Work Text:
06/05/2018
“Verdammte Scheiße!”
At first, Bastian thought, that prosaic German-language exclamation was part of Katja's outburst about their find in this damn underground facility earlier, some kind of equivalent to the Hallelujah of the day, so to speak.
But then he, too, caught the sudden noise on the surface, just above their heads, where it had been so respectfully quiet in this cruel cemetery of a camp before. Bastian was almost shoved back down the stairs into the bunker along with the heavy burden of the motionless body over his shoulder when a strong gust of wind wrapped around the small, wiry body of one of his companions as she was obviously preparing for takeoff before the three of them had even finished climbing.
“Fuck, sorry, I ... We need to ...”
Logan's daughter promptly already wormed past Katja before the latter could even open her mouth for a command and, with the help of her telekinesis, was in the air and out of sight in a second, leaving Katja behind with nothing but another very rude-sounding German curse on her lips.
It seemed, they no longer were alone here. Other mutants had come – and from the sound of it, they were easily keeping the X-Men on their toes.
Cautiously peering through the narrow gap between the hatch and the ground at the side of his temporary teammate, Bastian could already make out someone in the shadows of the Blackbird, who he immediately recognized from the news as a very powerful mutant. He also saw a very dazed Dr. McCoy lying near the ramp to the jet. The snow around the guy was discolored with his blood which in turn made Bastian's boil.
And Logan now was next to fight one of the Brotherhood's poster boys, already bleeding from half a dozen wounds on his upper body and legs himself which also explained why Noemi had lost her nerve. The conflict could have just begun, but the odds were against them.
“Stay where you are, Bastian."
With, naturally, much more experience on the battlefield than her young companion, Katja was fortunately not quite so quick to lose her head. At least she took the time to make sure that assisting her teammates would not come at the expense of the other job she'd been given.
Much to the relief of Bastian, whose desire to get between those front lines over there unprotected was actually rather limited. For that, it had definitely been too long since his last reluctant exercises in defending himself against such assholes.
"Lock yourself in," Katja cautioned him, feeling his apprehensiveness, "and make sure nothing happens to our catch. Under no circumstance can the Brotherhood see the guy before we've decided what to do with him.”
Bastian nodded silently; actually, he only wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible now. However, his throat was also tight with worry about Noemi and especially the woman who'd made his reluctant, unpleasant introduction in Westchester yesterday so much easier. “But you take care of yourself, too, okay?”
“We'll come get you in a minute. Promise.” Despite her obvious rush, Katja showed him a brief smile.
Bastian tried to return the gesture of which he'd almost forgotten how to perform an honest version of it, especially without the threat of violence, in the last six months, amazed at how easy that suddenly was.
The expression didn't last, once Katja followed Noemi's example at last, the hatch almost fully falling close again in a flash, sadly without the images through the viewing slit in the distance changing for the better. The clench in his guts only worsening, Bastian felt how his hands turned to fists all by themselves, the longer he witnessed the frightening events in the distance, not aimed at anyone in particular, but if this went on like this ... No matter how much he hated the thought himself and while Katja's words had been pretty unambiguous ... As far as Bastian knew, he was not under any official command in this team. The bigger the trouble his travel companions were in, the more the unexpected urge grew to return the favor with regard to all the help he'd received yesterday and today, even if doing that meant using extremely unloved means for a change.
Katja had been right earlier: The people that Bastian wanted to see behind bars in the foreseeable future for what they'd done to the residents of this camp here, were damn powerful. Though he didn't intend to forget his principles of staying out of physical confrontations as well as possible: For emergencies like this one, right here, he would still need to brush up on the training he had undergone after much persuasion in this very sanctuary from time to time, hadn't that just hit him? Why not start with it right away?
He wasn’t uncomfortable with the idea of leaving an unconscious man out of sight no matter how short, especially since there was probably a good reason, the X-Men wanted to take the guy into custody as an important informant ... But for that, they all had to make it out of here and get back home first.
Bastian took another shaky breath and carefully put his cargo down on the ground.
For a camp that had once been built as a refuge for mutants who hadn't even been able to find a home among their own kind, far too many people had lost their lives in this frozen wasteland already.
Katja had no idea where these bastards had suddenly come from, but it probably answered the question, having been in the air for years, of whether the Brotherhood was still hostile towards other mutants. Just for a split second, she wondered why Logan hadn't called for her immediately; longer, it didn't take her to realize that he simply couldn’t have had time to do so before he'd apparently been hit first by Toad and then by a full broadside of heat from a source not hard to guess.
That had even the anger at how entirely naturally Noemi had just ignored Katja's temporary leadership position, quickly dissolve. Katja knew her own impulsiveness well enough to have an idea that she would have found it just as difficult to wait and see if Scott had been in such a threatening situation.
Somehow, these assholes had managed to sneak up on them entirely unnoticed in this environment of all places, which offered no cover of any kind, thereby dealing even someone with an endless healing factor heavy losses within a very short time, and that unsettled Katja the most ... Not to mention the fact, of course, that she would be facing that very mighty power alone now, together with two teenagers, until the two already weakened members of her team would be back on their feet.
Hank's very own healing factor, limited to begin with, had been weakened even further by the battle on the Scapels moon back then, so it was unlikely he would recover quickly from the terrible injury that the jet's pointed side wing had torn into his chest. The hint couldn’t have been any clearer, how much brutality their enemies, especially Toad, were once again using.
Visibly shocked, Noemi cowered over Hank's and of course especially over Logan's lifeless body, too, and was probably trying to decide whether she should bring the two of them into the jet. Instead, thanks to the lack of at least the most elementary tactical arrangement due to her early charge, she suddenly found herself on the receiving end of Toad's supernatural jumping force and the kicks of his powerful legs. She tried to telekinetically grab her foe a few times, but her concentration failed her; a few painful pushes was all she managed to deliver with her hands raised high. The light of her fire gift flickered around her body several times, flames surrounded her fists ... But unexpected hesitation slowed her down, now that instead with a hologram, Noemi was confronted with the real deal for the first time of attacking someone with a potentially deadly weapon. Scruples that Katja knew all too well from her very first – unauthorized – mission at Liberty Island. And there was also a hint of fear showing on the teenager's face, with which she stared at the blaze around her hands, as if her own powers suddenly scared her.
So she wasn’t ready yet after all ... And if Katja read this completely uncharacteristic fear correctly, they should probably all be glad about it. Ororo and she urgently needed to talk to Noemi later.
Saskia recovered from her initial shock faster. She'd already started to run in from her position at the very edge of the camp, heading for Hank and Logan just like Katja did, remarkably slowly despite her head start though. Terror in Katja's soul had huge hailstones rain down on the whole scene – her daughter was limping. She must have gotten hurt somewhere in this abandoned burial graveyard ...
Suddenly it was as if all this shit after Alkali Lake had never stopped. They were back to the times when the X-Men might have to fear for the lives of their loved ones every few days ... And right in the middle of all that was Katja's own, obviously injured daughter.
And not alone. Out of nowhere, from high up in the air, a sturdy figure behind Saskia dropped to the ground, rolling in with almost boneless movements, across the tip of a long sword that could easily have cut through Saskia's body if she'd stood just one step too far to the right. Long blonde hair and deeply tanned skin, that was all Katja could see from the distance ... And the aggressive grimace of a stranger lunging at her daughter.
The sky above the snowy ruin darkened all by itself. Katja didn't even have to concentrate on the storm one bit, channeling her feelings the way she had to do for a controlled wind current like the one currently holding her in the air. She just had to reach out her hand to express her anger in the shape of a counterattack.
From the corner of her eyes, she noticed a faint flicker in the sky where the stranger had all but magically appeared, and she realized that the Brotherhood must have used some kind of technology they couldn't even have to cloak their vehicle, whatever these bastards had flown here with, both visually and audibly. Which also meant that Katja had to keep away from that area over there before another invisible attack could occur.
Get anywhere close to that bitch, luckily, she didn't even need to, to stop her. It was only thanks to the rest of never entirely lost reluctance towards the most extreme means on her part that she reduced one of her most effective weapons to an extremely low power level before pulling it from the sky. She had rarely felt the desire to kill and had fortunately always been able to avoid doing so in the field, though that had often been more luck on the enemy's side than brains.
On this day, it was this decision of mercy that would save the life of another young girl. Just for a tiny moment, Katja had been distracted, looking in a different direction, startled to see Bastian climbing up through the hatch to the bunker, against her orders ... And the control over her lightning bolt that she'd actually already thought to be as good as shoved up the hostile's ass, promptly left her at the last, the wrongest moment.
Noemi had finally managed to knock Toad against the Blackbird head first with an ungentle hit, apparently driven by fear for her best friend, although the latter, thanks to her excellent close-combat skills, was doing quite well even in spite of being physically compromised.
Saskia hadn’t been in any real danger from that sharp blade even once so far, only having earned a few punches. With the help of maneuvers practiced for years – a combination of several martial arts and the gymnast training that Katja regularly did together with her –, she even managed to kick her enemy to the ground right this moment, her pointed heel scratching an unsightly wound into the young woman's cheek, into a face the hate-distorted features of which suddenly seemed damn familiar to Katja for some reason ...
A vague confusion she immediately forgot about, because from this position exactly, the hostile suddenly moved away from Saskia, kicking her legs up at an actually completely impossible angle against any natural curve of the spine, and got up right in front of Noemi, kicking the completely unprepared girl in the stomach in turn.
Noemi's concern must have completely blocked her mind; she hadn't even foreseen the move telepathically. Therefore, she couldn't dodge anymore when the bolt intended for the enemy hit her right in the chest.
Noemi didn't even scream. She just collapsed, unconscious from the pain, her skin severely burned in several locations.
Saskia's terrified scream echoed across the battlefield all the louder. She was already about to run to Noemi when the stranger came to stand in her way once more.
“Leaving already?” The woman with the strong Suhalei accent in her deep voice that promptly was painfully familiar to Katja as well, raised her weapon again – and then unexpectedly paused.
Not only she did – both young women stopped still, but the stranger recovered more quickly from the surprise, whatever it might be about. She was smiling, almost gently.
Saskia, on the other hand, although she'd been able to take a close look at the woman during the duel already, let her gaze wander over the other girl in disbelief, as if she would have been really seeing her for the first time, now that they had looked each other in the eye. Something had thrown her off balance – messing with her focus.
Which that little bitch over there would certainly benefit from. The closer Katja got, the more clearly she could see the malice, the sadistic joy that the situation was giving this woman, which made it impossible for Katja to still see anyone in those roundish features who had once been somewhat close to the X-Men, especially to Logan, if she wasn't mistaken. Noemi had been an annoying interruption. There seemed to be something about attacking Saskia that this person particularly enjoyed ...
Which had just earned them a free ticket to Katja's shitlist, not to mention Noemi's serious injury that the supposed stranger was indirectly responsible for. She was tired of her family being constantly targeted by the Brotherhood... or by people who, for some obscure reason, had seemingly defected to them. She had already had to endure that cruel fear for her daughter, back then when Magneto had risen one last time ... She would not let that happen again. With bared teeth, she raised her hand to the sky once more – this time she wouldn’t miss.
But luckily Saskia got herself together in time. She reached for the black leather holster she was wearing over her back and pulled out a long dagger, signaling Katja to stay back with a pleading motion.
The woman must have said something, and Saskia answered – for some reason, both of them used one of these exotic languages from one of Saskia's beloved history books that hardly anyone even remembered. Without waiting for a further reply, Saskia attacked her again. Faster than Katja would ever have expected it, she was growing, in the same fight that had almost caused her a first defeat, with sober calculation, as she'd always had to in training because of her underdeveloped mutation. Even more than Noemi had been able to a moment ago.
No matter how much Katja feared for her little girl, something like reassurance now spread in her, too. It had been the right choice to help Saskia advance physically so much from an early age on. She wouldn't be helpless like Katja herself had sometimes been.
Which of course didn't mean she would leave the girl alone in this dicey situation. She allowed the twister of upsetting memories behind her forehead that she'd had to conjure up for the short flight, to land right behind the small duel.
But that was when someone came to stand in her way who, after his first cowardly attack on Logan, had apparently stayed in this invisible flying vehicle to watch. Pyro had entered the stage.
“Hey, kitten.” He leaned back casually against the Blackbird's hull as if he'd still belonged there. The long scar that reached from his eye down to his jaw – the precise, straight, thin shape of which immediately revealed that it came from an adamantium claw –, he'd traced black. ”Look at that. Accidentally fried someone again?”
“What are you doing here?”
Arduously ignoring the provocation, Katja kept on watching the others from the corner of her eye. Her heart was racing with every movement, every hit that Saskia almost took.
“Same as you, and you people are in the way, as usual.” Pyro lazily drew a circle in the air with one hand, one fingertip on his flamethrower bracelet, creating a fireball in that spot.
“You've lost your touch, seriously. Showing up here with so few people ... Then again, I expected nothing better from that leadership. If the Professor knew how much you're running down his mansion and his team to the ground, he'd come back immediately.”
How the Brotherhood, of all people, could know – contrary to the rest of the world, even to most mutants and other superhero teams – that Charles hadn’t died during the Dark Phoenix crisis back then at all, but had disappeared into space alongside the Empress of the Shi'ar, was still a mystery after all this time. But these bastards rarely missed a chance to brag about superiority, however imagined it might be.
Katja had long gained enough control over her powers to not let the clumsy diversion plunge her into sadness instead of rage. With her thoughts lingering on Noemi's lousy condition, it was easy to charge her body with a few lightning bolts and create so much rain and wind around her that Pyro wouldn't be able to get to her with his fire attacks ... at least for a while.
“So you mean to tell me, you could have done better? Wait, what, you wanted that Principal job? If only we'd known that. We would happily have handed over all the administrative work. I'm afraid, you fleeing Mutant High with your tail between your legs at the time, to suck off some of our worst enemies, kind of gave the wrong impression. Which was your choice, I might add.”
“Cry me a river.” More and more flames began to surround Pyro's hands, too. ”Magneto always had far too much patience with all you losers. All you would have needed to do was stay out of things until there's finally some proper order on this fucking planet. Instead, you chose to alienate someone who doesn't care about you half as much as her former sugar daddy. Whatever harm the Brotherhood throws your way, you're the only ones to blame.”
“You trying to prove, Mystique punched your brains out a few times too many?” Useless, as it had been for the last 18 years.
Pyro had been one of her first failures at Mutant High, at a time when Katja simply hadn't had the training or experience yet to realize in such a distanced teenager how mentally unstable he really was. The moment Magneto had shown any interest in the boy at Alkali Lake for the first time, he'd been lost. And by now, the trenches of hostility, guilt, and revenge were far too deep to change anything about that.
“You were the one giving Magneto the location of our training base, almost getting my daughter killed in the process! You were the one running headfirst into Logan's claws and have been looking for someone to blame for not looking like George Clooney anymore ever since then! Is there anything you people don’t find excuses for? I feel sorry for you, Pyro.”
“Feel sorry for yourself.” Pyro let out an angry snarl and hurled a wall of fire at her, which she was only able to fend off by using all her strength and wind powers. ”Once we start to rule this world, you guys will finally be over.”
Gasping, Katja sank to her knees as she had to fight the pressure of scorching heat. She hadn't expected such a dangerous attack right at the beginning, admittedly. The X-Men should better get used to the idea that without Magneto to rein them in, their enemies indeed weren't half as harmless as they'd often used to be. Focusing on her storm made it impossible at first to grab a bolt accurately enough to aim it at Pyro. The flames came closer and closer, she almost thought to feel them on her palms already, almost at the same moment when she finally felt the energy of millions of volts between her fingertips...
And then it was over, just like that, before she would have been forced to release said lightning, which her foe almost certainly would not have survived. Pyro panted, choked, toppling over, swaying as if something was suddenly draining his strength.
A suspicious glance back to the bunker hatch had Katja realize, that was exactly the case. Bastian had obviously become bored of watching after all. And what so far, Katja had only known about from relatively vague notes in the file of her new patient, now impressively unfolded before her widened eyes in the shape of a body that had changed its proportions to feminine ones within seconds, inconspicuous external features transformed into bright golden hair, eerily shining silver-colored pupils and blinding snow-white skin. With something that was almost like a second identity in the same body emerging, additionally and similarly surreal powers entered the stalemate of this fight as well, which turned out to be the necessary tip of the scales.
Bastian kept both arms stretched forward, cutting the air vertically with his palms, as if he ... as if she was attempting some karate maneuver. A surge of energy had his newly formed, slender body shake. His long, thin shadow painted on the blanket of snow was stretched out tight like the reflection of a determined warrior ...
Then it was joined by a second one, which had the more stocky shape of Pyro's body. Bastian pulled the completely absurd image close for just a moment, then he … she took a deep breath and thrust her fists forward. Her skin seemed to turn even whiter ... And that was no illusion. The snow was now glistening through her silhouette. She was fading.
The effects of these powers were similarly unreal to watch, but they did what they were supposed to. Pyro's shadow seemed to have gained mass and life. It was slammed into Toad so harshly, just as the guy had recovered enough to be about to help his younger teammate in her fight against Saskia, that he lost his balance. A perfect chance for Logan, who had also finally recovered somewhat, to stop Toad for good, very roughly with the help of two claws piercing the enemy's side, causing the guy to go down with a shrill scream.
Pyro screamed angrily when he finally realized why his strength was suddenly waning. He tried to pounce Bastian, staggering from the weakness in his body. “You've got something that belongs to me, bitch!”
Katja had caught her breath quickly enough to let Logan know that she didn't need him for now, especially since he was still struggling with the first fading burns on his body, an extremely painful reflection of what had happened to his daughter, which was also why Katja definitely rather wanted to see him at her side right now.
She let a lightning strike just inches before Pyro's feet and more of this destructive energy dance around her hand as a warning.
“I wouldn’t if I were you. Bastian, can you hold that for a moment?”
Bastian's posture, too, crumbled noticeably; it was obvious how much strength this little maneuver was costing her. “Trying to.” This voice, which had surely not only become a lot brighter because of the abrupt gender swap, suddenly sounded so terribly far away, so terribly quiet ... By now, her body had become almost transparent.
That paid off at least – Pyro collapsed before he could make another attempt to threaten either Katja or Bastian with his flames. This time he could no longer get up.
“St. John!" The woman still fiercely fighting Saskia, who by now had to deal with several small wounds on her arms and legs, suddenly let out a scream. Turning away from her enemy, she ran toward Pyro.
Reacting immediately, Saskia dealt her foe a sharp, not life-threatening but deep dagger blow across her shoulder and back. Attacking from behind might be bad form, but it wasn’t like the Brotherhood respected such rules a terrible lot. “Gute Nacht.”
The woman fell, clenching down on the bleeding with a grimace of pain. She looked up at Saskia with hatred, shouting something in that certain language with an emphasis on the hard consonants again that no one present except Saskia understood.
Saskia let the enemy know in English in turn that she was already looking forward to this threat of a next meeting, and then ran towards the hatch, limping more than ever, to help carry the unexpected prisoner of the X-Men that day to the Blackbird.
“Everyone to the jet!” Logan's order was directed not least at a still very dazed Hank, who was just getting back on his feet, coughing and still happily bleeding away.
He didn't even bother to make sure that the others would follow his instructions; after years of co-leadership with Scott, he could usually rely on that. Instead, he took Noemi, who was still unconscious, in his arms, his features under his wild beard contorted into an expression of unbridled wrath.
If the X-Men hadn't had certain extraterrestrial options for treating even such damage at their disposal in their mansion, Logan would surely not have left the Brotherhood behind like this, not in view of the burns on Noemi's upper body and arms. The growl coming from his lips when he bared his teeth at the enemies, completely beside himself, betrayed only too well that under different circumstances, he would have long lost control of his instincts and would have killed those bastards one by one, without anyone being able to stop him, as it had happened more than once in encounters with Weapon X.
Right now, though, other matters were taking priority in his thinking, albeit just barely ... and regarding these, he was obviously even further along with his considerations than Katja, especially when it came to certain unconventional means for healing of which in the shape of the appearance of this new mutant among them yesterday, some whole new possibilities might have emerged. “Bastian!”
Said not-yet-team member still had the shadow of his foe mercilessly under his control, making sure that the latter would no longer be a problem, while Saskia and Katja brought one of the corpses of the camp residents on board in addition to their valuable prey, just as Hank had urgently asked them on the way here.
Out of breath from the use of his gift, Bastian waited for Logan at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Noemi with a sad shake of his head when Logan raised his brows at her questioningly. “Great. Not exactly a walk in the park. Put her down in the passenger area and make room next to her.” Amazingly enough, the girl was almost in better control of her nerves than Logan. She must have been through so much as a child in that damned laboratory in Helsinki that only very little could throw her off balance.
Katja had to admit to herself that she wouldn't have had that kind of strength. For her, just the sight of the small trail of blood on Saskia's face from the duel was unbearable already. Not to mention the shitty feeling that Noemi had become a victim of Katja's powers of all things. But she knew that she would have been treated to a fresh haircut by an adamantium claw if she'd let even the slightest sign of that show. Logan had no patience with her sometimes overly intensive feelings of guilt, especially if those would have affected her focus in battle.
Arduously restrained, Katja therefore followed the others, never taking her eyes off Bastian, and not off the storm cloud above her own head either, as a precaution, in case Toad or the new girl might get stupid ideas after all, ever until Bastian wormed past her into the jet with a grateful smile.
Logan waited only until Saskia had taken the seat next to him – and especially in this dangerous situation, the girl was visibly proud to be allowed to step in as co-pilot ...
Then he initiated an almost vertical instant start, which promptly had Katja fall, not exactly elegantly, because, unlike Bastian, she hadn't managed to fasten her seat belt in time or at least create another gust of wind to fight the laws of gravity. Forgivable given the circumstances, but it still hurt. Katja hit her head so hard on the side wall that she saw stars dancing before her eyes for far too long moments.
When she could see clearly again, she was no longer lying on the freezing metal of the jet's ground alone.
Both Bastian, now back in his male shape, and Noemi had more or less voluntarily joined her. Noemi's serious injuries had completely healed; she was just waking up. But Bastian now was visibly completely exhausted at last, lying on his side, breathing heavily. The burns that his powers had transferred from Noemi's body to his own were only slowly disappearing.
Saskia knelt down next to Katja with a mischievous grin. That probably meant they had no unwanted pursuers on their heels, and Logan could hopefully handle an uneventful flight home on his own for the time being.
“Hey there, you okay? Or do you need an ice pack?”
“For someone with a black eye, you got quite the mouth on you. You did great by the way, Hobbit.” Katja firmly wrapped her arms around her daughter, fighting back a few tears of relief. Things had gone well despite the unexpected complications.
That her daughter could hold her own even injured if necessary took a lot of the weight off Katja's shoulder when it came to Saskia's future with the X-Teens. It even made her overlook bruises and a split lip. From her own first fight, she'd come home with far worse damage back then.
“Oh wow ... Where the fuck did these guys come from?”
Still slightly disoriented, Noemi sat up, rubbing her forehead in confusion ... Then her gaze fell on Bastian. “Oh shit ... Hank, come here, quickly!”
“On my way.” Hank had just gone to get his doctor's bag from the storage cupboard. The fur over the terrible wound on his chest hadn't grown back yet, his uniform hanging from his body in tatters, but he seemed to be doing better; at least there were no longer red rivulets the size of the Nile trickling down his massive body.
He checked on the two young people with routine, making sure that all life signs such as blood pressure, breathing rate, and pulse were within the normal range and, above all, that Noemi wouldn’t suffer a belated dangerous shock, which, fortunately, did not appear to be the case, judging by the normal temperature of her skin, even though she remained conspicuously silent.
“You're good. So is Bastian, I think. Such a strong burden, even his system has to process first. Cat? Ice pack? Barf bag?”
After Katja raised an eyebrow his way in slow motion, he actually thrust a cold pack into her hand uninvited, then gently shook the shoulder of the young man on the ground in front of him again.
“Can you stop that? That's enough unsolicited touching of patients for a day, McCoy,” a voice that now sounded a few nuances deeper again growled unintelligibly, Bastian's snotty charm already returning before he was even properly oriented again.
“I'm alive, alright? I just haven't used my powers that intensely in a while. Sorry for meddling, Cat, after you said ...” A cute blush spread on his cheeks. ”That was suddenly just ... instinct, somehow. You know I'm not usually at home in the field but I couldn't just stand by and watch that psycho attack you.”
“No need to eat crow about that,” Logan surprisingly piped up from the cockpit. ”We need people in our house who have the balls to react properly at the right moments. Stop by my training classes as soon as the furball lets you.”
“About joining your team, I'll have to disappoint you, as I said, but ... That was a compliment, right?“ Bastian asked, grinning weakly, visibly not quite ready to just forget his dislike of this particular mutant, but also a little flattered.
“The biggest one you can get from the old grump,” Saskia grinned back. “That whole gender morphing thing, by the way? Pretty cool party trick.”
“Comes in handy when you wake up and don't feel like wearing a bra that day, yeah. It's also great for avoiding the monthly hormone overdose. Such a shame that about that, I can't help you with my healing factor,” Bastian added dryly, the disagreements between him and the two X-Men daughters yesterday not completely forgotten yet.
Saskia gave him a well-deserved poke in the ribs for the slightly sexist remark. “No, but seriously ... Two mutations for the price of one, that's fucking awesome! You really don't want to join us in battle one day?”
“I'm just too much of a pacifist for that, no offense.” Only the way, Bastian was defensively crossing his arms seemed a lot less determined than yesterday already. It was just obvious, he didn't want to think about such serious matters yet, especially not after the shock earlier. ”But in this camp here, I've learned that in emergencies, you need everyone on the front line if you don't want to lose the things important to you. Let me actually make myself at home to Mutant High first, then we'll see, alright? For the moment, there's enough we have to process.”
His lips tight, he stared down on another silhouette, secured to the floor with several straps and covered with clothes soaked in blood more and more.
Frowning, Hank looked the same way, startling heavily at the sight of this body of which he seemed to understand only now that unlike the other one in the cargo hold, it wasn’t a dead one. Quickly, he knelt down next to the unconscious man. “This ... this isn't who my nose tells me it is, is it? It can't be …”
“No, that's Sleeping Beauty, isn’t that obvious?” Bastian replied dryly.
Logan looked back at them again, not half as taken aback, although his even much finer senses must have long picked up on which special guest they had in their midst, despite the numbing stench of the cryo fluid surrounding the patient. This time he definitely looked amused.
“Hey, Bastian, I send you to collect some data, and you come back with a passed-out terrorist over your shoulder, all tied up and ready to go. You don't seriously think you're ever going to get out of this whole X-Men thing again, do you? And speaking of old acquaintances ...”
Only now did his expression darken again noticeably, and when his eyes found Katja's, the stinging in her heart regarding the sight of a certain blonde with deep contempt in his eyes earlier was even crueler. So she was right. And for Logan, the realization that he had actually come too late to save someone he had been looking for for years, in the hope of making up with them, to save them from the abysses in their own soul, must be even worse. “The chick with the sword, Ice Princess? Any idea why the daughter of the Phantom doesn't like your mug?”
“Well, Mystique seems to have done a good job with her, doesn't she?” Saskia's reply was unusually dismissive.
For now, she made no move to get back behind the stick, visibly uncomfortable under Logan's critical glance. She buckled up in a passenger seat, as if in the face of the memory of that dangerous duel earlier, she wanted nothing more to do with the fight today.
“You okay?” Katja sat down next to her, ignoring the annoying persistent dizziness in her head, and took her by the forearm.
“All of this has been ... kind of creepy.” Saskia absently began to play with her waist-length braid. ”The woman suddenly looked completely different, just for a few seconds. She had ... a different face, and clothes on like they'd worn it in ancient Egypt. Just something in my head, I know, but...” She hesitated. “Not many people speak that particular ancient Egyptian dialect, and the way that woman handles a sword ... Maybe she also sees things in dreams from the distant past, like me. And from the moment I realized that, she's had it out for me,” she added a little quieter, but not half as shaken as one might have expected.
Katja had gently taught her daughter early on that she herself had been a main target of Magneto for a long time, and that Saskia, as her direct descendant, had also been, even when Saskia had been too young to remember it in detail. For why she now seemed to have attracted one of their enemies' attention once more though, Katja would have preferred a slightly less esoteric reason.
“You onto that bullshit again?” Logan promptly growled too. "You've been spending too much time with Emma, Ice Princess. World out there is shitty enough without us having to deal with any paranormal crap on top.”
“Logan!" Katja all but pierced him with her gaze. Saskia was already upset enough; the missing sense of tact from her favorite uncle was the last thing she needed right now.
“Might be nothing too mysterious about that," she therefore tried to calm down the girl. "Jedda is an old acquaintance of ours who has not been particularly friendly towards us ever since her father's death. While she mutated early on, we never learned exactly what her powers were. But what we know is that that she possesses the Phantom's skull ring which does have the power to connect to the dead. This was probably just some form of telepathy with which she briefly manipulated your mind, Hobbit. Nothing that can't be explained.”
“Damn right it's not, but my explanation doesn't suit you,” her daughter snapped, aggressive as so often when this topic, which had haunted her since her childhood, came up. ”I had a vision earlier, which part of that don't you understand? That woman pulled me with her right into the past. We were standing in the middle of a temple! That was the real deal! Emma is right! When will you finally realize that something isn't any less there just because it hasn't been researched yet?“ It suddenly became unnaturally cold in the Blackbird – Saskia's mutation made itself known, the way she'd wished for it to happen in vain earlier.
“Stop freezing the pipes, Princess.” Logan wasn’t silenced so easily.
“Let's just assume you're right for a hot moment. What's next? You want to invite her over for a drink and chat about the old days? In case you haven't noticed, she works for Mystique. And she sleeps with Pyro. They both reek of each other.”
“Remember what I told you about TMI, Claws?” Katja growled in irritation.
“You live with my senses for more than a hundred years, Kitten, then you can talk.”
Hank ignored the banter; he held a Shi'ar sensor over the lifeless body in their midst because he'd apparently not made any progress with conventional examination methods. And the results displayed on the flat, oval device visibly annoyed him. “What the ...?”
Saskia, too, had mostly stopped listening. For a few seconds, her gaze went inward, as she performed a mental training that Emma and Katja had taught her together to make the unpleasant coldness in the Blackbird disappear again. After a few seconds, it worked.
“Whatever. You'll never believe me anyway.”
“I do. We'll talk about it at home, I promise.”
Noemi threw her arms around her friend. “And no matter what powers that bitch has exactly, you were great! You made me look like a prize idiot.”
“That, we can all agree on.” Logan didn't even turn around for his scathing comment, not taking his cigar from the corner of his mouth either. He made no move to hug Noemi, to tell her that he was glad she was okay, not until she had understood something crucial. You probably had to know him quite well to know that the few wrinkles around his eyes were those of pain and worry.
“That were two really stupid mistakes at once earlier, Red. Shi'ar medicine can't fix everything. Without Bastian ...”
“I know.” At least for a moment, Noemi sounded genuinely remorseful. ‘Won't happen again, Sir, I promise." With that, she considered the matter closed already.
She bent down to the pilot chair for a conciliatory kiss on Logan's cheek, beaming again already when her father tousled her curls, growling in disapproval.
Katja didn't know whether to laugh or cry either. On the one hand, it was good of course that Noemi took this so lightly, so that she didn't start brooding and doubting. But did she even know just how close she'd been to injuries disfiguring and handicapping her for a lifetime?
Unfortunately, there were more important things to discuss right now.
It didn't surprise Katja much that Hank spoke up next. “Bastian, what happened to the guy?”
“Got shot.” Bastian tried in vain not to show how uncomfortable he suddenly felt.
“Oh really?” Hank snorted impatiently. ”This is a cryogenic stasis. You think I don't know that? I got news for you: I've studied medicine and genetics. Cryogenics was banned for a reason; they're far too unstable. Who are you still trying to protect? Jericho is dead. How long has he been unfrozen?”
“Just a few minutes.” Bastian seemed to realize that Hank was right and showed a slow shrug. Bitterness returned to his expression, the same that had immediately seized Katja again when Jericho's name came up. ”There's still plenty of time before he wakes up.”
“Unless his system spontaneously goes back to full life or the cryo fluid that has entered the wound dissolves the bullet and the fragments kill him, yes.” Shaking his head, Hank started to at least disinfect and bandage the terrible injury, while his eyes kept flicking back and forth between Bastian and Katja. His fine instincts had probably noticed that something was very, very wrong here.
“So what have you learned about the attack at the camp?”
Bastian threw the cross at him that they had found on Jericho. “'I can feel the darkness surrounding me. My ...”
“... God, stand by me, lest I break under your cross.” Hank stared at the piece of jewelry in disbelief. “Where did you get this?”
“From Jericho's clothes. And that sweet little poem was carved onto his desk. Spiritual crisis, they call that, I guess. He was the traitor; that much is certain.”
Almost absently, Bastian reached for Katja's hand without asking, motioning her to sit down beside him so that he could reach her head with his fingertips to take care of the hint of a concussion there, this time probably to suppress, with the replicated pain, the anger at his former camp leader and savior that was blazing in his mind.
“What do you know about all that, if I may ask?”
“I'm not quite sure ... I have to check the databases at home. We'll have a debriefing as soon as I've found out more. Now will you stop that?”
Hank wanted to reach for Bastian's arm and shove him away from his latest patient, but Bastian immediately pulled away.
Unfazed, Bastian put his fingertips back to Katja's temple. With a quiet groan, he sank back to the ground not long afterward and closed his eyes, under which huge circles had appeared. For today, he had more than exhausted his reserves of strength.
Katja let him be; she'd already understood that it was hard work to fight Bastian's determination when it came to his helper syndrome regarding medical matters. “You know this needs to stop at some point though, right?” she just remarked quietly. “Numbing yourself only helps until the body demands more of that.”
“That's okay. I told you, I'm into pain,” he replied ironically. ”Hand?”
He allowed her to pull him back up and leaned against the wall of the jet, trying to catch his breath. “Or maybe I'm just into pretty women in distress. Pick one.”
“If you don't want to find out how long it takes to recover from a frontal optic blast next, you'd better switch to booze like the rest of us,” Katja replied dryly enough.
“Not helping, Cat,” Hank mumbled dully.
“Anyone here has any idea why Jericho, along with all these other skeletons, had the former leader of the Brotherhood hidden in his cellar?”
“We'll probably find out after we've patched the guy up and he can talk again,” Bastian commented, only too happy to let Hank hand him one of the generously stuffed sandwiches from the on-board catering, which were always stored here in case other mutants with a healing factor needed to refuel their energy reserves. “That is, of course, only if you don't want to keep him in a coma for years so that I don't ask too much of my powers. It would never occur to me to disobey the orders of my superiors.”
Visibly in delight, Logan lit a cigar and crossed his legs on the navigation console, obviously amused by the inevitable discussions already that such a rebellious potential team member would have to have with Scott at every opportunity, which meant that for a change, Logan would not have to be the one to do so. “We're going to have a lot of fun together, kiddo.”