big M had wanted from the computers and servers left behind at this abandoned facility, Eileen had fried every bit of technology remaining as a matter of course; there wasn't much, in the digital age, that could stand up to her electromagnetic manipulation. But Pyro had--of course--not thought that enough, and was now literally frying what was left. Whatever. Leave the firebug to his light show; Wanda was still back there to watch him. She'd been more interested in the new set of harmonies that had appeared on the periphery of her awareness. Mutant harmonies. Eileen could tell that much, even if the specifics of their mutations were unclear, at the moment.
Pietro had already rushed off to investigate, as expected. The fact that he hadn't returned yet could have indicated anything, though she still sensed him moving at high speeds relatively nearby. She had followed after him at her sadly much slower pace, hovering just an inch or two below the ceiling. She had warped the visible light rays around her body, making herself invisible save for a very faint, very occasional ripple in the seemingly empty air. When she detected another set of harmonies moving in her direction at high speed--a set of harmonies most definitely not belonging to Pietro, she paused.
Targeting speedsters specifically was extremely difficult, but she'd had time to train with Quicksilver and pick up a few tricks. When the unknown electromagnetic signature came into range, she released an omnidirectional pulse of bio-electric interference, one which would cause an immediate contraction response in muscle tissue. The effect, she'd been told, was comparable to a full-body Charley horse. Uncomfortable, even excruciating, but hardly fatal. This was another mutant, after all.
Right at the stairs, down the long hallway, one, two, three doors -- memories slammed into Tommy's brain and he pushed himself to go faster, follow the thickening smell of smoke. If he went fast enough he could leave the images behind, the memories of pain that shot through his veins.
The pain that slammed into him instead was entirely new, all his muscles locking tight. Forget fast - he couldn't move, couldn't do anything other than fall to his knees. Not so abandoned after all. They'd got him again. He shouldn't have come back.
**********************
Meanwhile, just as Pietro rounded the corner to bring the Loser Mutants into the huge warehouse-type room, he went down like a desperate prom date. Every muscle in his body went rigid, unresponsive, and he skidded across the floor face-first, trying to say, "Fuck you, Eileen", but only managing something like, "frmuuuuuullllleennnnnnn."
**********************
Illyana nodded, and disappeared in a flash of light. It took her only a few moments in Limbo to pick up on Tommy's location - apparently makeout sessions were awesome for getting a definite feel for someone, she'd have to remember that - and she was teleporting back.
Only to find Tommy on the floor on his knees, and no one else in sight.
"Are you okay?" she asked as she dropped her knees in front of him, though instead of looking at him, her eyes scanned the room for whatever or whoever had done this.
Though she couldn't see it, Eileen winced when she detected Pietro falling victim to the same bio-blast she'd used on ... well, this guy. This really familiar looking guy, even if his harmonies were totally unique. She'd make it up to P later; right now, she had enough on her plate. She'd felt the disruption in the local harmonies just before the teleportation event had manifested, and receded a bit to assess the new situation. That situation being a little blond whose concern for the downed Quicksilver-lookalike marked her as a teammate of his.
"He's fine," she said, dropping the harmonies which kept her invisible for the moment. Her long purple coat matched the glow emanating from her eyes, and she held one hand outstretched. She floated easily in the air several feet away, blond head nearly touching the ceiling. "He just had a little cramp, and is being a total baby about it. More important, who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing here? You're mutants--I can tell that much. And for that reason I hope this is just a case of really, really shitty timing."
"Little cramp my ass." The pain wore off excruciatingly slowly and Tommy pulled himself back to his feet, using the space between seconds to test each muscle, see if his legs would hold his weight again. What the fuck had she hit him with?
"My guys? Yeah, we're mutants." He conceded that much, since it was pretty damn obvious already. And just as obviously, she wasn't one of the scientists who'd been running the joint before. He reached with his powers and felt the walls resonate; he could pull them all down if he had to. Whatever it was this chick had done, she hadn't broken him. Good.
It still didn't make them friends. "But the rest of those are my questions to ask, not yours. I'm the one who was a prisoner, and I sure as hell don't remember you being held here -- you or the two-bit copy those assholes apparently gave my powers to."
And that was a possibility Illyana hadn't considered. Brothers, yes - some kind of genetic manipulation thing, no. She got to her feet and crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw setting as she glared at the girl who'd done...whatever it was she'd done to Tommy. "You can start with what you're doing here," she suggested.
**********************
Jean-Paul stepped out of the doorway so that Remy and Kitty weren't bottlenecked in behind him, but sidestepped immediately instead of heading out into the open. His first instinct absolutely was not to check on the Tommy-clone, but to keep an eye out for whatever had caused him to drop. It wasn't as if they were here because Speed had such warm and fuzzy memories of the place.
As Jean-Paul stepped aside, Kitty saw where the other mutant had fallen. She looked around, but since Jean-Paul was looking for the source of the threat, she couldn't help herself from trotting forward to crouch near him with a small frown. "Hey, are you okay?" Ready, of course, to phase out on reflex should anything happen.
Pietro was an idiot, running off like that, but he was her idiot, and he shouldn't be without backup, considering that Eileen had sensed someone rummaging around. Thus, once he hadn't returned right away, Wanda had dragged Pyro away from his precious fire to find out where he'd taken himself off to. It wasn't like their job here wasn't done, anyway. "I know I heard Pietro," Wanda was saying to the resident pyromaniac as they rounded the corner. She froze, though, at the sight of a girl crouching over her brother. Eyes narrowing, she raised her hand and fired off a blast designed to push the girl away. "What the fuck did you do to my brother?" she demanded as she hurried over to Pietro's side.
Couldn't Quickfuckingsilver handle anything on his own, and why did he have to be dragged away from the main event before he'd gotten into it properly? Pyro was not happy as he followed the better Maximoff twin through the hallways. He kept a distant handle on the fire to make sure it didn't get out of control before they were out of dodge, of course, but it wasn't the same as feeling it up close and personal. Fuck that shit, and fuck Pietro for... The thought came to an abrupt halt as he saw the speedster on the floor. No one fucked with Pietro but Wanda, and that was that as far as he was concerned.
Just in the wake of Wanda's blast, he flicked his wrist to trigger the device strapped to it, stretching the small flame into a long trail of fire that licked up from the ground and efficiently cut off the Newest Kids on the Block from their speedy wonder. He walked more cautiously after the witch, stopping a few feet from the felled speedster and studying the assholes on the other side of the wall of fire. Cute girl, cute boy, cute elf. Mutants really did get everything in the looks department - and yeah, he figured they were mutants for being able to get to Pietro.
**********************
"Your powers?" Eileen asked, deceptively mild, one blond brow rising curiously, though her face had creased slightly in something almost like sympathy when the non-Pietro had admitted to having been a guest here. If she regretted anything, it was that they hadn't had the opportunity to smash this place to hell back when it was still active. She shook her head. "I hate to break it to you, hon, but our speedster's got a twin sister whose known him his whole life. Pretty sure she'd know if he were some kind of science project." And that was probably more information than they needed to have, but whatever. Call it making up for cramping the pretty boy into a pretzel a minute ago.
Her glowing eyes fell on the other one, the girl. "Not sure I actually owe you any answers. But if you're mutants, you're probably here for the same reason we were. Wasted trip, if so; we've already wiped whatever was left. And I'm sure you can smell the barbecue up ahead."
He had a what? Tommy needed to recalculate, and quickly. If dickhead had had his powers for longer than a few months then the way he looked, the way their powers matched -- it was something other than a ... a transfusion of mutant genes. And that meant something weird was going on beyond the kind of weird that was quickly becoming Tommy's new baseline.
"You had no right to wipe any of that." Maybe she was lying -- Kitty was a genius anyway, she could pull the things they needed from burned scrap if she had to. "Unless you were in here -- and my memory's hazy on some points but I'm pretty damn sure I would have remembered you -- then the files weren't yours to destroy."
Was he relieved? Angry? Vibrating from exhaustion and strain? He had no idea anymore.
The levitating blond cocked her head, a smirk curling one corner of her mouth, but the expression was more amused than combative. "If I understand the situation correctly, champ, they weren't yours, either. No sense complaining you lost the race, even if you didn't know you were in one ahead of time." Eileen shrugged. "Life sucks, get a helmet. I mean, it's not like I can bring them back from electromagnetic purgatory, either way. And our instructions were very specific."
**********************
Remy hadn't expected that they'd actually be able to keep up with the speedsters. Finding the silver haired one (the other one, not their one) on the ground was NOT reassuring. While Kitty went to check him out, Remy was looking for whatever had dropped the guy. Which was why he spotted the two new arrivals in time to shout a hurried "Watch out!" Before they (literally) opened fire. Remy hopped lithely back from the line of flame, and the cards he'd been playing with started to glow a very ominous shade of crimson. He didn't throw though, not when one of them was yelling about her brother. That gave him enough pause to stop this going south right away. "We followed him. This ain't on us." When you don't know who you're facing and how your friends are going to react, start talking. Page 1 of the Remy LeBeau Playbook.
Pietro heard spokesmodel elf boy and cute midwestern girl ask him if he was all right, but he couldn't move, let alone speak. He was gonna fucking kill Eileen, wherever she was. Not that he'd really had a plan for bringing these guys to the rest of the Brotherhood, but it had seemed like it was worth it to find out what the fuck they were doing and if it'd interfere with Mags's plans, and now he was face-down and--
Oh shit. Wanda. And Pyro. In the wake of their blasts, while someone was hollering in some stupid ass podunk accent, Pietro dragged himself to his knees, then his feet, swaying. "Fucking... Phantazia..."
Jean-Paul frowned, but didn't relax. He didn't know what the Tommy-clone was talking about, but he seemed more annoyed-pissed than actually in danger.
"Look, we're not here after any of you. We just wanted to make sure this place was really shut down. And find out where the assholes responsible got to."
Kitty didn't know what had hit her. She was on the ground a few feet away from a small wall of fire, an abrasion on one cheek and her head spinning. People were talking - no, arguing. She put a hand to her head as she dragged herself to her feet. "That's the last time I show concern for a stranger..."
**********************
“And those were?” Still wary, Illyana nonetheless relaxed a little. No matter what she’d done to Tommy, the girl didn’t seem to be looking for a fight. Granted, it sucked that they’d wiped the data they’d come for, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that. Maybe they could get some more information on what she and the other speedster guy were doing here, at least. “And if you weren’t held here, how’d you know about the place?”
Tommy had come very damn close to seeing just how fast he had to accelerate her molecules after the helmet crack, but Illyana's questions -- and the girl's comment about instructions -- made him hold his impulse. For the moment.
She and her speedy buddy weren't other test subjects, and weren't random kids out to cause trouble, either. That left what? "They're a clean-up crew, sent to get rid of the evidence," he guessed aloud, his hands curling into fists.
"Scorched earth--not literally, even if it smells like at least one of my teammates decided to take it that way. Salt the ground, that kinda thing." Eileen appeared to be considering how much more she could answer the other girl without giving too much away when Quicksilver Lite spoke up again. Her expression immediately darkened.
"Sour grapes are one thing, fucko, but don't lump me in with those flatscan shitbags from the Right unless you're lookin' to have your ass kicked up around your ears. This isn't the first torture chamber for mutants pretending to be a hospital we've seen, but if I have my way, the next one will be the last." She flexed her fingers. "I almost wish we had found some of the bastards lagging behind--that bit of a spasm I gave you before is nothing next to what I can do to a body when I really want it to hurt."
At that, Illyana smiled. Okay, maybe she shouldn't (she was almost sure she shouldn't, considering she had done whatever it was she'd done to Tommy, but when had should or shouldn't ever gotten her anywhere?) but she liked this girl. Or at least, she liked how she thought. "The next one?" she prompted. "And who are The Right? Other than sadistic scientists - we know that part. I'm Il-, umm, Magik, by the way."
"This is a waste of time," Tommy muttered darkly. "She's stalling. 'Port us back to the others." Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but the tangle of nerves firing off inside of him made him desperately want to unleash on someone. Something would do, in a pinch.
Eileen's mouth compressed into a thin line as she belatedly realized her irritation might have caused her to give away more than she was supposed to. But what could it hurt, really? They had known about this place, after all; it was only a matter of time before they put a name to it. "The Right used to run this place," she waved a hand to indicate the dark hallways and deserted offices around them. "They specialize, apparently, in turning mutant runaways and foster kids into guinea pigs. And yeah, there'll be a next one. Like I said, we already broke up one of these shit-shows--it's why I'm cuttin' your friend over there so much slack. I've seen what they do, to kids even younger than us." She shook her head. "But they're like fucking cockroaches. They'll turn up again. And we'll just have to stamp harder, next time, and make sure they stay squashed."
She looked like she was considering something for a moment, then: "You can call me Phantazia."
And then Sunshine chimed in again, and dammit if he wasn't just fucking insisting on working her last nerve. Okay, sure, maybe she shouldn't have knocked him on his ass a minute ago, but there weren't that many safe ways to make an unfamiliar speedster slow down. And like hell she was taking any stupid risks, in this fucking place. "You got me. I'm just so hung up on your company that I just can't bear to let you go. 'Cause it's not like I don't already have what I came for already." Eileen began receding back down the hallway, drifting weightlessly through the air, though she didn't turn her back on the other two mutants. "We were on our way out, anyway. I was just curious who else would be interested in this place."
Illyana shot Tommy a look of betrayal when he asked - no, demanded that she teleport them out, then turned her attention back to Fantasia. Who'd apparently chosen her codename from a Disney movie. It didn't seem to fit, lllyana mused, but tucked the information aside anyway, right along with that on The Right. "Thanks," she replied as the other girl floated backwards, then turned to Tommy, still annoyed. "You asked for it, you got it. Asshole." A stepping disk formed around them, and they disappeared -
Only to reappear a moment later, in...damn it, not where she'd hoped, though she hadn't concentrated sufficiently to call any specific disk. It wasn't the throne room, at least - but her bedroom wasn't much of an improvement, considering the litter of spell books she'd left lying on her bed, the components on the shelves near her dresser. "Right. Out of here," she said quickly as she called up another disk.
"What the hell did I do?" Tommy snapped right back at her. The knot and the nausea inside hadn't gone away by seeing the facility again. It was getting worse the longer he was in the hall, worse again every second he had to stand and let conversation drag out second by excruciating second. They should have been in and out and long gone by now. He couldn't focus on anything except getting moving again - and now she was giving him shit?
He'd made it pretty damn clear that she could say no to him on anything and he'd roll with it, so if she was going to be pissy instead that was her own -
The stepping disc formed around them and they were... elsewhere.
Not the elsewhere he'd been expecting, with the rest of the team and maybe someone obviously on the wrong side that he could hit a lot. And not the dorm, though it looked kind of like one - if whoever lived there was a Harry Potter character. Something on the shelf was moving.
This is some part of the thing she doesn't want people knowing. Fair was fair; he didn't want anyone to see him panicking like an idiot baby, either.
The light was weird, the smells were wrong (but at least they weren't hospital-lab-bleach cleaner and death), and holy shit was he ever going to use the hell out of the question that she owed him. Later. When there wasn't a disc forming around them again to take them away once more.
"Right. Out of here," she said.
"Yana-" but his brain was so far offline he wasn't sure what he'd been about to say at all.
This time, when the world turned back into itself, the light was familiar. And so were many -- but definitely not all -- of the people in the much larger room.
***********************
Phantazia. Wanda sighed and grabbed Pietro’s arm to help stabilize him. First she’d been forced to play babysitter and make sure Pyro didn’t burn them down with the rest of the place, now she had to nursemaid her brother because their teammate had taken him out. She turned towards the hot elf boy and rolled her eyes. “If we knew where the bastards went, we’d be there, not here. What do you care, anyway?”
Before he could answer, however, there was a bright flash of light from the far side of the room, and Wanda turned her attention to the newcomers. “What the hell is this, an invasion? I -” Her voice broke off as she caught sight of a kid who looked eerily like her brother probably had, about two years earlier. Great. Apparently her asshole dad had gotten around more than she’d realized. “Who are you?” she demanded, though she could take a good guess. She wondered just what her dad had been up to. And with who.
Fucking Eileen. Usually, Pyro would've been amused that she'd taken Maximoff out, but not when there was another team on site. As Pietro got to his feet with Wanda's help, he killed the line of fire drawn between them and the other kids. They hadn't attacked anyone after all.
The flash of light had him flick his wrist again though, a small flame burning in the palm of his hand - but he kept it there as he looked the newcomers over. Including a Maximoff clone. "Fuck, there's a second one of you, Q?"
"Sad imitation," Pietro said, getting his bearings back and shaking his head. He stood straighter, though he kept Wanda's arm. Just... because. "What the hell is going on here?"
"We're more interested in what was going on here," Jean-Paul corrected. "The reasons we'd have for wanting to know why these assholes were holding mutants -- and if they've set up shop anywhere else -- have got to be pretty obvious."
"No, I'm fine here, no one worry about the girl hit by some telekinetic blast by a Speed-imitation-sister-figure," Kitty muttered as she finally straightened. Boys, ugh.
>>
Glancing behind her, Kitty nodded to Illyana and Tommy, who'd finally joined them, then looked back at the stand-off and raised her voice. "Look, I don't know if you guys are like, a vigilante team or what, but we're all on the same side here. So stop blasting the place," and she looked pointedly at the guy with the fire, "and we can all get the answers we need."
Rattled, disoriented and an all-around mess, Tommy zipped forward and found his voice again, his jaw tight. "They've supposedly already wiped everything," he reported to JP- to Northstar, and he was so fucking beyond trying to remember code names right now. "We ran into another one in the hallway. She claimed they're not a clean-up crew, but they've sure done a bang-up job of nuking any evidence."
Illyana walked over to join Kitty, frowning at both the scrapes on her roommate's face and Tommy's "report" . "She also said that they wiped out the last place these people operated. And that they're called The Right." What she hadn't said was that she had a seriously hot teammate, one who was holding what looked like a ball of fire in his hand. Illyana stared for a moment, fascinated, then pulled her eyes away and turned towards Kitty, frowning. "Are you okay?" she whispered. Hopefully she hadn't been hit by whatever it was that Phantazia'd done to Tommy.
Fucking Eileen, why did she have to talk so goddamn much? Pyro scowled at the number of things she'd spilled, but got distracted from his irritation when the cute little blonde stared at his fire. Just for her, he started winding the flame around his fingers much like one would play with a coin, a smirk on his lips. Sure he liked showing off. Fire was the best.
When she turned away to focus on the girl who thought he was a little too blast-happy, he looked over at Wanda, the fire settling back into a ball on his palm. "We gonna stay here and justify ourselves to strangers much longer? 'Cause this is getting us nowhere, and I haven't been holding the fire in check." He said that last bit with another one of his smirks, this one fond, and all about the fire in question. It was a beauty, spreading through the compound freely now, smoke beginning to reach the teens.
He could get it back under control if needed, but that would be almost criminal at this stage. This fire deserved to live out its life.
"You haven't..." Wanda groaned and threw her arms up in the air. "That's it, everyone out. Pyro's done it again." She let go of Pietro, pulled out her cell phone, and pressed the call button, having called up the number in advance just in case this happened. It wasn't like it was the first time. "Fatale. Portal, these coordinates. Now, before we feed Pyro to his own fire." It sucked, some, because she would've liked to have heard the mouthy speed kid's story, but maybe she could get it from Eileen. From the sounds of it, she'd had a nice little chat with him and the blonde. Which reminded her…she made a second, even faster call to Eileen to have her get her ass over before they left her behind.
On second thought, she'd hold off on the talk until after her dad'd had a chance to chew Eileen out. Because that was definitely going to be a thing.
Pietro was so fucking beyond trying to sort it out anymore--and even further beyond this poser speedster being all pissy. With a wink at the spokesmodel-elf, Pietro gave a peace sign. "Deuces, nerds."
And when stupid Fatale's stupid portal opened, he swept up his sister before she could complain anymore, and they were out of there. The rest of them could follow. They had legs. And mouths. Unfortunately.
"Goddammit," Jean-Paul snarled. He was tempted to try and dart after them, but getting stranded fuck-knows-where was monumental stupidity. And the fucking building was still on fire.
"Come on, let's get out of here."
Screw everything. The other kids might have vanished, but Tommy wasn't about to leave empty-handed. Zipping forward, he grabbed Kitty's hand to catch her attention. "I need your help, super-genius. Come with me." The urgency pushed him onward, some of that desperation surely appearing in his eyes. "Please."
After getting kicked around by the other kids, and with nothing in hand to show for it, Kitty's gaze flashed sharply determined as she looked up at him and squeezed his hand. "Let's go."
Illyana frowned, then turned to Jean-Paul. "Now what?" she asked. The smoke was definitely becoming a thing, but she was reluctant to just take off and leave Kitty and Tommy there.
"Well, they won't find shit," Pyro warned her, and smirked. "We're good at what we do." He could imagine Fatale getting impatient on the other side of the portal, though - and she had to make another one for Phantazia, afterwards. Shame he couldn't stay and enjoy the fire. Didn't mean he couldn't give his name to the blonde as he left. "I'm Pyro, by the way. See you later." And with that, he stepped through the portal, which then vanished from the burning building.
Jean-Paul's gaze snapped over to Illyana. Fuck those guys; they weren't even a priority right now. Smoke was burning his lungs with each breath, and they needed to get out before it got worse.
"Get Speed and Shadowcat out of there and meet us at the van, all right? Even if there's anything left, getting them out in one piece is more important." He grabbed Remy and made a superspeed beeline for the exit.
"Got it." After all, what'd it matter, now? Illyana disappeared in a circle of light. She'd watch from Limbo and just 'port them out from there.
Tommy grabbed Kitty's hand while the others were posturing at each other, counting on her powers to let her come with him safely, and he hit the ground running. Heh. The room he thought he wanted wasn't too far away now, just up the hall, and if he was right -- Tommy skidded to a halt outside the door. "This should be the security station - if they had any video surveillance-" he hesitated, the 'do not want' screaming in his head louder than ever before. Just this, then they could leave. "It'll be here."
The sensation of holding on to Tommy's hand and phasing the rest of her body to follow had been terribly weird. She hadn't even known she could do that, but it definitely saved her from having her arm broken or getting smoke inhalation or something. As soon as he stopped, she reformed, then immediately coughed a little at all the smoke. This time, she phased the two of them, pulling them right through the door into the security station, which, well, looked like it was safe enough. She immediately jumped into a chair and tried to boot the computers, urging them, "Come on, come on, come on..."
Kitty jumped to work, and not for the first time, Tommy wished he could slow the world down for more than just himself. Smoke seeped in under the door, his eyes stinging and watering. "Is it working?" he asked urgently, his words tumbling out too quickly. "Should we grab and go? What parts do you need to make things work?"
Kitty frowned as she moved from one to the next, and then, realizing they didn't have time, she reached into each of the two leftover CPUs and pulled out both drives. The phasing could screw them up, but she didn't have time to open them up. Then she reached out for his hand as the smoke got so thick in the room, her eyes were watering.
Before Tommy could go anywhere, the shine of Illyana's stepping disk appeared around both of them, and the last of the mutants disappeared from the burning facility.
The panic coursing through Tommy's every last living cell didn't even begin to abate until they were outside again and the discs had vanished, the van waiting to speed them away from that hell-pit.
Smoke billowed out from the structure, the handiwork of the kid with the lighter, but it wasn't nearly enough. Tommy turned to face it, raked his eyes over the concrete and barbed wire for the last goddamn time. The power came when he called it, but not to stop time - not this round. He caught it, held it and let it grow, a shaking, vibrating energy that screamed at him to be set free.
So he did. Spreading his hands wide, Tommy drew it in and let it out, felt the tiny vibrating nucleii of every last fucking atom in the walls. And he made them go. The superstructure went first, walls crumbling from the bottom up in a massive cascade of rubble, sparking wires and a dust cloud that rose high into the sky.
"Okay." Tommy let out a shuddering breath that some part of him had been holding for five months. He backed up a few steps toward the others, the wind whipping at him, still keeping the facility in his sights. "Okay. I'm good. Let's blow."
The sky was overcast when a nondescript gray van pulled up at the chain link fencing surrounding the facility. At first glance, it looked like any other private research facility, with beige walls, a large loading dock, and a limited number of windows on the first floor. The second sported the windows the first lacked, no doubt designed to house private offices.
A second look, however, revealed the not only was the chain link fencing unusually high, it was topped with barbed wire. A large "Private Property" sign hung from one corner, the rest having been ripped apart as if by some force tearing it in two. Moreover, an unusual black cloud of smoke hung over one of the buildings, billowing with the wind but not growing especially larger, as if from a controlled campfire.
Illyana wrinkled her nose at the smell - not that of a campfire, but that she'd associate more with a burning building, and turned to Jean-Paul. Who was leading this "mission", for whatever reason had made sense to the Professor. Personally, she was hoping the signs of forced entry just meant they could all head back home. "Wouldn't you think a research place would have an automatic sprinkler system? I mean, I know the Prof said it was abandoned, but seriously. Who'd take that along?" She pointedly avoided looking at Tommy, who she figured wouldn't want anyone drawing attention to any reaction he might be having. He'd made that much clear the night before, and while he might have talked to her, a little, she doubted he'd want to be discussing it with anyone else. Especially now that they were here.
"The water's probably shut off." Jean-Paul (formerly Martin, recently Beaubier, and now, it seemed, Northstar), lead the way out of the van. "But that's one more reason to give this place a look over. I want to know who else has an interest in a lab for mutants." He nodded at the wreck of the fence. "It doesn't look like they were authorized either. Let's go."
Tommy had been ready for this – he’d made up his mind the night before not to run, he’d put the past firmly behind him where it belonged. Right? Not right.
The closer the van had come to the facility the more restless he’d become, keeping up a running stream of commentary as a way to avoid watching the world slip by outside the window. He’d had a moment of excitement, a burst of oh thank fuck when he’d seen the smoke, followed a second later by an equally potent twist in his gut when he realized that whole place hadn’t gone up after all.
That was fine; that was totally fine. He’d just make sure to do the job right on the way out. As for now –
“Lock and load, oh captain my captain,” Tommy drawled, because it was all rolling right off his back. No big. Focus on the knowledge that he’d been absolutely right about the ‘strike team’ thing, and he could gloat at Shen for doubting him later. “Who’s doing initial recon, you or me?”
Jean-Paul considered. Tommy knew the layout better, but sending the guy alone back into a place where he'd been a prisoner? Even with backup standing by, that was fucked up. And asking him if he wanted to go was practically the same as implying he was a chickenshit in front of the rest of their team, wasn't it? Even if he and Tommy were still feeling out the whole idea of friendship, he hadn't done anything to deserve that.
"I've got this one." Team leader and all that shit. "If I'm not back in literally two minutes, assume I fucked up."
It didn't take half the time Jean-Paul had allotted himself to find out what was going on; he was back in thirty seconds.
"More mutant kids in there. At least, I think they are. One of them's torching the place."
Kitty frowned as she surveyed the facility. "That's bad. If there's anything viable in there to take back with us, it's not gonna survive fire. Do you think they were kept here too? Why would they leave them behind?"
"Maybe they took off, too? And just came back to burn the place down?" Illyana suggested.
Remy had spent the trip over endlessly toying with a deck of cards. He'd seemed perfectly cheerful, just lost in thought. The idea that there were other mutants didn't really seem to faze him, apart from the fact that his hands stopped fiddling with the cards. "Whatever they're here for, what're the chances that they'll play nice and let us poke round their barbecue?" Remy at least didn't really believe they'd be that lucky.
"Probably pretty low," Jean-Paul said. "If nothing else, I bet they're not supposed to be around here anymore than we are. That'll probably have them on the defensive before we say anything."
He looked over to Illyana. "Could you bring all of us along at once if we need to get out of there quick?"
Illyana bit at her lip, then nodded. "Yeah. You're not going to much like the ride, though," she warned.
"Yeah, but not as unhappy as if we get made into mutant bar-b-que." He nodded back to the building. "OK. Let's go say hello."
Tommy's shoulders wanted to crawl up around his ears; his feet wanted to bolt in the opposite direction. He didn't let either of those things happen. He'd promised to see this through. He glanced over at Illyana--maybe for his own reassurance that she was there, maybe to reassure her that things would work out alright. Either way, it eased some of the tight-awful inside.
He'd braced for something more momentous when they crossed through the fence -- cameras whirring into life, or a laser grid, or guards appearing out of nowhere with weapons trained on them all -- but for the first moment, at least, there was nothing. Tommy oriented himself, then pointed. "The labs were that way; the other side was cells and storage. But if there's anything left at all, I'd bet it would be in the security station."
"Okay, so the question is, are we going as a group or splitting up? If Tommy's right, then I want to head to the security station and check it out. Maybe the labs too," Kitty pointed out.
"Splittin' up sounds like that start of a horror movie." Remy remarked with crooked smile. "But since we got a tortoise an' th' hare situation wit' our people here, maybe we should do it anyway."
Pietro still wasn't sure how, exactly, Eileen--aka Phantazia--could always tell when there were people around, but she could, and her word was enough for him. And at that word--just a few of them--he sped off without consulting the rest of his "brotherhood".
He appeared before them and smirked. It was those nerds from the news--a few of them. No wait, that wasn't a girl, but he looked like the girl in the news. Whatever, that platinum wannabe was there. If he thought he was faster than Quicksilver, he had another thing coming. "Hey, losers." Pietro gave a backwards peace sign, aka fuck off. "What took ya so long?"
Tommy had seen the guy coming, wondered briefly if it was some kind of trick, and then found himself staring into a weirdly familiar sort of face. Of all the things Tommy had been bracing for, the possibility of another speedster - white hair, green eyes, what the fuck? - had not even remotely crossed his mind.
...Did they steal my powers after all, give copies to someone else?
At least he knew what to do when someone was shit-talking him. "Please; you're not worth rushing for," he scoffed, ready on the balls of his feet, his fists closing, in case the asshole tried something other than words. "Lemme know when someone comes by who's worth the effort."
"Deja-vu," Jean-Paul muttered, looking between the two of them. Were twins actually a speedster thing? Fuck, he'd have to worry about that later.
"We were wondering about the cook-out, actually," he said, speaking at normal volume and trying to look startled by the new boy's speed. "And wondering if you had some reason to hold a grudge against this place too."
Illyana's eyes flicked from the newcomer to Tommy and back again, and she took a step closer to Kitty. "I'm...not imagining this, right?" she whispered. Because - okay, they didn't look exactly the same, and the newcomer was taller and looked as if he was maybe a little older. But there was way too close a resemblance for chance.
Kitty side-whispered at Illyana, all big eyes and biting at a knuckle to cover: "Totally not imagining this. Is it weird that I think the taller one's cute?"
"It'd be weirder if you didn't, because he definitely is," Illyana replied at the same volume, then fell silent, waiting to hear what came next.
Remy looked from one silver haired speedster to the other and then back again. Yep, that was definitely weird. He'd stopped fiddling with his cards, but was holding two of them in one hand, like he was planning to do something with them. For now the only thing he DID do was snort like he was trying to suppress a laugh. He glanced over at Yana and Kitty with an amused expression. Apparently someone had good ears.
Pietro narrowed his eyes at the wannabe, then rolled them at the jibe. Oh, Pietro would give him something "worth the effort"... Then he was distracted by the boy-version elf. "You the spokesmodel, huh? Welllllll, if you wanna know, there's one way to find out." He winked at the elf-boy (then again at the girls), and crooked his finger at them. Come and see.
Like hell Tommy was going to follow this guy - a mad-scienced second-generation copycat - through a facility that he'd lived in for months. "Yeah, I got this. If he turns left at the stairs, he's fucking with you." And he took off towards the fire at close to his top speed, because if he stayed still any longer he was going to explode.
find them, punch someone if I have to, pull hard drives for Kitty, get the fuck out again. keep it simple.
He didn't glance back. 'Yana had found him on the roof yesterday, she could track him again if she needed to.
Jean-Paul thought to make a grab for Tommy, but opted not to. For one thing, it was better to keep some element of surprise. For another, Tommy knew where he was going (or so he fucking hoped). And finally, having his arm snapped off if he timed it wrong would not improve the day.
He shrugged. "If you're going to play tour guide, I'm not going to complain." Complaint would come in the form of a brawl if this kid screwed with them. "Lead on."
Pietro watched the wannabe go, frowning at his speed. Not faster than him, was he? No. Definitely not. Not possible. "He's gonna be disappooooointeddddddd," he sing-songed, just to be a dick. He had no idea what the kid was looking for, but there was always a chance Pyro had already torched it.
Pietro hoped so, anyhow. Just on principle. Jerk, stealing his look.
"You, I like," Pietro said to the elf-boy. "Try and keep up, okay?" He sped to the hallway, then waited at the end of it--as far as he could go without losing them.
Illyana's eyes flicked from the last spot where she'd seen Tommy, towards his older doppleganger, and finally to Kitty. Her forehead furrowed. "Do we follow Jea - umm, Northstar? Or Speed?" she asked.
"Divide and conquer?" Kitty suggested. "Gambit and I can go with Northstar, and you can make sure Speed's not getting into too much trouble?"
"Sounds like a party." The fact that there were other mutants here made the situation more serious. Not that Remy hd to acknowledge that! "Or you two can team up if you wan' try an' find the tall cute one." He snarked cheerfully.
**********************
Once they'd acquired the information the Big M had wanted from the computers and servers left behind at this abandoned facility, Eileen had fried every bit of technology remaining as a matter of course; there wasn't much, in the digital age, that could stand up to her electromagnetic manipulation. But Pyro had--of course--not thought that enough, and was now literally frying what was left. Whatever. Leave the firebug to his light show; Wanda was still back there to watch him. She'd been more interested in the new set of harmonies that had appeared on the periphery of her awareness. Mutant harmonies. Eileen could tell that much, even if the specifics of their mutations were unclear, at the moment.
Pietro had already rushed off to investigate, as expected. The fact that he hadn't returned yet could have indicated anything, though she still sensed him moving at high speeds relatively nearby. She had followed after him at her sadly much slower pace, hovering just an inch or two below the ceiling. She had warped the visible light rays around her body, making herself invisible save for a very faint, very occasional ripple in the seemingly empty air. When she detected another set of harmonies moving in her direction at high speed--a set of harmonies most definitely not belonging to Pietro, she paused.
Targeting speedsters specifically was extremely difficult, but she'd had time to train with Quicksilver and pick up a few tricks. When the unknown electromagnetic signature came into range, she released an omnidirectional pulse of bio-electric interference, one which would cause an immediate contraction response in muscle tissue. The effect, she'd been told, was comparable to a full-body Charley horse. Uncomfortable, even excruciating, but hardly fatal. This was another mutant, after all.
Right at the stairs, down the long hallway, one, two, three doors -- memories slammed into Tommy's brain and he pushed himself to go faster, follow the thickening smell of smoke. If he went fast enough he could leave the images behind, the memories of pain that shot through his veins.
The pain that slammed into him instead was entirely new, all his muscles locking tight. Forget fast - he couldn't move, couldn't do anything other than fall to his knees. Not so abandoned after all. They'd got him again. He shouldn't have come back.
**********************
Meanwhile, just as Pietro rounded the corner to bring the Loser Mutants into the huge warehouse-type room, he went down like a desperate prom date. Every muscle in his body went rigid, unresponsive, and he skidded across the floor face-first, trying to say, "Fuck you, Eileen", but only managing something like, "frmuuuuuullllleennnnnnn."
**********************
Illyana nodded, and disappeared in a flash of light. It took her only a few moments in Limbo to pick up on Tommy's location - apparently makeout sessions were awesome for getting a definite feel for someone, she'd have to remember that - and she was teleporting back.
Only to find Tommy on the floor on his knees, and no one else in sight.
"Are you okay?" she asked as she dropped her knees in front of him, though instead of looking at him, her eyes scanned the room for whatever or whoever had done this.
Though she couldn't see it, Eileen winced when she detected Pietro falling victim to the same bio-blast she'd used on ... well, this guy. This really familiar looking guy, even if his harmonies were totally unique. She'd make it up to P later; right now, she had enough on her plate. She'd felt the disruption in the local harmonies just before the teleportation event had manifested, and receded a bit to assess the new situation. That situation being a little blond whose concern for the downed Quicksilver-lookalike marked her as a teammate of his.
"He's fine," she said, dropping the harmonies which kept her invisible for the moment. Her long purple coat matched the glow emanating from her eyes, and she held one hand outstretched. She floated easily in the air several feet away, blond head nearly touching the ceiling. "He just had a little cramp, and is being a total baby about it. More important, who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing here? You're mutants--I can tell that much. And for that reason I hope this is just a case of really, really shitty timing."
"Little cramp my ass." The pain wore off excruciatingly slowly and Tommy pulled himself back to his feet, using the space between seconds to test each muscle, see if his legs would hold his weight again. What the fuck had she hit him with?
"My guys? Yeah, we're mutants." He conceded that much, since it was pretty damn obvious already. And just as obviously, she wasn't one of the scientists who'd been running the joint before. He reached with his powers and felt the walls resonate; he could pull them all down if he had to. Whatever it was this chick had done, she hadn't broken him. Good.
It still didn't make them friends. "But the rest of those are my questions to ask, not yours. I'm the one who was a prisoner, and I sure as hell don't remember you being held here -- you or the two-bit copy those assholes apparently gave my powers to."
And that was a possibility Illyana hadn't considered. Brothers, yes - some kind of genetic manipulation thing, no. She got to her feet and crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw setting as she glared at the girl who'd done...whatever it was she'd done to Tommy. "You can start with what you're doing here," she suggested.
**********************
Jean-Paul stepped out of the doorway so that Remy and Kitty weren't bottlenecked in behind him, but sidestepped immediately instead of heading out into the open. His first instinct absolutely was not to check on the Tommy-clone, but to keep an eye out for whatever had caused him to drop. It wasn't as if they were here because Speed had such warm and fuzzy memories of the place.
As Jean-Paul stepped aside, Kitty saw where the other mutant had fallen. She looked around, but since Jean-Paul was looking for the source of the threat, she couldn't help herself from trotting forward to crouch near him with a small frown. "Hey, are you okay?" Ready, of course, to phase out on reflex should anything happen.
Pietro was an idiot, running off like that, but he was her idiot, and he shouldn't be without backup, considering that Eileen had sensed someone rummaging around. Thus, once he hadn't returned right away, Wanda had dragged Pyro away from his precious fire to find out where he'd taken himself off to. It wasn't like their job here wasn't done, anyway. "I know I heard Pietro," Wanda was saying to the resident pyromaniac as they rounded the corner. She froze, though, at the sight of a girl crouching over her brother. Eyes narrowing, she raised her hand and fired off a blast designed to push the girl away. "What the fuck did you do to my brother?" she demanded as she hurried over to Pietro's side.
Couldn't Quickfuckingsilver handle anything on his own, and why did he have to be dragged away from the main event before he'd gotten into it properly? Pyro was not happy as he followed the better Maximoff twin through the hallways. He kept a distant handle on the fire to make sure it didn't get out of control before they were out of dodge, of course, but it wasn't the same as feeling it up close and personal. Fuck that shit, and fuck Pietro for... The thought came to an abrupt halt as he saw the speedster on the floor. No one fucked with Pietro but Wanda, and that was that as far as he was concerned.
Just in the wake of Wanda's blast, he flicked his wrist to trigger the device strapped to it, stretching the small flame into a long trail of fire that licked up from the ground and efficiently cut off the Newest Kids on the Block from their speedy wonder. He walked more cautiously after the witch, stopping a few feet from the felled speedster and studying the assholes on the other side of the wall of fire. Cute girl, cute boy, cute elf. Mutants really did get everything in the looks department - and yeah, he figured they were mutants for being able to get to Pietro.
**********************
"Your powers?" Eileen asked, deceptively mild, one blond brow rising curiously, though her face had creased slightly in something almost like sympathy when the non-Pietro had admitted to having been a guest here. If she regretted anything, it was that they hadn't had the opportunity to smash this place to hell back when it was still active. She shook her head. "I hate to break it to you, hon, but our speedster's got a twin sister whose known him his whole life. Pretty sure she'd know if he were some kind of science project." And that was probably more information than they needed to have, but whatever. Call it making up for cramping the pretty boy into a pretzel a minute ago.
Her glowing eyes fell on the other one, the girl. "Not sure I actually owe you any answers. But if you're mutants, you're probably here for the same reason we were. Wasted trip, if so; we've already wiped whatever was left. And I'm sure you can smell the barbecue up ahead."
He had a what? Tommy needed to recalculate, and quickly. If dickhead had had his powers for longer than a few months then the way he looked, the way their powers matched -- it was something other than a ... a transfusion of mutant genes. And that meant something weird was going on beyond the kind of weird that was quickly becoming Tommy's new baseline.
"You had no right to wipe any of that." Maybe she was lying -- Kitty was a genius anyway, she could pull the things they needed from burned scrap if she had to. "Unless you were in here -- and my memory's hazy on some points but I'm pretty damn sure I would have remembered you -- then the files weren't yours to destroy."
Was he relieved? Angry? Vibrating from exhaustion and strain? He had no idea anymore.
The levitating blond cocked her head, a smirk curling one corner of her mouth, but the expression was more amused than combative. "If I understand the situation correctly, champ, they weren't yours, either. No sense complaining you lost the race, even if you didn't know you were in one ahead of time." Eileen shrugged. "Life sucks, get a helmet. I mean, it's not like I can bring them back from electromagnetic purgatory, either way. And our instructions were very specific."
**********************
Remy hadn't expected that they'd actually be able to keep up with the speedsters. Finding the silver haired one (the other one, not their one) on the ground was NOT reassuring. While Kitty went to check him out, Remy was looking for whatever had dropped the guy. Which was why he spotted the two new arrivals in time to shout a hurried "Watch out!" Before they (literally) opened fire. Remy hopped lithely back from the line of flame, and the cards he'd been playing with started to glow a very ominous shade of crimson. He didn't throw though, not when one of them was yelling about her brother. That gave him enough pause to stop this going south right away. "We followed him. This ain't on us." When you don't know who you're facing and how your friends are going to react, start talking. Page 1 of the Remy LeBeau Playbook.
Pietro heard spokesmodel elf boy and cute midwestern girl ask him if he was all right, but he couldn't move, let alone speak. He was gonna fucking kill Eileen, wherever she was. Not that he'd really had a plan for bringing these guys to the rest of the Brotherhood, but it had seemed like it was worth it to find out what the fuck they were doing and if it'd interfere with Mags's plans, and now he was face-down and--
Oh shit. Wanda. And Pyro. In the wake of their blasts, while someone was hollering in some stupid ass podunk accent, Pietro dragged himself to his knees, then his feet, swaying. "Fucking... Phantazia..."
Jean-Paul frowned, but didn't relax. He didn't know what the Tommy-clone was talking about, but he seemed more annoyed-pissed than actually in danger.
"Look, we're not here after any of you. We just wanted to make sure this place was really shut down. And find out where the assholes responsible got to."
Kitty didn't know what had hit her. She was on the ground a few feet away from a small wall of fire, an abrasion on one cheek and her head spinning. People were talking - no, arguing. She put a hand to her head as she dragged herself to her feet. "That's the last time I show concern for a stranger..."
**********************
“And those were?” Still wary, Illyana nonetheless relaxed a little. No matter what she’d done to Tommy, the girl didn’t seem to be looking for a fight. Granted, it sucked that they’d wiped the data they’d come for, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that. Maybe they could get some more information on what she and the other speedster guy were doing here, at least. “And if you weren’t held here, how’d you know about the place?”
Tommy had come very damn close to seeing just how fast he had to accelerate her molecules after the helmet crack, but Illyana's questions -- and the girl's comment about instructions -- made him hold his impulse. For the moment.
She and her speedy buddy weren't other test subjects, and weren't random kids out to cause trouble, either. That left what? "They're a clean-up crew, sent to get rid of the evidence," he guessed aloud, his hands curling into fists.
"Scorched earth--not literally, even if it smells like at least one of my teammates decided to take it that way. Salt the ground, that kinda thing." Eileen appeared to be considering how much more she could answer the other girl without giving too much away when Quicksilver Lite spoke up again. Her expression immediately darkened.
"Sour grapes are one thing, fucko, but don't lump me in with those flatscan shitbags from the Right unless you're lookin' to have your ass kicked up around your ears. This isn't the first torture chamber for mutants pretending to be a hospital we've seen, but if I have my way, the next one will be the last." She flexed her fingers. "I almost wish we had found some of the bastards lagging behind--that bit of a spasm I gave you before is nothing next to what I can do to a body when I really want it to hurt."
At that, Illyana smiled. Okay, maybe she shouldn't (she was almost sure she shouldn't, considering she had done whatever it was she'd done to Tommy, but when had should or shouldn't ever gotten her anywhere?) but she liked this girl. Or at least, she liked how she thought. "The next one?" she prompted. "And who are The Right? Other than sadistic scientists - we know that part. I'm Il-, umm, Magik, by the way."
"This is a waste of time," Tommy muttered darkly. "She's stalling. 'Port us back to the others." Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but the tangle of nerves firing off inside of him made him desperately want to unleash on someone. Something would do, in a pinch.
Eileen's mouth compressed into a thin line as she belatedly realized her irritation might have caused her to give away more than she was supposed to. But what could it hurt, really? They had known about this place, after all; it was only a matter of time before they put a name to it. "The Right used to run this place," she waved a hand to indicate the dark hallways and deserted offices around them. "They specialize, apparently, in turning mutant runaways and foster kids into guinea pigs. And yeah, there'll be a next one. Like I said, we already broke up one of these shit-shows--it's why I'm cuttin' your friend over there so much slack. I've seen what they do, to kids even younger than us." She shook her head. "But they're like fucking cockroaches. They'll turn up again. And we'll just have to stamp harder, next time, and make sure they stay squashed."
She looked like she was considering something for a moment, then: "You can call me Phantazia."
And then Sunshine chimed in again, and dammit if he wasn't just fucking insisting on working her last nerve. Okay, sure, maybe she shouldn't have knocked him on his ass a minute ago, but there weren't that many safe ways to make an unfamiliar speedster slow down. And like hell she was taking any stupid risks, in this fucking place. "You got me. I'm just so hung up on your company that I just can't bear to let you go. 'Cause it's not like I don't already have what I came for already." Eileen began receding back down the hallway, drifting weightlessly through the air, though she didn't turn her back on the other two mutants. "We were on our way out, anyway. I was just curious who else would be interested in this place."
Illyana shot Tommy a look of betrayal when he asked - no, demanded that she teleport them out, then turned her attention back to Fantasia. Who'd apparently chosen her codename from a Disney movie. It didn't seem to fit, lllyana mused, but tucked the information aside anyway, right along with that on The Right. "Thanks," she replied as the other girl floated backwards, then turned to Tommy, still annoyed. "You asked for it, you got it. Asshole." A stepping disk formed around them, and they disappeared -
Only to reappear a moment later, in...damn it, not where she'd hoped, though she hadn't concentrated sufficiently to call any specific disk. It wasn't the throne room, at least - but her bedroom wasn't much of an improvement, considering the litter of spell books she'd left lying on her bed, the components on the shelves near her dresser. "Right. Out of here," she said quickly as she called up another disk.
"What the hell did I do?" Tommy snapped right back at her. The knot and the nausea inside hadn't gone away by seeing the facility again. It was getting worse the longer he was in the hall, worse again every second he had to stand and let conversation drag out second by excruciating second. They should have been in and out and long gone by now. He couldn't focus on anything except getting moving again - and now she was giving him shit?
He'd made it pretty damn clear that she could say no to him on anything and he'd roll with it, so if she was going to be pissy instead that was her own -
The stepping disc formed around them and they were... elsewhere.
Not the elsewhere he'd been expecting, with the rest of the team and maybe someone obviously on the wrong side that he could hit a lot. And not the dorm, though it looked kind of like one - if whoever lived there was a Harry Potter character. Something on the shelf was moving.
This is some part of the thing she doesn't want people knowing. Fair was fair; he didn't want anyone to see him panicking like an idiot baby, either.
The light was weird, the smells were wrong (but at least they weren't hospital-lab-bleach cleaner and death), and holy shit was he ever going to use the hell out of the question that she owed him. Later. When there wasn't a disc forming around them again to take them away once more.
"Right. Out of here," she said.
"Yana-" but his brain was so far offline he wasn't sure what he'd been about to say at all.
This time, when the world turned back into itself, the light was familiar. And so were many -- but definitely not all -- of the people in the much larger room.
***********************
Phantazia. Wanda sighed and grabbed Pietro’s arm to help stabilize him. First she’d been forced to play babysitter and make sure Pyro didn’t burn them down with the rest of the place, now she had to nursemaid her brother because their teammate had taken him out. She turned towards the hot elf boy and rolled her eyes. “If we knew where the bastards went, we’d be there, not here. What do you care, anyway?”
Before he could answer, however, there was a bright flash of light from the far side of the room, and Wanda turned her attention to the newcomers. “What the hell is this, an invasion? I -” Her voice broke off as she caught sight of a kid who looked eerily like her brother probably had, about two years earlier. Great. Apparently her asshole dad had gotten around more than she’d realized. “Who are you?” she demanded, though she could take a good guess. She wondered just what her dad had been up to. And with who.
Fucking Eileen. Usually, Pyro would've been amused that she'd taken Maximoff out, but not when there was another team on site. As Pietro got to his feet with Wanda's help, he killed the line of fire drawn between them and the other kids. They hadn't attacked anyone after all.
The flash of light had him flick his wrist again though, a small flame burning in the palm of his hand - but he kept it there as he looked the newcomers over. Including a Maximoff clone. "Fuck, there's a second one of you, Q?"
"Sad imitation," Pietro said, getting his bearings back and shaking his head. He stood straighter, though he kept Wanda's arm. Just... because. "What the hell is going on here?"
"We're more interested in what was going on here," Jean-Paul corrected. "The reasons we'd have for wanting to know why these assholes were holding mutants -- and if they've set up shop anywhere else -- have got to be pretty obvious."
"No, I'm fine here, no one worry about the girl hit by some telekinetic blast by a Speed-imitation-sister-figure," Kitty muttered as she finally straightened. Boys, ugh.
>>
Glancing behind her, Kitty nodded to Illyana and Tommy, who'd finally joined them, then looked back at the stand-off and raised her voice. "Look, I don't know if you guys are like, a vigilante team or what, but we're all on the same side here. So stop blasting the place," and she looked pointedly at the guy with the fire, "and we can all get the answers we need."
Rattled, disoriented and an all-around mess, Tommy zipped forward and found his voice again, his jaw tight. "They've supposedly already wiped everything," he reported to JP- to Northstar, and he was so fucking beyond trying to remember code names right now. "We ran into another one in the hallway. She claimed they're not a clean-up crew, but they've sure done a bang-up job of nuking any evidence."
Illyana walked over to join Kitty, frowning at both the scrapes on her roommate's face and Tommy's "report" . "She also said that they wiped out the last place these people operated. And that they're called The Right." What she hadn't said was that she had a seriously hot teammate, one who was holding what looked like a ball of fire in his hand. Illyana stared for a moment, fascinated, then pulled her eyes away and turned towards Kitty, frowning. "Are you okay?" she whispered. Hopefully she hadn't been hit by whatever it was that Phantazia'd done to Tommy.
Fucking Eileen, why did she have to talk so goddamn much? Pyro scowled at the number of things she'd spilled, but got distracted from his irritation when the cute little blonde stared at his fire. Just for her, he started winding the flame around his fingers much like one would play with a coin, a smirk on his lips. Sure he liked showing off. Fire was the best.
When she turned away to focus on the girl who thought he was a little too blast-happy, he looked over at Wanda, the fire settling back into a ball on his palm. "We gonna stay here and justify ourselves to strangers much longer? 'Cause this is getting us nowhere, and I haven't been holding the fire in check." He said that last bit with another one of his smirks, this one fond, and all about the fire in question. It was a beauty, spreading through the compound freely now, smoke beginning to reach the teens.
He could get it back under control if needed, but that would be almost criminal at this stage. This fire deserved to live out its life.
"You haven't..." Wanda groaned and threw her arms up in the air. "That's it, everyone out. Pyro's done it again." She let go of Pietro, pulled out her cell phone, and pressed the call button, having called up the number in advance just in case this happened. It wasn't like it was the first time. "Fatale. Portal, these coordinates. Now, before we feed Pyro to his own fire." It sucked, some, because she would've liked to have heard the mouthy speed kid's story, but maybe she could get it from Eileen. From the sounds of it, she'd had a nice little chat with him and the blonde. Which reminded her…she made a second, even faster call to Eileen to have her get her ass over before they left her behind.
On second thought, she'd hold off on the talk until after her dad'd had a chance to chew Eileen out. Because that was definitely going to be a thing.
Pietro was so fucking beyond trying to sort it out anymore--and even further beyond this poser speedster being all pissy. With a wink at the spokesmodel-elf, Pietro gave a peace sign. "Deuces, nerds."
And when stupid Fatale's stupid portal opened, he swept up his sister before she could complain anymore, and they were out of there. The rest of them could follow. They had legs. And mouths. Unfortunately.
"Goddammit," Jean-Paul snarled. He was tempted to try and dart after them, but getting stranded fuck-knows-where was monumental stupidity. And the fucking building was still on fire.
"Come on, let's get out of here."
Screw everything. The other kids might have vanished, but Tommy wasn't about to leave empty-handed. Zipping forward, he grabbed Kitty's hand to catch her attention. "I need your help, super-genius. Come with me." The urgency pushed him onward, some of that desperation surely appearing in his eyes. "Please."
After getting kicked around by the other kids, and with nothing in hand to show for it, Kitty's gaze flashed sharply determined as she looked up at him and squeezed his hand. "Let's go."
Illyana frowned, then turned to Jean-Paul. "Now what?" she asked. The smoke was definitely becoming a thing, but she was reluctant to just take off and leave Kitty and Tommy there.
"Well, they won't find shit," Pyro warned her, and smirked. "We're good at what we do." He could imagine Fatale getting impatient on the other side of the portal, though - and she had to make another one for Phantazia, afterwards. Shame he couldn't stay and enjoy the fire. Didn't mean he couldn't give his name to the blonde as he left. "I'm Pyro, by the way. See you later." And with that, he stepped through the portal, which then vanished from the burning building.
Jean-Paul's gaze snapped over to Illyana. Fuck those guys; they weren't even a priority right now. Smoke was burning his lungs with each breath, and they needed to get out before it got worse.
"Get Speed and Shadowcat out of there and meet us at the van, all right? Even if there's anything left, getting them out in one piece is more important." He grabbed Remy and made a superspeed beeline for the exit.
"Got it." After all, what'd it matter, now? Illyana disappeared in a circle of light. She'd watch from Limbo and just 'port them out from there.
Tommy grabbed Kitty's hand while the others were posturing at each other, counting on her powers to let her come with him safely, and he hit the ground running. Heh. The room he thought he wanted wasn't too far away now, just up the hall, and if he was right -- Tommy skidded to a halt outside the door. "This should be the security station - if they had any video surveillance-" he hesitated, the 'do not want' screaming in his head louder than ever before. Just this, then they could leave. "It'll be here."
The sensation of holding on to Tommy's hand and phasing the rest of her body to follow had been terribly weird. She hadn't even known she could do that, but it definitely saved her from having her arm broken or getting smoke inhalation or something. As soon as he stopped, she reformed, then immediately coughed a little at all the smoke. This time, she phased the two of them, pulling them right through the door into the security station, which, well, looked like it was safe enough. She immediately jumped into a chair and tried to boot the computers, urging them, "Come on, come on, come on..."
Kitty jumped to work, and not for the first time, Tommy wished he could slow the world down for more than just himself. Smoke seeped in under the door, his eyes stinging and watering. "Is it working?" he asked urgently, his words tumbling out too quickly. "Should we grab and go? What parts do you need to make things work?"
Kitty frowned as she moved from one to the next, and then, realizing they didn't have time, she reached into each of the two leftover CPUs and pulled out both drives. The phasing could screw them up, but she didn't have time to open them up. Then she reached out for his hand as the smoke got so thick in the room, her eyes were watering.
Before Tommy could go anywhere, the shine of Illyana's stepping disk appeared around both of them, and the last of the mutants disappeared from the burning facility.
The panic coursing through Tommy's every last living cell didn't even begin to abate until they were outside again and the discs had vanished, the van waiting to speed them away from that hell-pit.
Smoke billowed out from the structure, the handiwork of the kid with the lighter, but it wasn't nearly enough. Tommy turned to face it, raked his eyes over the concrete and barbed wire for the last goddamn time. The power came when he called it, but not to stop time - not this round. He caught it, held it and let it grow, a shaking, vibrating energy that screamed at him to be set free.
So he did. Spreading his hands wide, Tommy drew it in and let it out, felt the tiny vibrating nucleii of every last fucking atom in the walls. And he made them go. The superstructure went first, walls crumbling from the bottom up in a massive cascade of rubble, sparking wires and a dust cloud that rose high into the sky.
"Okay." Tommy let out a shuddering breath that some part of him had been holding for five months. He backed up a few steps toward the others, the wind whipping at him, still keeping the facility in his sights. "Okay. I'm good. Let's blow."
