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Genosha Prelude: Pyro and Illyana
Pyro and Illyana decide to vacation in what's advertised as the mutant paradise vacation spot - Genosha. Unfortunately, the advertisements don't match the reality.
"I am so ready for the beach," Illyana said as they appeared in the hotel room she'd scryed. Or a hotel room very much like the one she'd scryed, at least, which she figured was close enough.
This was a great idea, she decided, not for the first time. Genosha was supposed to be mutant friendly; so said all its advertising, at least. It'd be good to have a non-demonic bolthole if they ever needed one. That was the reasoning she'd shared with the team, anyway, and if Pietro had smirked at her knowingly, that was okay too. It didn't make it any less true, and in the meantime - well, if the prospective bolthole had a beach, that needed to be checked out, too. For sharks, or something.
Or at least to see how warm the water was, and if the view was a pretty as it had looked in the commercial.
With that in mind and without further ado, she dropped her backpack down on the bed and started stripping down to her bikini. With any luck, she'd even get Pyro to come lay out on the beach with her.
"You sure nobody's gonna come and claim this room?" Pyro asked, reluctant to drop his bag off. Once a street kid, always a street kid, and leaving his shit lying around anywhere that wasn't safe would never feel right.
"Positive," Illyana said confidently. "I'm going to cast a warding spell on it. Even if anyone tries to get in, they won't be able to." She tossed her clothes onto the nearest bed and grinned over at him. "Or we can leave our stuff in Limbo if you're worried about it. I mean, it kinda defeats the purpose of getting a room, but..."
"Nah, I trust you," Pyro said, and dumped his bag on one side of the bed. He wasn't sure about this whole beach thing, but she was excited, so there had to be something to it. He took off his old leather jacket; it had been fine in New York, but here it was seriously too much.
Illyana opened the bag she'd brought with her and pulled out the ball of enchanted twine of which she was, she thought legitimately, rather proud. It was the first of Caleb's spells she'd actually managed to get right on the first try, with no mishaps or unintended consequences. His set off an alarm, but with a little adaptation, she'd turned it into an actual warding spell. She started wrapping the room with it, her attention mostly focused on her intent and her balance as she climbed over the bed, though she did throw out a question of, "Are you coming down to the beach with me?"
"Sure?" Pyro answered. He knew she'd spun some tales about recon, but they both knew they were here to get away from everything more than anything else. And his plan wasn't to fuck off the moment their... vacation... started. It was really fucking weird, though, thinking of it as a vacation. "I mean, it still sounds fucking boring, but if this is the mutant haven they claim, nobody's gonna blink an eye at me fucking around with fire, right?"
"I wouldn't think so, so long as you're not burning anyone with it." Illyana stepped from the bed onto the nightstand and then climbed down.
"Not unless they're asking for it," Pyro replied honestly. He probably shouldn't start a whole diplomatic incident here. He'd been ripped bad enough of a new one after that fight at the mall in December.
"Fair." Illyana finished ringing the room and touched the twine end to its beginning, focusing on warding the room against anyone but herself and Pyro. "There, done," she said, turning back to him with a smile as she felt the magical "click" of the spell setting. "Are you ready to go?"
Pyro shrugged out of his shirt as even that became too much, leaving him in a plain t-shirt. He stepped into the adjoining bathroom and grabbed a towel, slinging it over his shoulder. "Sure. Are we 'porting there?"
Illyana eyed him appraisingly and grinned, then shrugged and nodded. "Probably safer than being seen going in and out, huh? Considering we didn't check in?"
"Probably," Pyro confirmed with a smirk, and stepped right into her space. For her teleportation disc, sure, but also to kiss her for looking at him this way.
"Mmmm," Illyana hummed as she pulled back from the kiss, though she didn't step backwards. Easier to call a disk if they were close, after all. "I'm definitely in favor of vacations if they all start like this." She called up a stepping disk and they disappeared.
When they reappeared on the beach, Pyro had to raise a hand to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun. "Note to self: steal some sunglasses some time soon," he muttered, then looked around. It looked pretty much right out of a movie, except a lot more crowded. A stretch of fine sand, a lot of amazing blue-green sea, and people everywhere. Some people had looked their way when they had appeared, but they looked away again.
Because being a mutant here was no big deal. That was kind of awesome.
He didn't really trust awesome places.
But what harm could there be in enjoying the beach for a while? It wasn't like they were moving here. He threaded his fingers with Mage's and followed her lead trying to find a nice spot to call theirs.
It felt weird, Illyana decided when a half dozen or so people turned to watch them appear, then went back to whatever they'd been doing before. The shouts, the glares - that she'd grown used to, just by virtue of teleporting being an inexact science (hah, science!) and her having materialized in crowds more than once. The looking away, though - that was weird, as if it were no big deal to see people randomly appear on the beach.
Weird, but kinda cool. She glanced over at Pyro and smiled, then threaded their way between people stretched out on towels, a few oversized sun umbrellas, and a couple of little kids playing frisbee until they got to a spot she liked the looks of, one that didn't have anyone else within a couple of yards. "How's here?" she asked as she dropped his hand and pulled her towel off from around her waist.
"Sure," Pyro agreed, dropping his towel beside her. He pulled off his boots, one after the other, and his socks, looking around. "Do people really leave their shit lying around while they go have a swim?" It looked like it, but it just made him want to take a walk around, and see what he could find.
Illyana laughed. "I know, right? I couldn't believe it the first time Tommy and I went to the beach." She spread her towel and plopped down on it. "I can't convince myself to leave anything more than my towel. Or, y'know, the hotel's towel."
"I have a lot of shit," Pyro pointed out, and pulled his shirt over his head. "Can you ward our spot, too?"
"I can try? I only have the one thing of twine, but I can probably set something up. It'll take a while, though." Illyana got back up and started tracing a circle in the sand around their towels.
"That's cool," Pyro said, stripping down to his swim trunks. He squinted up at the sun, then sat down on the sand, watching Mage work. (Hey, it was a nice view.)
"You need sunglasses," Illyana said absently as she sat down crosslegged and closed her eyes. Without waiting for a reply, she began chanting softly, and their assorted paraphernalia began to glow a sort of sickly greenish color. Finally, she fell silent and offered a faint smile. "I think that'll do it. It won't keep people from taking stuff if they're really determined, but it'll give them a hell of a nasty shock. Maybe enough to land them on their asses. Will that work ok?"
"Sure," Pyro said, and dropped his towel over his stuff after standing up. If anything got stolen despite her spell, they could always pop back to Limbo, she could scry on their stuff, and they'd go get it back with interest. "Let's go check out the water." He'd never swam in the ocean, and he was kind of curious.
"'kay." Illyana held out her hand for him to pull her up and smiled hopefully. Spell casting on Earth was tiring, after all.
Pyro didn't even think about it, just grabbed her hand and helped her up. And, okay, stole a quick grope of her ass as they headed off towards the sea.
*** Some time later ***
Illyana was still laughing as she sloshed her way back to the beach, deliberately splashing the ankle deep water as she walked. Okay, maybe it was kind of immature, but whatever. She'd never really had a chance to be a kid; if she wanted to do it now, she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't.
Besides, it was fun. She wasn't sure yet whether or not Genosha was the paradise it promised to be, but she had to admit, its beaches were better than Florida's.
"I'm gonna head up to the bathroom," she told Pyro, gesturing towards a wooden building further up the beach, about a five minute hike from where they'd left their towels. "Meet you back by our stuff?"
"Sure," Pyro agreed easily, losing no time in getting back to their stuff. More than just being uneasy at leaving it lying around unattended, that had been fun, but it had all been water. He wanted his fucking fire back, now, and that meant getting his lighter. "Look for the fire," he told her with a smirk as they parted ways.
"Huge surprise." Illyana laughed and headed off for the bathroom. There was no line outside, which was surprising, but she didn't think anything of her luck and just headed in. There was a tall woman standing in some kind of uniform in front of the sink peering into the slightly distorted mirror, and another stepped out of one of the two stepped out of one of the two stalls as the outside door swung shut behind her.
"Excuse me?" Illyana said sarcastically, eyebrows rising, as the one who'd exited the stall blocked her path to either it or the one behind it.
"Not sure about excusing you, but we'll definitely find a use," the woman answered, and Illyana realized that the other had abandoned any pretense of fixing her makeup and closed in behind her. Eyes blazing, she stretched out her hand and let out a blast of force that should have been enough to send the woman in front of her flying backwards through not only the stall's door but the wall behind it, then started to call up a stepping disk.
"Get her already," the woman demanded as she brushed off the blast entirely and reached in to grab her arm. Instinctively, Illyana dropped the disk and tried to wrench her arm free - and felt something cold and metal settle in around her throat from behind, abruptly cutting off her sense of the magic around her. She screamed and kicked backwards, catching the woman behind her in the knee, then screamed louder as a sharp, burning pain flared around her neck. She grabbed for the collar, trying to pull it off, but instead felt her consciousness graying out.
"The Genegineer's going to have a blast with this one," one of the women said, sounding as if she were farther and farther away as Illyana's knees buckled and she sank to the floor, still grabbing at the collar with her free hand. It hurt, and she clung to that, trying to use it to leverage herself back to consciousness, to think of some way to get out...
"I think the bitch broke my knee," the other complained, and the accompanying whack to the back of her head was enough to make her attempts futile. Nor did she notice when the woman activated another device and all three of them disappeared, leaving no sign that they'd ever been there at all.
***
Being on the beach was boring. Even playing around with fire got old real quick, especially with the sun glaring down on Pyro. And what the fuck was Mage doing? It felt like she'd been gone a while. At least none of his shit had been touched when he got back to it. He would have tried texting her, but she didn't have her phone with her, and oh, right, his phone wasn't even working here. Stupid lack of international plan. It made him a little fidgety (what if Wanda needed them?), but he ignored it for now. Mage could probably magic them into having reception or something, when she got back.
And okay, it had officially been way too fucking long. Pyro was still damp, but he threw his t-shirt back on, slung both their towels over his shoulder, and grabbed his jeans and boots in one hand to go and investigate what the fuck was up with Mage.
He ignored the startled, puzzled, and frankly hostile looks he got when he walked into the girls' bathroom, and just called out, "Mage?" When no answer came, he turned to the nearest woman, washing her hands by the sink. "Hey, have you seen a blonde girl, about this high?"
From the first two women he asked, he got a clueless "I don't know", and a shifty one. But he found one outside the building who dropped her voice and told him something that made his stomach drop. Of course this country was too good to be true. Of fucking course, because good things didn't actually happen to kids like them. And he had no way of getting in touch with Wanda. Amazing.
He was gonna torch everything to get Mage back.
***
Talk about a mutant haven. This place was the fucking worst. Kind of like those Divergent movies; you thought it was all good at first glance, except when you looked at things a little closely, everything was fucking rotten. The Magistrates grabbed her, that woman had told Pyro, in a hurried whisper. She'd explained, then, as quick as she could, how the government rounded up mutants and forced them to work for them. How Magistrates kept them all in line - some of them mutants themselves.
Well, there was one mutant they'd failed to grab, and now Pyro had a location to go and storm. It was all government-sanctioned, so they weren't even hiding. He was sure the security would be tight, but he was on his own, and on a time crunch. The woman had mentioned memory wipes, and there was no way he was letting anyone do that to Mage.
Besides, he'd been waiting to properly let loose for way too long. He'd had to be on his best no-kill behavior for that one mission months ago; this had been a long time coming. There would be no fucking Summers looking over his shoulder, making sure he played ball.
And even if there had been, with Mage's life, freedom, and memories in the balance, he would've torched Alex's brother if it meant getting her back.
He'd never been the discreet sort when it came to using his mutation, and he didn't try for stealth now. He didn't have his wrist device - he'd left it in the hotel room, and he wasn't going to try and sneak back in to get it. Not when he had this beautiful flame of mage fire he always carried close to his heart. He was pretty sure Mage wouldn't mind him breaking the pendant to get her out.
But not just yet. For now, his lighter would do, but he kept the pendant in his left hand, ready to break the crystal when he needed it. The building in front of him was a large, squat thing of steel and glass, imposing in its clean-cut lines. More imposing still were the four armed guards at the entrance, but Pyro didn't give a shit. He walked right up to them and, even before they could say anything, he lit his lighter and engulfed all four of them in a large wall of flames, making sure they caught on their uniforms.
He wasn't here for chit chat. He'd get Mage and get out.
**** Meanwhile, in the Genegineer's lab ****
"Are you sure this was a good idea?"
"How can you even ask that question?" The middle aged man often referred to as "the Genegineer", despite possessing a far more official sounding title of Director of Extrahuman Resources, didn't even bother to look up from his computer monitor to the Magistrate asking him the question. The newly acquired girl's DNA was unlike anything he'd seen in the ten years he'd held his post. She was a mutant; there was no doubt of that. But there was something exceptional about her beyond that, and he hadn't put his finger on it yet. Perhaps it had something to do with the circle the Magistrates had reported her drawing in the sand. He'd assumed it was some kind of teenage barrier invocation designed to mark the territory of her and her boyfriend; perhaps he'd dismissed it too easily?
"She's American." The Magistrate said the word with heartfelt disdain, and at that, David Moreau looked up from his work at the well built man wearing olive green fatigues and a chronically sour expression. "They've had issues with mutants there."
"And we don't, here. Perhaps they should learn something from us." He glanced over to where the unconscious blond was lying strapped down the the table. "Besides, she must be all of fourteen. What do you suppose she can do, collared?"
"She fractured Magistrate Netron's knee. But that's not what I mean. How do we know someone's not going to come after her?"
"Who? Her teenaged boyfriend who's shown no sign of possessing any kind of abilities beyond that of scowling in a menacing manner? I would certainly hope that your forces would be capable of dealing with him if he comes looking for her." With a roll of his eyes, Dr. Moreau returned his eyes to the screen. Just as the alarms went off.
"Sounds like we're going to have an opportunity to find out," Magistrate Hawkshaw snapped as he hurried out of the lab. Dr. Moreau removed his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. It was going to be that sort of day, wasn't it? He should have known.
***
The alarm had started ringing loudly as soon as Pyro walked into the building - probably triggered by that guy behind the reception desk. He seemed to be cowering more than hostile, though, so Pyro had focused on the guards turning their weapons on him, engulfing them in the same sort of wall of fire their colleagues outside had gotten. There would be more on the way, so he strode over to the receptionist and grabbed him by the collar, a small fire ball dancing beside his head, threatening to catch his hair on fire. "Where do they keep the ones they abduct?"
The guy was whimpering as he pointed towards a set of double doors to the left of the hall. "In the s-secure area."
"Find a decent fucking job," Pyro told him, before punching him unconscious.
He broke into a jog, heading for those doors, and grew the ball into a much larger one before sending it into them to blast them open.
***
"Right. We've got an Alpha class mutant on a crusade to rescue his little girlfriend," Magistrate Harshaw barked out to the half dozen Magistrates he'd been able to rally. Only two of them mutants, which was unfortunate, but at least Punchout was capable of absorbing whatever fire the kid threw at her just as easily as she had his girlfriend's concussive blast. "Knockout, I want you on point; Pipeline, get behind him. No one's answering from the reception desk, you should be able to use the line there. The rest of you, keep cover and try not to use lethal force; if we can get our hands on this one all the problems we've been facing in the ore meltdown process are solved. I'll coordinate from here. Dismissed!"
He watched as Punchout let the human operatives (who unfortunately weren't likely to survive; well, there were more where they'd come from) out the door, watched Pipeline do his dive into the phone to emerge on the other side, and let out a sigh. At least there wasn't any sign that there were more where these two had come from. There were times when he'd really hate to be right.
***
The double doors were shattered and bent by the force of the fireball, not to mention blackened by the heat of it, as Pyro ran through them, shouting for Magik. More security, more fireballs. Until a new group showed up, in fancier uniforms, and when he fireballed the lot of them, one of them absorbed the fire. Time to amp up what he dished out, and Pyro dropped his pendant on the floor and stamped on it, keeping a tight hold on the mage fire to stop it from burning through his shoes the moment it was released.
"Absorb this, bitch," he told the mutant in front of him, and slammed her with a torrent of mage fire.
The Magistrate who'd been named Pipeline felt, in a way even he couldn't begin to describe, some kind of energy exchange, and exited the wiring at that location - just in time to hear Punchout let out a blood curdling scream that made him want to dive right back in. From the looks of it, she had cause - engulfed in green and purple flames, she was burning.
It couldn't, Pipeline reflected in the back of his mind, an area to which he didn't normally have access and to which he paid little attention as it wasn't the voice of one of his superiors, have happened to a nicer bitch. Served her right for all her bragging that she was invulnerable.
Still, that wasn't going to help him any, especially since the apparent cause of the inferno was standing between him and his teammate. He pulled his gun from its holster, hoping that it had come through his trek through the wiring still able to fire, and with Harshaw's instructions in mind, took aim at the boy's arm and squeezed the trigger.
Pyro would give it to the guy, he'd been stealthy as fuck. If it hadn't been from the way one of his teammates reacted, from staring in horror at the mutant on fire (and fuck, that mage fire lit such a wonderful, wild heat in Pyro's chest) to looking at Pyro, and then immediately at something behind him, Pyro wouldn't have had a clue somebody might be there.
He dropped to his knees just in time for the bullet to graze over him, and a sweep of his hands swung some of the mage fire around to catch onto this new arrival. Another sweep of his hands and the purple-green flames caught onto the remaining guards, or back-up, or whatever the fuck they were. He only left one standing - the one whose look behind Pyro had betrayed them, although he made sure he'd drop his weapon by engulfing it in flames, too. It was an effort to stop the mage fire from catching onto the guy, but Pyro managed. Only just.
And he walked up to him, surrounded by the dying screams of that guy's teammate. "Where the fuck is the mutant you just caught?"
The guy didn't even need to answer; the direction in which his eyes darted told a tale of its own. Pyro knocked him out cold in a few moves and left him unconscious on the floor. He wouldn't last long unless someone came for him; the mage fire was licking up the walls already. Pyro left him behind and jogged towards the direction Mage likely was, bringing a ball of mage fire with him.
*** Meanwhile, back at the lab ***
Magistrate Harkshaw was trying, without any notable success, to contact any of the magistrates he'd sent to apprehend the girl's would-be rescuer. The boy was a mutant - Harkshaw could sense that much, now that he was closer - and was making his way towards the lab at a speed that suggested he'd somehow neutralized the forces sent after him.
It was possible they weren't dead, Harkshaw reminded himself as he glanced over at the Genegineer, who, oblivious to everything else was attaching electrodes to the still unconscious girl's head. He might have somehow knocked them unconscious, or sent them elsewhere. But given how the day'd been going thus far, he didn't think it likely.
In any case, the boy was heading their way. Harkshaw lifted the tangler gun they'd recently obtained from Shaw Industries and held it at the ready. Take him down, and then take him out. Given that he could feel the kid coming, surprise was in his favor. It was the only thing that was.
***
Water had started pouring down the hallway from sprinklers in the ceiling, but that was the brilliant thing about mage fire. A little water would hardly be enough to extinguish it. Pyro was soaked, but he didn't give a shit. The ball of mage fire moved with him, and he was ready to send more of it at anyone who stood in his way.
Fortunately for them, it seemed people were more intent on getting out of the burning building, now, and he got to a set of double doors marked 'Laboratory 1.' The thought of anybody laying a hand on Mage in a fucking laboratory was more than enough to make his blood boil, and the double doors crashed open under the force of the mage fireball he sent through them, stopping it just inside the lab.
Fuck, Mage was laid out on a table, and some fucking dude was putting something on her forehead.
"Get the fuck away from her!" he yelled, and moved forward into the room, the fireball dividing into several of those to circle the asshole in a lab coat and urge him away from Mage. "What the fuck do you think you're -"
There was something to be said for the single-mindedness of youth, Magistrate Harkshaw reflected. Scope raised to one eye (though at this range, it was really unnecessary) he waited as the Genegineer dropped his hand from the girl's head and turned towards the boy, hands raised in a placating manner.
"She hasn't been harmed, young man. All I'm doing is measuring -"
Ignoring the rest of whatever it was the Genegineer planned on saying, Harkshaw squeezed the trigger.
Pyro cried out as he suddenly found himself on the floor, electricity coursing through him. And the mage fire was just as suddenly free to burn anything it was in contact with.
Harkshaw watched as the green fire fell to the ground with the boy...and started burning its way through the flooring, spreading as it went. "Get the fuck out of here!" he ordered the Genegineer.
Much to his surprise, the other man spent only another moment watching the fire burn like he was trying to figure out the best use of green fired mutations before darting for the door, pausing only a moment to flip a switch on the machine to which the blond was attached. The machine (and he was pretty sure it was the one that prepped the memory suppression) started humming to life. Tangle weapon expended (damn things needed more than one shot, and Shaw Industries had better work that into the next product line, because it wasn't real fucking useful without), Harkshaw tossed it aside, drew out his hand gun and sidled his way between the boy on the floor and the door through which the Genegineer'd fled, backing his way towards the latter. Maybe the sight of the blond arching off the table would draw the kid's attention long enough for him to get the hell out.
Fortunately, the electricity fizzled out quickly, and Pyro came back to himself to look around the round. He usually liked to use grand hand gestures to move the fire about, but he wasn't usually tangled up in a fucking web, and something was being done to Mage. He focused hard, and managed to send a misshapen ball of fire towards the machine she was hooked up to, unplugging her. Then he worked to untangle himself from the web as he got back to his feet, looking around for the asshole who'd tangled him up in the first place.
Magistrate Harkshaw, however much he might feel otherwise at times when he thought of the man he worked for and the cause he supported, was no fool. Having seen the kid preoccupied with the danger to his girlfriend (had the Genegineer thought of that? He was unaccustomed to the idea of the guy actually planning ahead, but it was possible, he guessed) he'd followed his boss out the room's back door and taken a moment to lock it from the far side. Wouldn't do anything against the kid's fire, if he decided to send it that way, but hopefully he'd be more interested in getting the girl and getting the hell out than in pursuit.
Meanwhile, he focused on getting the Genegineer out of harm's way. He wasn't sure what the hell the country would do without the idiot, and he didn't really want to find out. Being a magistrate was a good gig, overall.
Illyana, meanwhile, was slowly digging her way back to consciousness, only dimly aware of a massive headache that made staying asleep sound like a much better idea.
"Yeah, fucking run," Pyro spat in the direction of the door, before he turned back to Mage. He pulled the electrodes off of her face, and pulled the needle out of her arm, the mage fire consuming the machine next to them, but not spreading any further. He'd get a hell of a migraine, coming down from this, but it was fucking worth it. "Hey, Mage, I'm here, you're all good."
The sprinklers had gone off here, too, for all the good it did.
It was raining, and something was tugging at her forehead. Tug, tug...she couldn't seem to think of anything that had ever felt like that, exactly, though she wasn't sure if that meant anything or not, considering that she couldn't really seem to think of much. A harder pull at her arm made her forehead furrow and elicited an attempt to pull her arm away, but she still couldn't seem to place what was happening. It all seemed so far away.
The voice, however, sounded familiar. Feeling as if her eyelids were weighted, Illyana (Mage? That was her, right?) struggled to open them, nearly giving up when the effort seemed more than she was willing to expend. Finally, though (moments later? hours? It was hard to say) she got them open, and saw a face she was almost positive she recognized hover above her, looking concerned. It took a few moment longer to pull forth a name, another before she could get her mouth to cooperate, but finally she mumbled, "Pyro? Wha-" She closed her mouth, which felt dry and cottony, and tried again. "Wha' hpen'd?"
"You got nabbed by some assholes," Pyro replied, helping her into a sitting position. "How are you feeling?" Whatever they'd used to knock her out, she'd likely need a moment. Fuck, he was so glad she was okay. But he needed to stay alert for now, just in case anyone got to them. He hoped the mage fire outside would deter anyone, but he wasn't going to take any chances with Mage all wobbly.
"Fuzzy." And dizzy, Illyana realized as she groped for Pyro's arm, clinging to it once she'd managed to locate it. "M'head hurts," she complained.
"They hurt worse," Pyro promised her darkly. Okay, so the last couple of fuckers had managed to get away, but they'd get what was coming to them eventually. Just... not right now. "You think you're gonna be able to teleport, or do we need to get out of here the old-fashioned way?"
"I c'n port," she promised. To Limbo, at least, though she wasn't sure about a return trip. Still, they'd have as much time for that as they needed. She slid down off the table, still clinging to his arm, and summoned a disk.
"Wai-" But then it was too late, and they were in Limbo. Pyro caught her before she might risk crumpling to the floor, and looked around to figure out where exactly they were.
Where they were was probably familiar - the same largely barren plain where they'd originally encountered the lizards. When was more the question. Far, far off in the distance rose a rocky spire, topped with Belasco's citadel - barely visible, but definitively still intact. And closer...
"I'll call you anything I want, and do anything I want to do, unless you stop me," a dark haired woman with feline-like features insisted, the wind carrying her voice to where they'd appeared, partially concealed by some thorny shrub-like vegetation. Illyana pulled her head up from where it had collapsed on Pyro's shoulder. "Cat?" she whispered weakly.
"Now pick up the sword and defend yourself, Illyana," the woman added, gesturing towards the weapon she'd dropped before a blond girl of nine or ten years who was sprawled on the ground. She slashed out, cutting the younger girl's cheek even the latter tentatively reached towards the weapon. "Or die."
The child screamed, grabbing for her face one-handed, but forced herself up to her knees, then her feet. Afraid of what he might do, Illyana continued to cling to Pyro. "Don't. I'll - she'll - be okay."
"Like fuck she'll be okay!" Pyro protested in a whisper, turning on Mage. "That's you!"
"Yeah, I know that's me. That's how I know I'll be okay." Illyana frowned, running that trough her mind once more as she watched her younger self lose the sword after one parry, and be unceremoniously tossed back onto her butt a moment later. Normally temporal anomalies didn't confuse her like they seemed to confuse everyone else; she figured it was a side effect of pretty much being one. But right now she could understand why everyone insisted they made their heads spin. "Anyway, Cat won't kill her. Me. But I wouldn't have survived without this."
Pyro winced as the next blow hit, and was about to not give a shit and go intervene anyway, when Mage's next words stopped him short, and he turned back to her with a frown. "What do you mean?"
"Where do you think I learned how to fight? And from who?" She gestured towards the scene below, where the young Illyana was hauling herself to her feet and swiping her hand across her face, her expression hard and angry. "Cat always took care of me. Her methods just sometimes kinda sucked."
"You can say that again," Pyro agreed through clenched teeth. "Can we go, then? If I can't go and help you..."
Illyana spared one last look at her younger self and Cat - and paused for a moment, frowning at her former best friend and mentor. It had been a long time since she'd seen her still mostly human, and she kind of looked...
Paling, she called up a stepping disk and she and Pyro disappeared. Unfortunately, when they reappeared, it was somewhere even worse than their point of origin.
She should have expected as much, Illyana thought as she tightened her grip on Pyro and tried to summon a stepping disk that refused to come, whether because she was too upset or too worn out, she wasn't sure. But she didn't want to see this. She'd finally stopped dreaming this, and with her new suspicion in mind, she definitely didn't want the reminder.
It was instinct that had Pyro pull her behind the corner of a wall, out of sight from the people inside that round of chamber with the seriously gothic feel. Were they inside the fucker's castle? Fuck. And there had been two women going at it - a Black, white-haired one, kinda like the weather witch at Xavier's, and that cat girl again. "Get us out of here, Mage."
"I can't." Trembling from exhaustion, the lingering effect of the drugs they'd pumped her full of, and emotion, Illyana peered around the corner, knowing no one would see her because no one had. "Leave her alone!" her younger self was yelling as she ran towards Cat. It was too late, because Ashake was already on the floor, a pool of blood forming around her from her the deep cuts Cat's claws had inflicted, but her younger self didn't know that, not yet, all she knew was that she was going to have to do the unthinkable and watching it was even more horrifying than living it had been because she already knew how it was going to end, and that there wasn't going to be a last minute save and that it was all going to be for nothing. She wanted to call out, to do something, but she couldn't because she hadn't and if she did now, she could break the universe and erase herself from existence and maybe that would be better because -
There was a crack, audible even at this distance, and her younger self, who would find herself at the Institute only days later, let Cat fall to the ground. Illyana turned and buried her face in Pyro's chest.
Pyro held her close, and drew her silently away from that room. Just because she couldn't port them away just then didn't mean they couldn't get away the old-fashioned way. Whatever had just happened seemed to be hitting Mage hard, so yeah, leaving it behind sounded like a plan.
Illyana let Pyro lead her away, into the hallways that led away from the throne room where, a year later from when they were now, she'd be fighting him in a battle where she could have killed him just as she'd killed Cat, and for similar reasons. She waited until they'd gone further into the hallways, then stopped walking and rubbed at her forehead. "Just give me a minute, ok? I'll try again. We've got at least another ten, fifteen minutes before anyone will leave the throne room."
"What was that?" Pyro asked, despite his better judgment. (He had shit judgment anyway.)
"You didn't watch?" Illyana frowned, feeling both relieved that he hadn't seen and oddly disappointed. Somehow, it seemed as if Cat's death had deserved a witness, though she wasn't sure why.
"And risk us being spotted even more?" Pyro pointed out. "No, I didn't watch."
"We weren't going to be spotted, because we weren't spotted. I mean, I was there, then, I'd know." She pulled away from him and ran her hand back through her hair. "I killed Cat. I broke her neck."
Well then, maybe they hadn't been spotted because he hadn't looked, too. This time travel stuff was just making Pyro's building migraine worse, and fanning his temper, because how did that make any sense? But the next words Mage said took the wind out of his sails, and he stared at her for a second, then reached out to tentatively touch his fingers to her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mage."
Illyana shrugged, because what was there to say to that? "It was for nothing," she said, trying hard to keep the emotion out of her voice, because if she gave into it, she was going to start crying, and she couldn't do that. Not now, not here. "I did it to save Ashake, and it was too late, she was already dying. Is already dying, right now, and I'm going to cut her throat, and Belasco's going to pull out another part of my soul and toss me into the wastes, and...and seeing Cat again? I'm pretty sure she's Kitty."
"They look kind've alike," Pyro stated with a grimace, "but how would that be possible?"
"We're here from the future," Illyana pointed out. "She could be, too. She'd been in Limbo before she got pulled here with me. For a long time, I think. Belasco's the one who gave her the cats' eyes and whiskers. And who made her a cat, later."
"Did he make her a total bitch, too?" Pyro asked. He wasn't a big fan of Kitty, obviously, but the whole 'beating a kid to teach her to fight' thing didn't seem like her style.
Illyana backed up and glared at him. "Y'know, you weren't exactly Mr. Nice Guy when Belasco fucked with you. At least Cat was trying to help me survive, not kill me."
Pyro just glared at her for a few seconds. "Fuck you," he finally said, and turned to head the fuck away from her, grabbing his lighter in case he ran into any demons to fry. (Please let him run into some demons to fry.) Right then, it didn't matter that he was stuck here, in Limbo and in the past, without her. He just needed away from her.
Jaw set, Illyana watched him go, then walked back to where she'd been watching from, before. He'd come back, eventually - though at the moment, she really didn't care whether he did or not. If he hadn't by the time she had the energy to teleport them out - well, maybe he'd find out first hand what time spent in Limbo under Belasco did to you.
* * *
The truth was, much as Pyro wanted to find some demons to fight, to help him ignore the sinking hole in his lungs created by Mage's words, he was much too wiped out to be able to do much. The migraine hadn't let up, so he found a dark, quiet room and holed up in there, playing with his Zippo without lighting it. How the fuck had this day gone from 'perfect vacation' (his very first) to this? He wiped angrily at the tears that spilled down his cheeks, and swallowed down those that threatened to rise.
Things had played out exactly as she'd remembered. Illyana'd watched as her younger self defied Belasco and killed Ashake, had watched herself disappear and knew she'd tried for Salem and gotten close. And had gone back to her old room, trusting that Belasco wouldn't look for her there, and cried the tears she hadn't been able to cry then. It was only after she'd finished that her mind turned to Pyro, who really should've been back from wherever it was he'd gone off to in a snit by now.
Sighing, she pulled the scrying bowl off her shelf and stared into it. After a few moments, the image stabilized - a dark room, and Pyro sitting with his lighter, rubbing at his eyes. Illyana felt a surge of guilt - it had been a shitty thing to say, and right after he'd rescued her, too - then remembered what he'd said about Cat and pushed the guilt aside. He'd rescued her, yeah - but apparently, he still knew so little about her that he'd honestly thought bashing her mentor right after she'd watched herself kill her would be okay. With that in mind, she called up a stepping disk around him that would take him back to his room at the base. Given everything that had happened, she really didn't feel like talking to him. Maybe not for a really long time.
Maybe it was time to get a change of perspective, she reflected as she called up another disk, one that would take her to the school. Maybe it was past time.
"I am so ready for the beach," Illyana said as they appeared in the hotel room she'd scryed. Or a hotel room very much like the one she'd scryed, at least, which she figured was close enough.
This was a great idea, she decided, not for the first time. Genosha was supposed to be mutant friendly; so said all its advertising, at least. It'd be good to have a non-demonic bolthole if they ever needed one. That was the reasoning she'd shared with the team, anyway, and if Pietro had smirked at her knowingly, that was okay too. It didn't make it any less true, and in the meantime - well, if the prospective bolthole had a beach, that needed to be checked out, too. For sharks, or something.
Or at least to see how warm the water was, and if the view was a pretty as it had looked in the commercial.
With that in mind and without further ado, she dropped her backpack down on the bed and started stripping down to her bikini. With any luck, she'd even get Pyro to come lay out on the beach with her.
"You sure nobody's gonna come and claim this room?" Pyro asked, reluctant to drop his bag off. Once a street kid, always a street kid, and leaving his shit lying around anywhere that wasn't safe would never feel right.
"Positive," Illyana said confidently. "I'm going to cast a warding spell on it. Even if anyone tries to get in, they won't be able to." She tossed her clothes onto the nearest bed and grinned over at him. "Or we can leave our stuff in Limbo if you're worried about it. I mean, it kinda defeats the purpose of getting a room, but..."
"Nah, I trust you," Pyro said, and dumped his bag on one side of the bed. He wasn't sure about this whole beach thing, but she was excited, so there had to be something to it. He took off his old leather jacket; it had been fine in New York, but here it was seriously too much.
Illyana opened the bag she'd brought with her and pulled out the ball of enchanted twine of which she was, she thought legitimately, rather proud. It was the first of Caleb's spells she'd actually managed to get right on the first try, with no mishaps or unintended consequences. His set off an alarm, but with a little adaptation, she'd turned it into an actual warding spell. She started wrapping the room with it, her attention mostly focused on her intent and her balance as she climbed over the bed, though she did throw out a question of, "Are you coming down to the beach with me?"
"Sure?" Pyro answered. He knew she'd spun some tales about recon, but they both knew they were here to get away from everything more than anything else. And his plan wasn't to fuck off the moment their... vacation... started. It was really fucking weird, though, thinking of it as a vacation. "I mean, it still sounds fucking boring, but if this is the mutant haven they claim, nobody's gonna blink an eye at me fucking around with fire, right?"
"I wouldn't think so, so long as you're not burning anyone with it." Illyana stepped from the bed onto the nightstand and then climbed down.
"Not unless they're asking for it," Pyro replied honestly. He probably shouldn't start a whole diplomatic incident here. He'd been ripped bad enough of a new one after that fight at the mall in December.
"Fair." Illyana finished ringing the room and touched the twine end to its beginning, focusing on warding the room against anyone but herself and Pyro. "There, done," she said, turning back to him with a smile as she felt the magical "click" of the spell setting. "Are you ready to go?"
Pyro shrugged out of his shirt as even that became too much, leaving him in a plain t-shirt. He stepped into the adjoining bathroom and grabbed a towel, slinging it over his shoulder. "Sure. Are we 'porting there?"
Illyana eyed him appraisingly and grinned, then shrugged and nodded. "Probably safer than being seen going in and out, huh? Considering we didn't check in?"
"Probably," Pyro confirmed with a smirk, and stepped right into her space. For her teleportation disc, sure, but also to kiss her for looking at him this way.
"Mmmm," Illyana hummed as she pulled back from the kiss, though she didn't step backwards. Easier to call a disk if they were close, after all. "I'm definitely in favor of vacations if they all start like this." She called up a stepping disk and they disappeared.
When they reappeared on the beach, Pyro had to raise a hand to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun. "Note to self: steal some sunglasses some time soon," he muttered, then looked around. It looked pretty much right out of a movie, except a lot more crowded. A stretch of fine sand, a lot of amazing blue-green sea, and people everywhere. Some people had looked their way when they had appeared, but they looked away again.
Because being a mutant here was no big deal. That was kind of awesome.
He didn't really trust awesome places.
But what harm could there be in enjoying the beach for a while? It wasn't like they were moving here. He threaded his fingers with Mage's and followed her lead trying to find a nice spot to call theirs.
It felt weird, Illyana decided when a half dozen or so people turned to watch them appear, then went back to whatever they'd been doing before. The shouts, the glares - that she'd grown used to, just by virtue of teleporting being an inexact science (hah, science!) and her having materialized in crowds more than once. The looking away, though - that was weird, as if it were no big deal to see people randomly appear on the beach.
Weird, but kinda cool. She glanced over at Pyro and smiled, then threaded their way between people stretched out on towels, a few oversized sun umbrellas, and a couple of little kids playing frisbee until they got to a spot she liked the looks of, one that didn't have anyone else within a couple of yards. "How's here?" she asked as she dropped his hand and pulled her towel off from around her waist.
"Sure," Pyro agreed, dropping his towel beside her. He pulled off his boots, one after the other, and his socks, looking around. "Do people really leave their shit lying around while they go have a swim?" It looked like it, but it just made him want to take a walk around, and see what he could find.
Illyana laughed. "I know, right? I couldn't believe it the first time Tommy and I went to the beach." She spread her towel and plopped down on it. "I can't convince myself to leave anything more than my towel. Or, y'know, the hotel's towel."
"I have a lot of shit," Pyro pointed out, and pulled his shirt over his head. "Can you ward our spot, too?"
"I can try? I only have the one thing of twine, but I can probably set something up. It'll take a while, though." Illyana got back up and started tracing a circle in the sand around their towels.
"That's cool," Pyro said, stripping down to his swim trunks. He squinted up at the sun, then sat down on the sand, watching Mage work. (Hey, it was a nice view.)
"You need sunglasses," Illyana said absently as she sat down crosslegged and closed her eyes. Without waiting for a reply, she began chanting softly, and their assorted paraphernalia began to glow a sort of sickly greenish color. Finally, she fell silent and offered a faint smile. "I think that'll do it. It won't keep people from taking stuff if they're really determined, but it'll give them a hell of a nasty shock. Maybe enough to land them on their asses. Will that work ok?"
"Sure," Pyro said, and dropped his towel over his stuff after standing up. If anything got stolen despite her spell, they could always pop back to Limbo, she could scry on their stuff, and they'd go get it back with interest. "Let's go check out the water." He'd never swam in the ocean, and he was kind of curious.
"'kay." Illyana held out her hand for him to pull her up and smiled hopefully. Spell casting on Earth was tiring, after all.
Pyro didn't even think about it, just grabbed her hand and helped her up. And, okay, stole a quick grope of her ass as they headed off towards the sea.
*** Some time later ***
Illyana was still laughing as she sloshed her way back to the beach, deliberately splashing the ankle deep water as she walked. Okay, maybe it was kind of immature, but whatever. She'd never really had a chance to be a kid; if she wanted to do it now, she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't.
Besides, it was fun. She wasn't sure yet whether or not Genosha was the paradise it promised to be, but she had to admit, its beaches were better than Florida's.
"I'm gonna head up to the bathroom," she told Pyro, gesturing towards a wooden building further up the beach, about a five minute hike from where they'd left their towels. "Meet you back by our stuff?"
"Sure," Pyro agreed easily, losing no time in getting back to their stuff. More than just being uneasy at leaving it lying around unattended, that had been fun, but it had all been water. He wanted his fucking fire back, now, and that meant getting his lighter. "Look for the fire," he told her with a smirk as they parted ways.
"Huge surprise." Illyana laughed and headed off for the bathroom. There was no line outside, which was surprising, but she didn't think anything of her luck and just headed in. There was a tall woman standing in some kind of uniform in front of the sink peering into the slightly distorted mirror, and another stepped out of one of the two stepped out of one of the two stalls as the outside door swung shut behind her.
"Excuse me?" Illyana said sarcastically, eyebrows rising, as the one who'd exited the stall blocked her path to either it or the one behind it.
"Not sure about excusing you, but we'll definitely find a use," the woman answered, and Illyana realized that the other had abandoned any pretense of fixing her makeup and closed in behind her. Eyes blazing, she stretched out her hand and let out a blast of force that should have been enough to send the woman in front of her flying backwards through not only the stall's door but the wall behind it, then started to call up a stepping disk.
"Get her already," the woman demanded as she brushed off the blast entirely and reached in to grab her arm. Instinctively, Illyana dropped the disk and tried to wrench her arm free - and felt something cold and metal settle in around her throat from behind, abruptly cutting off her sense of the magic around her. She screamed and kicked backwards, catching the woman behind her in the knee, then screamed louder as a sharp, burning pain flared around her neck. She grabbed for the collar, trying to pull it off, but instead felt her consciousness graying out.
"The Genegineer's going to have a blast with this one," one of the women said, sounding as if she were farther and farther away as Illyana's knees buckled and she sank to the floor, still grabbing at the collar with her free hand. It hurt, and she clung to that, trying to use it to leverage herself back to consciousness, to think of some way to get out...
"I think the bitch broke my knee," the other complained, and the accompanying whack to the back of her head was enough to make her attempts futile. Nor did she notice when the woman activated another device and all three of them disappeared, leaving no sign that they'd ever been there at all.
***
Being on the beach was boring. Even playing around with fire got old real quick, especially with the sun glaring down on Pyro. And what the fuck was Mage doing? It felt like she'd been gone a while. At least none of his shit had been touched when he got back to it. He would have tried texting her, but she didn't have her phone with her, and oh, right, his phone wasn't even working here. Stupid lack of international plan. It made him a little fidgety (what if Wanda needed them?), but he ignored it for now. Mage could probably magic them into having reception or something, when she got back.
And okay, it had officially been way too fucking long. Pyro was still damp, but he threw his t-shirt back on, slung both their towels over his shoulder, and grabbed his jeans and boots in one hand to go and investigate what the fuck was up with Mage.
He ignored the startled, puzzled, and frankly hostile looks he got when he walked into the girls' bathroom, and just called out, "Mage?" When no answer came, he turned to the nearest woman, washing her hands by the sink. "Hey, have you seen a blonde girl, about this high?"
From the first two women he asked, he got a clueless "I don't know", and a shifty one. But he found one outside the building who dropped her voice and told him something that made his stomach drop. Of course this country was too good to be true. Of fucking course, because good things didn't actually happen to kids like them. And he had no way of getting in touch with Wanda. Amazing.
He was gonna torch everything to get Mage back.
***
Talk about a mutant haven. This place was the fucking worst. Kind of like those Divergent movies; you thought it was all good at first glance, except when you looked at things a little closely, everything was fucking rotten. The Magistrates grabbed her, that woman had told Pyro, in a hurried whisper. She'd explained, then, as quick as she could, how the government rounded up mutants and forced them to work for them. How Magistrates kept them all in line - some of them mutants themselves.
Well, there was one mutant they'd failed to grab, and now Pyro had a location to go and storm. It was all government-sanctioned, so they weren't even hiding. He was sure the security would be tight, but he was on his own, and on a time crunch. The woman had mentioned memory wipes, and there was no way he was letting anyone do that to Mage.
Besides, he'd been waiting to properly let loose for way too long. He'd had to be on his best no-kill behavior for that one mission months ago; this had been a long time coming. There would be no fucking Summers looking over his shoulder, making sure he played ball.
And even if there had been, with Mage's life, freedom, and memories in the balance, he would've torched Alex's brother if it meant getting her back.
He'd never been the discreet sort when it came to using his mutation, and he didn't try for stealth now. He didn't have his wrist device - he'd left it in the hotel room, and he wasn't going to try and sneak back in to get it. Not when he had this beautiful flame of mage fire he always carried close to his heart. He was pretty sure Mage wouldn't mind him breaking the pendant to get her out.
But not just yet. For now, his lighter would do, but he kept the pendant in his left hand, ready to break the crystal when he needed it. The building in front of him was a large, squat thing of steel and glass, imposing in its clean-cut lines. More imposing still were the four armed guards at the entrance, but Pyro didn't give a shit. He walked right up to them and, even before they could say anything, he lit his lighter and engulfed all four of them in a large wall of flames, making sure they caught on their uniforms.
He wasn't here for chit chat. He'd get Mage and get out.
**** Meanwhile, in the Genegineer's lab ****
"Are you sure this was a good idea?"
"How can you even ask that question?" The middle aged man often referred to as "the Genegineer", despite possessing a far more official sounding title of Director of Extrahuman Resources, didn't even bother to look up from his computer monitor to the Magistrate asking him the question. The newly acquired girl's DNA was unlike anything he'd seen in the ten years he'd held his post. She was a mutant; there was no doubt of that. But there was something exceptional about her beyond that, and he hadn't put his finger on it yet. Perhaps it had something to do with the circle the Magistrates had reported her drawing in the sand. He'd assumed it was some kind of teenage barrier invocation designed to mark the territory of her and her boyfriend; perhaps he'd dismissed it too easily?
"She's American." The Magistrate said the word with heartfelt disdain, and at that, David Moreau looked up from his work at the well built man wearing olive green fatigues and a chronically sour expression. "They've had issues with mutants there."
"And we don't, here. Perhaps they should learn something from us." He glanced over to where the unconscious blond was lying strapped down the the table. "Besides, she must be all of fourteen. What do you suppose she can do, collared?"
"She fractured Magistrate Netron's knee. But that's not what I mean. How do we know someone's not going to come after her?"
"Who? Her teenaged boyfriend who's shown no sign of possessing any kind of abilities beyond that of scowling in a menacing manner? I would certainly hope that your forces would be capable of dealing with him if he comes looking for her." With a roll of his eyes, Dr. Moreau returned his eyes to the screen. Just as the alarms went off.
"Sounds like we're going to have an opportunity to find out," Magistrate Hawkshaw snapped as he hurried out of the lab. Dr. Moreau removed his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. It was going to be that sort of day, wasn't it? He should have known.
***
The alarm had started ringing loudly as soon as Pyro walked into the building - probably triggered by that guy behind the reception desk. He seemed to be cowering more than hostile, though, so Pyro had focused on the guards turning their weapons on him, engulfing them in the same sort of wall of fire their colleagues outside had gotten. There would be more on the way, so he strode over to the receptionist and grabbed him by the collar, a small fire ball dancing beside his head, threatening to catch his hair on fire. "Where do they keep the ones they abduct?"
The guy was whimpering as he pointed towards a set of double doors to the left of the hall. "In the s-secure area."
"Find a decent fucking job," Pyro told him, before punching him unconscious.
He broke into a jog, heading for those doors, and grew the ball into a much larger one before sending it into them to blast them open.
***
"Right. We've got an Alpha class mutant on a crusade to rescue his little girlfriend," Magistrate Harshaw barked out to the half dozen Magistrates he'd been able to rally. Only two of them mutants, which was unfortunate, but at least Punchout was capable of absorbing whatever fire the kid threw at her just as easily as she had his girlfriend's concussive blast. "Knockout, I want you on point; Pipeline, get behind him. No one's answering from the reception desk, you should be able to use the line there. The rest of you, keep cover and try not to use lethal force; if we can get our hands on this one all the problems we've been facing in the ore meltdown process are solved. I'll coordinate from here. Dismissed!"
He watched as Punchout let the human operatives (who unfortunately weren't likely to survive; well, there were more where they'd come from) out the door, watched Pipeline do his dive into the phone to emerge on the other side, and let out a sigh. At least there wasn't any sign that there were more where these two had come from. There were times when he'd really hate to be right.
***
The double doors were shattered and bent by the force of the fireball, not to mention blackened by the heat of it, as Pyro ran through them, shouting for Magik. More security, more fireballs. Until a new group showed up, in fancier uniforms, and when he fireballed the lot of them, one of them absorbed the fire. Time to amp up what he dished out, and Pyro dropped his pendant on the floor and stamped on it, keeping a tight hold on the mage fire to stop it from burning through his shoes the moment it was released.
"Absorb this, bitch," he told the mutant in front of him, and slammed her with a torrent of mage fire.
The Magistrate who'd been named Pipeline felt, in a way even he couldn't begin to describe, some kind of energy exchange, and exited the wiring at that location - just in time to hear Punchout let out a blood curdling scream that made him want to dive right back in. From the looks of it, she had cause - engulfed in green and purple flames, she was burning.
It couldn't, Pipeline reflected in the back of his mind, an area to which he didn't normally have access and to which he paid little attention as it wasn't the voice of one of his superiors, have happened to a nicer bitch. Served her right for all her bragging that she was invulnerable.
Still, that wasn't going to help him any, especially since the apparent cause of the inferno was standing between him and his teammate. He pulled his gun from its holster, hoping that it had come through his trek through the wiring still able to fire, and with Harshaw's instructions in mind, took aim at the boy's arm and squeezed the trigger.
Pyro would give it to the guy, he'd been stealthy as fuck. If it hadn't been from the way one of his teammates reacted, from staring in horror at the mutant on fire (and fuck, that mage fire lit such a wonderful, wild heat in Pyro's chest) to looking at Pyro, and then immediately at something behind him, Pyro wouldn't have had a clue somebody might be there.
He dropped to his knees just in time for the bullet to graze over him, and a sweep of his hands swung some of the mage fire around to catch onto this new arrival. Another sweep of his hands and the purple-green flames caught onto the remaining guards, or back-up, or whatever the fuck they were. He only left one standing - the one whose look behind Pyro had betrayed them, although he made sure he'd drop his weapon by engulfing it in flames, too. It was an effort to stop the mage fire from catching onto the guy, but Pyro managed. Only just.
And he walked up to him, surrounded by the dying screams of that guy's teammate. "Where the fuck is the mutant you just caught?"
The guy didn't even need to answer; the direction in which his eyes darted told a tale of its own. Pyro knocked him out cold in a few moves and left him unconscious on the floor. He wouldn't last long unless someone came for him; the mage fire was licking up the walls already. Pyro left him behind and jogged towards the direction Mage likely was, bringing a ball of mage fire with him.
*** Meanwhile, back at the lab ***
Magistrate Harkshaw was trying, without any notable success, to contact any of the magistrates he'd sent to apprehend the girl's would-be rescuer. The boy was a mutant - Harkshaw could sense that much, now that he was closer - and was making his way towards the lab at a speed that suggested he'd somehow neutralized the forces sent after him.
It was possible they weren't dead, Harkshaw reminded himself as he glanced over at the Genegineer, who, oblivious to everything else was attaching electrodes to the still unconscious girl's head. He might have somehow knocked them unconscious, or sent them elsewhere. But given how the day'd been going thus far, he didn't think it likely.
In any case, the boy was heading their way. Harkshaw lifted the tangler gun they'd recently obtained from Shaw Industries and held it at the ready. Take him down, and then take him out. Given that he could feel the kid coming, surprise was in his favor. It was the only thing that was.
***
Water had started pouring down the hallway from sprinklers in the ceiling, but that was the brilliant thing about mage fire. A little water would hardly be enough to extinguish it. Pyro was soaked, but he didn't give a shit. The ball of mage fire moved with him, and he was ready to send more of it at anyone who stood in his way.
Fortunately for them, it seemed people were more intent on getting out of the burning building, now, and he got to a set of double doors marked 'Laboratory 1.' The thought of anybody laying a hand on Mage in a fucking laboratory was more than enough to make his blood boil, and the double doors crashed open under the force of the mage fireball he sent through them, stopping it just inside the lab.
Fuck, Mage was laid out on a table, and some fucking dude was putting something on her forehead.
"Get the fuck away from her!" he yelled, and moved forward into the room, the fireball dividing into several of those to circle the asshole in a lab coat and urge him away from Mage. "What the fuck do you think you're -"
There was something to be said for the single-mindedness of youth, Magistrate Harkshaw reflected. Scope raised to one eye (though at this range, it was really unnecessary) he waited as the Genegineer dropped his hand from the girl's head and turned towards the boy, hands raised in a placating manner.
"She hasn't been harmed, young man. All I'm doing is measuring -"
Ignoring the rest of whatever it was the Genegineer planned on saying, Harkshaw squeezed the trigger.
Pyro cried out as he suddenly found himself on the floor, electricity coursing through him. And the mage fire was just as suddenly free to burn anything it was in contact with.
Harkshaw watched as the green fire fell to the ground with the boy...and started burning its way through the flooring, spreading as it went. "Get the fuck out of here!" he ordered the Genegineer.
Much to his surprise, the other man spent only another moment watching the fire burn like he was trying to figure out the best use of green fired mutations before darting for the door, pausing only a moment to flip a switch on the machine to which the blond was attached. The machine (and he was pretty sure it was the one that prepped the memory suppression) started humming to life. Tangle weapon expended (damn things needed more than one shot, and Shaw Industries had better work that into the next product line, because it wasn't real fucking useful without), Harkshaw tossed it aside, drew out his hand gun and sidled his way between the boy on the floor and the door through which the Genegineer'd fled, backing his way towards the latter. Maybe the sight of the blond arching off the table would draw the kid's attention long enough for him to get the hell out.
Fortunately, the electricity fizzled out quickly, and Pyro came back to himself to look around the round. He usually liked to use grand hand gestures to move the fire about, but he wasn't usually tangled up in a fucking web, and something was being done to Mage. He focused hard, and managed to send a misshapen ball of fire towards the machine she was hooked up to, unplugging her. Then he worked to untangle himself from the web as he got back to his feet, looking around for the asshole who'd tangled him up in the first place.
Magistrate Harkshaw, however much he might feel otherwise at times when he thought of the man he worked for and the cause he supported, was no fool. Having seen the kid preoccupied with the danger to his girlfriend (had the Genegineer thought of that? He was unaccustomed to the idea of the guy actually planning ahead, but it was possible, he guessed) he'd followed his boss out the room's back door and taken a moment to lock it from the far side. Wouldn't do anything against the kid's fire, if he decided to send it that way, but hopefully he'd be more interested in getting the girl and getting the hell out than in pursuit.
Meanwhile, he focused on getting the Genegineer out of harm's way. He wasn't sure what the hell the country would do without the idiot, and he didn't really want to find out. Being a magistrate was a good gig, overall.
Illyana, meanwhile, was slowly digging her way back to consciousness, only dimly aware of a massive headache that made staying asleep sound like a much better idea.
"Yeah, fucking run," Pyro spat in the direction of the door, before he turned back to Mage. He pulled the electrodes off of her face, and pulled the needle out of her arm, the mage fire consuming the machine next to them, but not spreading any further. He'd get a hell of a migraine, coming down from this, but it was fucking worth it. "Hey, Mage, I'm here, you're all good."
The sprinklers had gone off here, too, for all the good it did.
It was raining, and something was tugging at her forehead. Tug, tug...she couldn't seem to think of anything that had ever felt like that, exactly, though she wasn't sure if that meant anything or not, considering that she couldn't really seem to think of much. A harder pull at her arm made her forehead furrow and elicited an attempt to pull her arm away, but she still couldn't seem to place what was happening. It all seemed so far away.
The voice, however, sounded familiar. Feeling as if her eyelids were weighted, Illyana (Mage? That was her, right?) struggled to open them, nearly giving up when the effort seemed more than she was willing to expend. Finally, though (moments later? hours? It was hard to say) she got them open, and saw a face she was almost positive she recognized hover above her, looking concerned. It took a few moment longer to pull forth a name, another before she could get her mouth to cooperate, but finally she mumbled, "Pyro? Wha-" She closed her mouth, which felt dry and cottony, and tried again. "Wha' hpen'd?"
"You got nabbed by some assholes," Pyro replied, helping her into a sitting position. "How are you feeling?" Whatever they'd used to knock her out, she'd likely need a moment. Fuck, he was so glad she was okay. But he needed to stay alert for now, just in case anyone got to them. He hoped the mage fire outside would deter anyone, but he wasn't going to take any chances with Mage all wobbly.
"Fuzzy." And dizzy, Illyana realized as she groped for Pyro's arm, clinging to it once she'd managed to locate it. "M'head hurts," she complained.
"They hurt worse," Pyro promised her darkly. Okay, so the last couple of fuckers had managed to get away, but they'd get what was coming to them eventually. Just... not right now. "You think you're gonna be able to teleport, or do we need to get out of here the old-fashioned way?"
"I c'n port," she promised. To Limbo, at least, though she wasn't sure about a return trip. Still, they'd have as much time for that as they needed. She slid down off the table, still clinging to his arm, and summoned a disk.
"Wai-" But then it was too late, and they were in Limbo. Pyro caught her before she might risk crumpling to the floor, and looked around to figure out where exactly they were.
Where they were was probably familiar - the same largely barren plain where they'd originally encountered the lizards. When was more the question. Far, far off in the distance rose a rocky spire, topped with Belasco's citadel - barely visible, but definitively still intact. And closer...
"I'll call you anything I want, and do anything I want to do, unless you stop me," a dark haired woman with feline-like features insisted, the wind carrying her voice to where they'd appeared, partially concealed by some thorny shrub-like vegetation. Illyana pulled her head up from where it had collapsed on Pyro's shoulder. "Cat?" she whispered weakly.
"Now pick up the sword and defend yourself, Illyana," the woman added, gesturing towards the weapon she'd dropped before a blond girl of nine or ten years who was sprawled on the ground. She slashed out, cutting the younger girl's cheek even the latter tentatively reached towards the weapon. "Or die."
The child screamed, grabbing for her face one-handed, but forced herself up to her knees, then her feet. Afraid of what he might do, Illyana continued to cling to Pyro. "Don't. I'll - she'll - be okay."
"Like fuck she'll be okay!" Pyro protested in a whisper, turning on Mage. "That's you!"
"Yeah, I know that's me. That's how I know I'll be okay." Illyana frowned, running that trough her mind once more as she watched her younger self lose the sword after one parry, and be unceremoniously tossed back onto her butt a moment later. Normally temporal anomalies didn't confuse her like they seemed to confuse everyone else; she figured it was a side effect of pretty much being one. But right now she could understand why everyone insisted they made their heads spin. "Anyway, Cat won't kill her. Me. But I wouldn't have survived without this."
Pyro winced as the next blow hit, and was about to not give a shit and go intervene anyway, when Mage's next words stopped him short, and he turned back to her with a frown. "What do you mean?"
"Where do you think I learned how to fight? And from who?" She gestured towards the scene below, where the young Illyana was hauling herself to her feet and swiping her hand across her face, her expression hard and angry. "Cat always took care of me. Her methods just sometimes kinda sucked."
"You can say that again," Pyro agreed through clenched teeth. "Can we go, then? If I can't go and help you..."
Illyana spared one last look at her younger self and Cat - and paused for a moment, frowning at her former best friend and mentor. It had been a long time since she'd seen her still mostly human, and she kind of looked...
Paling, she called up a stepping disk and she and Pyro disappeared. Unfortunately, when they reappeared, it was somewhere even worse than their point of origin.
She should have expected as much, Illyana thought as she tightened her grip on Pyro and tried to summon a stepping disk that refused to come, whether because she was too upset or too worn out, she wasn't sure. But she didn't want to see this. She'd finally stopped dreaming this, and with her new suspicion in mind, she definitely didn't want the reminder.
It was instinct that had Pyro pull her behind the corner of a wall, out of sight from the people inside that round of chamber with the seriously gothic feel. Were they inside the fucker's castle? Fuck. And there had been two women going at it - a Black, white-haired one, kinda like the weather witch at Xavier's, and that cat girl again. "Get us out of here, Mage."
"I can't." Trembling from exhaustion, the lingering effect of the drugs they'd pumped her full of, and emotion, Illyana peered around the corner, knowing no one would see her because no one had. "Leave her alone!" her younger self was yelling as she ran towards Cat. It was too late, because Ashake was already on the floor, a pool of blood forming around her from her the deep cuts Cat's claws had inflicted, but her younger self didn't know that, not yet, all she knew was that she was going to have to do the unthinkable and watching it was even more horrifying than living it had been because she already knew how it was going to end, and that there wasn't going to be a last minute save and that it was all going to be for nothing. She wanted to call out, to do something, but she couldn't because she hadn't and if she did now, she could break the universe and erase herself from existence and maybe that would be better because -
There was a crack, audible even at this distance, and her younger self, who would find herself at the Institute only days later, let Cat fall to the ground. Illyana turned and buried her face in Pyro's chest.
Pyro held her close, and drew her silently away from that room. Just because she couldn't port them away just then didn't mean they couldn't get away the old-fashioned way. Whatever had just happened seemed to be hitting Mage hard, so yeah, leaving it behind sounded like a plan.
Illyana let Pyro lead her away, into the hallways that led away from the throne room where, a year later from when they were now, she'd be fighting him in a battle where she could have killed him just as she'd killed Cat, and for similar reasons. She waited until they'd gone further into the hallways, then stopped walking and rubbed at her forehead. "Just give me a minute, ok? I'll try again. We've got at least another ten, fifteen minutes before anyone will leave the throne room."
"What was that?" Pyro asked, despite his better judgment. (He had shit judgment anyway.)
"You didn't watch?" Illyana frowned, feeling both relieved that he hadn't seen and oddly disappointed. Somehow, it seemed as if Cat's death had deserved a witness, though she wasn't sure why.
"And risk us being spotted even more?" Pyro pointed out. "No, I didn't watch."
"We weren't going to be spotted, because we weren't spotted. I mean, I was there, then, I'd know." She pulled away from him and ran her hand back through her hair. "I killed Cat. I broke her neck."
Well then, maybe they hadn't been spotted because he hadn't looked, too. This time travel stuff was just making Pyro's building migraine worse, and fanning his temper, because how did that make any sense? But the next words Mage said took the wind out of his sails, and he stared at her for a second, then reached out to tentatively touch his fingers to her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mage."
Illyana shrugged, because what was there to say to that? "It was for nothing," she said, trying hard to keep the emotion out of her voice, because if she gave into it, she was going to start crying, and she couldn't do that. Not now, not here. "I did it to save Ashake, and it was too late, she was already dying. Is already dying, right now, and I'm going to cut her throat, and Belasco's going to pull out another part of my soul and toss me into the wastes, and...and seeing Cat again? I'm pretty sure she's Kitty."
"They look kind've alike," Pyro stated with a grimace, "but how would that be possible?"
"We're here from the future," Illyana pointed out. "She could be, too. She'd been in Limbo before she got pulled here with me. For a long time, I think. Belasco's the one who gave her the cats' eyes and whiskers. And who made her a cat, later."
"Did he make her a total bitch, too?" Pyro asked. He wasn't a big fan of Kitty, obviously, but the whole 'beating a kid to teach her to fight' thing didn't seem like her style.
Illyana backed up and glared at him. "Y'know, you weren't exactly Mr. Nice Guy when Belasco fucked with you. At least Cat was trying to help me survive, not kill me."
Pyro just glared at her for a few seconds. "Fuck you," he finally said, and turned to head the fuck away from her, grabbing his lighter in case he ran into any demons to fry. (Please let him run into some demons to fry.) Right then, it didn't matter that he was stuck here, in Limbo and in the past, without her. He just needed away from her.
Jaw set, Illyana watched him go, then walked back to where she'd been watching from, before. He'd come back, eventually - though at the moment, she really didn't care whether he did or not. If he hadn't by the time she had the energy to teleport them out - well, maybe he'd find out first hand what time spent in Limbo under Belasco did to you.
* * *
The truth was, much as Pyro wanted to find some demons to fight, to help him ignore the sinking hole in his lungs created by Mage's words, he was much too wiped out to be able to do much. The migraine hadn't let up, so he found a dark, quiet room and holed up in there, playing with his Zippo without lighting it. How the fuck had this day gone from 'perfect vacation' (his very first) to this? He wiped angrily at the tears that spilled down his cheeks, and swallowed down those that threatened to rise.
Things had played out exactly as she'd remembered. Illyana'd watched as her younger self defied Belasco and killed Ashake, had watched herself disappear and knew she'd tried for Salem and gotten close. And had gone back to her old room, trusting that Belasco wouldn't look for her there, and cried the tears she hadn't been able to cry then. It was only after she'd finished that her mind turned to Pyro, who really should've been back from wherever it was he'd gone off to in a snit by now.
Sighing, she pulled the scrying bowl off her shelf and stared into it. After a few moments, the image stabilized - a dark room, and Pyro sitting with his lighter, rubbing at his eyes. Illyana felt a surge of guilt - it had been a shitty thing to say, and right after he'd rescued her, too - then remembered what he'd said about Cat and pushed the guilt aside. He'd rescued her, yeah - but apparently, he still knew so little about her that he'd honestly thought bashing her mentor right after she'd watched herself kill her would be okay. With that in mind, she called up a stepping disk around him that would take him back to his room at the base. Given everything that had happened, she really didn't feel like talking to him. Maybe not for a really long time.
Maybe it was time to get a change of perspective, she reflected as she called up another disk, one that would take her to the school. Maybe it was past time.