Shattered

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh presses his foot to the accelerator as the light turns green. Warren is in the passenger seat next to him, and Laurie is sitting in the back seat of the expensive-looking sports car they took from the Institute garage. The three of them have been in transit for about 15 minutes, and Gail’s house is only a short ways away.

They’ve been sitting in relative silence, which Josh decides to break. “How do you think your mom is going to take this? She’ll believe us, right?” He begins to feel an odd sense of urgency, prompting him to creep slowly over the speed limit.

Ororo had checked in with Colonel Fury’s office and been informed that he was ‘unavailable’. Annoyed, she had decided to take the Blackbird to Washington to meet with him directly. She’d sent the three of them immediately off to Laurie’s mother, with instructions to bring her back to the Institute for her own safety. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this? I’m not precognitive…” So far. Probably not, anyway - he’d never shown such tendencies in the past, and frankly wasn’t interested in seeing the future.

Josh touches a few keys on the computer console, checking the GPS for the next turn. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

[Laurie Collins]

“How do you think your mom is going to take this? She’ll believe us, right?”

Laurie looks up quickly, startled into just staring at him wide-eyed for a moment. She's been sitting up almost primly in the seat with her hands folded in her lap, awed by being in a car that probably costs about three times as much as a month's rent on her mother's house. "She'll believe me." she says quietly, "But I don't know what she'll want to do...probably move again. That's what we always did before if she felt like we'd been somewhere too long or I'd done something with my pheromones to make people notice us, and this is pretty noticeable but hopefully she won't really want to move..." she trails off as she realizes she's babbling her nerves out and subsides into silence again as Josh mutters about a bad feeling he has.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren has been fairly silent since being informed of the situation.

Ostensibly he’s been trying to work out the tactical implications of Drake’s turning out to be an unintentional “mole”, but the truth is he’s mostly been stuck on the fact that he had Garrison in his hands during the Times Square riot and hadn’t realized the man was responsible.

Which is ridiculous, of course: he’d had no reason to suspect Garrison, and was probably being sprayed with trust-inducing pheromones at the time. Still, it’s annoying; he’s supposed to be a good judge of people, and he’d completely missed this… in fact, he’d been the one to recommend Garrison as an Institute counselor in the first place, for which he owes Drake and Blackburn a serious apology.

> " I don't know what she'll want to do...probably move again. That's what we always did before if she felt like we'd been somewhere too long or I'd done something with my pheromones to make people notice us, and this is pretty noticeable but hopefully she won't really want to move... "

Warren bites his lip unconsciously, struggling with whether or not to actually say this, and finally decides he has to. "Well, I don’t mean to be alarmist, Miss Collins – Laurie – but both you and your mother have to understand that the situation has become more… complicated… than you’re accustomed to. Sean Garrison isn’t just your father now, or just a malicious mutant, he’s apparently the new leader of the most dangerous terrorist organization on the planet. "

He pauses a moment, hoping he won’t have to connect the dots explicitly, then continues when it’s obvious he does.

"What I mean is, I’m not sure moving will be adequate protection, this time. We may need to take more serious steps."

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie sinks in her seat a little as Mr. Worthington addresses her and nods slowly in unhappy acceptance before realizing that he probably isn't looking at her and piping up with, "Oh, um, yes. I suppose..." trailing off rather lamely out of intimidation both at the person addressing her and the situation and looking down at her hands.

She's still amazed that no one seems mad at her, or even all that disappointed in her. In retrospect, knowing the consequences of not telling them, she's angry enough with herself to make up for it she supposes. All she'd had to do was bring it up sooner. It wasn't as if they hadn't given her opportunities- the last time she'd talked to Mr. Worthington or the time she'd talked with Bob about her powers in the gym would have been perfect. In a way no one getting mad is worse in a guilt-increasing sort of way.

Just don't think about it she tries telling herself, but then what should I think about? How my mom's going to take this? How Bob is still in about a million pieces under his ice armor? How I'm going to have to tell Matthew about this little adventure and keep him from doing the protective freak-out when I'm already freaking out and my fear is sort of contagious? She sinks lower in her seat and stares out the window, trying to gauge the distance to her house.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> Sean Garrison isn’t just your father now, or just a malicious mutant, he’s apparently the new leader of the most dangerous terrorist organization on the planet.

Jeez, Warren... I think she gets it. Give her a chance to actually deal with it herself. I'd be looking for just about any other excuse possible. Thank god my family has nothing to do with anything mutant except me. At the same time, though, Josh realizes Warren is right. Gail isn't going to be able to just move a few blocks over and everything will be back to normal. The situation was serious, even if they weren't likely to run into Garrison anytime soon. Josh looks worriedly back at Laurie, who scrunches lower into her seat as if hiding.

"It's going to be fine. We'll pick her up and you can help her pack some things up to bring back to the Institute." Josh tries to sound optimistic, but only partially succeeds.

He puts the car into a turn, and begins down a typical suburban street. Laurie's mother lived on the far side of the Westchester business district, which itself was mostly restaurants, cafes, and curio shops all clustered around the riverfront. The area here was full of trees and tidy lawns. "Let's see... 5601.... there it is." Josh pulls the car up in front of a nondescript house that has 'Collins' lettered onto the mailbox.

As they pull up, all three of them hear a sudden bang, and one of the front windows shatters. "Uh oh." Josh quickly undoes his seatbelt and leaps over the edge of the convertible, breaking into a run towards the front door.

[Primer]

Shit. Charlie rubs his hands nervously against his jeans, how the hell did I get dragged into this? Boss’s gone fucking crazy. He chances a look over into the driver’s seat of the car where Primer is sitting, back upright as an iron rail, eyes straight ahead as if he can see beyond the twin beams of the Porsche’s headlights to their destination and is already surveying the scene, planning his course. Normally that would be reassuring, everyone wants the boss to have a handle on it when the shit goes down, but when the boss is driving you along at about ninety miles per hour you sort of want his attention concentrated on the here and now. They take a turn so narrow that the car ought to flip, but with the custom job and expert handling it swings around smooth as anything and it’s only Charlie’s stomach that’s left behind, snapping around with his other organs until he thinks he’d rather detox again than take another moment of this. He looks back at the two others in the back seat- Mercury with her silver skin gleaming dully and her bland eyes turned out the window, and Caleb another former prisoner who shoots energy beams from his hands, who returns his gaze unconcernedly- and swears mentally again. These two are hardened and unconcerned, a million years apart from him.

He wants to ask where they’re going, why he of all Brotherhood members has been chosen to go there, what he’s going to be expected to do, why the boss is so stony faced and silent about this, but even he knows better than that. When it comes down to it he doesn’t have the right to even want to ask. When he’d been sprung from that prison he’d expected to be killed, maybe by the guards maybe by one of the other prisoners, or at least rounded up and slammed back into a cell, but he’d been saved instead, he’d followed the wolf back to the man with the mask, grabbed his sleeve as he’d been about to climb into a car… twenty years he’d been facing, twenty years with no possibility of parole in that hellhole, that madhouse with the rapists and murderers and fucking lunatics for cocaine possession. Twenty years because he could squeeze himself into tight spaces. Like this animal- someone had told him that in prison, some nerdy terrified guy in for cooking the books at his accounting firm and sprouting quills when they’d tried to arrest him- like this animal that unhinges all its joints to squeeze into tight spaces and then pops them back in again on the other side. Well so what? So he’d used that and stolen some shit to pay for his habit from people who would never miss it. That earned him twenty years locked away with a sick fuck like that ferret guy who’d ripped at least ten people apart before they’d locked him up?

He hadn’t hated humans, really, until that first night in prison curled up and sobbing from detox shock in a corner while the man in the next cell screamed like someone was ripping him apart though they were all in solitary all the time. Then when Primer had helped him into the car, when he’d listened to what he had to say, he’d started to hate other mutants too because, like Primer said, where were they when he was locked up like that? Where was that winged pretty-boy spouting off about equal rights on TV when he was being locked away for what he was? Primer had told him how it was, how a PR campaign dedicated to smarming up to humans couldn’t take a blot like coke snorting Charlie Callahan on their image. The Brotherhood was different though, they took care of their own, they opened the cell doors, they opened the doors, and- as the car comes to a stop and Primer gestures to the front door of the little ranch house- he realizes that all he’s being asked to do is reciprocate. He glides up the path like this is the old days and he needs this for his next hit, slips himself alongside the door and picks the lock the plain old human way, and then, with a click so small, so quiet, he’s unlocked the door and swung it wide for Primer to pass through…
----
”Oh, crap!” the girl jumps back a pace and brushes frantically at her shirt, at the round spot on the stomach where his coffee has made a circular mar in the white fabric. “You’re only going to rub it in.” he mutters, standing, humiliated, where he’d collided with her, books spread out all around him, their covers bending on the courtyard’s stone ground. “Yeah thanks for the advice, here’s some for you, watch where the hell you’re going!” he blushes furiously and hates himself for it, hates the ugly mottled color his skin must be turning, hates the jerky way he folds himself downwards to collect his books, and then all of that seems like heaven on earth in comparison when she finally looks down at him, sees him like that, and her expression softens into pity, pity for something too pathetic to be angry with. “Hey, look, I’m sorry, it’s no big deal… here I’ll help you-” he straightens up so fast he almost drops his books again, “Don’t bother.” he’s turned on his heel and strode away before her expression can shift from that horrible pity and he’s ten paces away before he realizes that for the first time in years he’s forgotten to use his pheromones to make a first impression. He looks over his shoulder to see her staring after him, bemused, a little offended, but probably already dismissing him from her mind. Even with coffee stains all over her blouse and her hair mussed from the breeze heads are turning in an interested way to catch her every move, to observe the slope of her shoulders, the flash of her red hair in the sun. He decides then that he hates her.

A few months later he’s propping himself over her in bed when the idea comes to him and he fumbles on the nightstand for a moment before he comes up with the lighter. He has to hold it against his high school class ring for a good bit before the metal gets hot enough but she waits, she will always wait for him. “Almost the same size… you were mad at me then and it didn’t even hurt. Such a small stain. Now you’ll like it.” and she does, she smiles at him and arches herself into the pain. “I love you.” she whispers. The only reason he says it back, he will tell himself later, is not to destroy such an artfully created charade.

Now he slips into the house through the door that Charlie is holding open for him like a worshipful servant. Charlie, trusting drug-addled Charlie, who’d hardly even needed a bit of pheromones to make him trail at his heels like a dog. Expendable Charlie who’d only been with them for a few weeks, who no one much trusted not to tell strange stories as it was. The other two can be trusted not to do anything stupid, and Charlie can be trusted to work out however is convenient.

That’s what he needs, a little more control. He’s been driving by this house for weeks now, waiting to catch a glimpse of Gail, but most importantly scoping out the modest little neighborhood, planning what’s coming now, sooner than he’d thought. He’ll find her and talk to her and…he’s not quite sure, which is the point in a way. Gail’s succumbing to his whims had always been the point- that was it, nothing more- and one cannot plan a whim.

He walks through the front hall and pauses, presumably for Charlie and Caleb to follow him inside- Mercury is standing guard outside- but really looking at the pictures. Most of them are of a blonde girl at varying ages, laughing amid a stack of crayons and coloring paper at what looks like six, trying to hide her face with a book as a pre-teen- in every picture he sees Gail’s eyes superimposed onto a softened version of his own features. His daughter. Looking at these pictures, seeing that Gail must love her, or think she does, somehow makes the girl far more real than those few moments in the alleyway when he’d realized that she’d known him, and all the remarks he could wring out of that fool, Drake. His face, Gail’s eyes, his power. He steps closer to the rare photo that features Gail as well as the girl, Laurie, a snapshot set in front of an apartment building. Laurie has hold of her mother’s arm and is laughing, obviously cajoling her into staying in the frame, and the girl’s face makes him pause and catch his breath. She isn’t putting on an act, no little girl is that good an actress. She honestly believes that she’s Gail’s daughter before mine, probably believes what the X-men tell her… and with the thought he feels the old urge to claim, to prove, rise up in him like it hasn’t since the second day of term at Stanford when he’d bumped into a beautiful girl on her way back to the dorms…
---
Gail pauses in front of the door, “Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles abandoned mid-hum as she contemplates the somewhat shoddy wood veneer. There is nothing wrong here. Her mental voice is certain but her stomach is squirming and jumping like she’s about to plunge down the dip on a roller coaster. She hesitates, reaches for her phone, and then stops, wondering who she would call, what she would say. ’Hello, police? I have a funny feeling about my door.’ won’t exactly fly, and it isn’t as if she’s gone out of her way to make friends around here that she can call when she’s feeling nervous, quite the opposite in fact. She’s keyed in half of Laurie’s cell number instinctively before she thinks better of that option as well- she’d made Laurie her contemporary too much over the past few years, burdened her, and hadn’t the point of sending her to school been partially to help her be as much like a normal kid as she could be? She closes the cell phone and slips it back into her pocket. Time to be a big girl and open your own door… she’s laughing to herself as she swings the door open with an over-compensating confidence, propelling herself quickly inside and slamming it shut behind her, doing up the two dead-bolts and the chain lock before a noise from behind her makes her whirl, a scream rising up in her throat.

After sixteen years of running and fearing and denying it’s almost an anti-climax to see him leaning against her wall casual as anything, that same old smirk playing about his features. All that saves her in that first moment is that he doesn’t expect her to have a gun, she’d been a dyed in wool liberal back in college, all for gun control. Now she carries one on her almost all the time, the one thing about her that not even Laurie knows, and it’s in her hands with practiced ease before he can even think of using his pheromones, steady, aiming- she pulls the trigger without hesitation but a body slams into her from the side and her shot goes wide, taking out the kitchen window in an explosion of flash and shattered glass and her own scream as she hits the floor…

“Oh Gail, you shouldn’t have done that.”

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Oh, um, yes. I suppose... "
> " It's going to be fine. We'll pick her up and you can help her pack some things up to bring back to the Institute. "

Warren nods, a little chagrined. "Right, exactly. She’ll be safe there."

Privately, he’s less certain than he could be. Institute security has definitely been improving since the day he wandered in unannounced, but ultimately the problem is one of intent, not technology… the Institute needs to be safe, but it can’t fulfill its purpose if it becomes an armed fortress. Not for the first time, Warren realizes the X-Men need a separate base of operations somewhere, secure and secret. Not for the first time, he puts it on his list of things to worry about later as the car pulls in front of a nondescript suburban house.

"OK, let’s – " whatever he was going to say gets cut off by gunfire. Josh is already moving as Warren senses activity past the now-open window. "Careful – four bodies in there, I’m guessing at least three of them are unfriendlies… " He slips out of his seatbelt and through the car door’s window without bothering to unlock either and soars into the air to scan the area for additional enemies.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "Careful – four bodies in there, I’m guessing at least three of them are unfriendlies… "

"Gotcha... let me know if you find out anything useful." Josh reaches out with his telepathy and carefully solidifies their mental link, up to the point where he knows exactly where Warren is, and communication is effortless. Anything beyond that usually causes him to lose track of his own surroundings.

"Laurie, let's go." He looks back at the car, and rushes up to the door. Of course, it's locked. Come on, come on... someone's got a gun in there! Josh throws his shoulder into it, which only results in a dull pain.

Jesus Josh, you're telekinetic. His face goes blank for a moment, and he stares at the door. With a pair of clinks, the door falls inward. The hinge pins, hovering in midair, drop to the ground, and Josh steps over the door and into the room.

Maybe I could have done that more quietly... Josh looks over at Laurie, abashed, and presses himself to the wall at the edge of the kitchen door. Are they in there?

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie screams wordlessly as the window shatters, undoing her seatbelt with fumbling hands and darting out onto the front lawn, completely missing Mr. Worthington's exit to the sky and Josh's permission to follow him into the house. She's trying frantically to control her pheromones, freaking out whoever's in there not to mention Josh and Mr. Worthington is probably a bad idea, and fumbling frantically for her keys. Why do we have so many locks?! By the time I get them undone it'll- oh! Mutants, we're mutants, and one of us has telekinesis and...right this realization is punctuated by the sound of the front door falling to the floor and Laurie ignores Josh's somewhat tactical hugging of the wall in favor of rushing past him towards the kitchen yelling "Mom?!" in a frantic high-pitched voice...
---
A silver puddle, indistinguishable from shadow at first glance, slides across the stoop with unsettling purpose, pausing just outside the fallen door and slowly shifting into the silver-grey form of a slight woman with red hair. Telekinetics, Mercury thinks scornfully, all flash no substance, though not so bad as the child...he's the greater threat then. She moves silently towards Josh, fist raised to deliver the boy a blow he won't be walking away from...
---
"Mom?!"
Laurie? What on earth is she doing here? Gail rolls away from the weight of the body on top of her, cursing and kicking until she's on her feet and running towards the sound of her daughter's voice. She opens her mouth to yell a probably ineffective order for her daughter to stay back but a second gunshot from the weapon she'd forgotten in her haste to reach the door smashes into the tile of the wall next to her head, cutting off anything she would have said, and in the next instant Laurie's burst through the door, almost crashing into the most muscular of the three men. The surprise of almost being bowled over by a tiny sixteen year old girl momentarily paralyzes Caleb and Gail takes the moment to shove her daughter behind her and survey the scene for the first time- Sean looking angry at the interruption, the scruffy man with the gun, and the blank looking muscular man, all poised on the brink of action.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren does a quick loop around the house to check for any surprise backup and, finding nothing, returns to the front door… only to spot a figure he’d somehow missed sneaking up behind Josh. Headsup, hon, he broadcasts over their link, tacking on an image of the stealthy attacker, But don’t worry, I’ve go—ow!

What he’d intended as a flyby slam with one wing barely budges the metallic girl, sending him off-course with a huge black-and-blue mark spreading under his feathers. She turns to face him as he recovers his trajectory and smiles, stabbing a knife-tipped arm in his direction that stretches out to several meters in length; he dodges it twice as it twines to reach him, then dives towards her, veering off at the last moment to tangle her legs with his unbruised wing.

Mercury falls to the ground, dissolves into a puddle, and reforms on her feet in the time it takes Warren to loop around to face her again. Hm, he thinks carefully, This one might be more of a challenge than I thought. The expression on her face suggests that the feeling is mutual.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Laurie goes running right through the entry and into the kitchen as soon as Josh breaks the door down. “No, wai - -” He goes to follow, but stops suddenly as a familiar voice rushes through his mind.

> Headsup, hon … But don’t worry, I’ve go—ow!

Josh jerks his head in the direction of Warren’s presence, and sees the metallic woman barely move from Warren’s assault. Crap… Their battle continues outside, and he moves towards the front door to assist. Wait… Laurie and Gail don’t have much in the way of combat skills, as far as I know… and they’re outnumbered. This is weighed strongly against the fact that his husband is under attack by some kind of metal freak. He’s desperately afraid of what the woman’s arm-knives could do to Warren.

Damn. Josh looks worriedly in his husband’s direction, and concentrates on the door. Out in the yard, Mercury grins salaciously at Warren and takes a step forward. From the doorway, the front door flies out and smashes into her. It knocks her sprawling, and the force is enough to snap the heavy door completely in half.

Josh’s eyes widen. He’d hit her with enough telekinetic force to completely incapacitate a normal person. Damn, damn, damn… That’s all the time he can spend to help Warren out, though, if they want Laurie and Gail to walk out alive. He spins and dives into the next room.

The unlikely combination of individuals would almost be comical at any other time. Gail looks defiant, and has pushed Laurie behind herself. The other three - Mr. Garrison and his enforcers, Scruffy and Macho, apparently - are spread out evenly across from them. Scruffy has the gun - okay, first target.

Charlie raises the gun and aims it at Josh, panicked. “Boss, you didn’t say anything about - -“ His shaking hand wavers in midair, and with a flash, he fires.

Josh reaches out and encases the bullet in a telekinetic field. Fortunately, he’d been expecting the man to fire. With much effort, he’s able to bring the shot to a shuddering halt less than a foot away from himself. He breathes out, slightly fatigued, and the bullet drops to the ground. Josh glares at the man, and rips the gun out of his hands with his powers. It flies across the room, landing at Gail and Laurie’s feet.

“Laurie, take your mom and get out of here!” Josh raises a hand, pitching Charlie backwards and sending him smashing into the glass-topped coffee table in the next room. He runs forward to continue the fight, and is abruptly hit with an energy beam from Caleb, which throws him backwards into the wall.

[Primer]

This is going all wrong. Primer reaches out and slams a nearby door closed with one hand cutting off Charlie in mid-scream as he writhes on the floor of the living room with a shard of glass embedded in his palm. With his other hand he makes a quick gesture to Caleb who falls back until he's almost across the room leaving Primer facing Gail who has picked up the gun and is holding it in a slightly shaky grip as she stands in front of where Josh has fallen and Laurie has crouched down next to him looking worried.

He ignores the girl for now, advancing slowly on Gail and struggling to conceal his surprise when, despite the tremors in her hand, she merely clicks the safety off and stands her ground. A different method then. "Gail," he says reasonably, "you'll get one shot off with that and then Caleb will kill everyone in this room before you can get off another. There's no reason for anyone else to get hurt here, just put the gun down." he starts producing trust pheromones as he takes another step forward and smiles in satisfaction when Gail lowers the gun and, confident in his control over her, moves around her and on to Dalton, ignoring Laurie who scrambles backwards as he starts towards them. "Joshua Dalton," he rolls the name contemptuously on his tongue churning out a potent mix of despair and trust pheromones. "Little boy playing at being a grownup, X-man, husband, teacher, as if you could know what any of those mean. It's a passing phase though- your husband is being torn to shreds by Mercury right now, she has an amazing way of being both strong and fluid, literally. There are a dozen different ways he could be dying right now and there's nothing you can do about any of them. You might as well just give up now, if you let me have my way here maybe I'll call her off before a closed-casket funeral is entirely necessary..." It's an imperfect solution, but the boy isn't his top priority, all he needs is for him to be distracted until he can come up with something better. He opens his mouth to drive the point home but is cut off from a slightly shrill voice a few feet away as Laurie realizes what's happening and starts back towards him-

"Stop it! Stop influencing them, I'll-" she stops abruptly as Caleb points a finger at her and a small, bright beam speeds by about an inch in front of her nose, halting her in her tracks. "You won't go anywhere." he whispers.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren isn’t surprised by the door attacking his assailant – even without an explicit warning, he’d gotten the jist of Josh’s intention before it completed – but he doesn’t come up with any way of taking advantage of it before she’s recovered from the blow. As before, she doesn’t climb to her feet so much as shapeshift from a prone to a standing position; it doesn’t take her more than a moment, which confirms his initial impression that he’s not going to defeat her by trading physical blows, no matter how clever he is.

On the other hand, he reminds himself, they’re the defenders here… he doesn’t have to defeat her, just distract her long enough for Josh to get the Collins’ out of the house. He doesn’t want to think about how devastating she would be in close quarters, given her flexibility and strength; as long as she’s out here dealing with him she’s not inside threatening the others.

He can sense Josh’s dilemma and decision to help the others, and approves – Warren is better suited to defend himself than Gail or Laurie are. Come to that, he’s better protected from pheromones than Josh is… in fact, he realizes, they’re doing this backwards; Josh could TK-lift this woman to a harmless distance while Warren dealt with Primer.

But it’s too late for that now, he judges, given the sounds of combat and the flashes he’s getting of Josh’s experience. (Though he’s still too prone to blocking attacks rather than dodging them… they’ll have to work on that some more, after this.)

A moment later his attention is fully occupied by avoiding Mercury’s flashing blades. He gauges his range carefully… far enough to make evasive maneuvers easy, close enough so she doesn’t switch to throwing cars at him. (Not that cars would be any more difficult to evade, but they’re more likely to injure bystanders.) The problem is, a single lucky shot could easily skewer him, and he gets the impression he’s tiring faster than she is.

When Caleb’s energy-blast hits Josh, the pain is partially transmitted over their link, distracting Warren enough that Mercury’s blade slices across the back of his calf. He screams once, equal parts pain and surprise, but evades her follow-up thrust and gives himself a few meters more altitude before realizing he’s spraying blood all over the sidewalk. It’s not a serious wound – with his metabolism it will heal in a matter of hours – but losing blood like this will weaken him way too fast.

Which means he has to regain the offensive. Pummeling her doesn’t help… maybe heat will work better? Unlikely, if she’s really metal… he’s seen Toni in action and has some idea of what kind of defenses he’s up against… but it’s worth trying.

He’s starting to work out a plan for using a car engine as a weapon when his acute hearing picks up Primer’s diatribe, and he feels growing despair over his link with Josh, and suddenly Mercury doesn’t seem all that important anymore.

It only takes a second to circle the house again, and less than that to wrap himself as tightly as he can in his telekinetic aura. It doesn’t offer much protection, but it helps guide the glass shards away from him as he smashes through the kitchen window. Far more importantly, it gives him a few seconds of self-contained air supply, protecting him from Primer’s influence as he crouches on the kitchen counter for a moment to size up the situation.

Gail and Laurie seem unaffected by Primer’s pheromones, but held at bay by the energy blaster. A single wingstrike would take out both opponents, but would also injure Gail. If he neutralizes Caleb Laurie would be free to act, but he’s not sure his air supply will last long enough to neutralize Primer as well… on the other hand, if he goes after Primer Caleb could easily kill Gail or Laurie… and Mercury will no doubt be charging in here any second.

It doesn’t take more than a second for Warren to size up the alternatives and make a decision, hoping that it’s the right one. He and Caleb lash out at each other simultaneously, but the energy-bolt blows a hole in the kitchen wall when Warren spins away from it, whereas his wing strikes unerringly to send Caleb reeling and dazed against the opposite wall.

He wishes he could say something encouraging, but air is at a premium. He settles for an encouraging though inarticulate supportive pulse across his link with Josh.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "Little boy playing at being a grownup, X-man, husband, teacher, as if you could know what any of those mean. It's a passing phase though- your husband is being torn to shreds by Mercury right now, she has an amazing way of being both strong and fluid, literally. There are a dozen different ways he could be dying right now and there's nothing you can do about any of them.

Josh begins breathing heavier, trying to work his banged-up shoulder around. He tries not to think of the concerns he’s pushed to the back of his mind, but the combination of words and pheromones begins to get the better of him. Just moments before, he felt a hot pulse of pain from Warren, who has to be injured somehow.

Oh god, why did we come here? He’s right! I’m terrible at all of those, and this is only going to result in someone getting killed. Josh blinks away tears, biting his lip through blurry vision. His thoughts seem natural, but somehow artificial. An image of Laurie, looking panicked in the med lab, flashes through his mind. "He isn't a telepath he, um, he has pheromones, like me. He's..." He’s trying to control you with his powers.

> You might as well just give up now, if you let me have my way here maybe I'll call her off before a closed-casket funeral is entirely necessary..."

“Stop it! I know what you can do! I can feel him, he’s fine!” Josh shouts the words out, gripping his head in his hands. The feeling was horrible, as someone had told him Warren had been killed. He, of all people, wasn’t used to others being able to mess with his thoughts. Primer only laughs, and if anything, the horrible feelings increase. “Laurie, you have to stop him! My concentration is shot!” Josh attempts to lift a chair nearby to toss at Garrison, but as if to punctuate his statement, a mirror next to it shatters instead. He exhales, tears streaming down his face.

Suddenly, as if out of an action movie, Warren jumps gracefully through the window, lands on the ground, and batters Caleb across the room like a broken doll. A pulse of love and encouragement arcs across the room from his husband, and it’s enough to penetrate the mess Primer has made of Josh’s mind.

Josh lets Laurie help him up, and throws a hand out. Garrison lifts into the air, legs flailing, and Josh presses down telekinetically on the man’s larynx. His words come out as a choking noise, and the implication is clear: turn off the pheromones or pass out. With any luck, knocking the man out would reflexively stop the pheromones.. He throws a grateful look at Warren, and focuses his attention on Garrison. “What’s it going to be? Even terrorists have to breathe.” His voice is hard.


[This is brought to you by the letter P, for permission! Primer's, that is.]

[Primer]

“What’s it going to be? Even terrorists have to breathe.”

The current of despair abates quickly as Primer subsides in a surprising show of compliance, breathing deeply as the pressure on this throat subsides in its turn.

"Actually that's not true." he responds calmly, seeming almost to relax into the telekinetic hold after his first flailing moments of surprise, "I'd think a mutant activist in training would know better than to generalize like that. We've got a few who really don't need to breathe that much, though I wouldn't expect you to know too much about our organization... still, you have that Staten boy don't you? enhanced respiratory function, can go up to a day without breathing? Drake doesn't breathe in ice form either, unfortunately, wouldn't it be entertaining watching him chip himself away into a million little pieces? Not that we didn't manage just fine of course." he's rambling on quite comfortably, giving Caleb and Mercury time to re-group while he displays his group's superior intelligence, when he hears footsteps coming closer and the click of a gun being readied- Gail over to his left. His attention is instantly off Josh as he swivels his head towards her, smiling.

"You won't do it." he says calmly, "If you could have you would have killed that-" he waves dismissively towards Laurie, standing slightly behind Josh looking shaky and sick,"-as soon as you were well enough away." Gail's shaking her head, hissing "Shut up, Sean." but he barrels on confidently, "That little piece of me, that constant reminder, while she's alive you'll never be rid of me and you've kept her close haven't you?" he turns to Laurie now, though his words are still addressed to Gail, "And I'm grateful for that, she'll be useful-"

Caleb jack-knife's suddenly from a woozy swoon to a sitting position, blasting the gun out of Gail's hand just as she makes ready to pull the trigger while behind Josh, Mercury has risen and solidified from a puddle and pulls back her fist to renew the attack, or at least break the telekinetic's concentration .