Horror Zone (Yellow)

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh quickly tries to compose himself and scrabble across the dusty floor. The blow to his head hurt, and despite his superior mental concentration, he was having problems concentrating enough for another attack.

He’s able to turn himself over and regain some breathing room, until he finds himself up against the wall. His shadowy assailant steps slowly towards him, and suddenly is revealed to be… Warren?

What could possibly be Hank’s justification for this one? It is Warren, except not. Josh quickly feels two emotions warring within him. One was the impulse to draw whatever it was forward, into his lap, and allow it to have its way with him. The other was a strong sense of unease.

“Josh… my love. Let me take you right here, and show everyone that you are mine.” ‘Warren’ is strikingly identical to Josh’s fiancé, except for a few small details. He was oddly pale, unlike the true Warren’s healthy tan. His eyes were also dark and lidded, and a hungry expression flits across his face. He straddles Josh’s legs and pins his arms above his head, capturing Josh in a savage kiss.

“Mmm…” What’s happening? An odd apathy was spreading throughout his body. It was best to go along, and allow Warren to do whatever he wanted, even if this wasn’t the place or time. But Warren’s hands were cold, which was unlike him. And it wasn’t Warren. “Stop it!” Josh shoves the impostor off of him, and stands up. Breaking the contact relinquishes whatever mental control was in effect.

Visibly, the creature changes, his face twisting in an angry glare. “You will be mine, whether you want to or not!” He takes a step towards Josh - -

And the heavy ornamental staff leaps off the floor, brutally colliding with his temple. The impostor crumples to the ground with a hiss, and the room is quiet.

Josh opens his eyes, biting his lip. He wasn’t able to watch the actual impact - the creature had resembled Warren way too closely.

> "Thanks for the save, Josh… are you OK?"

“I… I don’t know.” Josh’s voice is rattled, and he stares down at the body on the ground.

[Bobby Drake]

> " Thanks for the save, Josh… are you OK?"
> " I… I don’t know."

Bobby hikes his shorts back up to his waist before looking down at the fake Warren and nodding alongside Josh. "Yeah, I hear that. At least you got rid of yours without giving the entire Institute a free show… that’s got to count for something, right? "

When that doesn’t even get a smile from Josh, he becomes a little concerned. "Hey, Earth to Josh… it’s just a Danger Room gadget, you know." Which is downright hypocritical coming from him, given his reaction to the John-doppleganger, but it’s true nevertheless.

More loudly, he continues "D’you think Hank has one of these ready for everyone in the game? We should get Jake down here and see if he attracts a Storm sexbot… she’d kill us afterwards, but it would so be worth it. How about it, Hank?" he shouts up to nothing in particular, "While we’re at it, did you cook up one of these for yourself? Or did you just test-drive the others? Jesus…"

It comes out angrier and more disgusted than he’d intended; mostly he’s upset at himself for having fallen for such an obvious trap, but he’s also hoping to jolly Josh out of his funk. " Yeah, I know, I know, it’s bad form to yell at the Creator. Well, I do it in real life, too, when He seems to go out of his way to dick us around."

His rant is interrupted when the unconscious Warren-clone stirs a little. His instinct is to freeze it solid and crush it, which had actually turned out to be surprisingly satisfying, but then he thinks twice about it. Instead he sucks out just enough heat to keep the thing loggy, freezes a restraining – and, incidentally, modesty-preserving – band around its waist, and leans the ornamental staff on its throat just hard enough to be painful.

"OK, demon-incubus-whatever-the-hell-you-are-thing… here’s the deal. We’re looking for someone, a mortal who carries the, um, flag of this Zone – er, realm. You work here, so I’m guessing you know something about the backstage arrangements, yeah? So here’s the deal… you tells us where to find the Flag-person and I let you live… or whatever it is you do instead of living."

The grin on Warren’s face (no, not Warren) is both predatory and disturbingly accurate, and Bobby can feel the static building up in his mind. "I must lead you there. Let me gghHHhhkk…"

"Wrong move," Bobby mutters, and removes his weight from the staff as soon as the mental static fades. "I was ready for it this time. Try it again and I kill you just like I did your buddy. Are we clear?" His only response is a pained nod, but really it’s the only response he wants.

"OK, then – how do we find this Flag-bearer?"

The creature seems to think for a moment, then speaks.

“Young and fair, with tawny hair,
And gold-rimmed eyes like Martian skies,
With the mark you seek on her left cheek
Hidden from prying eyes.
Far from the ground she can be found
In the tender care of my brother fair,
With another to guard her and keep her apart
Whose essence is stealth and surprise. ”

Bobby nods, and turns back to Josh. "What do you think? Sounds like a blond girl with black eyes and glasses – or maybe eyeshadow? – in an attic or something? With another one of these things keeping her busy, and some kind of invisible stealth demon thing standing watch. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Course, Horny here might be lying, but any lead is better than no lead."

He waits for Josh’s nod before turning back to the creature on the ground and reinforcing the ice-bands pinning it down. "OK, then… you get to live. Those’ll melt in a few hours and you can go back to doing whatever it is you incubuses do when you’re off-duty."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

(slight content warning)


> "Hey, Earth to Josh… it’s just a Danger Room gadget, you know."

Josh nods mechanically. Yeah, it was, but it freaked him out nonetheless. It was a bit like seeing his boyfriend’s dark side, or something… what Warren would look like if he had ended up a coke addict on the streets of New York. If his enhanced metabolism actually allowed that, anyway.

Mutant physiology aside, it still rattled him. Which was probably the point - to throw them off guard. He tries to shake off the strange feeling it gives him, just as Bobby’s rant comes to a close. “Yeah, you’re right… it’s just really creepy.”

Bobby presses the creature for information, and the predatory leer reminds Josh of some of their intimate moments… except, again, it’s twisted, with a hint of cruelty - something that would never show up on the real Warren’s face.

> "What do you think? Sounds like a blond girl with black eyes and glasses – or maybe eyeshadow? – in an attic or something? With another one of these things keeping her busy, and some kind of invisible stealth demon thing standing watch. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Course, Horny here might be lying, but any lead is better than no lead."

Agreeing, Josh glares down at the incubus. “I feel you should know that I can tell when the real Warren is withholding information. That applies to you as well. The difference is that I won’t hesitate to pry the information out of your demented skull. So I suggest…” He pauses for emphasis, “that you tell us anything else that might have slipped your mind the first time around."

‘Warren’ looks uneasy, and his eyes dart around for an exit. Finding none, he fidgets, finally looking up into Josh and Bobby’s eyes.

“Though our tastes differ, my brother and I are after much the same thing. It might be too late for her…” At this, his trademark smirk spreads across his face.

“Uh oh. Bob, maybe we’d better be on our way?” Josh glances over at the door, and sets off.

‘Warren’ grabs his arm, and lets out a moan. “Joshua... fuck me. I want you…” He rubs his free hand across a nipple, breathing heavily. The effect is somewhat ruined due to his pelvis being frozen to the ground.

Josh sends a disbelieving look over to Bobby. “I don’t think that deserves an answer, do you? Let’s go get rid of some more undead nasties.”

[Bobby Drake]

> "I don’t think that deserves an answer, do you? Let’s go get rid of some more undead nasties."

Bobby nods, following Josh to the door. "Yeah. I tell you, I don’t know what Hank was thinking… the whole thing was in pretty lousy taste, if you ask me." He looks over his shoulder before they leave, then shakes his head. "I mean, does Warren really talk like that when you guys are alone? No, no, on second thought, forget I even asked. Don’t want to know. Need to wash my brain out with soap now." He tries not to think about it as they leave… and tries even harder not to think about how in-character the John-doppleganger had been.

It only takes a moment to make it back through the secret fireplace entrance into the lobby, where the main doors are shut tight. "So, I’m guessing the Zombie Jamboree is still going on out there, right? And we’re looking for altitude. So, sounds like the stairs are our best bet, then…"

He starts moving towards the grand circular staircase that leads to the upper floors, then stops and shakes his head. "Sorry… this one’s your show." Not that he expects Josh to make an issue over who’s in charge, but all fun and games aside this is a Danger Room exercise, which means they’re being evaluated, and Josh is the team lead here… and the willingness to follow orders probably counts for a lot in Storm’s mind. Besides which, all evaluation aside, Josh can use the experience with being in charge in crisis situations, even simulated ones.

None of which means he has to be useless, though. He closes his eyes and concentrates on his heatsense for a moment, then reports. "OK. Three floors – maybe more, that’s as far as I can sense. Basic layout of each is just a hallway with doors off it. All three hallways seem clear, though I can’t spot these cold-blooded critters, so don’t take that too seriously. Bunch of windows shattered on this floor – funny, the outside air is warmer! Anyway. Room just above us that’s like a freezer, another next to it is a furnace… beats me what that’s all about, but I’m willing to bet our girl isn’t in either." He squints, tilting his head to one side for no particularly good reason, trying to make sense of inputs from the fringe of his awareness.

"Something’s going on up on the third floor – or the second, if this is supposed to be a haunted mansion in England. Might be five or six people, or maybe some really big critter… no, it’s definitely a few distinct heat sources, but there’s something weird about the space around them… I dunno, can’t make out details from this distance. Sorry. " He shrugs apologetically, though the truth is he’s pretty proud of himself for gathering that much intel. He hasn’t spent much time practicing with his heat-sense since his powers came back, but apparently it’s a lot like riding a bicycle.

" So… which way, boss?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

(slight content advisory)

> "I mean, does Warren really talk like that when you guys are alone? No, no, on second thought, forget I even asked. Don’t want to know. Need to wash my brain out with soap now."

Josh glances around the foyer quickly, and then rolls his eyes at Bobby. “ How could Hank possibly know how Warren talks to me when the two of us are alone?” Josh’s cheeks color slightly. “But no, he doesn’t. We’re not characters from a porno, Bobby.” Cause Hank totally used one for inspiration, unless I’m totally mistaken. He tries to clear that particular thought out of his brain as fast as he can.

> "Sorry… this one’s your show."

He nods slightly. It was probably bad form to let Bobby take the lead on this one. While Bobby was probably better at playing ‘leader’ - and Josh was more than happy to let him go nuts with it - he was the assigned leader for this exercise. Letting Bobby take charge too often would probably garner a rebuke from Storm.

> " So… which way, boss?"

Josh thinks a moment. “I think the third floor is going to be our best bet. We need to go where there are warm bodies… unless, of course, Horny’s brother has already drained her dry.” He hooks a thumb back into the back room. “Which he won’t have. If the flag bearer gets incubus-ed to death there’s no way to finish this game.” He starts climbing the stairs up to the third floor. “Where did you sense that concentration of people?”

When the two of them arrive at the top, Josh moves in the direction Bobby indicated. As the two of them near the door, they hear shouts of ecstasy coming from beyond it. He rolls his eyes. “You know… the UN really needs to give Hank more to do. I think he’s getting bored…” Josh positions himself. “Ready? I’ll knock the skeeze away from her, you freeze him in place.”

Josh knocks the door open, and is presented with a strange scene. The incubus’s brother is on top of (presumably) the flag-bearer, who is moaning loudly. A ring of candles encircles the bed. This is really, really bizarre. “Now!” With his powers, Josh throws the man across the room, and he hits the wall. Your turn, Bobby!

[Bobby Drake]

> " How could Hank possibly know how Warren talks to me when the two of us are alone?"

"Oh, um, right. Good point. Because, of course, he hasn’t peppered the Institute with tiny little audiovisual monitoring gadgets, because, um, what kind of a freak would do that?"

Bobby makes a mental note to eliminate all the tiny little audiovisual monitoring gadgets he peppered the Institute with during his most recent freakish period, and somehow managed to forget about afterwards. Not that they’d been a secret, precisely, but then again he isn’t quite sure he ever got around to telling anyone about them either.

> " But no, he doesn’t. We’re not characters from a porno, Bobby. "
"Reassuring, that."

As they approach the third floor, Bobby is able to more clearly resolve the various heat-signatures… though something about this space interferes with his heat-perception, he’s not entirely sure why. "Ah, I get it," he whispers as they clear the stairs and start down the hall, "there’s two occupied rooms. Further-away one on the left’s got about a half-dozen people in it, and a whole bunch of candles. Closer one on the right’s got… two? Three? There’s a normal human and either one really big critter, or two human-sized ones right on top of each other, I -- " he cuts off as they approach the right-hand door and hears the sounds coming through it, and adds blushing to the list of things he’s glad he can’t do in ice-form. "Um, I guess that would be the “right on top of each other” option, then."

> " You know… the UN really needs to give Hank more to do. I think he’s getting bored… Ready? I’ll knock the skeeze away from her, you freeze him in place. "

Either that, Bobby thinks mischievously as he nods acceptance to Josh’s plan, or they really need to find him a girl.

Things happen quickly, then.

Bobby notices activity in the other room – one figure seems to fly out a window, and the heat-patterns in the room become complicated.
But before he can investigate that, Josh opens the door to this one, revealing a scene out of some bizarre occult porn movie. But there’s something wrong – besides the obvious, of course – with the room: there were three heat-signatures, but he only sees the girl on the bed and the guy who used to be on top of her, but is now getting slammed against the wall.
Bobby doesn’t have time to resolve the discrepancy before Josh cries " Now! ". "Check!" With their innocent – or, well, not exactly innocent, but in any case not the enemy – target out of the vicinity and the incubus stunned by the impact, it’s easy for Bobby to encase the thing in a block of ice. Not as much fun as freezing it solid and crushing it, granted, but it also takes way less energy.
"Headsup, though, there’s something else in here… didn’t Horny I say something about stealth?"
He scans the room quickly, trying to reconcile his heat-sense, confused by all the candles, with what his eyes are reporting – and the girl on the bed screams distractingly, pulling a blanket over herself in a show of apparent modesty that somehow only manages to draw attention to the skin she’s ostensibly trying to cover – and the glimpse of a flag tattoo that marks their target is far from being the most attention-attracting aspect of that. " OK, I guess that’s her, but – " and back out in the hallway someone’s come out of the other room, trailing a patterned heat corona that can’t mean anyone but John "And John’s team out in the – oof!"
He finally resolves the other heat-signature in this room as Sue Storm, just as a wall of force he doesn’t see coming in either sense-mode slams him hard and sends him flying out into the hallway and against the far wall.

(( OOC: Which I think synchs the two Yellow Zone threads at this point... yes? ))

[Pyro]

Life at the Institute isn’t ever exactly normal, but it’s an odd day even by Institute standards when the whole ‘being sucked through a vortex and having to play demon’ thing isn’t the weirdest part of it. And yet next to what happens next, as John heads out to confront whatever it was making the convenient-and-disturbing ruckus, is a close contender, what with the sounds issuing from the room and the way they dissolve from one sort of, erm, exercise into something not necessarily more physical (not judging by the noise, in any case) and destructive… and the, erm, low-flying Iceman with whom he nearly collides as Bobby sails out of the room and into the wall opposite.

”Adding flight to the repertoire now, Drake?” he smirks before he can think better of it and do something productive beyond trading jibes in the middle of a battle ”Stick to the day job.”

Shit, his team’s here too? No fucking way I’m winning that flag, then. It’s more of a relief than a disappointment, if he’s honest, the way that it feels okay to say ‘screw this, I’ll just concentrate on getting out alive’ - because that’s the ‘mature’ thing to do, right? To know when you’re on a losing wicket and bat accordingly, backing down graciously rather than launching suicidally into the mix? – except… well, it’s Bob, and so backing down is…

”Fuck” Of course, this isn’t the place for such contemplation. It’s all manner of totally fucking idiotic to get distracted, because it’s then, when the action lulls and the plot dares to take over, then that the monsters appear. John’s seen enough horror movies to know how it works, and will get around to kicking himself over it if – when? Should be when, but… - they – no, not they, this isn’t his team so he’s no call defending them – and shit, this is no time to be caught up in semantics and fine distinctions because there’s a fucking… something – John has no idea what, but it sure as hell ain’t human – or at least there was. Now there’s just a dark smear on the wall, a greasy slick on the floor, and the lingering sweet smell of burnt flesh and darker thicker smell that comes when you burn something that’s already toast, and once his heart rate slows to somewhere on that weird borderline between *alert* and *panic* he manages another half-smirk. ”Nice company you’re keeping, Icicle.”

[Bobby Drake]

The invisible field that had been crushing him against the wall fades away – Bobby’s not sure why, but he suspects it’s because Josh did something to Dr. Storm, back in the room – and Bobby drops to the hallway floor, dazed and disoriented.

> " Adding flight to the repertoire now, Drake? Stick to the day job."

Oh crap – Horny’s back! Bobby tries to climb back to his feet, but he can’t seem to make his body move just yet… and after a moment, he realizes his error. This, he’s pretty sure, is the real John… and in retrospect he’s not sure how the doppelganger had ever fooled him. John’s wearing his training uniform, which is (unfortunately) far more plausible than the doppelganger’s garb, and there’s a jitteriness to the way the flames gather around him that the demon never managed to duplicate, and the gratuitous insults are (also unfortunately) far more in-character than the overtly seductive banter had been.

Which doesn’t make his situation all that much better, really, since John isn’t actually on his team for this exercise, and he still can’t quite get his body to move when he wants it to. "Well, you know… practice makes perfect." He’s trying for distracting banter but it’s just lame, even by Bobby’s admittedly low standards, and he realizes that John’s barb has hit closer to home than he’d thought. After all, of the group that used to hang out together all the time – him and John and Rogue and Josh – he’s the only one who hasn’t figured out some way to fly. Admittedly, it’s not like John uses his fire-sledding trick much, and Rogue’s was more of a fortunate accident, but still, it kinda bugs him.

Great moment of self-discovery, Drake; Sean’ll be pleased. Now MOVE YOUR DAMN ASS!!! He manages to climb to his knees with an effort of will, but it’s too late – John’s already recovered from the surprise and is hurling flame in his direction, and Bobby cringes as the heat-wave reaches him... then blinks as the flame itself arcs over him and strikes some kind of shambling thing behind him he hadn’t sensed coming Hate, hate, HATE room-temperature critters! and reduces it to a crisp.

By this point Bobby’s back on his feet, ready for action, but… John isn’t attacking, he’s just standing there. Ready, but holding back. What the fuck – he just saved me?

> "Nice company you’re keeping, Icicle."

Bobby nods slowly at that, his eyes meeting John’s. "Yeah… guess it is, at that," he replies, and it’s clear he doesn’t mean whatever that creature was. "Even if you are, you know, the enemy and all. Guess it’s like old times, huh?" It should be funny, but it isn’t, because it’s just too true: he and John really had been closer when they were supposed to be enemies. Which is absurd, but there it is.

That particular direction of contemplation is cut short when the air down the hall… curdles, Bobby guesses, is the right word for it... and another one of those shambling critters oozes out of it. And another. And a third. And it doesn’t seem to slow down. "Oh, crap." He nearly dislocates his neck trying to watch them approach and keep an eye on John and see what’s going on with Josh at the same time.

His mind races. There’d been someone else in that room with John, someone who flew out a window. John’s teammates were Toni and Toby, no flight there. So… Rogue, Storm, or Warren. Rogue was on Yellow Team, that was likeliest. Laurie’d been eliminated and Sue Storm was here… defensive strategy seemed likely. That made Yellow Team the bigger threat, if he’d guessed right, especially with the Zone on their side. Besides, John’d already made a good-will gesture, right?

OK, then. Enemy of my enemy, and all that… "No point in us fighting ‘till we get clear of the moster hordes, I guess," he mutters, encasing the monster-generator thing in ice with a thought. Another appears immediately, a few meters away, and he repeats the process. "I can keep ‘em from spawning; you take out the ones who’re already here!"

[Pyro]

Bob’s disbelief at the whole ‘saving’ thing’s probably on a par with John’s own, because… what the fuck?

Okay, it’s… nothing. Wasn’t Bob he was saving. Just a normal reaction to oozy… demon… things. Self defence. If Bob benefited by it, then… well, that’s just coincidence. Because there’s no reason he should still be leaping to his defence, is there?

< Even if you are, you know, the enemy and all
(There – no reason at all, not when they’re enemies. Coincidence, that’s all.) John rolls his eyes at that – for fuck’s sake, this is hardly the time for The Never-ending Bob and John Drama, Season One-million-and-something to kick off, not when there are all manner of fanged, winged and otherwise nasty creatures crawling out of the fucking walls – though he can’t hide the slight smirk. Just like o…

< Guess it’s just like old times, huh?
Exactly, just like he said. And it’s totally beyond screwed up that those days should be their *way back when*, the golden age when everything was simpler and better, but so it is… except Bobby’s not talking about that, obviously, just about this fucking Flag Capturing debacle, and he really should be keeping his head in the game and not off god knows where thinking about crap that’s totally irrelevant.

And of course it’s only right and proper he tell Bob as much (nothing to do with getting one over the Institute’s Golden Boy when it comes to strategy and combat scenarios and all, nothing at all connected to the cheapest of cheap digs). ”Much as I’d enjoy kicking your ass, Icicle, I’ll have to take a raincheck on the mortal enemies thing. Slightly more concerned about whether Slimy-and-hating-it has any friends.”

< Oh crap
”My thoughts exactly.” Any snarky quip which should have been tagged onto the end of that – and have no doubt, there probably was one before his mind when blank – is forgotten as incredulous sidelong staring at the spawning takes over, the whole wall-giving-birth-to-demons thing yet another contender for ‘weirdest part of the day’.

< No point us fighting ‘til we get clear of the monster hordes
If John jumps at Bob’s words, absorbed as he is in the weirdness, then the withering no shit, Sherlock glance with which he answers that particular gem of wisdom should cover it adequately, though it skirts closer to an admiring heh as the spawn site is encased in ice.

< I can keep ‘em from spawning; you take out the ones who’re already here
Sure, he can get into that. It’s a welcome distraction from all the other spectres gathering around to take their chance at haunting while he stays here, the ghosts of issues which should know by now to stay dead and stop bugging him because that’s all over, finished, done with… and, given that these are random demonic things and not people, not ‘real’ and not anything he has any reason to regret wanting to kill, it’s somehow okay to admit that burning them still feels fucking amazing. Things having been so grey and stagnant of late, there really is nothing that compares to the rush.

Caught up in that as he is, dark predatory smile flickering across his features as he sparks up before launching into dealing with ‘taking out’ the demons, it seems perfectly natural for ”Really know how to show a guy a good time” to slip out without him remembering who he’s talking to and checking the throwaway comment.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren climbs for altitude as soon as he clears the window, keeping a layer of air tightly wrapped around him to protect his exposed skin from the rain (because of course there’s a thunderstorm starting now that he’s outside… he should have expected that), as well as in anticipation of a fire-bolt coming after him now that his temporary alliance with Allerdyce is over.

When nothing happens, he lets himself drop to give the building’s roof a closer inspection – it would be stupid to send those teenagers up here for safety only to be eaten by a rooftop demon, after all. The four stone gargoyles perched on the building’s corners catch his attention, but after a few moments of baiting and taunting them with no response, Warren decides they really are just architectural features.

He can hear the sounds of combat coming from downstairs… that would be Allerdyce’s flames… and that would be Drake’s ice (he pauses for a moment at the realization that they’re fighting together, despite being on opposing teams, and chuckles silently at art imitating life)… and the no-special-effects slamming noises are probably Josh throwing things around. There’s another weird effect, as of large quantities of air being suddenly displaced, which he assumes is some Danger Room simulation… and then, of course, there’s the woman’s scream.

Warren drops off the rooftop, around the corner from his starting point, and hovers to a stop outside the window the scream came from. The room inside is dimly lit, and the closed window blocks his windsense… all he can really see is Josh, fighting with something invisible.

OK… I get one chance at this, have to make it count. He grabs hold of the wall, fingers and boots cramming into chinks in the decaying masonry, and slips the tip of one wing underneath the window-frame, opening it a scant millimeter to give his wind-sense an opportunity to function. That lays out the hallway for him – Allerdyce and Drake and some kind of monster-spawning portals – as well as the room itself, with Josh fighting Dr. Storm, and some guy frozen to the wall, and the sheet-wrapped girl he assumes is their target. I’ll take “flag-tattooed whores” for the win, Jack…

It’s surprisingly difficult to resist the urge to charge in and help Josh against his opponent – her invisibility is useless against Warren, but enough to keep Josh from getting a telekinetic lock on her, and her forcefields keep him from simply overpowering her with a rain of debris – but he manages… that’s not the point of this exercise, after all. Besides, the more they struggle, the more the flag-bearer backs away from them, and that brings her closer and closer to his window.

Just a few more seconds… OK, now! He lifts the window with a wing that then folds against the inside wall to hold him up, and reaches quickly into the room to grab the girl’s arm in the same motion, then yanks hard, giving up his purchase on the wall to wrap another arm more securely around her waist, kicking away from the wall so she clears the windowsill before they start to fall.

Unfortunately for Warren, the stealthy quiet extraction he’d anticipated is ruined by the girl’s scream, and his hand around her mouth comes too late. It all comes down to luck then – can he get enough altitude fast enough, with an uncooperative passenger, to reach safety before one of his four opponents reacts in time to stop him?

[Pyro]

Blah blah content blah suggestive blah. Now with added Incu-Bob

John’s not sure exactly when, or how, he and Bob got separated (not, he reminds himself, that they were ever together. Not together together. Just in the same place trying to accomplish the same goal… while still moral enemies in as far as this Capture The Flag crap allows) but somewhere along the line he must have got carried away and struck out a little too far because when the last of those things is just a sad smear and, catching his breath, he turns around…

”Hey”

Of course, Bob’s right behind him; this new ice-form shebang must have granted him some sort of super-stealth powers (except that he’s not iced right now… but whatever), of course John jumps more than he should at the voice and the hand on his shoulder (… isn’t Bob weirder than this about them touching now? … no, shut up, desperate times. Heat of battle. Of course), and of course the usual cover-up ensues. Which in this case means scowling and pulling away. ”Great fucking job you’re doing on those portals, Frosty. ‘Cos they just keep on spaw-mmmmferkwhatthefuck?!” The corridor wall is hard against his back, the impact almost as jarring as the fact that Bob’s got his pressed against it. Not-happening-not-happening… seriously, Bob wouldn’t… with Rogue now, he would never…. It shakes him, the sudden shift in how this works, and when he speaks again his mouth’s dry, his voice ragged. ”Seriously, Bobby, what the fuck?”

”Shut up and fuck me already” Bob’s lips on his, swallowing any protest. This is so h… wrong. Wrong wrong wrong, very… Missed this – was it ever like this? – fuck, John, just shut up and… no. Wrong.

It’s a valiant effort, sure, especially when every inch of him (… yep, every fucking inch) seems primed, ready and willing to give in. He even manages to pull back, to grab the necessary breath to start a protest… before Bob’s back with another, more savage kiss, and the low, involuntary moan that provokes might as well be a death rattle for his will power as the voice screaming Fuck yes, want this so fucking much takes over.

It’s hasty, hands everywhere, fierce and fiery and just like it used to be, stolen moments where the line between fighting and fucking wasn’t easy to begin to draw, and if little things don’t quite gel, if Bob’s warmer than he should be, and paler, and tastes different… it’s just time. He’s remembering wrong, that’s all. Nostalgia’ll do funny things like that, can’t be sure what was really Bob and what stupid romanticised embellishment. Besides, Bob’s changed since then. Stands to reason other things’ll be different, and that’s a thrill all its own, the landscape they’re frantically exploring at once familiar and uncharted.

Bob’s hands are on his wrist, fumbling with the straps, and a small spark of protest points out that this is a very bad idea – what if the things come back? – and another can think of better playgrounds for Bob, but an attempt to guide him elsewhere only results in a tightening of his grip – which… ouch, when was Bob this strong? Were his nails ever this fucking sharp? – and a more insistent struggle until one lighter clatters to the floor.

”Mm-fuck, Bob.” John pulls back again, tries to slide down between the wall on one side and Bob on the other to retrieve it. ”I need th…”

”Forget it. Anything comes back, I’ll protect both of us.”

”… fine… fuck, no. This… fuck, this can’t happen. Ro…”

”Please.” Bob rolls his eyes. ”As if what you have with her measures up to” – his hands slide south, teasing at the waistband between leather and skin, and John arches and shudders and, fuck, almost whimpers, Bob’s words whispered and breathy, cold air sending more shivers racing down his spine – ”Any of this. You don’t want her.”

”B-bu… stop it, can’t concentrate when you’re… Bob, fuck’s sake, st…” One last quaking protest. ”You know they’re recording this?”

”Good.” Not just breath but teeth this time, gentle nip, not so gentle tug at his earlobe – did that draw blood? Who fucking cares? - making him gasp. ”Maybe we can get a copy”

He doesn’t bother trying to stay afloat any more, just lets himself drown in the next kiss, starts not just giving in but giving as good as he gets and…

… one thing’s for certain; whatever else has changed, Bob never had fangs. ”Ng-the fuck?”

Whatever it is wearing Bob’s skin doesn’t answer, just smirks back at him, eyes blazing in the gloom of the creepy old house’s creaking corridor. And whatever that was – definitely not lust, no fucking way. A physical reaction, undeniable, but… some freaky psychic shit at work, yes. Evil seductive telepathy. Not his fault at all – turns quickly into disgust, both the low, dirty feeling pooling in the base of his stomach at being… defiled (not the right word, but… fuck that, yes, totally the right word. Hank’s seriously screwed up, writing mind-raping sex demon things into the game), and a stronger urge to tear Not-Bob to shreds.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh ducks a force-blast and slides across the floor towards Sue, throwing his own telekinetic blast forwards at her. She flies off the ground and hits the wall with a grunt, but quickly turns invisible. He suppresses a groan. It was beginning of a pattern - Sue would turn invisible and then change her position, and the he’d get hit from nowhere with a concussive blast. A picture frame in the corner levitates off the ground in a bubble, and comes careening in at his face. Josh frowns, and positions a telekinetic shield between himself and the projectile. The frame bounces off his shield and shatters. She’s getting kind of vicious, isn’t she…?

In the other room, he can hear John and Bobby fighting other undead simulants. For now, though it was probably better to keep concentrating on Sue. Damn her, I’d never realized how hard it was to fight an invisible foe. In the Baxter Building, Emma Frost had put her on an all-out assault. The real Sue was much sneakier, which he supposed made sense.

Theoretically, it was probably possible to locate Sue with his telepathy. However, it wasn’t exactly the best environment for that kind of concentration. “Come on, Sue… where are you?” Josh whispers, and almost on cue, a bluish energy blast lances out from directly in front of him.

“Aaaah!” Josh throws himself into a backflip, something he probably couldn’t duplicate without telekinesis. The maneuver narrowly takes him above the incoming blast, and he lands a few steps away. Quickly, he sends a chair sliding across the floor to her last known position, but it only appears to clip her ankle. With a short hiss the room is silent, once more.

This is getting ridiculous. It was almost impossible to detect Sue while she was invisible. Josh wasn’t entirely sure of her power level, but he was nearly certain that she could manipulate force fields and stay invisible at the same time. So either she had ‘come up for air’ here and there, or here and there she just felt like toying with him. He suspected the latter. Let’s see… Oooh. In the corner of the room is a door to the adjoining bathroom. With a flick of his abilities, Josh plugs the bathtub and turns the handle, starting the tub filling up.

A few abortive force blasts later, Josh judges that there’s enough water. He takes a deep breath and reaches out with his powers, heaving upwards. The bathtub water floats outwards from the door in a strange, ribbon-like fashion. Brow furrowed, he nudges the water to expand and fill as much of the room as possible.

Of course, it doesn’t fill anywhere near the amount needed. But it does fill the room with a strange bubble-like mist… which is enough.

There. The effect is strange, but it’s possible to see Sue’s movements… and exactly where she’s displacing water, even if she’s able to vanish whatever comes into contact with her body. It’s just enough time for what he needs, and Josh reaches out with both hands, manipulating elements of the room.

The hall door whips open, and from across the room a large wardrobe slides across the ground. It smashes into Sue and pushes her right out of the room. Josh leaves the wardrobe in place to cover the opening. It won’t hold her for long, but it buys some time.

A scream cuts through the air, and Josh whips around, seeing the flag-bearer being scooped up by Warren. No! They’ve already gotten ours… how many more do they have? A short burst at the window nearest to him blows it out, glass shards spraying outwards and dropping into the yard. Josh throws himself out the window and into the air, catching himself in a telekinetic grip and screaming across the sky towards Warren.

Don't make me run you out of the sky, Warren. He tries to come off as serious, but the comment sounds too much like something he'd say during one of their sky-tag sessions and he lets slip a mental giggle.

[Warren Worthington III]

> Don't make me run you out of the sky, Warren.

Warren can’t help but chuckle in response You’ll never catch me alive, copper!. They’ve played enough sky-tag for Warren to know that he can’t outfly Josh, though, and while that’s usually a good thing, to the extent that he’s taking this little contest seriously he realizes he’s in trouble.

His only advantage is that Josh generally has trouble multi-tasking his telekinesis, so pushing his own body through the sky will make it harder for him to grab Warren or his passenger. And Warren’s been getting better at using his own telekinetic aura to disrupt TK attacks, which should also help. But those are just short-term evasive measures; sooner or later they’ll fail, and there’s no way he’ll make it to the Yellow Gate before Josh catches him. So Warren needs to do something more active.

He wracks his brains, but the only thing that comes to mind is a trick he’s used once before during a rainstorm, and Josh will probably be expecting it. Still, he can’t think of anything better, so he decides to go for it: he climbs quickly, then releases his passenger at the top of his arc and dives to pick up speed with his wings pressed tightly against his back. When he’s at roughly the same altitude as Josh again, he snaps his wings out into a glide headed right towards his pursuer. Then, before he can lose too much velocity, he banks his wings to maximum cross-section and, with all the strength he can summon, hurls them forward like huge scoops.

He comes to an almost-complete stop, of course, and he’ll feel the soreness in his back muscles for a week, but along with that comes several gallons of rainwater scooped right out of the sky and hurled into Josh’s face. As Warren dives again to catch his falling, shrieking passenger, he notices her loosely-tied bedsheet fluttering in the wind and another thought occurs to him: he undoes the last surviving knot as they resume their flight and drops it in a wind-current that should deliver it directly into Josh’s flight-path.

The flag-bearer once more securely in his grip, he resumes his flight towards the Yellow Zone, still searching for a way to get them out safely. Those tricks will, at best, have slowed Josh down a little; no way did they stop him. Which, Warren has to admit, isn’t entirely a bad thing… this is shaping up to be one of their better games of sky-tag!

[Bobby Drake]

If Bobby’s attention weren’t being primarily consumed by the exercise of detecting the demonic proto-portals as they form, he’s pretty sure he’d find the expression on John’s face a lot more disturbing than he currently does.

Sure, they’re just DR sims… and of mindless demon monster thingies, besides… but the way John enjoys burning them reminds Bobby too much of Boston and Alcatraz, not to mention all the scenes he hadn’t been around for but got to read about, or see on TV. Bobby isn’t naïve enough to believe John got through his time in the Brotherhood without amassing a body-count, but the idea that he might have enjoyed it turns his stomach when he thinks about it. So he tries not to.

> " Really know how to show a guy a good time "

And comments like that don’t help. Bobby knows it’s just banter, and that he’s supposed to throw back some half-insulting comment in return, keep their morale up… but the only response he can think of is “Yeah… later we can go back to my place and you can burn it down” and he suspects that’s best left unarticulated.

So when the incipient portals start leading him down the hall, away from the chokepoint of Red/Yellow/Green team battle, he lets it happen. Sure, it’s dumb of him to let himself be lured away from their actual target… but he assures himself it’s OK, that it’s necessary to shut down these threats before they amass an army behind him, that he’s not just running away in a surprisingly literal fashion from issues he’d prefer not to address.

And with all this going through his mind, it’s not surprising that Bobby completely loses track of how many ice-pillars he’s created on this stretch of hallway to plug up demon-portals, or how much they weigh compared to the carrying capacity of an old creaky haunted-mansion infrastructure... not surprising that he’s caught flat-footed when the floor caves in underneath him, dropping him and about half a ton of ice onto the floor below. Fuck… that was dumb, he thinks as the second-floor landing, then the first, give way beneath his micro-avalanche; then concentrates on keeping himself intact and getting on top of the pile.

He’s mostly successful; when they land in the basement he manages to avoid being crushed by either the rain of debris or his own ice-pillars. In fact, the latter manage to cushion his fall somewhat, shattering into shards underneath him, leaving him dazed and disoriented rather than shattered.

"Nice of you to drop in… we get so few visitors down here." Bobby tries to move when the eerie voice springs up around him, but his body isn’t responding. "Just in time for dinner, too..."

The last thing he sees is the creature’s face – at least, he assumes that’s a face – looming over him, and a clawed appendage wrapping itself around his neck. Then everything goes black, and he hears a voice call out “Green Team - Iceman eliminated” as the main room forms around him.

Fuck.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh grins to himself and does a midair flip over Warren’s water projectile. The ease of it surprises him slightly - Warren’s flight lessons must have paid off. It was inherently easier to dodge things than support himself telekinetically and ward off dangers. It just took some time getting comfortable with flight.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Unfortunately, his elation distracts him just enough to allow the rain-soaked bedsheet to come flying out of nowhere and slap him solidly in the face. The entire sheet somehow wraps itself over his upper body, and the shock of it causes Josh to cease his telekinetic flight, dropping him towards the ground like a stone.

He claws at the slick material, but unfortunately the gloves that come standard with his uniform make it like trying to pick up a pin with oven mitts on. He can feel the ground rushing up at him, and somehow the rain starts getting heavier.

With great effort, Josh reestablishes his mental grip on himself before he impacts the ground, and throws his body towards the area gate. Warren’s gotta be going there - anywhere else will be a dead end! Finally, he’s able to remove the sheet and regain his bearings.

Warren is farther ahead than before, but the gap is mostly negligible. Trying to wrong-foot me, huh? You’re in so much trouble, buster! Josh can’t help but smile - he’s having fun with all of this.

Oddly, the air around him seems to get tense, for lack of a better word - as if something big is about to happen. The rain seems to pour down even steadier, and… No. A pulse of fear shoots through Josh. He’s seen this happen a million times… but not from this position.

A fork of lightning crashes down from the sky and impales him dead on. His hastily-erected telekinetic shield only takes so much before it crashes down around him, and the mental stress of trying to keep it and himself up is too much. Josh’s residual momentum carries him a bit farther until he plows into the ground. The Danger Room even adds an artful trail of smoke.

“Green Team - Impulse eliminated. New team leader: Maverick.”

In the main lobby, Josh appears, looking cross. “Stupid Storm and her stupid lightning.” He glances over at Bobby, still piqued. "Did Sue finish you off? She's seriously dangerous for a geneticist..."