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ax_mainTeam 2 rescues Tommy and Chell, but at what cost?
The facility looked not unlike the others they'd seen, Wanda reflected as they appeared just outside the main doors, but well inside the chain link fenced periphery. One more old brick building, nothing special to make it stand out from thousands of others.
Except this one was apparently where Tommy was being held.
While the building was the same her team wasn't - and that was enough to put Wanda even more on edge than usual. No Lance there to take over if she fucked up, no Pietro - god, she wasn't even going to think about Pietro, or she was going to fall off the thin line she was stradling between pissed off and panicked. No, instead of her teammates, Xavier'd seen fit to saddle her with a few girls she'd barely seen, let alone talked to.
And Billy, who'd not only provided transportation but who was sticking around.
Wanda took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned towards the others. "Right. Just like we planned it. I get the doors. Aurora, take Wiccan, get in there and find Tommy. Get him out, and Wiccan, get him to medical attention if he needs it, then come back for the rest of us. We'll play distraction out here and take care of whoever comes out to play." She turned towards Shen and Wynonna, nodded to acknowledge that they were ready (and they'd better fucking be ready, because things were going to start happening now and fuck but she wished Eileen was here and not with Scott, because she could use some kind of smart assed comment about now), and then turned towards the doors.
Red hex energy formed around her hands, then blasted out - and the doors flung open and kept going right off their hinges. "Now!"
Shen had taken to the air above the doors before Wanda ripped them off their hinges (badass). There were a couple of seconds when nothing happened, and then a couple of guards rushed out, one of them talking on a walkie attached to their shoulder. Shen swooped in and picked that one up before they could use their weapon, pummeled them in the face a couple of times, then dropped them on top of their friend.
Wynonna had held back the sarcastic comment to 'Play ball!' when Wanda blasted open the doors. Damn, Tommy's family was shit scary. (She made a mental note to tell him that when they got him back. Because they were getting him back, come hell or high water.)
Peacemaker appeared in Wynonna's hand and she just kept repeating Wanda's advice to not get killed. See, there was no fucking way she was sitting on the sideline for this one. She was angry and ready to kick ass.
--
Time passed. That was the problem in a nutshell. Time was passing, and Tommy could feel it passing, every heartbeat too slow. The collar around his neck weighed him down with more than just the metal it was made of, only emptiness and cold where his power should be.
He'd woken up in a cell, half-hopeful for a second that he was back in Xavier's infirmary, that JP had gotten help, anything other than the truth. A cattle prod shock to his ribs proved the lie there, forcing his eyes open and the breath out of his lungs.
They had him again. He sure as hell wasn't going anywhere this time, not with his powers gone. They'd made sure of that. And Xavier wasn't going to waste resources on tracking him down.
And from the cruelty and scorn that twisted the guard's lips when she zapped him again, Tommy wasn't exactly in their good books.
It helped, though. They hadn't set his broken shoulder, his arm worse than useless and the entire side of his body screaming in pain. Suggested they maybe didn't plan on keeping him long. And the faster he could make her lose it, the sooner she snapped, the less time he'd have to spend reliving the worst.
Back in the sluggish now, the slap connected and rocked his head back to smack against the concrete wall behind him. Pain stung bright along his lip, his mouth filling with the taste of iron. Hands cuffed, Tommy couldn't even wipe it away. He laughed instead, forcing the breath out past ribs that still burned from the last shock. "The great and powerful Right, reduced to slapping children? Is that the best you've got? No wonder they left you to babysit."
"You may look like a child, you might be able to fool the sheep out there into thinking you're a child," the guard spat out, her eyes cold and hard as she turned the prod over in her hand again. "But we know better. Mutants are aberrations, pollution in the gene pool. As far as I'm concerned, we'd be better off wiping all you rodents out before you can breed. You're just lucky that you're useful. For now."
Tommy opened his mouth to sass her back, give her a reason to put the prod in his face and leave it going. She got there before he could, touching it to the swollen mess of his shoulder and turning it on.
He was not going to scream. He wasn't.
--
At Wanda’s command, Billy took JM’s hand and pulled her to him, his eyes lighting up blue as he remembered what the cell looked like they were keeping Tommy in. Anger and worry fueled his magic, words not needed as the two of them vanished with a flash and a crack of electricity.
When they appeared right outside the cell, the image greeting them made everything inside Billy go cold. Watching the woman press the cattle prod into Tommy, Billy decided these people didn’t deserve any mercy the X-Force wanted to give them and let go of JM so he could send a deadly jolt of his own electricity through the guard. Watching her jerk and fall wasn’t nearly satisfying enough so he sent another shock through her still twitching body.
He heard footsteps running towards them and grit his teeth, moving over to crouch next to his brother. They wouldn’t touch him again. “Ready, JM?”
Aurora barely nodded before she took off, slamming the guard nearest Tommy's door to the wall, snarling in his face. "Do you think it's fun, watching them torture my friend?"
The guard spat in her face, growling. "Mutie freaks!" His hand scraped the wall as he looked for his gun.
She saw red and slammed his head off the wall with a sickening crack.
__
She watched Shen high drop the first guard, let out a whoop, and then took fire on the third. Sure, her bullets wouldn't hurt non-mutants, but they sure did sting. After impact, Wynonna side tackled him. "Get ready dude, I've got a lot of pent up aggression just waiting for a good target."
Right. Billy and speed girl were off, bird girl was up in the air bombing guards with other guards (nice one, she'd have to remember to mention that to Eileen later, she'd appreciate it) and Tommy's girlfriend was armed and not getting herself killed, just as Wanda'd requested of her. The next group of guards r ax n our, five in all, two of them carrying some bulky ass unidentifiable weapon-looking things. Whatever those were, Wanda figured they couldn't be good, and directed a hex at the closest.
It exploded, taking with it the guard who'd been carrying it and his closest neighbor, who were not only knocked off their feet but wrapped in some kind of fucked up, glowing net. "Watch out for the big guns!" Wanda shouted to the other two as she watched the guards who'd fallen twitch themselves into unconsciousness. "Some kind of charged net!" Fuck, her life was sounding more and more like something on the Sci-fi channel. She needed to do something about that. Later, once they'd rescued her future kid.
The warning came just in time for Shen to evade one thrown her way (than you, Danger Room agility courses). The net fell harmlessly to the ground, and she flew over to the gun that had fired ithe curled her wings, falling towards the ground too quickly for the men handling the gun to have time to react. She spread her wings at the last second, knocking them both off their feet, while her own taloned feet grabbed the weapon, allowing her to fly off with it.
"Peacemaker, new toy for you!" she called out, flying over to drop it off with Wynonna.
--
Things were happening around him, too fast and too slow at the same time. Tommy tried to grab on to something that made sense, pain fogging out his vision and time still not listening to him when he begged it to slow down. Just a chance to breathe and regroup. Just one? But the prod had vanished from his side and someone else was looming over him. Tommy couldn't focus, everything blurry, but he could still make things as hard for them as he could before they took him down. He got his knee under him and pushed up fast, hoping to slam his head into the guard's nose.
Billy watched Tommy struggle to rise and moved away easily when it looked like Tommy was trying to push his way into Billy. “Hey, calm down.” He moved so he could reach out and grip Tommy’s shoulders, trying to get the other to focus on him. “It’s me. Billy. We’re here to get out our so no turtle head butting.”
He frowned at the collar around Tommy’s neck, reaching out to touch it and hoping his brother didn’t freak out about it. He let gentle sparks move from his fingers into the collar, making sure not to hit any of Tommy’s skin, grinning when he heard the collar malfunction and unlock. “Come on, bud. We need to get you to the infirmary okay?”
He glanced back at the sounds of a fight. “Aurora?!”
Chell had pressed herself against her door when she started hearing screaming coming from down the hall. Screaming wasn’t unusual, it meant an inmate had performed poorly or a guard was bored and she tugged at her ears as she waited for it to stop. It finally did stop, but with a weird flash of blue and Chell frowned as she pushed herself up to glance through the thin opening in her door. When she couldn’t see anything and she was starting to wonder if she had imagined the blue light when suddenly a guard was thrown down the hall and a very angry girl came into view.
That was not an inmate. She knew the inmates and that was not one of them.
She watched best she could, craning her neck, as the girl started to take on more guards and it was very impressive. What was she doing here? Chell watched for a bit longer, then when the girl moved out of view to keep fighting she started to panic a little because she didn’t want her to leave. Chell gripped at her collar, but it was no use, she couldn’t use her portals to get out. Instead she backed away from the door and with all her strength kicked at the door with her bare foot.
The dull thud didn’t seem nearly enough for the pain that shot through her foot.
Aurora barely noticed anything but the fight; the mocking faces of the guards, Tommy being tazed and captive, that was all that existed in her mind. It was just black and red now as one after the other guard hit the ground. And then there was only one left, and she was just punching him. And punching. And there was blood on her hand and all down her sleeve from a crushed nose, and she punched him again...
The voice and the arm around him cut through the brainfog, the weight of the collar dropping off his neck did the rest. Tommy blinked once, one of his eyes already swollen shut, and then his powers slammed back through him like a whirlwind, knocking the breath out of his chest and momentarily killing the pain. "Billy?" his voice croaked when he tried to use it, his mouth dry. "What're you doing here?" Something was making thudding and squishing sounds in the hallway and he stared at the door, trying to figure that part out. "Are you here alone?"
______________________
Wynonna caught the gun thrown her way and did a quick glance. Sweeeeet---it was no flamethrower, but charged nets were pretty good too. She took fire at another guard with Peacemaker and then, while he was dazed, shot the net over him and some of his friends.
Oh yeah, she could get used to this new toy. "Fuuuuck yeah, big guns are my specialty. Crazy chick with some guns, coming through!"
"Just watch where you aim it!" Wanda shouted back, but her lips curled up in a grin. Okay, she could see why Tommy liked that one. She directed a hex at another of the guards, throwing him backwards into the wall behind him - and then cried out as some kind of waved blasted through her. The hex energy around her hands disappeared, and she stumbled backwards, feeling dazed. "What the fuck?"
Shen didn't know what they'd just done to Wanda, but she wasn't going to stop to find out. First, neutralize the threats. She dove down faster than the eye could easily track, slamming her wings into a couple of men and sending them to the ground. "Peacemaker, net those two?" she requested, and took off again with a powerful jump.
Oh shit, how did these fuckwads have Peacemaker's power?l She netted the dicks that Shen indicated before making her way over to Wanda. "You alright?"
"Yeah, but my powers are fucked up," Wanda replied. She felt...weird. Not exacly eloquent or incisive, but true, and fuck but she didn't have time for this, now. Much though she sometimes wished she could take a vacation from random weird shit happening, now was not the time. "Gimme the net gun? I can bag 'em up, at least."
Shen avoided another net, just in time to be caught by a sonic blast that knocked her off her trajectory. She only just managed to get her wings back over her and save herself a painful crash, but she barely had time to frown unhappily that another blast shook her. Shit!
__________________________
“No. Not alone.” He answered distractedly. The wet thudding sound made something in Billy’s stomach flip, hoisting Tommy’s arm over his shoulder and doing his best to stand with his brother so they could check on JM. When they at least got around the door Billy almost panicked at how much blood there was everywhere, eyes quickly moving to the girl who was punching in a man’s face who could in no way be fighting back now.
“Aurora!” He yelled, trying to get her attention. He raised a hand, ready to put a binding spell on her because DEAR GOD the man’s head was a bloody pulp. “Okay. You got him!”
Chell frowned when she heard someone yell again, laying her fists on the door before she started pounding on it best she could. She wished she had a voice right now. She could scream as loud as she could.
Jeanne-Marie looked at the mush she'd made out of the man's face. He burbled blood. Her hands were covered in it. She looked up at... that boy. And shook her head. Then her whole body followed, quaking like a leaf. She stumbled to her feet and looked to see what that thumping sound was.
Tommy stumbled along, held up by Billy's body. His other side alternated between numb and searing pain, knives driving into his ribs and shoulder with every step. His mouth tasted like blood, reaching for his powers made his head scream, and he couldn't find it anywhere inside him to feel bad for the guard on the floor. His side was going to be bruised in the shape of that one's boot for a long time.
And Tommy wasn't dead. Billy had come for him. Unless this was some kind of hallucination, or a mind-trick like they'd played on the kids who'd come after him. But Billy would tell him. Billy was a terrible liar.
He tried to ask it, his lips thick and swollen, not all the words coming out. "...not dead?"
The look on JM’s face had Billy reaching for her hand, even though it was covered in blood and he tried to comfort her while keeping Tommy up. Tommy’s question had him frowning as he looked over at his twin, then shook his head quickly and let his arm tighten around Tommy’s waist in protection. “No. Not dead. You’re still very much with us.”
After the the noises from JM’s beatings were gone he could hear the sound that she had looked towards. Banging. Someone was banging on the next cell over. He glanced at the two he was with, both not looking good at all and he grit his teeth. He couldn’t leave either of them, but what if someone needed help in there? Or what if it was a trap? Fuck it. He could teleport them out fast enough if it was, he was sure.
“Iwantthatcelldoorgone. Iwantthatcelldoorgone. Iwantthatcelldoorgone.”
The door to Chell’s room was engulfed in a blue light and she backed up quickly, worried she’d made whoever was out there mad. The metal made an awful groaning sound before it was ripped off of its hinges and thrown against the opposite wall, crumpled like a ball of paper. She stared at it for a moment in shock before poking her head out to look.
Billy breathed in relief when someone, a girl, poked their head out of the cell wearing a collar. Good. Inmate. Not a trap. he shifted Tommy up a little more, tugging on JM’s hand to move her closer as well. “Come on! You want out we gotta go now! My friends need help! So step on it!”
Chell watched the three for a moment, the girl was for sure the one who had beat up the guards in the hallway and the white haired boy looked like he’d been through something awful. If she went with them, who knew what was going to happen...but not knowing what was going to happen and knowing what would if she stayed here was enough for her.
She held her right hand out and signed the letters for O-K and then ducked back inside, hearing the darker haired boy shout at her in frustration. She quickly grabbed Companion Cube, its bulky weight causing her to stumble a little bit as she moved to meet the new people.
Jeanne-Marie looked at Billy's hand, confused, dazed. She took it, then followed him. Yes. Their friends needed help. Someone else's friends, maybe. She watched the girl from the cell's hand move. Sign language. Jeanne-Marie wiped her hands on her leggings. Under her breath, she started praying: "Notre Père qui es aux cieux: que ton nom soit sanctifié..."
___________________________
Wynonna tossed the net gun to Wanda with a slight frown. Shit, now was not the time for their team leader to have their powers fucked with. She turned with Peacemaker and shot at the nearest dickweed that had a gun, frustrated a smidgen that Peacemaker only saw fit to stun non-mutants.
God damn she needed a drink. Shooting another, she ran towards them (shit she was out of shape) and used the butt of Peacemaker's barrel to smack him in the head.
Wanda nodded as Wynonna took out the owner of the gun who'd been shooting at Shen, and looked around, trying to determine the most likely target for her own. Before she could, though, she heard a sound not unlike that of a garage door opening, and spun on her heels just in time to see just that happenening by what looked like the building's loading dock. A loud scraping sound like metal rubbing against metal without lubrication followed, and she winced even as her eyes widened at what was causing the sound.
Some kind of metallic monstrosity emerged first - or tried to. Looking like some kind of fucked up giant spider made out of erector sets, it crept out of the building, one overly articulated leg at a time - until one of the legs collapsed and flipped it over so that it landed on its back on top of someone's Ford Focus.
What followed, though, was even more frightening.
Vaguelly humanoid shaped, it stomped out of the building, it's tread causing the concrete to vibrate. Wanda's eyes scanned up - and up further - as the thing's head just barely cleared the two-story opening. "HALT MUTANT!" it demanded in a mechanical voice, and raised one arm to point at Shen in midair.
Fuck. Fuck, this was not good. Instinctively, Wanda held out her hand to fire off a hex - and nothing happened, though she felt an odd churning in her chest. "Swift, get the fuck out of the air!" she shouted, and aimed her gun at the thing's foot. If nothing else, maybe it'd pull its attention.
What was that thing? Shen stared for a second, but Wanda's shout snapped her out of it, and she dovetailed just in time for another net to sail past her. Mutant hunting robots? Really? Getting out of the air, however, didn't sound like the best plan; she was much faster up there. "I'll keep it focused on me!" she shouted, flying a circle around the gigantic thing.
Jesus, Shen was basically offering herself as bait, which seemed like a stupid plan to Wynonna. She was 100% with Wanda on this one. "Sure you want to be up there with the giant robot?!" Wynonna called out as she took shots at the robot in question. It didn't really seem to faze the thing, except maybe to tick it off. Wonderful.
Fuck, Scott had been right about her, hadn't he? "Damn it, Swift, get-" Wanda broke off abruptly as she felt a surge of hex energy fill her, unsummoned, and explode outward, not only from her hands as she normally tried to channel it, but all around her, like it had before she'd received training from Agatha.
A watermain beneath the parking lot burst, crumbling the pavement and shooting a flume of water ten feet into the air. The alarms of two dozen cars sounded as one, creating a cacophony over which nothing could be heard. And the spider-like robot slowly, inexorably, righted itself and started heading back into the building.
"Oh, like hell you do!" Wanda shouted after it, a ball of hex energy forming in her hand. She threw it, overhand, at the metal arachnid, which shuddered visibly, looked for one moment as if it were going to collapse, and then continued onward.
Shen had no idea what had just happened. One moment, she was putting all of her DR training to good use, and the next, the air currents had gone crazy the way she'd only seen and felt when Ororo did her thing with the wind. A particular strong one slammed into her then, and she crashed down into the roof of a car whose alarm had already been blaring.
Shen might have enhanced endurance, but that hurt. She coughed a little, muttered a weak, "Shit," then began to peel herself up and out of the wreckage, trying to get her bearings.
Wynonna felt herself trip as Wanda got her mojo back, going down against the pavement hard. "I am too sober for this," Wynonna muttered as she pushed herself up, only a little worse for the wear. She'd probably have some bruises, her wrist twinged just a little (nothing Dr. Jack Daniels couldn't fix), and she had a cut above her nose bleeding like a son of a bitch.
Wiping her forehead, Wynonna watched as Shen became a bug on a windshield and Wanda fought the robot like a mamabear. Although, the robot didn't seem to care.
"Ya alright Swift?" Wynonna asked as she advanced closer to where the robot had gone, gun drawn.
______________
There'd been someone else trapped here. Tommy had been so busy worrying about himself (trying to make it end faster, this time; nothing had been moving fast enough) that he hadn't thought about that. He'd been alone the first time, why put him in with another prisoner time time around? Except they had and he hadn't tried to find out. The rational part of his brain tried to remind him that he hadn't been able to get himself out of anything, never mind someone else, but rational didn't seem to be in the cards right now.
"Out," Tommy urged. "There's more than two. They'll be-"
That was when something happened, screaming from outside resolving itself into shrieking metal, the doors to the remaining cells melting down from the top like plastic in a heat wave. Alarms blared everywhere, magnified by the ringing in Tommy's head. "Out!"
__________________________
"I'm fine," Shen replied, sounding irritated as she got to her feet, rustling her winds to get rid of the bits of windscreen. Thank Buddha for safety glass, though, or she'd be pretty cut up. But more worryingly, just because she was on the ground didn't mean the giant mutant-hunting robot had stopped targeting her, and another sonic blast knocked her back into the car, and she winced. "And I'm losing my zen!"
She took to the air again before it could go for another attack; dodging whatever it sent her way really would be easier up there. "I could try and ram it if I built up enough speed!" she shouted to Wanda on a fly-by. But to build up enough speed, she'd need someone to distract it.
“Do it!” Wanda shouted back. Eyes glowing red, she made a rolling gesture with her hands, and the water spurting up from the water main redirected and blasted straight into the chest of the humanoid robot, which obligingly stumbled backwards before regaining its balance. “Hey you! Over here!” she shouted at it. “Wynonna, see if you can tangle up the legs on the other one!”
"Sure sure," Wynonna responded. Distraction, she could do distraction. And apparently they were dropping the stupid code names, awesome.
"Hey robo, crazy chick with a gun, right over here!" She took off in a run (Christ, she needed a cardio day) towards them.
Shen flew away in a zigzag motion, just in case it took the other two girls a little while to get the thing's focus off of her. Fortunately, the water seemed to do the trick; when she glanced back over her shoulder, it had redirected its attention on Wanda. Shen shot forward without bothering to zigzag anymore, until she thought she had enough distance to build up the speed she'd need.
This was going to hurt, she figured, but didn't pause. She did a 180, then started the flight back towards the giant android, pushing herself as fast as she could go.
Concentrating, Wanda tried to get the water swirling into a drill, in the hope of penetrating the robot's outer armor. It started working, but she kept an eye on Shen, ready to drop it entirely when the other girl did...whatever it was she was going to do. Was she invulnerable? Wanda couldn't remember having heard that, but she wouldn't be trying to ram if she wasn't. Would she?
Wynonna was pretty sure Shen was doing something stupid, but whatever. Who was she to judge. This was a lot more punchy, and a lot less Tommy then she had been planning for at this point. She continued to try to tick off the robot, trying to keep is attention away from the flying girl.
Shen kept pushing her speed for as long as she dared, then curled up into a ball at the last second to take the impact as well as she could. She'd never tested her endurance quite that much, but nothing else seemed to be working against that thing.
The impact jarred her every bone and felt like her brain bounced violently between the walls of her skull. But once Shen had fallen to the ground, she looked up in time to see the robot teeter, nearly hold itself up, then fall back, silencing some car alarms by crashing on top of them, and so crushing them. A cloud of dust rose, and Shen winced as she shifted, trying to ascertain whether she'd broken anything.
So far, so good, but everything hurt.
Wynonna watched with a whoop as the giant robot fell to the ground. Looked like it hurt like a bitch though. "You still alive fly girl?"
“Good job!” Wanda called out. She hurried over to where the winged girl had landed and held out a hand, her other seeking the button on her communicator. “Wiccan, some communication would be a good thing. Did you guys find him yet? Where the fuck are you?”
"Kinda wish I wasn't," Shen answered Wynonna's question as she painstakingly got to her feet. She felt like her left side, which had impacted the thing, was one giant bruise. "Is it dead?"
The alarm started blaring overhead just as he could hear Wanda in his ear and Billy took his hand from JM so he could reply quickly. “We got him! We’re coming back out! We got another member too.”
Chell watched as the one less shaken pulled the muttering girl a little closer to him and then ushered her closer as well. How were they going to get out? Even with her portals she would need to find a window or something, but she stepped closer anyway and was careful not to bump anyone with her cube.
“I want us back with Wanda!” Billy shouted over the alarm in case his magic was hard of hearing and all four of them were surrounded in light before vanishing.
They reappeared a little too close to Wanda, Chell’s arm brushing the other girl’s before Chell could back up a bit to give her space after shaking off the shock. Billy shifted Tommy a bit, carefully and looked out over the mess outside before turning to Wanda. “We ready? He’s hurt and Aurora is not doing so hot.”
The second they reappeared, Wynonna's smile dropped as she took in the sight of Tommy. Well, shit. She started forward towards Billy, asking, "Need a hand?" even as she reached for Tommy.
Shen took another few seconds to get her bearings, watching Tommy, the state he was in, and resisting the urge to rush over. Wynonna was on it, as she should be. And the robot laid out beside Shen was still humming with life. Despite how much it hurt, she flapped her wings to land easily on its torso, where her impact had busted some metal open. Hands shifted into talons, she pried that open further, then clawed through whatever wires lay underneath, until she heard that faint electric hum die down. "Now it's dead," she muttered, and turned back around to the spidery one. "We still have a live one there!" she reminded everyone, and pushed up into the air again, wincing from how much flying hurt right now.
The flash of bright blue burned Tommy's eyes and he squeezed them closed, the familiar tingle of Billy's magic cutting through the screaming in his head faster than anything else could. Out he's getting us out out OUT. Someone else's hands were on him and pain ripped through him, bones grinding against each other with every incautious movement. Tommy forced his eyes open in time to see Shen (Shen!?) ripping a robot apart with her claws, Wanda standing by and looking fierce -- and Wynonna right there, close enough to fall into, dressed like she was X-Force. None of it made sense - why would they come for him? -- but that least of all.
His mouth tasted like blood, his lip split, but he tried for a smile anyway. "How'd you find me?"
He looked like death warmed over, Wanda decided, and she clamped down on the anger that had hex energy flaring around her hands. She'd use it, but not now, not until she'd played team leader and gotten a handle on things. "Magik," she answered Tommy, first, because he deserved that, and forced a bit of a smile for him. "You look like shit, kid."
She turned to Billy. "Get him, Aurora, and the newbie back to the school," she instructed, then reconsidered and added, "Peacemaker too, if she wants to go. And then get your ass back here, I need you to tie up the bastards while Swift and I take out the spider robot."
She soared Tommy one last, concerned look, then raced off towards the building, trusting that this time Billy'd actually do what he was told.
Wynonna hesitated for half a second--her mind was screaming at her to go with Tommy and get the hell out of dodge--but...but there was still shit to do here. She gave Tommy a tired half smile and told him, "Save me a spot in the infirmary, will ya?" And then nodded at Billy. "Get the hell out of here."
She stepped back and nodded at Wanda. Spider robot time indeed.
Tommy'd been halfway ready to reach for her, everything moving so slowly -- too slow and too fast all at once, his powers hurt to much to try and speed things up. But she was moving away before he could figure out why his arm wasn't working and he gave up, letting himself sag against Billy.
Shen really wished they had some rope. Tangling that thing's legs would have been easy as pie - and probably highly satisfying. Making it fall in a way that didn't involve any pain on her part sounded like a good plan, especially now that every beat of her wings hurt. "How d'you wanna do this?" she shouted over to Wanda, even as she circled the thing - and avoided another charged net it threw at her, the sudden movement making her grimace. It didn't look like it had any obvious weaknesses, but it sure looked creepy. Shen had never been a big fan of spiders.
Billy caught his brother’s dead weight and nodded at Wanda’s orders, focusing on his small group and the infirmary. Leaving Tommy with the doctor and coming back was going to suck, but they needed him here and the faster they took care of these shit heads, the quicker he could get back. He muttered his spell as he watched the large thing move and they were gone quickly.
Chell, again, had to get used to the sudden change in scenery and could only blink as the boy yelled for someone to hurry, laying his white haired copy on a free table. She watched as the boy ran a hand gently over the other’s head and whispered a promise to be back, moving to help the praying girl sit on the bed as well when a large blue thing came in. Chell moves back against the wall, not knowing what to do or where she was as she watched them talk.
When Dr. McCoy had promised he had everything under control Billy at least had the decency to go out into the hallway to teleport back. Within seconds he was back with the girls and grit his teeth, fists starting to glow blue. “Alright. Let’s destroy them.”
The facility looked not unlike the others they'd seen, Wanda reflected as they appeared just outside the main doors, but well inside the chain link fenced periphery. One more old brick building, nothing special to make it stand out from thousands of others.
Except this one was apparently where Tommy was being held.
While the building was the same her team wasn't - and that was enough to put Wanda even more on edge than usual. No Lance there to take over if she fucked up, no Pietro - god, she wasn't even going to think about Pietro, or she was going to fall off the thin line she was stradling between pissed off and panicked. No, instead of her teammates, Xavier'd seen fit to saddle her with a few girls she'd barely seen, let alone talked to.
And Billy, who'd not only provided transportation but who was sticking around.
Wanda took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned towards the others. "Right. Just like we planned it. I get the doors. Aurora, take Wiccan, get in there and find Tommy. Get him out, and Wiccan, get him to medical attention if he needs it, then come back for the rest of us. We'll play distraction out here and take care of whoever comes out to play." She turned towards Shen and Wynonna, nodded to acknowledge that they were ready (and they'd better fucking be ready, because things were going to start happening now and fuck but she wished Eileen was here and not with Scott, because she could use some kind of smart assed comment about now), and then turned towards the doors.
Red hex energy formed around her hands, then blasted out - and the doors flung open and kept going right off their hinges. "Now!"
Shen had taken to the air above the doors before Wanda ripped them off their hinges (badass). There were a couple of seconds when nothing happened, and then a couple of guards rushed out, one of them talking on a walkie attached to their shoulder. Shen swooped in and picked that one up before they could use their weapon, pummeled them in the face a couple of times, then dropped them on top of their friend.
Wynonna had held back the sarcastic comment to 'Play ball!' when Wanda blasted open the doors. Damn, Tommy's family was shit scary. (She made a mental note to tell him that when they got him back. Because they were getting him back, come hell or high water.)
Peacemaker appeared in Wynonna's hand and she just kept repeating Wanda's advice to not get killed. See, there was no fucking way she was sitting on the sideline for this one. She was angry and ready to kick ass.
--
Time passed. That was the problem in a nutshell. Time was passing, and Tommy could feel it passing, every heartbeat too slow. The collar around his neck weighed him down with more than just the metal it was made of, only emptiness and cold where his power should be.
He'd woken up in a cell, half-hopeful for a second that he was back in Xavier's infirmary, that JP had gotten help, anything other than the truth. A cattle prod shock to his ribs proved the lie there, forcing his eyes open and the breath out of his lungs.
They had him again. He sure as hell wasn't going anywhere this time, not with his powers gone. They'd made sure of that. And Xavier wasn't going to waste resources on tracking him down.
And from the cruelty and scorn that twisted the guard's lips when she zapped him again, Tommy wasn't exactly in their good books.
It helped, though. They hadn't set his broken shoulder, his arm worse than useless and the entire side of his body screaming in pain. Suggested they maybe didn't plan on keeping him long. And the faster he could make her lose it, the sooner she snapped, the less time he'd have to spend reliving the worst.
Back in the sluggish now, the slap connected and rocked his head back to smack against the concrete wall behind him. Pain stung bright along his lip, his mouth filling with the taste of iron. Hands cuffed, Tommy couldn't even wipe it away. He laughed instead, forcing the breath out past ribs that still burned from the last shock. "The great and powerful Right, reduced to slapping children? Is that the best you've got? No wonder they left you to babysit."
"You may look like a child, you might be able to fool the sheep out there into thinking you're a child," the guard spat out, her eyes cold and hard as she turned the prod over in her hand again. "But we know better. Mutants are aberrations, pollution in the gene pool. As far as I'm concerned, we'd be better off wiping all you rodents out before you can breed. You're just lucky that you're useful. For now."
Tommy opened his mouth to sass her back, give her a reason to put the prod in his face and leave it going. She got there before he could, touching it to the swollen mess of his shoulder and turning it on.
He was not going to scream. He wasn't.
--
At Wanda’s command, Billy took JM’s hand and pulled her to him, his eyes lighting up blue as he remembered what the cell looked like they were keeping Tommy in. Anger and worry fueled his magic, words not needed as the two of them vanished with a flash and a crack of electricity.
When they appeared right outside the cell, the image greeting them made everything inside Billy go cold. Watching the woman press the cattle prod into Tommy, Billy decided these people didn’t deserve any mercy the X-Force wanted to give them and let go of JM so he could send a deadly jolt of his own electricity through the guard. Watching her jerk and fall wasn’t nearly satisfying enough so he sent another shock through her still twitching body.
He heard footsteps running towards them and grit his teeth, moving over to crouch next to his brother. They wouldn’t touch him again. “Ready, JM?”
Aurora barely nodded before she took off, slamming the guard nearest Tommy's door to the wall, snarling in his face. "Do you think it's fun, watching them torture my friend?"
The guard spat in her face, growling. "Mutie freaks!" His hand scraped the wall as he looked for his gun.
She saw red and slammed his head off the wall with a sickening crack.
__
She watched Shen high drop the first guard, let out a whoop, and then took fire on the third. Sure, her bullets wouldn't hurt non-mutants, but they sure did sting. After impact, Wynonna side tackled him. "Get ready dude, I've got a lot of pent up aggression just waiting for a good target."
Right. Billy and speed girl were off, bird girl was up in the air bombing guards with other guards (nice one, she'd have to remember to mention that to Eileen later, she'd appreciate it) and Tommy's girlfriend was armed and not getting herself killed, just as Wanda'd requested of her. The next group of guards r ax n our, five in all, two of them carrying some bulky ass unidentifiable weapon-looking things. Whatever those were, Wanda figured they couldn't be good, and directed a hex at the closest.
It exploded, taking with it the guard who'd been carrying it and his closest neighbor, who were not only knocked off their feet but wrapped in some kind of fucked up, glowing net. "Watch out for the big guns!" Wanda shouted to the other two as she watched the guards who'd fallen twitch themselves into unconsciousness. "Some kind of charged net!" Fuck, her life was sounding more and more like something on the Sci-fi channel. She needed to do something about that. Later, once they'd rescued her future kid.
The warning came just in time for Shen to evade one thrown her way (than you, Danger Room agility courses). The net fell harmlessly to the ground, and she flew over to the gun that had fired ithe curled her wings, falling towards the ground too quickly for the men handling the gun to have time to react. She spread her wings at the last second, knocking them both off their feet, while her own taloned feet grabbed the weapon, allowing her to fly off with it.
"Peacemaker, new toy for you!" she called out, flying over to drop it off with Wynonna.
--
Things were happening around him, too fast and too slow at the same time. Tommy tried to grab on to something that made sense, pain fogging out his vision and time still not listening to him when he begged it to slow down. Just a chance to breathe and regroup. Just one? But the prod had vanished from his side and someone else was looming over him. Tommy couldn't focus, everything blurry, but he could still make things as hard for them as he could before they took him down. He got his knee under him and pushed up fast, hoping to slam his head into the guard's nose.
Billy watched Tommy struggle to rise and moved away easily when it looked like Tommy was trying to push his way into Billy. “Hey, calm down.” He moved so he could reach out and grip Tommy’s shoulders, trying to get the other to focus on him. “It’s me. Billy. We’re here to get out our so no turtle head butting.”
He frowned at the collar around Tommy’s neck, reaching out to touch it and hoping his brother didn’t freak out about it. He let gentle sparks move from his fingers into the collar, making sure not to hit any of Tommy’s skin, grinning when he heard the collar malfunction and unlock. “Come on, bud. We need to get you to the infirmary okay?”
He glanced back at the sounds of a fight. “Aurora?!”
Chell had pressed herself against her door when she started hearing screaming coming from down the hall. Screaming wasn’t unusual, it meant an inmate had performed poorly or a guard was bored and she tugged at her ears as she waited for it to stop. It finally did stop, but with a weird flash of blue and Chell frowned as she pushed herself up to glance through the thin opening in her door. When she couldn’t see anything and she was starting to wonder if she had imagined the blue light when suddenly a guard was thrown down the hall and a very angry girl came into view.
That was not an inmate. She knew the inmates and that was not one of them.
She watched best she could, craning her neck, as the girl started to take on more guards and it was very impressive. What was she doing here? Chell watched for a bit longer, then when the girl moved out of view to keep fighting she started to panic a little because she didn’t want her to leave. Chell gripped at her collar, but it was no use, she couldn’t use her portals to get out. Instead she backed away from the door and with all her strength kicked at the door with her bare foot.
The dull thud didn’t seem nearly enough for the pain that shot through her foot.
Aurora barely noticed anything but the fight; the mocking faces of the guards, Tommy being tazed and captive, that was all that existed in her mind. It was just black and red now as one after the other guard hit the ground. And then there was only one left, and she was just punching him. And punching. And there was blood on her hand and all down her sleeve from a crushed nose, and she punched him again...
The voice and the arm around him cut through the brainfog, the weight of the collar dropping off his neck did the rest. Tommy blinked once, one of his eyes already swollen shut, and then his powers slammed back through him like a whirlwind, knocking the breath out of his chest and momentarily killing the pain. "Billy?" his voice croaked when he tried to use it, his mouth dry. "What're you doing here?" Something was making thudding and squishing sounds in the hallway and he stared at the door, trying to figure that part out. "Are you here alone?"
______________________
Wynonna caught the gun thrown her way and did a quick glance. Sweeeeet---it was no flamethrower, but charged nets were pretty good too. She took fire at another guard with Peacemaker and then, while he was dazed, shot the net over him and some of his friends.
Oh yeah, she could get used to this new toy. "Fuuuuck yeah, big guns are my specialty. Crazy chick with some guns, coming through!"
"Just watch where you aim it!" Wanda shouted back, but her lips curled up in a grin. Okay, she could see why Tommy liked that one. She directed a hex at another of the guards, throwing him backwards into the wall behind him - and then cried out as some kind of waved blasted through her. The hex energy around her hands disappeared, and she stumbled backwards, feeling dazed. "What the fuck?"
Shen didn't know what they'd just done to Wanda, but she wasn't going to stop to find out. First, neutralize the threats. She dove down faster than the eye could easily track, slamming her wings into a couple of men and sending them to the ground. "Peacemaker, net those two?" she requested, and took off again with a powerful jump.
Oh shit, how did these fuckwads have Peacemaker's power?l She netted the dicks that Shen indicated before making her way over to Wanda. "You alright?"
"Yeah, but my powers are fucked up," Wanda replied. She felt...weird. Not exacly eloquent or incisive, but true, and fuck but she didn't have time for this, now. Much though she sometimes wished she could take a vacation from random weird shit happening, now was not the time. "Gimme the net gun? I can bag 'em up, at least."
Shen avoided another net, just in time to be caught by a sonic blast that knocked her off her trajectory. She only just managed to get her wings back over her and save herself a painful crash, but she barely had time to frown unhappily that another blast shook her. Shit!
__________________________
“No. Not alone.” He answered distractedly. The wet thudding sound made something in Billy’s stomach flip, hoisting Tommy’s arm over his shoulder and doing his best to stand with his brother so they could check on JM. When they at least got around the door Billy almost panicked at how much blood there was everywhere, eyes quickly moving to the girl who was punching in a man’s face who could in no way be fighting back now.
“Aurora!” He yelled, trying to get her attention. He raised a hand, ready to put a binding spell on her because DEAR GOD the man’s head was a bloody pulp. “Okay. You got him!”
Chell frowned when she heard someone yell again, laying her fists on the door before she started pounding on it best she could. She wished she had a voice right now. She could scream as loud as she could.
Jeanne-Marie looked at the mush she'd made out of the man's face. He burbled blood. Her hands were covered in it. She looked up at... that boy. And shook her head. Then her whole body followed, quaking like a leaf. She stumbled to her feet and looked to see what that thumping sound was.
Tommy stumbled along, held up by Billy's body. His other side alternated between numb and searing pain, knives driving into his ribs and shoulder with every step. His mouth tasted like blood, reaching for his powers made his head scream, and he couldn't find it anywhere inside him to feel bad for the guard on the floor. His side was going to be bruised in the shape of that one's boot for a long time.
And Tommy wasn't dead. Billy had come for him. Unless this was some kind of hallucination, or a mind-trick like they'd played on the kids who'd come after him. But Billy would tell him. Billy was a terrible liar.
He tried to ask it, his lips thick and swollen, not all the words coming out. "...not dead?"
The look on JM’s face had Billy reaching for her hand, even though it was covered in blood and he tried to comfort her while keeping Tommy up. Tommy’s question had him frowning as he looked over at his twin, then shook his head quickly and let his arm tighten around Tommy’s waist in protection. “No. Not dead. You’re still very much with us.”
After the the noises from JM’s beatings were gone he could hear the sound that she had looked towards. Banging. Someone was banging on the next cell over. He glanced at the two he was with, both not looking good at all and he grit his teeth. He couldn’t leave either of them, but what if someone needed help in there? Or what if it was a trap? Fuck it. He could teleport them out fast enough if it was, he was sure.
“Iwantthatcelldoorgone. Iwantthatcelldoorgone. Iwantthatcelldoorgone.”
The door to Chell’s room was engulfed in a blue light and she backed up quickly, worried she’d made whoever was out there mad. The metal made an awful groaning sound before it was ripped off of its hinges and thrown against the opposite wall, crumpled like a ball of paper. She stared at it for a moment in shock before poking her head out to look.
Billy breathed in relief when someone, a girl, poked their head out of the cell wearing a collar. Good. Inmate. Not a trap. he shifted Tommy up a little more, tugging on JM’s hand to move her closer as well. “Come on! You want out we gotta go now! My friends need help! So step on it!”
Chell watched the three for a moment, the girl was for sure the one who had beat up the guards in the hallway and the white haired boy looked like he’d been through something awful. If she went with them, who knew what was going to happen...but not knowing what was going to happen and knowing what would if she stayed here was enough for her.
She held her right hand out and signed the letters for O-K and then ducked back inside, hearing the darker haired boy shout at her in frustration. She quickly grabbed Companion Cube, its bulky weight causing her to stumble a little bit as she moved to meet the new people.
Jeanne-Marie looked at Billy's hand, confused, dazed. She took it, then followed him. Yes. Their friends needed help. Someone else's friends, maybe. She watched the girl from the cell's hand move. Sign language. Jeanne-Marie wiped her hands on her leggings. Under her breath, she started praying: "Notre Père qui es aux cieux: que ton nom soit sanctifié..."
___________________________
Wynonna tossed the net gun to Wanda with a slight frown. Shit, now was not the time for their team leader to have their powers fucked with. She turned with Peacemaker and shot at the nearest dickweed that had a gun, frustrated a smidgen that Peacemaker only saw fit to stun non-mutants.
God damn she needed a drink. Shooting another, she ran towards them (shit she was out of shape) and used the butt of Peacemaker's barrel to smack him in the head.
Wanda nodded as Wynonna took out the owner of the gun who'd been shooting at Shen, and looked around, trying to determine the most likely target for her own. Before she could, though, she heard a sound not unlike that of a garage door opening, and spun on her heels just in time to see just that happenening by what looked like the building's loading dock. A loud scraping sound like metal rubbing against metal without lubrication followed, and she winced even as her eyes widened at what was causing the sound.
Some kind of metallic monstrosity emerged first - or tried to. Looking like some kind of fucked up giant spider made out of erector sets, it crept out of the building, one overly articulated leg at a time - until one of the legs collapsed and flipped it over so that it landed on its back on top of someone's Ford Focus.
What followed, though, was even more frightening.
Vaguelly humanoid shaped, it stomped out of the building, it's tread causing the concrete to vibrate. Wanda's eyes scanned up - and up further - as the thing's head just barely cleared the two-story opening. "HALT MUTANT!" it demanded in a mechanical voice, and raised one arm to point at Shen in midair.
Fuck. Fuck, this was not good. Instinctively, Wanda held out her hand to fire off a hex - and nothing happened, though she felt an odd churning in her chest. "Swift, get the fuck out of the air!" she shouted, and aimed her gun at the thing's foot. If nothing else, maybe it'd pull its attention.
What was that thing? Shen stared for a second, but Wanda's shout snapped her out of it, and she dovetailed just in time for another net to sail past her. Mutant hunting robots? Really? Getting out of the air, however, didn't sound like the best plan; she was much faster up there. "I'll keep it focused on me!" she shouted, flying a circle around the gigantic thing.
Jesus, Shen was basically offering herself as bait, which seemed like a stupid plan to Wynonna. She was 100% with Wanda on this one. "Sure you want to be up there with the giant robot?!" Wynonna called out as she took shots at the robot in question. It didn't really seem to faze the thing, except maybe to tick it off. Wonderful.
Fuck, Scott had been right about her, hadn't he? "Damn it, Swift, get-" Wanda broke off abruptly as she felt a surge of hex energy fill her, unsummoned, and explode outward, not only from her hands as she normally tried to channel it, but all around her, like it had before she'd received training from Agatha.
A watermain beneath the parking lot burst, crumbling the pavement and shooting a flume of water ten feet into the air. The alarms of two dozen cars sounded as one, creating a cacophony over which nothing could be heard. And the spider-like robot slowly, inexorably, righted itself and started heading back into the building.
"Oh, like hell you do!" Wanda shouted after it, a ball of hex energy forming in her hand. She threw it, overhand, at the metal arachnid, which shuddered visibly, looked for one moment as if it were going to collapse, and then continued onward.
Shen had no idea what had just happened. One moment, she was putting all of her DR training to good use, and the next, the air currents had gone crazy the way she'd only seen and felt when Ororo did her thing with the wind. A particular strong one slammed into her then, and she crashed down into the roof of a car whose alarm had already been blaring.
Shen might have enhanced endurance, but that hurt. She coughed a little, muttered a weak, "Shit," then began to peel herself up and out of the wreckage, trying to get her bearings.
Wynonna felt herself trip as Wanda got her mojo back, going down against the pavement hard. "I am too sober for this," Wynonna muttered as she pushed herself up, only a little worse for the wear. She'd probably have some bruises, her wrist twinged just a little (nothing Dr. Jack Daniels couldn't fix), and she had a cut above her nose bleeding like a son of a bitch.
Wiping her forehead, Wynonna watched as Shen became a bug on a windshield and Wanda fought the robot like a mamabear. Although, the robot didn't seem to care.
"Ya alright Swift?" Wynonna asked as she advanced closer to where the robot had gone, gun drawn.
______________
There'd been someone else trapped here. Tommy had been so busy worrying about himself (trying to make it end faster, this time; nothing had been moving fast enough) that he hadn't thought about that. He'd been alone the first time, why put him in with another prisoner time time around? Except they had and he hadn't tried to find out. The rational part of his brain tried to remind him that he hadn't been able to get himself out of anything, never mind someone else, but rational didn't seem to be in the cards right now.
"Out," Tommy urged. "There's more than two. They'll be-"
That was when something happened, screaming from outside resolving itself into shrieking metal, the doors to the remaining cells melting down from the top like plastic in a heat wave. Alarms blared everywhere, magnified by the ringing in Tommy's head. "Out!"
__________________________
"I'm fine," Shen replied, sounding irritated as she got to her feet, rustling her winds to get rid of the bits of windscreen. Thank Buddha for safety glass, though, or she'd be pretty cut up. But more worryingly, just because she was on the ground didn't mean the giant mutant-hunting robot had stopped targeting her, and another sonic blast knocked her back into the car, and she winced. "And I'm losing my zen!"
She took to the air again before it could go for another attack; dodging whatever it sent her way really would be easier up there. "I could try and ram it if I built up enough speed!" she shouted to Wanda on a fly-by. But to build up enough speed, she'd need someone to distract it.
“Do it!” Wanda shouted back. Eyes glowing red, she made a rolling gesture with her hands, and the water spurting up from the water main redirected and blasted straight into the chest of the humanoid robot, which obligingly stumbled backwards before regaining its balance. “Hey you! Over here!” she shouted at it. “Wynonna, see if you can tangle up the legs on the other one!”
"Sure sure," Wynonna responded. Distraction, she could do distraction. And apparently they were dropping the stupid code names, awesome.
"Hey robo, crazy chick with a gun, right over here!" She took off in a run (Christ, she needed a cardio day) towards them.
Shen flew away in a zigzag motion, just in case it took the other two girls a little while to get the thing's focus off of her. Fortunately, the water seemed to do the trick; when she glanced back over her shoulder, it had redirected its attention on Wanda. Shen shot forward without bothering to zigzag anymore, until she thought she had enough distance to build up the speed she'd need.
This was going to hurt, she figured, but didn't pause. She did a 180, then started the flight back towards the giant android, pushing herself as fast as she could go.
Concentrating, Wanda tried to get the water swirling into a drill, in the hope of penetrating the robot's outer armor. It started working, but she kept an eye on Shen, ready to drop it entirely when the other girl did...whatever it was she was going to do. Was she invulnerable? Wanda couldn't remember having heard that, but she wouldn't be trying to ram if she wasn't. Would she?
Wynonna was pretty sure Shen was doing something stupid, but whatever. Who was she to judge. This was a lot more punchy, and a lot less Tommy then she had been planning for at this point. She continued to try to tick off the robot, trying to keep is attention away from the flying girl.
Shen kept pushing her speed for as long as she dared, then curled up into a ball at the last second to take the impact as well as she could. She'd never tested her endurance quite that much, but nothing else seemed to be working against that thing.
The impact jarred her every bone and felt like her brain bounced violently between the walls of her skull. But once Shen had fallen to the ground, she looked up in time to see the robot teeter, nearly hold itself up, then fall back, silencing some car alarms by crashing on top of them, and so crushing them. A cloud of dust rose, and Shen winced as she shifted, trying to ascertain whether she'd broken anything.
So far, so good, but everything hurt.
Wynonna watched with a whoop as the giant robot fell to the ground. Looked like it hurt like a bitch though. "You still alive fly girl?"
“Good job!” Wanda called out. She hurried over to where the winged girl had landed and held out a hand, her other seeking the button on her communicator. “Wiccan, some communication would be a good thing. Did you guys find him yet? Where the fuck are you?”
"Kinda wish I wasn't," Shen answered Wynonna's question as she painstakingly got to her feet. She felt like her left side, which had impacted the thing, was one giant bruise. "Is it dead?"
The alarm started blaring overhead just as he could hear Wanda in his ear and Billy took his hand from JM so he could reply quickly. “We got him! We’re coming back out! We got another member too.”
Chell watched as the one less shaken pulled the muttering girl a little closer to him and then ushered her closer as well. How were they going to get out? Even with her portals she would need to find a window or something, but she stepped closer anyway and was careful not to bump anyone with her cube.
“I want us back with Wanda!” Billy shouted over the alarm in case his magic was hard of hearing and all four of them were surrounded in light before vanishing.
They reappeared a little too close to Wanda, Chell’s arm brushing the other girl’s before Chell could back up a bit to give her space after shaking off the shock. Billy shifted Tommy a bit, carefully and looked out over the mess outside before turning to Wanda. “We ready? He’s hurt and Aurora is not doing so hot.”
The second they reappeared, Wynonna's smile dropped as she took in the sight of Tommy. Well, shit. She started forward towards Billy, asking, "Need a hand?" even as she reached for Tommy.
Shen took another few seconds to get her bearings, watching Tommy, the state he was in, and resisting the urge to rush over. Wynonna was on it, as she should be. And the robot laid out beside Shen was still humming with life. Despite how much it hurt, she flapped her wings to land easily on its torso, where her impact had busted some metal open. Hands shifted into talons, she pried that open further, then clawed through whatever wires lay underneath, until she heard that faint electric hum die down. "Now it's dead," she muttered, and turned back around to the spidery one. "We still have a live one there!" she reminded everyone, and pushed up into the air again, wincing from how much flying hurt right now.
The flash of bright blue burned Tommy's eyes and he squeezed them closed, the familiar tingle of Billy's magic cutting through the screaming in his head faster than anything else could. Out he's getting us out out OUT. Someone else's hands were on him and pain ripped through him, bones grinding against each other with every incautious movement. Tommy forced his eyes open in time to see Shen (Shen!?) ripping a robot apart with her claws, Wanda standing by and looking fierce -- and Wynonna right there, close enough to fall into, dressed like she was X-Force. None of it made sense - why would they come for him? -- but that least of all.
His mouth tasted like blood, his lip split, but he tried for a smile anyway. "How'd you find me?"
He looked like death warmed over, Wanda decided, and she clamped down on the anger that had hex energy flaring around her hands. She'd use it, but not now, not until she'd played team leader and gotten a handle on things. "Magik," she answered Tommy, first, because he deserved that, and forced a bit of a smile for him. "You look like shit, kid."
She turned to Billy. "Get him, Aurora, and the newbie back to the school," she instructed, then reconsidered and added, "Peacemaker too, if she wants to go. And then get your ass back here, I need you to tie up the bastards while Swift and I take out the spider robot."
She soared Tommy one last, concerned look, then raced off towards the building, trusting that this time Billy'd actually do what he was told.
Wynonna hesitated for half a second--her mind was screaming at her to go with Tommy and get the hell out of dodge--but...but there was still shit to do here. She gave Tommy a tired half smile and told him, "Save me a spot in the infirmary, will ya?" And then nodded at Billy. "Get the hell out of here."
She stepped back and nodded at Wanda. Spider robot time indeed.
Tommy'd been halfway ready to reach for her, everything moving so slowly -- too slow and too fast all at once, his powers hurt to much to try and speed things up. But she was moving away before he could figure out why his arm wasn't working and he gave up, letting himself sag against Billy.
Shen really wished they had some rope. Tangling that thing's legs would have been easy as pie - and probably highly satisfying. Making it fall in a way that didn't involve any pain on her part sounded like a good plan, especially now that every beat of her wings hurt. "How d'you wanna do this?" she shouted over to Wanda, even as she circled the thing - and avoided another charged net it threw at her, the sudden movement making her grimace. It didn't look like it had any obvious weaknesses, but it sure looked creepy. Shen had never been a big fan of spiders.
Billy caught his brother’s dead weight and nodded at Wanda’s orders, focusing on his small group and the infirmary. Leaving Tommy with the doctor and coming back was going to suck, but they needed him here and the faster they took care of these shit heads, the quicker he could get back. He muttered his spell as he watched the large thing move and they were gone quickly.
Chell, again, had to get used to the sudden change in scenery and could only blink as the boy yelled for someone to hurry, laying his white haired copy on a free table. She watched as the boy ran a hand gently over the other’s head and whispered a promise to be back, moving to help the praying girl sit on the bed as well when a large blue thing came in. Chell moves back against the wall, not knowing what to do or where she was as she watched them talk.
When Dr. McCoy had promised he had everything under control Billy at least had the decency to go out into the hallway to teleport back. Within seconds he was back with the girls and grit his teeth, fists starting to glow blue. “Alright. Let’s destroy them.”
