spitting out frustration, line by line

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: This is picking up a few hours after Bob and Storm get nailed by Sentinels over in the 2027 arrival thread. I'm assuming they were transported separately or otherwise not communicating then. ))

Bobby tries very hard to stay aware of everything he can as the robot-things transport him and dump him in what is, without question, the most well-shielded cell he's ever been in in his life. He's been through training simulations like this, he knows the drill: count the seconds, listen for anything and everything, be ready to report it all to anyone trying to locate him.

Nobody ever does, though. He just sits in the cell, probing the field around him for weaknesses and failing, trying to make sense of everything that has happened and failing.

Eventually he comes back around to the failure he'd started with -- fixing his broken limbs.

And failing.

He actually perks up a little when Storm is thrown into the cell with him, though he isn't sure exactly why. He wants to ask her what's going on, but he can't summon the energy to care, and he supposes she'll tell him if she knows anything. So he settles for a nod to let her know he's awake, and goes back to staring hopelessly at his detached arm.

[Ororo Munroe]

Ororo stumbles into the cell as her captors shove her roughly. She mutters something nasty-sounding in Arabic under her breath as she hits the cold floor, and coughs a little.

The questions they'd been asking were ridiculous. How had she entered the country? Where were her other team members? Where was her husband, Jake Sheppard? Despite her resolution to stay absolutely silent, she's cracked at that one and begun laughing hysterically...

...at least until they'd struck her across the face. At that point, she'd realized these people were completely serious. They'd also seemed extremely interested in whether her reason for being in New York was to contact someone named 'Jade'. She'd simply stared straight ahead at the wall, memorizing the seams in the shining metal wall. There was a single bolt missing. It had bothered her until they'd yanked her upright and shove-walked her down the corridor.

To be truthful, it seemed as though they weren't authorized to do much more than that. They'd only detained her for about 20 minutes - which was a complete estimate, since there were no clocks in the area at all. These people must do this a lot. She'd been walked past quite a few other interrogation rooms and holding cells.

Ororo crawls across the floor towards Bobby, who is sitting on a thin mattress and staring at his arm. "What have they done to you?" Her voice sounds tired. With much effort, she lifts herself up and slides into seated position next to him. "Do you have any idea who these people are?"

She'd seen a small insignia on a panel through one of the doors she'd passed. It was the SHIELD logo, albeit modified. Not possible... the stress must already be messing with my recall. She shakes her head. Where were all the others? Were they safe?

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby’s spirits rise when he recognizes Ororo as his cellmate, then drop again when he sees the bruises on her face and recognizes the exhaustion in her voice.

> " What have they done to you?"

"Nothing new, I guess." He tries to sound matter-of-fact about it, though not particularly successfully… especially given the way his voice keeps distorting due to the cracks in his throat and chest. "This is all from the other night… mostly Madrii with mauls, before Laurie chased them off."

It still irks him that he’d had to be rescued by an untrained new student, one with neither combat training nor a combat-oriented mutation. Sure, they’re all supposed to help each other and stuff, but Bobby prefers to be the one doing the helping, rather than needing the help.

"I’m still holding it together by force of will – literally – but I haven’t made much progress on, you know, fixing it." Which isn’t entirely honest, and it shows. His realization of the day before, that he can probably repair his body at the risk of losing the limbs altogether, is still staring him in the face… and he’s still hiding from it, and not at all comfortable admitting the fact to Storm at the moment.

> " Do you have any idea who these people are?"

The shift of focus from his own condition is extremely welcome, even if he can’t be much more help on that subject either. "Beats me. We got teleported somewhere during that fight, and Primer – Garrison -- sounded just as confused as I was about where." Using the Brotherhood leader’s name is another difficult admission for him, reminding him of how long he’d been spilling team secrets to the enemy. Not that he had any way of knowing, but still… he should have known.

And this isn’t the time to worry about that.

"And the robot-things didn’t seem to be on his side. They came after all of us… including the new guy, whoever he is. I thought he was Danny’s dad or something… there’s a definite resemblance, and he’s got basically the same powers, but a lot more mojo than Danny has, and he’s like in his 30s… but he didn’t think so. And he’d clearly practiced with my powers, more than Danny has, and… oh, hell, I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. " If it were a Danger Room sim, he’d think he was running into some kind of bug in the script… but it isn’t.

"And the robots said something about a Mutant Registration Act, and these guys seem all military… not the Brotherhood’s usual style, right? So… I’m guessing it isn’t them. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was SHIELD’s style." He frowns. "You think maybe the White Queen is messing with their heads again, like she did last year?"

It occurs to him a bit too late that their captors probably have this cell bugged. On the other hand, even if he’s right it’s not like he’s revealing anything they don’t already know.

[Ororo Munroe]

>"I’m still holding it together by force of will – literally – but I haven’t made much progress on, you know, fixing it."

Ororo casts a sidelong glance at him, pulling her face out of her hands. Bobby’s voice was strange, and it certainly wasn’t all stress. Were the fractures really that bad? I’ve got to be strong, for him… for everyone. She sits upright, leaning against the cold wall. The chill given off by Bobby is enough to cut through some of the mental haze she’d initiated during the interrogation. “I’m astonished that you haven’t been dropping pieces while moving. Why can’t you just patch the cracks? You’ve done it before…” She asks this in a questioning tone. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

>They came after all of us… including the new guy, whoever he is. I thought he was Danny’s dad or something… there’s a definite resemblance, and he’s got basically the same powers, but a lot more mojo than Danny has, and he’s like in his 30s… but he didn’t think so. And he’d clearly practiced with my powers, more than Danny has, and… oh, hell, I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. "

Oh, Gaia, and here I thought one of them was enough. To be truthful, Danny hadn’t caused any problems since the Danger Room incident of that spring. Somehow, though, problems seemed to catch up to him no matter what. “Stronger than Danny? Lovely. Like we need another mentally unstable post-traumatic stress disorder victim running around latching onto people’s powers.” Ororo blinks. “Did I just say that out loud? I’m sorry… forgive me. It’s been a long day.”

>So… I’m guessing it isn’t them. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was SHIELD’s style." […] "You think maybe the White Queen is messing with their heads again, like she did last year?"

SHIELD. Mm. “I don’t think that it’s Emma Frost, though obviously I can’t be certain. Everyone just seems so… I don’t know. Totally convinced. I’m not sure what the Professor was capable of, but this kind of wide-scale modification seems even beyond the White Queen. Of course, Josh would be able to check into it, but he wasn’t teleported with us.” She thinks for a moment. “…Right? Did you see him or Toni? I know the two of them were fighting the Brotherhood on the first floor when I entered the room.” And that was all she’d seen - as soon as she’d crossed the threshold, everything had disappeared.

Ororo begins pacing the cell. “Bobby, on my way here, I saw a logo that looked very much like SHIELD’s, but altered. Do you think we’ve been taken by one of their branches? We’re their allies. Why…” But that still doesn’t explain…

“Danny’s parents are dead. I have it on file in my office. His uncle is his legal guardian, and looks nothing like him.” Her voice has a strange tone to it, and she looks at Bobby for an answer, which he almost certainly doesn’t have.

[Bobby Drake]

> " I’m astonished that you haven’t been dropping pieces while moving. Why can’t you just patch the cracks? You’ve done it before… "

"Yeah…I’m not exactly sure, myself. I fixed a lot of the cracks, but it wasn’t enough. The thing is, I’ve never been hurt this bad before.

I think it’s because they aren’t really cracks, they’re cleavage points… I mean, they really did split me into separate pieces; the only reason I’m not dropping pieces is because I’ve got the ice-armor bracing them together." It’s weird talking so clinically about something that’s got him so thoroughly freaked out, but on the other hand it’s nice being able to talk about it with somebody. "I guess I can re-create missing ice, but I can’t reattach it once it’s been broken off? I don’t know… I haven’t had this power very long, I don’t really know all that much about how it works. I was hoping maybe Hank would know something – did anything like this ever happen to Piotr, maybe? But then we ended up here, and… well. You know."


> " Is there anything I can do to help you? "

"I… don’t think so? I tried a bunch of different treatments, but nothing stuck… if you’ll forgive the expression. The only thing I was able to think of was that maybe if I just let everything except the “center” piece, whichever that one is, drop to the floor, then maybe I could reconstruct the rest of my body from that… but the thing is, what if I’m wrong? I’ll just be this icy stump then, even worse off than now!"

> " Lovely. Like we need another mentally unstable post-traumatic stress disorder victim running around latching onto people’s powers. Did I just say that out loud? I’m sorry… forgive me. It’s been a long day. "

That actually gets a laugh out of Bobby. "Either that, or I’m sprouting telepathy… my bet’s on “out loud.” Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you don’t. Anyway, yeah, I guess there’s two of ‘em running around now. Whether that’s got anything to do with the rest of this, well… I don’t know. "

> " Danny’s parents are dead. I have it on file in my office. His uncle is his legal guardian, and looks nothing like him. "

"Well, I hate to bring this up, but… dead dead? Or, like, Dr. Grey dead? Because this whole ‘undiscovered country from whose whatever no traveler returns’ thing has never seemed quite so final after that, you know?" Except, of course, that she stayed dead the second time. And so did Scott, and the Professor, and… well, a lot of people, really. But Bobby still hopes.

"No, I’m being silly… next thing you know I’ll be seeing ghosts in my socks. Right, so we scratch the missing-father theory. Which leaves… um… beats me, really. Maybe somebody stole Danny’s power? I mean, we already know these power-theft interactions get pretty weird, like when Rogue drained that Template character last year… what if she’s back, somehow?" Or what if Rogue tried to steal Danny’s powers and got zotzed?, he thinks but doesn’t say. "That still wouldn’t explain the robots, though."

> " Did you see him or Toni? I know the two of them were fighting the Brotherhood on the first floor when I entered the room.
"

"Nope, no Josh. Or Sheppard, as long as we’re talking telepaths. I just barely hobbled in to find out what was going on up there when I ended up in that rubble pile, whatever it was… Laurie was there, and a few Brotherhood types, Primer and the werewolf and their pet teleporter… " Bobby can’t remember the guy’s name, but John used to call him “Plan B” when he’d drunk too much. " Oh, and whoever the elder Blackburn lookalike turns out to be. Whoever he is, he seems to be a Brotherhood type… at least, he blinked out when Primer did. On the other hand… well, he knew who Primer was, and that he was Laurie’s daughter, and he knew my name… but he didn’t seem on good terms with Primer. So maybe there are other players involved?"

> " Bobby, on my way here, I saw a logo that looked very much like SHIELD’s, but altered. Do you think we’ve been taken by one of their branches? We’re their allies. Why…"

Bobby shrugs. "SHIELD is basically the same organization that blew up the Institute, wearing a funny hat, right? If they did it once, why not twice? ‘course, what do I know -- you’re the one who’s actually worked with Fury. Do you trust him?"

[Ororo Munroe]

> The only thing I was able to think of was that maybe if I just let everything except the “center” piece, whichever that one is, drop to the floor, then maybe I could reconstruct the rest of my body from that… but the thing is, what if I’m wrong? I’ll just be this icy stump then, even worse off than now!

Hmm… that makes some twisted kind of sense. Ororo nods slowly. Bobby did have a valid point, though… it would take some serious mental strength to actually go through with it. He won’t, she thinks instantly. Bobby Drake was a lot of things - intelligent, brave, and hard-working come to mind - but one thing was certain. He didn’t have the combination of balls and sheer recklessness to let an arm drop off in hopes that he could regenerate it.

> That still wouldn’t explain the robots, though.

“No, it doesn’t.” Ororo thinks for a moment. “My sources have told me that something along those lines is in the works, but it’s currently in the theoretical stage. There’s no conceivable way that they could have working prototypes, unless my information is wrong. Too, it seemed to have encountered me before… and I can certainly say I’ve never run into… what did it call itself? Aha, yes… the Sentinel-class.” Ororo purses her lips. “So, impossible robots that seem to have met me in London, and someone who looks like they could be Danny’s father.” She latches onto a sudden thought. “Or… Danny himself? A modified SHIELD logo…” Ororo starts pacing the cell restlessly. Impossible. Yet, her conversations with Jake had put her under the impression that he was able to slow down and speed up time, in some fashion. Was it a stretch that that kind of power had affected them somehow? He, of course, couldn't have been the culprit. She'd been with him at the moment this had all begun, and hadn't detected anything strange going on.

> SHIELD is basically the same organization that blew up the Institute, wearing a funny hat, right? If they did it once, why not twice? ‘course, what do I know -- you’re the one who’s actually worked with Fury. Do you trust him?

“No.” Ororo states immediately, then relents. “Fury is complicated. He’s an honorable person, but it’s his own honor code. If he felt us a threat, I have no illusions as to the fact that he would wipe us out. However, we’re currently trying to help fight mutant terrorists. We’re sort of a public relations goldmine in that respect. In one swoop, he has a group that’s much more effective than his own troops against mutant threats, as well as figures to hold up as to what mutants could be. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so they say.” She stops and turns to Bobby.

“All of this is somewhat moot at the point. If we’re going to get anything accomplished at all,” Ororo glances fractionally over at the door, “then we need you in once piece. Maybe we should concentrate on that.”

“You’re certain that you’re not able to mend the cracks, because they’re actually breaks.... so. There has to be a solution to this. Try removing the smallest broken chunk… and then see if you can regenerate it.” Ororo states this casually, but realizes the likely reaction. “If you like, I can drop the room temperature, so the piece doesn’t start melting.” At her words, a chill creeps into the room, and soon, Ororo can see her own breath. Bobby, she remembers, doesn’t respire in ice form. Hmm… She raises and eyebrow, waiting for a response.

[Bobby Drake]

> " So, impossible robots that seem to have met me in London, and someone who looks like they could be Danny’s father Or… Danny himself? A modified SHIELD logo… "

Bobby is briefly distracted from his own structural crisis by the direction of Storm’s thinking. "No way… he was at least thirty, probably older. And not just physically older, he talked older. You know how Danny’s always got that ‘Don’t-hurt-me-I’m-a-friendly-puppy!’ thing going on? This guy… not so much."

> " Fury is complicated. He’s an honorable person, but it’s his own honor code. If he felt us a threat, I have no illusions as to the fact that he would wipe us out."

Bobby almost giggles at that… he’s thought similar things about Storm herself, from time to time. Then he stops short as he suddenly becomes the full focus of her attention.

> " we need you in once piece. Maybe we should concentrate on that. Try removing the smallest broken chunk… and then see if you can regenerate it."

Bobby nods. "Yeah, I tried that… that’s why my fingers work now." He wiggles the fingers of his right hand to demonstrate. "And I grew most of my face back the same way." Which has got to be the strangest sentence that has ever come out of his mouth. "But… I mean…" he waves vaguely at his left arm, braced loosely against his shoulder, and at his right leg, splinted at the hip, and isn’t sure how to say what he’s thinking. A finger is one thing, but… how the hell is he supposed to just let go of an arm and a leg?

You’re being ridiculous, Drake, he chides himself. They’ll grow back. You’re just carrying around dead limbs… it’s sick, and you know it. Just do it, already!

Except he doesn’t, and he’s pretty sure he isn’t going to. He’s reminded of his night in Magneto’s cell, nursing a dislocated shoulder and knowing exactly what he had to do to pop it into place, and not having the balls to do it. He’d come fairly close to forgiving himself for that during his sessions with Sean… but remembering that fiasco is humiliating enough to distract him from the humiliation of the present moment.

Come on, Drake. You don’t want Storm to see how much of a wuss you really are, do you? She only just put you back on the team, after all… He remembers the feeling of nausea when he saw his semi-detached leg swinging back and forth, after the fight with Juggernaut, and remembers Storm’s attitude… “OK, fix it, time’s a-wasting”… and realizes she is simply not going to have any patience with his pussyfooting around.

"OK," he mutters under his breath. "Right. Just… let it drop, and regrow it. I can do this."

There’s a long pause, and he’s vaguely aware of the room getting colder. " OK, here we go. One…" He stares fiercely at his shoulder, as if it were some enemy he could stare down by sheer force of personality, as if letting it go weren’t as simple as, well, letting go.

"…two…" Part of his mind is amused at the spectacle he’s making of himself, turning such a simple operation into such a huge production. Fuck, it’s no worse than pulling out your baby teeth, right? Except he remembers how anxious he’d been about that, too.

"…three." He doesn’t mean for it to come out in such a hopeless tone of defeat, but it does just the same, as though his voice is more willing to admit what his mind is desperately trying to deny: that he just doesn’t have the guts to rip off his own arm, even knowing – or, well, having good reason to believe – that he’ll grow back a new one.

He shrugs a one-armed apology at Ororo, unable to look her in the eye. "Sorry."

[Ororo Munroe]

> "And I grew most of my face back the same way."

“You grew… ah.” Ororo blinks a little bit. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the idea of that. So that’s the general process, then… he can’t reintegrate pieces that have broken completely off. So it should be fairly simple…

Except it’s not, and she can’t really blame him… I’m not sure that I’d be ready to snap off an arm on command.

> "Sorry."

“Mmm. I had a feeling you weren’t going to be able to go through with it.” Ororo sits back down on the thin mattress, deep in thought. What would be the best way to go about this? And were they even going to have a chance to break out?

Suddenly, a multitude of alarms and klaxons go off in the compound. Ororo bolts to her feet and runs to the tiny window in their door, craning to look down the hall. A group of troops rush by, brandishing rifles. “Looks like there’s some trouble for our captors… well, anything that’s bad for them is good for us.” She turns back to look at Bobby, and slowly walks towards him.

We know what has to be done. His powers are the only thing that’s going to seal the cracks, but they can’t seal pieces that have broken off. It’s that simple. It was simple, but incredibly not… and he might hate her for the rest of his life if their reasoning was faulty and he had to totter around with only one arm. And even if she did… he might try to reattach it. So…

“Bobby, there’s probably going to be a chance for us to escape in the near future. Which means we can’t afford to waste any more time. I’m sorry, I really am… but…” In one swift movement, Ororo reaches out for Bobby’s arm, and wrenches it away from the ice splint. The crack of the splint is nothing compared to the sound his arm makes when it hits the metal wall, shattering into a million pieces.

Ororo takes a step back, horrified, and puts a hand to her mouth.

[Bobby Drake]

> " Mmm. I had a feeling you weren’t going to be able to go through with it. "

And that hurts, though he’s known Ororo long enough to know she didn’t mean it to. Not to mention that Bobby himself had felt the same way – if he’d had the balls to do it, he’d have done it last night, after all – and that they’d turned out to be right. Still… it hurts to hear. He almost apologizes again, but decides that will just annoy her.

"So, OK. Maybe we can find Hank or Reed or one of the other big brains and – " Whatever he was going to say gets cut off by some kind of chaos in the hallway, alarms going off every which way. "What the?"

* * *

After the night he’d spent a prisoner of the Brotherhood, Bobby’d read a few books on psychological reactions to trauma.

One factoid that had stuck with him is that traumatic events frequently distort recall of events preceding them, resulting in retroactive premonitions, “seeing your life flash before your eyes,” “time standing still”, and other cliché experiences. They don’t really happen during the event, it turns out, but the human mind inserts them as if they had. He’d thought that was cool when he read it.

It comes back to him now as he stares at the shards of what had previously been his left arm.

He remembers, vividly, the moment of Storm approaching him with that look in her eye, remembers knowing what she was about to do and not being able to move a muscle – or whatever he uses in place of them – to prevent it. He remembers every moment of his arm’s short arc against the wall, as if he’d seen a slow-motion video of it… the room’s fluorescent lights refracting through his detached shoulder, the little rainbow patches that skittered across the cell walls, the way the elbow bent slightly before cracking.

He remembers all of that, and he’s fairly sure it didn’t actually happen that way. He’d probably been taken completely by surprise, then frozen in shock (a vague, detached part of his mind is amused that he still uses expressions like that... as opposed to what, Drake? frozen in hunger? frozen in lust? frozen in ironic detachment? frozen in boredom? you’re a fucking iceman, remember?… and then notes that this is the first time he’s ever used “iceman” as if it were a real word, and not just his goofy codename… and then remembers that this kind of dissociation is another symptom of post-traumatic stress and tries to focus itself on what’s really happening), and only afterwards did it feel like he’d known all along.

Of course, that doesn’t change how it feels. And, of course, that’s not really the important thing. The important thing is that his left shoulder now terminates in a ragged-edged stump, and what used to be his arm is now a pile of ice-shards and snow on the ground.

It doesn’t hurt, he realizes with some surprise. And he’s not sure whether that’s hysterical numbness (another symptom of post-traumatic stress, he remembers reading) or not. After all, if an ordinary amputee went walking around with his dead arm taped to his shoulder, you wouldn’t expect it to hurt if someone took the damned thing away from him and fed it through a blender – it’s already dead, right? With his arm the result is ice-cones rather than stew, but the principle is the same.

It’s oddly liberating, actually… almost like waking up from a dream. I’ve been walking around with dead limbs taped to their stumps all day, pretending to be whole? That’s just sick! All at once the various fragments of him no longer feel like part of him at all, even in his mind (and where else did they ever feel like anything?, that same detached part of him wonders), and in one repulsed shudder he shakes them off, instinctively, the way your hand pulls back from something too slimy and clammy to be tolerated.

He literally collapses into a pile of parts as whatever power he was subconsciously exerting to keep the pieces attached suddenly ceases to operate, and the ice-splints he’d crafted for himself turn out not to be adequate to the job. His right leg pulls off, taking most of the hip with it; his left leg snaps at the knee and mid-shin; his torso splits in two along a surprisingly smooth diagonal sheer-plane, and when the upper half hits the floor he is momentarily grateful that he’d repaired the crack running through his neck, because his head rolling off at that moment would be too much.

(Right, his detached observer notes ironically, surveying the pile of limbs that used to be a body. Because that would be gross.)

[Ororo Munroe]

Ororo stares down at Bobby - or more correctly, perhaps, the pile of icy chunks that used to be Bobby. Her hand is still pressed to her mouth in shock. Maybe that wasn’t so great of an idea… At least in his original form, it might have been possible for him to hobble down the hallway if she went ahead and took out the opposition. Now… He didn't seem to be in any pain, which was fortunate. Does Bobby's ice form even have pain receptors?

An insane image of herself, charging down the hallway like a football quarterback, Bobby’s head tucked under her arm, bursts into Ororo’s mind. Shock and horror turns into hilarity… and she begins laughing.

And she finds herself completely unable to stop. This entire situation is completely ridiculous. What the hell is going on here? Bobby was in pieces… the rest of her team was missing, captured, or worse… and they had absolutely no idea what was going on, with the closest idea being some kind of bizarre timejump.

“I’m… so….. sorry!” Ororo gasps this out, leaning against the wall. She presses her forehead against its cool metal, trying to control herself. After a few seconds, the hysteria subsides, and she’s breathing in and out, trying not to plunge off the deep end again. “Forgive me, Bobby… I'm not my usual self today. Are you alright? You seem to be a little…” She raises an eyebrow, trying to encompass the entirety of his situation. "Is there anything I can do to... well, help you back together?"

A minute or two later, a clang comes from the door next to her, and she stiffens. What now? The door flies open abruptly, and Ororo springs into action. This might be our only chance! She knifes a hand viciously into the man’s neck, and he lets out a choking noise. He shoves out reflexively, sending her smashing into the far wall. Ororo quickly picks herself up and begins evaluating plans of attack. They didn’t have much room to work with…

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby is vaguely aware of Ororo’s reaction but it’s all strangely fractured and distorted… and in any case, he’s mostly concentrating on getting his body back together. No, he corrects himself immediately, not “back together”… that’s the mistake I’ve been making all along, right? What he needs to do is build a new body, accreting onto the remaining chunk of himself.

Oh, is that all?, chimes in a sardonic voice that he’s chagrined to realize is his own. Well, then, what are you waiting for? Piece of cake, right? Least, if you knew where to start. Which, he realizes with a touch of nausea, he really doesn’t. He’s fallen into over a dozen separate pieces piled up on the cell floor; he can feel them with his heatsense… but he doesn’t know which piece is “him,” or whether he is somehow distributed evenly across all of them, or what.

Or maybe none of them. Maybe I’m dead, and this is what being dead is like, just floating disembodied near my corpse. Maybe I’m just floating here waiting for the next ferry to wherever I end up. Maybe it’s over. The thought isn’t entirely horrifying… after the Brotherhood attack and spending the night with his body falling apart and then attacked by giant robots and imprisoned, Bobby’s pretty sure he’s had his capacity for horror temporarily used up.

Then the door opens and a stranger bursts in. He perceives this a little more clearly – Storm’s attack, the guard’s counter… and now she’s on the far side of the cell, and there are more guards coming, and instinct takes over: the guard drops instantly to the ground, shivering and blue-lipped and effectively incapacitated; an instant after that the hallway is blocked off by a sheet of ice.

I guess I’m not dead, then… not if my powers still work. It’s an oddly disappointing thought, but he doesn’t have time to consider the implications of that as one of the hallway guards fires some kind of energy beams at his ice-wall. It shatters and melts before he has a chance to reinforce it, and a spray of missiles flies in before he can reform the wall, just barely missing Ororo.

We were lucky that time; we won’t be again. We’ve gotta get out of here! He knows he no longer has adrenalin to rush, in this form – nor a bloodstream for it to rush through – but the effect is the same, galvanizing him into action. Panic make a choice that abstract reason was paralyzed by, and all at once Bobby feels himself inhabiting his head and upper torso.

He’s still not sure how to construct a whole body out of that, but he doesn’t have to be… something instinctive in him takes over, and ice-crystals spread from his cleaved torso like something out of a stop-motion nature film. By the time the energy-cannon recharges and fires again, taking down the reinforced barrier, he’s on his feet and diving to protect Ororo from missile fire.

Whatever it is they’re firing bounces off of his ice-form, leaving behind cracks and chips that seem to heal themselves in seconds, and Bobby turns his focus on the hallway, prepared to freeze the guards into immobility. Instead, he feels a sudden exhaustion, like a distance runner “hitting a wall”, and nothing happens.

"Crap…" He almost drops to the floor, but forces himself to stay upright to shield Ororo as more weapons are trained on them.

(( OOC: incidentally, the comic arc that inspired this whole Bobby-falling-apart thing is here: community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/1642155.html ))

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Apologies for the g’modding, but rolling this along to get Bobby out of here.
Also tying That’s not making art, that’s wasting time into this, since that’s where it seems to be going.))

Bobby had been fairly confident that Storm could handle the guards once he’d provided a shield against the initial bombardment, even if he was somehow depleted of… well, of whatever it is that his ice-form is powered by. Wizard needs food, badly! So he hadn’t worried too much when the guards poured in.

He had started worrying when the eastern wall disintegrated into an explosion of dust and wall-fragments, but the fact that the guards seemed just as surprised as he was alleviated his concerns somewhat… and when the guards at the back of the line started flying every which way while Storm was picking off the ones at the front, Bobby had almost relaxed.

Always a mistake, that. He spotted the not-quite-unconscious guard pulling a small spherical device off of a belt-loop, but was still too drained to respond… besides which, it took him a crucial moment to convince himself that it really was what he thought it was. What kind of insane prison facility assigns its guards grenades?

A gust of unnatural wind spoils the guard’s aim, setting the thing off near the far end of the room. It takes out the grenade-throwing guard and a number of his compatriots, and under normal circumstances Bobby would have had no difficulty diving out of the way or shielding himself. He reminds himself of that fact as the shockwave blows him through the window – it really wasn’t Storm’s fault, she had no way of knowing he was nearly paralyzed. These things happen.

Besides, he thinks somewhat lightheadedly, I should be able to survive the fa—

His thoughts are interrupted as his body hits the ground and shatters.

[Warren Worthington III]

As soon as Camp security deploys the hover-tanks, Warren pulls up sharply and out of range… he’s very aware of their capabilities and has no desire to pit his force-field against their energy cannons again. Last time, he’d come very close to losing consciousness, and subsequently his freedom if not his life.

On the other hand, he’s also very aware of the clock ticking on this mission… and that the mission itself has gone to Hell by express mail. What had been their primary objective – extracting Sam – is no longer looking remotely likely, and of the four anachronisms that had replaced him two have gone entirely off Elliot’s radar.

Instinct and experience both say “abort.” Actually, they stopped saying it a few minutes ago and started screaming it loudly into the base of his spine, and most of his team is already porting back to safety. But Josh and Jade have already planted themselves right in the middle of a hornet’s nest of armed guards in order to make contact with the remaining two exiles; at this point it’s just as risky to abort as to let them complete their mission. And he can’t leave them in there without support, so he hovers in the courtyard to draw tank-fire and waits anxiously for a status update.

Instead, what he gets is an explosive flash from a cell window, and an icy body plummeting to the ground. How did Drake get up there?!? he thinks incredulously, before realizing this must be the other Drake, the young one. It takes him another moment to realize that Drake is making no effort to brake his fall, and yet another to connect that fact with his recollection of Drake’s powers. Right… he just stitched himself together. That took a lot out of him, the first few times. OK, then, one rescue coming up!

He shifts vector to intercept his plummeting, paralyzed ex-teammate just as Elliot’s mental “voice” intrudes on his mind. Boss, trouble! Vanisher… the rest of her message is conveyed more in images than words, but Warren gets the picture… the Camp has managed to get localized teleport-shielding reestablished, pinning Vanisher between two oncoming tanks with about two seconds before he’s flattened.

Oh, hell.

Somewhere in the chaotic tactical juggling that occupies his mind, Warren takes a moment to be thankful that the plummeting anachronism is Drake, who he knows can survive the fall. If he’d had to let Vanisher die to save another of these time-travelers he’s not sure what he’d do afterwards.

Of course you’re sure, a weary part of his mind replies as he airlifts Vanisher away from the tanks and out of the teleport-suppression zone. You’d suck it up and move on, just like you have every other time. Which, he has to admit once his passenger blinks out of his arms, is absolutely true, whether he likes it or not. He’d accepted burying Josh, he’d accepted shooting Jack, he’s accepting abandoning Sam. He’d accept letting Vanisher die if he had to.

He wouldn’t even fly out to the end of his endurance over the Atlantic afterwards.
He’d just want to.
And he’s used to that.