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1X01 – Sentinel – Act IV
Bobby lay on the floor in a heap, one hand trying to hold off a nasty pair of claws, the other pulling at another set which was latched around his throat.
“Hard to concentrate when you can’t breathe,” the man snarled with perhaps a touch of glee.
A gurgle noise was Bobby’s only response as he focused on breathing while his Adam’s Apple was being crushed against his windpipe.
Tears streamed out of the sides of his eyes and he didn’t care, his legs kicked pointlessly against his attacker, he couldn’t summon a bit of ice to save his life.
This couldn’t be it… but he guessed it was…
There was a long growl and suddenly Bobby could breathe again, the weight of the brute being ripped off of him. Grabbing his sore throat, he turned to the side and tried to calm his breaths which were coming in near-hyperventilating pants.
A few feet away, he could see Wolverine squaring off with Sabretooth, his adamantium claws glistening in the light.
“About time you showed up,” Sabretooth snarled, “Jimmy.”
“Told you never to call me that,” Wolverine nearly shouted, lunging into the taller mutant, his metal claws ripping straight through the mutanta’s shoulder.
Sabretooth howled and literally latched onto the other man with his own claws. The two began to go at it with no mercy, blood gushing at the distinct sound of tearing flesh.
Bobby rolled over and focused on just trying to breath.
…
Scott wiped his brow as the temperature started to increase in the room.
“He’s over there,” Jean pointed to one edge of the room, “he’s mentally blocking me.”
“Well then,” Storm gave a little frown, “we fight fire with fire.”
Taking a few steps forward, Storm reached out with both arms, splaying them wide. After a moment, they could feel the wind pick up in the room, a current which was cross current to the direction the flames were naturally running.
Storm’s hair began to fly wild as the elements gathered to her.
Howling torrents of air swirled around, cutting into the fire, choking it of oxygen as it was ripped from Pyro’s mental grasp.
They saw the flame-happy mutant standing in front of the open door they had come through, frowning as the last wisp of fire blew itself out in front of him.
“Aw,” he tried to catch the wisp but it dissolved into nothing, “oh well,” he grinned, “made you look.”
Before Scott could react, another barrel of wind blew past, knocking him to the side as it crossed between him and Jean.
“Hey!” she shouted and Scott realized the backpack with Nimrod had been ripped from her hands.
Pyro was dragged at super speed through the door which was quickly shut.
“Damn it,” Scott ran towards the door, “Storm, find Bobby, make sure he’s okay. Jean, with me. JP, you there?”
“A little indisposed,” the Canadian replied.
“Well, get undisposed,” Scott was already in the hall, figuring Quicksilver would want to get out of the building ASAP. “They have Nimrod.”
“I’m okay,” Bobby’s weak words only put everyone a little at ease.
“This way,” Jean pointed down to the right and he followed her lead, they couldn’t let the Acolytes have Nimrod, at any cost.
…
“Okay,” Rogue grimaced, “this is actually starting to get uncomfortable.”
“Only starting?” the man raised a single brow.
“Having an off day,” she replied nonchalantly.
Jean-Paul Beaubier was bigger than her, tall and muscular, but she knew all the right ways to tweak his pressure points. He didn’t have super strength like his sister, he could be contained…
Suddenly he went completely limp, risking letting go of her hands long enough to grab her shoulder and push her. Rogue tried to swipe his face as she got her hand free, and it would have worked if the man didn’t have super speed.
Instead she only managed to grab his leg as he twisted away.
He kicked at her with his other foot and she grabbed it as well, the two of them flopping over. Rogue landed on her back, the wind knocking out of her lungs.
The man pulled free and instantly, Rogue was on her own two feet, not sure if he had run away or—
Rogue was thrown back against the wall, knocking her head against the concrete enough to make the world spin. As she slid to the floor, she knew she had to keep awake, but she really just wanted to sleep, maybe this time she wouldn’t dream.
…
Jean could sense where Quicksilver and Pyro where, but she could nothing to break into their minds and stop them, at least not without hurting them, severely. Pyro had anti-telepath training and Quicksilver’s thought processes simply worked too fast for her to keep up.
The two teachers ran into to the foyer of the building where the guard was tied up, wide awake and seemingly dumbstruck.
That’s when the ceiling started to collapse.
Reaching up with her telekinesis, she only thought one word: PUSH.
The falling concrete and wires began to float almost gracefully above their heads.
“Avalanche,” she had wondered where the other Acolytes were, “go Scott, I got this.”
The man looked at her, then the guard, and after a second, nodded.
Scott bounded through the open door down the entrance hall and Jean set about moving all the debris so that it would fall without either crushing them or causing even more instability with the rest of the second floor.
The last thing they needed was the whole building collapsing in on itself.
…
“Rogue,” Quicksilver said into his ear piece, “come in, Rogue.”
“That’s not good,” Pyro frowned as they stood a little ways down the street with Avalanche, their stolen car parked against the curb.
“We’ve secured Nimrod, get it back to base,” their leader handed over the backpack, “I’ll find Rogue.”
“What about the kitty cat?” Pyro asked, tossing it in the backseat of the car through the open window.
“He can take care of himself,” they detected no hint of worry for the feral mutant.
Quicksilver disappeared and Pyro turned to his friend, “I wanna drive.”
“You don’t have a valid license in any country,” he replied blandly.
“Dude,” Pyro blinked, “priorities.”
If they had been paying just a little more attention to the street, they would have noticed the SUV coming down the road. Well, to be fair, they did notice it, in their peripherals, but it didn’t really click that it was the same make and model as the one the X-Men left with the phasing mutant. Nor did it occur to them that it was speeding up.
They noticed it about the time the SUV crashed into their car at maybe fifty miles an hour, causing the car to flip onto its side and rest against the brick building they just happened to parked beside. The backpack with Nimrod was ejected from the backseat through the window and it slid across the ground into the street.
“Oi!” Pyro was flat on his rear on the pavement after diving out the way, spotting the young girl at the wheel, “Sheila! You nuts?!”
She poked her head out of the window, “Bobby’s gonna kill me.”
Then they both laid eyes on the backpack.
…
Bobby managed to pull himself off of the floor, his throat feeling sore, he knew it had to be bruised.
“You alright,” Storm was next to him, one hand on his arm as she surveyed him for damage.
“Better than those two,” the words came out scratchy as he gestured over to where Wolverine and Sabretooth were still dukeing it out, their clothes near ripped to shreds, “there some bad blood there or something?”
“Something,” she frowned, then with a heavy sigh she started to walk towards them.
“Ah, Ro,” Bobby reached out to grab her, the fighting feral beasts was too dangerous to approach, but she had already walked out of his reach.
“She’ll be fine,” JP was suddenly next to him. Where was all this help five minutes ago?!?
Storm took a long, deep breath as she compressed her hands together, creating a ball of plasma lightning. She pushed out and sent it directly at Sabretooth. It was such a powerful strike it sent him flying sideways straight through a window, landing outside with a sickening thud.
If he hadn’t been a healer, it would have killed him.
Logan wasn’t spared from the shock of electricity, but it was only enough to put him on his knees as his body patched itself up.
“I had him,” Wolverine growled at her.
“Sure you did, Logan,” she crossed her arms and looked down at him sadly, “just like every other time.”
…
Scott ran out of the building, knowing he was well behind the speed mutant and didn’t have much of a chance of recovering Nimrod.
He could hear shouting down the road as well as the creaking of metal. In the distance he could see Bobby’s SUV, one of the front lights busted out, but it still shone on two people.
“Give it!” Kitty was shouting as she was playing keep-away with Pyro, the mutant holding the bag with Nimrod in it high above his head and out of the smaller girl’s reach.
“Dom!!!” the Aussie shouted at his teammate who had just turned the car right side up, “forget the Buick, hotwire the Ford!”
“Do I look like Rogue?!” he shouted back, ripping the door off the hinges as it was too damaged to open normally.
Knowing he had to get Nimrod away from the Brotherhood Acolytes, Scott continued to run forward, shouting Kitty’s name. Once he had her attention, he brought his hand to his visor and she got the hint, turning herself intangible.
Pyro looked over his shoulder, “Ah, hell.”
Letting out a blast angled at the man’s feet, the pyromaniac dived to the side in order to keep from getting caught in the blast. It didn’t affect Kitty who snatched Nimrod from him and began running towards Scott with it, returning to a solid state.
A pot hole opened up in the ground under Kitty’s feet and she fell with a shout.
“Kitty!” it didn’t’ look very deep but there was no way to really know.
Scott was almost to her, taking a potshot at Avalanche to distract him from creating any more damage. Then something hit Scott’s back and he tripped, crashing to the ground. Glancing up he saw Rogue suddenly appear, leaning against the Acolyte’s car. Kitty was trying to crawl out of the hole but was thrown back again.
“You had one job!” Quicksilver was standing above the pothole, the backpack with Nimrod in his hand, giving his crew and incredible look.
There was a blur of light and the speedster went out of focus for a few seconds, only to reappear with JP standing behind him, one arm around the Acolytes’ neck, the other with a death grip on his outstretched arm which still had a hold of the backpack. Quicksilver had one arm caught under JP’s, keeping him from being able to pull the sleeper hold.
The other Acolytes where rushing forward to help their leader, Pyro already beginning to create a trail of fire. A quick glance behind Scott showed Jean and Bobby exiting the building, too far away to be of any help. If Quicksilver got free, he would be gone. They might be able to fight the others, but Nimrod would be in the hands of the Brotherhood, along with all the data the government had on mutants, known and unknown.
He couldn’t shoot the two speedster’s directly, that might kill Quicksilver.
If he shot at their feet, there was no guarantee Quicksilver would drop Nimrod.
Taking a deep breath, Scott opened his visor to fire a pinpoint beam, directly at Nimrod.
…
After making sure the building would not collapse, nor would the guard get hurt, or remember much of what just happened, Jean headed outside, being joined by JP and Bobby. They made it outside in time to see Quicksilver take Nimrod from Kitty, to which JP zipped ahead and attempted to take the A.I. lattice back.
Not even a minute of time went by, but it was quite clear that with JP outnumbered by the Acolytes who were about to attack him, and Scott and Kitty on the ground, the team leader made a split decision and shot an optic blast at the backpack.
Nimrod was struck dead on, ripped from Quicksilver’s hand and flew sideways through the air to hit the building across the street.
Silence deadened the night as everyone simply paused, watching as the pack fell to the ground and tumbled five times before coming to a stop. Even at that distance she could hear the crunching sounds of metal and glass.
“You destroyed it!” Quicksilver shouted at Cyclops.
Scott glanced between the speedster and the broken A.I., not saying a word.
“Fall back,” the white haired man shouted, this time at his team, then proceeded to fight his way out of JP’s grasp, running off down the street in a streak of silver light, followed by JP.
The Acolytes backpedaled to the damaged Buick, piling in quickly. They drove away, tires squealing, just as Jean and Bobby made it to Scott who was helping Kitty out of the pothole.
“My baby,” Bobby stumbled towards the Escape which was now sporting a crunched front fender and a missing headlight.
Jean jogged over to the backpack, opening it to find nothing but a jumbled mess of twisted circuits and wires.
…
“I will never do anything like that again,” Kitty followed Bobby into the hallway of the mansion, “I don’t even know why I did it in the first place. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“The whole front is going to have to be replaced,” he didn’t seem mad, more like in quasi-denial.
“And I will totally pay for that,” she assured him but he didn’t even look like he was listening to her.
“I just had her detailed,” he shook his head and continued walking down the hall.
Kitty went to follow but a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Give him time,” Ororo said in her rich and soothing voice.
“He’s never going to forgive me,” Kitty lamented, she really felt awful.
“He will,” the woman assured her, “because that is not what is truly bothering him right now.”
Kitty glanced up at the regal woman.
“Bobby nearly lost his life tonight,” the headmistress spoke gravely and instantly Kitty’s eyes went back to Bobby who was ascending the stairs, the bruising around his neck visible. “He is strong, he will get through this, he has his family here to help him.”
Frowning, Kitty chewed on her lip, unsure what to do or what to say. How could she help him when she didn’t really understand what had happened to him? Had she too gotten in over her head?
Shouting echoed down the hall, Scott and Logan going at it.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” when they entered the study, Scott was nose to nose with the feral mutant. Jean and JP were standing at one of the tables with Doug who was looking over the bits and pieces of Nimrod.
“What I want isn’t some pansy faced kid making arbitrary decisions,” he growled back.
“I didn’t see you stepping up to take charge when I put this team together,” Scott wasn’t budging.
Logan sniffed and clenched his fist, “Maybe I should have.”
“Give the kid a break, Logan,” JP sounded like he’d had enough of it, a sentiment echoed in everyone’s faced, “Scott made the right call. The Acolytes won that round. Destroying Nimrod was the only way to keep all that data out of their hands.”
“Yeah,” Scott crossed his arms, “just how did Sabretooth get past you in the first place?”
“He ain’t a fool,” the shorter man shot back.
“Bobby nearly died,” Scott poked one finger at the mutant’s chest, “and it would have been your fault!”
That was the last straw. The Wolverine’s claws came out as he rose his fist, the adamantium blades only inches from the optic mutant’s face.
Kitty covered her mouth in a gasp.
“Logan,” Ororo’s voice barreled through the room.
Scott didn’t move, but without seeing his eyes because of his visor, Kitty wasn’t sure if he was standing him ground because of stubbornness, fear, or a lack thereof.
With a low rumble, Wolverine retracted his claws, giving everyone in the room a glance before backing off and stalking out the door.
“This too will pass,” Ororo spoke once Wolverine had disappeared, “Sabretooth gets to him and you only made it worse. You should understand this by now.”
Scott opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but instead worked his jaw for a second before turning to Doug, “Is it salvageable?”
“Ah,” the young man blinked, the lattice seemingly forgotten in his hand, “well, um, the components are prototype, hand built specifically for the lattice. I could rebuild it, but it would take… a while.”
“And the information?”
“Considering the energy pulse that is a part of your optic blast,” Doug frowned, “anything that was on here is either gone or going to be really corrupted. I’ll salvage what I can.”
Scott nodded, rubbing his chin for a second, “Alright, do that, I’ll call Fred and set up a time to give him Nimrod. It’s a shame we lost it but at least Magneto didn’t get his hands on it, so that’s a win.”
“Bobby, Logan, Nimrod,” Ororo asked into the air, “a Pyrrhic victory?”
The thrum of Wolverine’s bike could be heard tearing its way down the front drive.
Scott sighed, “I really hope not.”
…
Val surveyed the damage done to the foyer of the building, there was a hole in the ceiling but the debris was neatly shoved against one wall.
“What did the guard have to say?” she asked one of the men in black suits, part of an early response team from Homeland Security.
“He can’t be sure,” he read from his notepad, “says the whole thing is really blurry, like when he thinks about it just kinda slides away from him.”
“The telepath,” Val frowned, those types always made her job a little harder.
“He knows it was a group who attacked him,” the agent continued, “said he was definitely knocked out at one point.”
“Like the other guard?” she asked, heading back towards the exit.
“No,” the man let out an incredulous laugh, “he was still asleep when first responders got here, snoring up a storm.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she rubbed her forehead, “and the servers weren’t damaged?”
“Several overheated,” he flipped his notepad to another page, “but nothing irreparable. The upstairs offices though are going to need a complete redecoration. There has to be some bodies somewhere with all the blood we found up there.”
“No, there doesn’t,” she pursed her lips then shook her head, “alright, give what you need to the media and then classify everything else.”
“As always, ma’am,” he nodded and she left him to get back to his work.
“A.D. Cooper,” she was met outside by a familiar face.
“Agent Wilcox,” Val gestured for him to follow her, “how did this happen?”
“The NSA completely dropped the ball on this one,” he told her as they headed over to the mobile command trailer, “they noted the vehicle leaving but no one followed.”
“Typical,” she tried really hard not to roll her eyes.
“But I now think I know how we can use them to our advantage,” he gave her a light smile, “you’ll have my report by 8am.”
“Good,” she glanced out over the huge pothole in the street, “because I don’t see this doing anything but escalating.”
…
Scott was looking for JP and was told he was outside. He headed through the study and found him standing next to the open French doors, talking to Jean.
“I’ll talk to the Professor,” the woman told the speedster as they both looked down the length of the large, stone patio, JP’s sister Jean-Marie sitting in one of the covered lawn chairs in a rather modest summer dress reading one of the many books from the library, “and if it is true, it’ll have to be approached delicately.”
“I just want her better,” JP turned his head back to Jean, then noticed Scott, “Hey.”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he told the man.
“It’s fine,” Jean smiled and moved back through the doors, “I have to meet Betsy anyway. I’ll see you at dinner, JP.”
Scott watched her as she left, oblivious to the fact JP started to smirk as he looked between them.
“Just ask her out already,” the Canadian spoke as if he was tired of saying it, even though this was the first time Scott had heard him do so.
“It’s not like that,” he immediately defended himself, but after seeing the entirely unimpressed look on JP’s face, he tried, “and even if it was, she’s a co-worker.”
“Really,” still unimpressed, “that’s the excuse you’re going with?”
“It would be inappropriate,” Scott knew he was being entirely too defensive, it wasn’t… well… he did like her… “and even moreso since I became team leader.”
“Maybe if this was a normal school and we were a rugby team,” JP grinned, “but come on, the woman can read your mind. The fact she hasn’t slapped you yet should be a glaring red neon sign… oh, wait… red…”
Now Scott was sporting the unamused look as JP grinned.
“Ah, you make it too easy,” the speedster chuckled.
Shaking his head, “I just came out here to say thanks… for sticking up for me.”
“It was a tough call,” the man shrugged, “good or bad you stuck to your principles.”
“I destroyed Nimrod,” he frowned, creasing his brow behind his ruby specs.
“No,” JP said plainly, “you protected your fellow mutants, even the bad ones. I could have taken the hit from your optic beam but Blondie, we’re talking massive internal injuries, and you knew that, which is why you sacrificed Nimrod for his safety, even if he, or Logan, won’t see it that way,” he gave a light laugh, shaking his head, “this is why you’re team leader by the way.”
Scott wasn’t sure what to say, he hadn’t quite thought of it on those terms, but now that JP laid it out in front of him, “Thanks.”
“Don’t sweat it,” JP gave him a light pat on the shoulder, “teams are like shoes, got to wear them a bit before they justify the outrageous price tag.”
“That’s… comforting,” he scrunched his brow, “considering we’ve already lost the laces.”
“Yeah, stick to math,” JP frowned, “metaphors aren’t your thing. And anyway, Wolverine will be back. He’s an old man trying to break old habits, and stubborn, but he’s Canadian, so he’ll do the right thing.”
Scott let out an involuntary laugh.
“Anyway,” JP looked back over his shoulder to sister, “I told Jeanne-Marie I’d take her into town. Catch you around.”
“About Jeanne-Marie,” Scott stopped him before he turned away, “it’s none of my business, but is everything okay?”
“What do you mean?” he tried to hide the suspicion in his voice.
“I heard you talking to Jean,” he admitted, “sorry.”
“Just stuff,” JP played it off and Scott didn’t push it any farther.
A lot of the kids were playing out in the lawn, Ororo could be heard humming as she watered her garden, and he could hear Jean and Betsy laugh as they walked down the hall inside the building.
He knew he did the right thing. It wasn’t what he had wanted, but it was what had been right.
He would always do what was right.
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