It was a few days after Mystique had left that the brotherhood realized that she was gone. She routinely disappeared for a day or so, but three days in a row with no call or anything? Until recently the idea of letting Pietro, Fred and Todd alone without any kind of supervision would have made her shiver in terror. Even Lance wasn't exactly the most subtle of individuals, even if he was more controlled about using his powers in public than the others.
Lance however was ecstatic about her being gone. This way he was in charge of the Brotherhood and he immediately began to force the others into training with him. However they had only been training in the first place because they were frightened of Mystique, without her around Lance had to use his own power to force them into line. It worked to a degree for a few days, but by Friday with no Mystique around there was a certain amount of rebellion in the air.
This was compounded by the fact Mystique had been the one to pay for all the food, water and electricity, and after three days the food they had on hand in their dormitory was gone and since it was coming up to the end of the month the bills were looming large.
Pietro finally got fed up, and called their boss.
OOOOOOOOOO
"This had best be important Pietro," said a cold, commanding voice from the other end of the line and Pietro gulped a little.
"Si-sir," he stuttered, "it-it might be. I, um did you send Mystique anywhere? We, we haven't seen her since Tuesday morning, and um, the school says the principal took a sudden leave of absence for a family emergency and might not be returning this year."
The leader frowned from his position inside his fortress. He had been a little busy lately preparing for the festivities that he planned in a few days, and hadn't bothered to look in on Mystique or the Brotherhood she led in that time. He had however checked in on Monday, and had not detected anything wrong. With a frown on his face he activated the tracking system to see if he could find the little tracking device that he had long since placed on Mystique and all of his other operatives. The one on Mystique was missing from her supposed location, and was moving around erratically over in Maine for some reason.
"Wait," he commanded and then left the com. screen.
Using his powers he was able to open a wormhole that he used to carry him to the location of the tracker. Once there he stared at the number of birds in the air around him. However that did not dissuade him and with a thought he forced the one that had the tracker towards him. The metal of the tracker allowed him to pull it towards him easily, but he frowned. The bird wasn't giving him any sign that it was Mystique it all, and after a moment he let it go with disgust, wiping his hand on the grass. It wasn't Mystique at all even she wouldn't go that far to keep in character. She had somehow found out about the tracker he had placed on her and had disappeared from his sight entirely.
Has she truly betrayed me, he thought as he ported back to his fortress. Another look at the tracking screen and he suddenly realized that one other tracker was missing as well, the one on Mystique's friend, the weak pre-cog Irene.
He scowled angrily and teleported himself to the last position where Irene had been hiding and he appeared in the air a mile above the place. Realizing that to enter the house might be folly he waited outside activating the security cameras inside and linking them to a small monitor set into the gauntlet of one hand. None of them showed any life and he frowned angrily. It would appear as if the two have flown the coop for some reason.
He shook his head in bemused wonder and anger. Despite his threat and his concerns about Mystique talking to two of the X-Men he had never truly expected that she would turn her back on the cause of mutant supremacy.
This showed he had underestimated the power of friendship, corny though that would have sounded if Mystique had put it into words. Because if there was one thing Ravene Alegamoria Callisa Darkeholme cared for more than The Cause, it was Irene and keeping her safe.
With another brief moment of concentration he teleported himself back to his fortress and scowled angrily through the communicator at Pietro. "She has gone on a mission," he lied, not wanting to share the fact that Mystique had done a runner with anyone, not until he knew why the two women had disappeared. "She left quicker than I had expected that is all. You will be sent someone else to lead you in the interim as well as a new member. The festivities are going to start shortly Pietro," he ended grimly. "I expect you to be prepared."
Pietro nodded rapidly and without another word the Brotherhood's mysterious backer cut off the communication leaning back in his chair and wondering what the hell Raven was playing at before looking through the list of his other tools and wondering who to send to Bayville to take her place.
OOOOOOOOOO
The week had passed largely uneventfully for the X-men and the others at the Institute. Jean had not made good her threat of becoming a prankster, simply repaying all such by Kurt and Harry in kind and pranking Harry in small ways whenever he called her Red, a nickname he continued to use despite this.
Offsetting this, the two of them could often be found in the solarium, with Harry helping Jean to start to learn college level engineering and mechanics.
This peaceful time was interrupted at the same time Pietro was being a little snitch by maniacal laughter resounding around Harry's workroom. "MWHA-Ha, MWHAAHAHA, MWAHAHAHHAHA!"
Harry looked up from his own work, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. "I'm so moved, my little Kitten's first mad laughter, it makes me feel like a proud papa."
Kitty stopped laughing and looked over at him pouting a little. "Oh hush Teach. Yeesh, ruining my fun."
"Heh, just returning the favor Kitten. So what prompted your little outburst?"
Kitty triumphantly gestured to the sand table in front of her. "I did it! I made my first full array, the kind we could use on our uniforms!"
Harry stood up and made his way over, walking around the sand table and looking at the array written in the sand there. Kitty had moved into working on full arrays, figuring out what worked and what didn't what she could and could not use about three days after Harry returned from his trip, and he looked at the work she had finished shrewdly. This looks good, she's made a simple notice me not war, low powered so you could see them, but not be able to describe them in any detail later. A really good job for a first time array, the bio-energy portion of the array doesn't take too much power, and the notice-me-not portion could run for… I'd say about six hours before the person began to feel the strain. Good stuff.
He looked up at Kitty, noticing her bright, proud smile and returned it in full. "Well done Kitten, this is very good work. So good in fact that I'm going to turn over all the work on the X-men uniforms to you."
Kitty gaped in astonishment and made to protect but Harry held up a hand. "That doesn't mean I won't help, I'm still here for you to run ideas by, but I have a lot of other projects that I want to work on, taking that project off my hands would help a lot. I want to finish Rogue's ward in another week or so, and I've got another job I'm doing for someone else I want to finish up this weekend."
Kitty frowned a little but nodded. "Alright Teach, where do I start?"
"Well, you have a good start here, I'll give you what I've worked on so far, and then it'll be up to you to figure out how to work all the different protections you want to have together. I'd talk with the others, they might each want something different after all, though your notice-me-not ward should be standard for everyone, it's possibly the most important part of the whole thing if you all want to keep your identities secret, which I think is a good idea, at least until you all graduate high school." He reached out and rubbed her head, something which made her blush and pout in turn.
The two of them put their heads together for about an hour, after which Harry went back to his own projects with a smile on his face. Good, that's one less job holding me here. If I can fix the wards for Rogue and Emma, and figure out how to create Harrytanium, then I'll be able to move on with a clear conscience. My other projects are for me alone, and I can keep working on them after I move out.
It wasn't that Harry didn't like the X-men, he had come to like most of them a lot, but he wanted to be moving on with his own plans, and he couldn't do that and remain here. Charles may believe in the goodness of man and be willing to let the world go on as it is, but I'm not. I want to form my own side to this mutant question, and then shove it down the world's throat, so hard they choke on the hypocrisy of their bigotry. But to do that I need to be a power in the world in every sense of the world, and for that I need to leave, soon.
With that thought he bent over his own worktable with a renewed purpose, while behind him, Kitty continued to look over his notes and scribble some of her own about her new job.
OOOOOOOOO
Saturday morning was a thing that none of the Brotherhood ever really saw. Well At least they didn't see it in the way that people waking up would, Pietro and Todd would stay up watching late-night movies (the XXX type if they were alone, marathons if together) and sometimes would see the sun rising but that was more of an accident than anything else really.
So it was a very grumpy Lance that answered the door after five minutes of constant ringing at around seven in the morning. He opened the door and was about to shout at whoever the fuck was on the other side when he stopped suddenly, arrested by the glare coming from one of the people standing there.
The glare came from a blonde woman, taller than he was as tall as Storm he would estimate, in a business suit and with an imperious stance. The glare she was giving him was worse than even Mystique's had been and was more than enough to stop his voice for a moment.
Next to her was a teen about Lance's age or maybe a little older, with blonde orange hair and a look in his eye that told Lance he wasn't all dare. It was almost like the looks he sometimes saw in his old school from druggies who were between hits, not quite at the stage where they needed another hit, but getting there. It was not a look to instill confidence.
Before Lance could get his bearings back from the glare the woman was giving him she spoke and it did not surprise him that her voice was as commanding as the rest of her. I am Centra, Mystique's replacement." The way she said the word it was obvious she felt it was an upgrade. She lifted one hand and pushed him aside, and the strength he felt in that single push was enough to give him pause again. The two came inside and she turned to Lance again after closing the door. Where is the rest of your local Brotherhood?"
"Asleep," he said tartly getting a little of his equilibrium back. "It's Saturday, we sleep in. It's the only day Mystique lets us."
Candra scowled, obviously this was not the correct answer. "Get them up now," she ordered. Then she reached down to her waist and touched something there. Suddenly the image of her business suit flickered and went out showing what she had been wearing underneath was very different. She wore red and maroon armor, tight around her legs and forearms with the shoulders slightly spiked to the sides and down toward her arms.
Lance backed away slightly and decided that following her orders was the best thing he could do right now. Without another word he turned and went up to wake up the others, having to use his powers a little to shake Fred and Pietro out of their beds. Pietro didn't want to wake up when he heard it was Lance waking him up, their arguments over who was in charge had begun to be truly acrimonious, but wasn't quite there yet. Fred was just not a morning person and his bulk allowed him to sleep through practically anything Lance could do save use his powers. It was a very surly group of teenage boys that gathered in the living area on the first floor, but when Pietro looked at the woman he smirked a little, realizing this was the woman that was supposed to replace Mystique.
Unknown to him Lance had seen that smirk and he began to wonder exactly how much control he really had here if Pietro had a line straight to their leader, whoever the hell that was.
The blonde woman wasted no time in grabbing their attention. "I am Candra," she said imperiously, "I am here to lead you against the X-Men today."
That brightened up everyone's appearance. They were always willing to throw down the X-Men but Lance had to bring up a point. "Um, I don't know if you know this but we got this sort of truce going on because of one of the X-Men's teacher's is kind of…"
Candra cut him off angrily. "There is no truce here. This is evolution at its finest," she said her eyes gleaming with fanaticism. "Today you will be chosen based on your performance who will go on to become the elite of mutant kind, the leaders of the revolution to come."
Lance gulped a little thinking, Shit this is sounding more and more like some kind of cult all the time. Chosen, and based on our performance rather than loyalty? I realize there might be a revolution coming but this is… the madness I see in her eyes, what the hell did I sign up for?
The woman didn't notice his wary look, and the others seemed to be lapping her words up like candy. They had always been into the whole mutant superiority thing more than him, oh he felt they were different and had to protect themselves, and was fine with being proactive doing it, but that was the extent of his belief these days. Lance's idea of mutant superiority had taken a major blow when he read the books that Harry had given him on group tactics and the Marines small unit tactics guide. He knew that a well-trained unit of Marines who knew what to expect could easily defeat most of the Brotherhood, after all none of them but Fred were bullet proof, though Pietro would be very hard to hit if he was expecting it. And maybe they could even take out Fred, since his invulnerability hadn't exactly been proven yet against bazookas or claymore mines had it?
In point of fact the Blob would be immune to such things, but that wouldn't stop them from hurting. In reality a mutant's powers could give them an edge over most military organizations in the world, provided that they knew how to use it. The Blob could in fact destroy a large regiment if he really wanted to, a certain green haired monstrosity with somewhat similar abilities did it all the time, but most mutants were not bullet proof so his ideas on that score were correct.
"Whoever survives whichever the side they were originally on will be taken and modified further, strengthened more, their mutant power brought to its fullest potential in order to better serve mutant kind as a whole." Candra continued and the Brotherhood of minus Lance ate her words up like candy.
Lance groaned internally looking around and realizing that he wasn't going to get out of this. Well, he thought to himself, if I'm going to have to do this I'm going to do this properly. "If I can make a suggestion," he said and Candra looked at him coldly but he went on. "The X-Men specialize in teamwork far more than we do, it would be better for us, a better way to prove that our powers are superior to theirs, if we could take them out in small groups." Sorry Kitty, he thought sadly then went on. "Two of them I know are going down to the beach today, one of them just got her license and they'll be driving a jeep."
Kitty had told him that the day before. Rogue had just gotten her license and Logan had agreed to let her borrow his Jeep to take the two of them down to the beach to celebrate since the southern gal apparently really wanted to get a tan. Lance had idly wondered at the time what would happen if someone hit on her or accidentally touched her, but Rogue wasn't worried about such things, showing for once the egotistical nature of teenagers everywhere.
Pietro spoke up thoughtfully in a surprising show of support. "I remember that, Kurt and Evan were supposed to go with them but they lost a bet or something Thursday and had to go shopping for food for the mansion instead."
Lance smirked a little. That left Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and of course Harry Potter all at the mansion. In other words the heavy hitters would still be there. "If I can make another suggestion, I think we should split up too. Fred and Todd should handle Kitty and Rogue easily, Rogue's not strong enough to do much against Blob if he wears enough clothing, and if you catch them off guard Kitty won't be much of a threat either." Again he winced and sent a mental apology his sort-of-kind-of girlfriend's way.
"Pietro and I should take out the two shopping teens and then meet up with the two of you at the mansion. I wouldn't recommend attacking it alone though you'd be outnumbered, just wait outside for anyone who comes out."
Candra nodded thoughtfully. She could see the boy had some other motivation for suggesting all this, but it still sounded good considering what she knew about the X-men's powers. Of course her information on those powers hadn't been updated since Rogue had absorbed Juggernaut' power, and only Lance had realized she was actually stronger than the Blob now. Fred and the others thought he was stronger because of how easily Blob had handled her in their short battle when Mystique tried to reconcile with Kurt.
And while she had been told about Harry and his ability, being told about it was one thing, understanding how diverse they were was another. Besides this dovetailed perfectly with her own desire. I will soon have back from you what you stole from me thief, she thought coldly, remembering a time more than a dozen years ago in Cairo when she had returned to her presence domicile to find her most treasured possession taken.
It had taken weeks to hunt down the gang that had done the deed, and even more time to figure out who the thief was. The young black girl had since left the city out journeyed out onto the savanna disappearing entirely into the wilds of Africa, a place Candra could not follow her into. She was no tracker, she intimidated people and got her way that way, if there were no people around she could not find any clues to the thief's location. "Very well, we will do it that way."
Blob raised a hand. "But we do have time for breakfast right? Only the last of the frozen food ran out Thursday, we've been sort of making do with what we could get at school…"
Candra glared at him coldly and even the blob, a being who was pretty much invulnerable to most things, whimpered a little at her look. She relented however and said "fine we have time for a late breakfast before we attack."
Pietro zoomed out of the room and came back swiftly with a takeout menu. "What kind of pizza do you all want?"
While the new teen didn't seem to be unhappy with this, Candra looked revolted.
Todd sidled up to the new guy. "You know, you never said your name, what's your name and what's your power?" He was hoping that the kid wasn't much so he could lord it over someone, right now Todd knew that he was the weakest member of the team.
The new kid looked down at him grinning a little evilly. "The names St. John, my codename's Pyro." He took out a small lighter and flicked it. Suddenly the small flame shot up forming a snake whose mouth snapped at Toad. Todd backed away quickly, looking a little sick. "That's my power mate, I control flame, now let's get some fuel in us huh, then we can go on a rampage!"
OOOOOOOOOO
At about midday at the mansion Scott was called down into Cerebro's control room. He found Logan and Storm and the professor there. Xavier had the helmet unit on his head. "You called for me Sir?"
"Yes Scott," Charles said, looking up at him. "We seem to have found a new mutant, his powers just activated off the coast of Florida."
The Cerebro satellite zoomed in focusing on the mutant it hand, and Scott gasped. "That's Alex, my younger brother, I'd know him anywhere. I thought he died in the plane accident with our parents!"
"Indeed, that is why I called you down here. If we hurry we can be there before he leaves." And before someone else try's to recruit him to their cause, he thought to himself.
Scott grinned and nodded, still cursing himself internally for not realizing his brother was still alive and searching for him. Yet perhaps it wasn't too late. Scott and Logan left the room quickly, followed by Xavier in his wheelchair.
OOOOOOOO
Rogue and Kitty grinned bopping their heads to the music on the jeep's stereo as it the former drove them down to the beach. "It's ah pity that none of the guys could come," said Rogue, looking over at Kitty.
Kitty grinned a little. "Well that will teach Kurt and Evan not to bet against Harry won't it?" The bet in question had actually had something to do with Hedwig. The boys had downplayed the owl's intelligence, and had been so idiotic as to do it in her hearing. Harry had set up two challenges and to their surprise Hedwig and hunted the boys down through the forest, then beat them both at checkers. Their faces had been a sight to see after that.
A few songs later Rogue looked over again. "So how far along are you with that runic array for our uniforms?"
"Well, I'm making progress at least," Kitty said wryly. She stared out over the expanse as they turned off the main highway and onto a empty road at the moment. "I'm having trouble figuring out a way to make all of the bits work together, but I finally got the bio-energy portion ready last night, as well as a notice-me not field, but whenever I add anything else to the array the array either doesn't work or sucks too much energy. And when I say too much energy I think if someone activated it they would collapse in about five minutes of strenuous activity. I need to either think about another fuel source, and what could we carry that wouldn't weigh us down too much, or figure out what I'm doing wrong, or not having much of anything else added to the array."
Rogue nodded, dreams of flying and smacking Jean upside the head a few times dancing in her brain. As much as she liked most of the people on the team she and Jean haven't got along before Jean was released from the mental blocks, and they didn't get along now. They were cordial and respectful to one another, but not friends. Then again, Jean seemed to be a little distant to most of the team members, spending more and more time with Storm and Harry or Cyclops, and even the last didn't spend much time with her out of team exercises.
Rogue frowned a little. She had thought that Jean's can-do, straight A student manner would've disappeared when the blocks were removed, but in fact it had been heightened. She studied and researched and learned on her own as if she was a woman possessed these days, and Rogue wasn't the only one who was wondering why. In some classes she was just going through the motions and barely keeping her grades up like Language Arts and world history, but in physics and mathematics she was pushing ahead of even the AP courses. Indeed she had grabbed several college level books on engineering and she had been having long discussions every night with Harry about computer science and engineering, things that he had studied in his all dimension and taken up again with the help of Reed Richards, one of the world's leading scientists and inventors.
Her thoughts were interrupted as a massive rock came out of nowhere to slam into the road right in front of the car.
"What the hell!" Rogue exclaimed, twisting the steering wheel wildly to avoid it. The jeep went off-road for a moment skittering through a grassy field along the side of the road. Another rock impacted right beside it, and she swerved again and kept going straight. "Fuck!"
Another rock flew through the air, and this time she couldn't dodge fast enough, the rock slamming directly into the ground in front of her. She tried her best, but the rocks still clipped the side of the jeep's front, and both girls were thrown around in their seats. Kitty immediately went into ghost mode, moving straight through the jeep's front as well as her own seatbelt. Road however slammed her head into the side of the windshield with enough force to crack it. She wasn't hurt or even dazed, as shown by how quickly she got out of the ruined jeep cursing luridly. "Logan is going to kill me!" she said, looking at the wrecked jeep. She scowled angrily. "Whoever did this to my ride is going to pay!"
Who it was came into view a moment later as Fred and Todd of the Brotherhood scrambled out of hiding places along a rock edifice that the larger of the two evidently had been using as ammunition for his attacks. The two girls immediately turned to face them, moving away from the jeep. "Well, well" said Todd, leering a little at the two girls, "if it isn't the X-girls."
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Rogue shouted angrily, pointing back at her jeep. "Do you have any idea what Logan is going tah do tah me if I return with his Jeep like that?"
"You got other things to deal with now?" said Fred clenching and unclenching his huge fists.
Todd grinned flicking his tongue in and out. "That's right darling. It's the time of choosing, and I'm going to prove I'm a champ, not a chump." With that he raced forward, jumping into the air like his namesake and lashing out with his tongue.
Kitty had never gone back to normal and the tongue zoomed right through her. She shook her head sadly. "I can deal with a toad boy," she said to Rogue, "do you think you can deal with Fred."
Rogue pulled on a set of gloves and cracked her knuckles, she wanted to do this without relying on her draining powers, she wanted to make this count! "Just try and stop me!" She charged forward and the Blob waited calmly, trusting in his immobility.
While Rogue didn't have the invulnerability field that the juggernaut had when in motion she had most of his strength and a bit of his durability, though not as much as she would have if she was wearing her new armor. But she also had a mind that had been trained by Harry and Logan and who had been ordered to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Brotherhood. The blob is essentially an immobile object she thought to herself, he's got a lot strength, but not as much as others, and he may be immobile but not invulnerable, get him off his feet into the air or down the ground where he can't fight back and pummel him in the brain box, knock him out.
Fred swung wildly at her and she grunted as she raised a hand to block. The punch stung and lifted her off her feet for a moment but she grabbed the fist while in motion and twisted around. With her own strength she was able to lift him off his feet a little, dragging him in and hammered him with an elbow into the gut. That lifted him up further and the look on his face as he lifted a little off the ground from her punch was comical in the extreme.
Rogue swiveled around, slamming knife chops and punches upside his head again and again staying within his range so he couldn't hit her. She ducked and moved, using her mobility against him, glad he was wearing a near full body uniform even if it was skintight. UGGH!
In desperation Fred jumped up and tried to do a belly flop, but Rogue moved to the side placing her hands along his side as he fell, pushing down and adding even more impetus to his fall. Before he could get to his feet she was on his back and locking in a choke hold.
Fred was able to grab her and lift her off his back before she had it fully locked in and threw her away, now getting a little panicky. "This wasn't supposed to be so hard!" He looked over to where Toad and Shadowcat were fighting only to see Toad go down like a puppet without a string as Kitty slapped something against his back.
Rogue came back quickly and again began to hammer his face. Despite his invulnerability those blows were beginning to hurt, and his nose broke under one causing him to cry out.
One ham sized fist caught the center of her chest flinging her away but she rolled with it, wincing only a little. Even without the armor of the Juggernaut her durability was up to this, and she grinned, elated at how well she was doing in this one-on-one action.
She grabbed a tree ripping it out by its roots and charged forward using it as a battering ram. Fred matched this, slamming the tree into flinders with both fists but Rogue jumped forward over his fists and slamming both of her hands into the side of his head again.
Here she made a mistake. As she was in the air Blob was able to grab her in and pull her into a bear hug. He began to squeeze and Rogue winced a little as she felt her breath leaving her body. This didn't stop her from thinking however and she quickly started to rain blows down on his head from both sides into his temple, trying to rattle his brain box. It was a contest as to who would give out first, her durability and then her air, or his brain and durability from the constant pummeling.
About ten minutes later the outcome was decided as Blob began to feel woozy and collapsed to his knees. His grip slacked just a little, and Rogue grimly went on pounding away at his head. Soon enough the Blob released her entirely and she spun away bringing her leg around in a full powered round house kick which sent the blob slumping to the ground unconscious.
She looked over elated at her victory to see that Kitty had finished with her opponent rather easily. The ugly toad was down, paralyzed somehow though it didn't look as if the other girl had used her power on him, just using it to make herself immune to his attacks. "I take it yah used your runes, sugar" said Rogue, striding over to the younger girl.
Kitty pushed back her hair from her for head tapping her forehead in amusement. "These guys are really idiots. Why the heck did they fight us, and what the heck was this 'choosing' thing they were talking about? Out of all of the Brotherhood Blob and Toad match up least with me, neither of them can do anything that could hurt me. And if they took into account your strength the Blob isn't a match for you now, even if you don't use your mutant power."
"Ah don't know," said Rogue thoughtfully, looking around. "But ah…. what's that?" she said, interrupting herself and staring up at the sky.
Kitty turned that way and was astonished to see two balls of metal streaking down towards them. They landed gently, not touching the ground, hovering above it right in front of the two girls. "Why do I think this is something to do with what toad boy said?" said Kitty.
Rogue nodded. "You think these things are supposed tah take us tah who's doing the choosin'?"
Before Kitty could answer the two orbs opened up, and the girls looked at one another. "Run," said Kitty instantly, and then turned and sprinted off. Rogue did too, but it availed neither of the girls much. Before either had gone 15 paces the globes followed swiftly, and metal tentacles reached out grabbing Rogue and pulling her in.
It couldn't grab Kitty, but several tentacles shot gas into her face, and even as a ghost Kitty still had to breathe. She tried to phase into the ground, but couldn't make it before she was overcome by the gas. A moment later without her mind active to control it her power deactivated, and the orb closed around her. The moment it closed the two orbs shot up into the air and away.
Toad had regained consciousness by this point, and stared after them and he cried out angrily, "No, no, it should have been me!"
OOOOOOOOOOO
Kurt and Evan were muttering to themselves disconsolately as they put down another four bags of food, adding it to the pile in a vacant corner of the loading area behind the local Acme. As neither of them could drive Kurt would be forced to teleport all the food to the mansion in easy trips. That had been Harry's idea, adding a bit of exercise to the penalty from the bet. "Stupid stinking bet," Evan muttered.
Kurt nodded rueful agreement. "That'll teach us. Missing out going with the girls to the beach for this? That's just all kinds of sad."
"Yeah but who would have thought that damn owl could play checkers?"
"Don't call her that mine fruend," Kurt hissed, staring up into the sky. "I personally don't vant to be hunted down by her again, vhich incidentally I found more surprising then the whole beating us at checkers thing." He would never forget teleporting away from her dive-bombing his former position only to realize Hedwig had somehow followed him. Looking at her talons a bare centimeter away from his eyes was one experience he never wanted to go through again.
Their moaning was interrupted however by a very specific but extremely powerful earthquake going off right underneath them. Cracks began to form in the concrete of the parking lot, and both boys were flung to the ground momentarily.
This didn't mean they stopped thinking, and Evan immediately began to form his bone armor around him, rolling around so as to not be a sitting duck for a follow on attack. Kurt on the other hand simply bamfed getting away from the disturbance. He reappeared on top of one of the lampposts in the parking lot, staring around and hanging there by one hand and his tail. "Come out Lance, we know you're out here!"
Evan stood up now nearly covered in his bone armor. "Yeah man, what's the big idea?"
Lance came out from hiding behind a bunch of bushes at the far end of the loading area. He was wearing his normal brotherhood uniform minus the idiotic visor thing, and shook his head sadly. "Sorry guys the big idea isn't mine, I'm just going along with things for now."
Pietro made his presence known by streaking forward, zooming up the side of the lampposts to slam his fist into Kurt's stomach. The teleporter moved with the impact shooting out into space but then teleported halfway through his arc to appear right next to Pietro where he had stopped moving and slamming his own fist into the speed user's face. "Right back at you," he growled.
Pietro recovered quickly though, zooming away out of sight then back faster than Kurt could react and hitting him in the shoulder, but Kurt had anticipated the punch enough to dodge most of the power behind it, wiping his tail around to trip the speedster, though Pietro swiftly went into a high speed roll along the ground moving away.
After that the fight was on. Lance tried to keep his distance, using lampposts and anything else he could as cover to keep from being shot by Evan's bone splinters, using his power to keep the other boy off his feet as often as possible and making a hell of a mess of the loading area while keeping him away from Kurt, making this two one on one battles rather than two on two. The sound of bamfing resounded around the area along with small sonic booms as Kurt and Pietro exchanged punches and kicks. Pietro would zoom in and take his shot then keep going, but Kurt's teleportation ability allowed him to keep up slightly. Pietro struck harder, but Kurt's punches were aimed far more deliberately, having taken his martial arts training from Logan very seriously.
All in all it was a stalemate none of the teens able to land a knockout punch, neatly keeping each other busy and neutralizing all four of them in terms of the other battles going on between their teammates, just like Lance had intended.
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