Chapter Text
“BEAST!”
Adrenaline. Heart pounding. Out of shape. Hadn’t done this in so long. Almost felt nostalgic. Lead them on a merry chase, play the court jester, the clown, the moving target, the distraction.
“It’s over!”
How long had it been, now? How long since he’d felt the thrill of escape, of knowing that even if he wasn’t the one dealing the final blow, he was helping, contributing, being a part of a greater, more heroic whole? How long had it been since he’d been the bouncing blue Beast, who’s in like Flynn with a great big grin, boychik, and don’t you forget it -
“You always got something to say.”
He’d stopped. Why? Why had he stopped? Did he want to appease his pursuer? Distract him? Did he have some grand plan, some incredibly witty reversal up his lack of a sleeve?
. . . No. No, he didn’t. No, in fact, all of a sudden he just . . . found it all rather pointless, really. All the running around, all the killing, all the games they were playing, it was . . .
“So say it. Quote a philosopher. Spit out your intellectual argument. Justify away.”
What meaning did any of this have? What meaning did his life have anymore? It was all data analysis, predictive algorithms, chasing the shadows on the cave wall, using terror and butchery to cast larger shadows so that no-one would look at their safe place, their home, their country -
“Come on, you @#$%! SAY IT!”
It was all just. Pointless. They had conquered death. No mutant needed to languish in death’s embrace ever again. So why was he doing all of this? What had led him to this point? What was he doing?
“I have nothing to say.”
What could he possibly say that would explain all of this? ‘The ends justify the means’? What a paltry adage. What a hideous, odious little phrase. Where had this clarity been? Why was he suddenly seeing clearly now? Why was he looking at the man he had so awfully brutalised, and only now seeing what he had done?
“Well, I do.”
The claws passing through his throat and through his sternum seemed to glide through the blue flesh before twisting and gnarling on the muscle, and the spasms of life, the beat of a heart, the swell of a lung, came to an abrupt, liquid end. He keeled over, silent.
The last thing he saw was Logan’s face, his chest covered in blood and riddled with bullet holes. Hadn’t he designed that X-Force uniform to be bulletproof? He could have sworn he had. When did he stop doing that? It had been standard practise for uniforms for decades . . .
The next thing he knew, he came to, naked. A momentary disorientation. A translocation of memory and consciousness, hundreds and thousands of miles away. He stepped out of a gleaming, golden pod, steaming, fresh. Reborn.
Granted clarity once more.
What a relief.
He’d almost had a crisis of conscience there.
*
Hank padded out of his bedroom with a heavy, almost drunken sway to his steps, forcing his way to the bathroom and keeling over the sink. He splashed water over his face, over and over again, his heart thundering in his ears. Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a memory, that was all.
He didn’t emerge for a good long while. By the time he was done, the sun was coming up, and he watched it rise through the grimy kitchen window, eyes unseeing.
Ezekiel woke up an hour later - early for him. He sat up on the couch, yawning, his hair a mess, and he was mid-scratch at the back of his neck when he realised Hank was up, staring out the window. Dark Beast’s head bobbed quietly in its jar on the coffee table, eyes closed and bubbles escaping his nose and mouth.
“You okay?”
Hank didn’t respond for the longest time.
“. . . No.”
Zeke nodded slowly, pushing off the blankets and scratching at his chest as he swung his legs around to plant them on the floor, not looking away from the older man.
“You gonna be?”
There was a dark, almost cruel edge to the humourless little laugh that escaped Hank at that.
“No.”
He didn’t know what to say. He looked away, stared at the floor.
“Well, if you want to talk about it - “
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”
They weren’t going to talk about it.
*
It was almost midday by the time that Hank had pulled himself together enough to at least pretend that he was all right, and there was a morose quiet in the apartment as Zeke crunched his way through his cereal and dumped the little crumbs that he couldn’t be bothered to chase with a spoon into Dark Beast’s jar.
“I am not your garbage disposal, you irksome little twit.”
“You wanna eat or not?”
There was a narrow, mean look in Henry’s eyes as he stared at Zeke, who just stared back, challenging him - before the head swivelled and began to eat the wet cereal flakes with a grumble.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Hey, Hank?”
“Mhm?”
He was distracted again, moody again. Zeke hated it when he was like this. He was hard to motivate, just ended up on the laptop all day working on what he vaguely called ‘network security problems', or working on the small pile of spare parts that had come out of the various little tech support jobs they’d been taking on. He didn’t want to do anything, and it wasn’t as though Hank was Zeke’s first choice for social engagements, but at the moment, it was him or the head.
“I wanted to go out and get some more food today. You good to come with?”
“Well, I really don’t think that I - “
“Dude, come on, I don’t want to carry it all by myself. Besides, the woman at the grocery store doesn’t give me the discount, she only does that for you.”
“Perhaps she shouldn’t give me that disco - “
“Diiiiiiiid I assssssssssk, noooooo, I didnnnnnnn’t, we neeeeeeed the moneeeeeeey.”
Hank narrowed his eyes in annoyance, the first bit of animation Zeke had gotten out of him all day.
“You’re being even more obstreperous than usual today.”
“Yeah, well, you’re being even more of a moody $%^&* then usual, so it’s warranted.”
The ex-X-Man opened his mouth to reply.
“Henry, be a good boy and just take damned the child out of the apartment or stop arguing, but for the love of God pick something. Or at least put on HBO so that I can drown the two of you out. I’m developing a headache, and given that I’m nothing but head, it’s all just a little much to bear.”
Hank raised an eyebrow at his counterpart, and they, too, engaged in a small staring contest, before Hank sighed and shook his head, standing up and grabbing his jacket.
“I had to let our HBO subscription lapse, incidentally.”
This time, both Henry and Zeke let out a noise of complaint, and Hank had to wave a hand in annoyance at them both.
“It was getting to be too expensive, and despite your protestations to the contrary, neither of you were watching it! You both forget that I actually bother to check what you’ve been watching on your user profiles.”
Henry grumbled.
“That’s an invasion of privacy.”
“And you’re the head of a maladjusted sociopath with delusions of adequacy, so we’re all unhappy, aren’t we?”
The head spat at Hank, only succeeding in making more bubbles.
“Fine. At least put on a video essayist. The theme parks one.”
Hank rolled his eyes but did as he was bidden, flicking over inputs on the TV and gesturing broadly as the video essay started up, knowing exactly which one the head wanted to see, Henry fluttering his eyelashes in mock-gratitude before turning to watch. The most able bodied of the McCoy’s sighed and grabbed his keys, Zeke following him to the apartment door.
“And stay - “
“Quiet, yes, I know, you priggish milksop, I know. Leave. Before I start screaming.”
The door closed and locked behind them, and Henry rolled his eyes, giving his full attention over to the screen.
*
“So, I had a thought.”
Absently, his red rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose, Hank raised an eyebrow, even as he continued to scan the back of the cereal box.
“Did you really? There’s a first time for everything.”
As elastic as could be, the tease bounced off Zeke as he looked through the bundle of broken items at the end of the aisle, seeing if there was anything reduced and worth taking.
“Dunfee’s kinda small, in the grand scheme of things, right? Like, there’s not even 100,000 people here.”
Hank nodded, putting the cereal back on the shelf and picking a different brand after a moment’s perusal. Too much sugar in that first one. What were they feeding people these days?
“Correct. And this is after a large expansion just a few years ago, it used to be substantially smaller than this.”
“Right, right. So, like . . . why did Orchis set up a whole base here? That little building a few streets over, guys with guns, with decommissioned SHIELD cars, a whole APC? That’s a lot for a really small place. I know you said that these guys are ridiculous, that they had space stations and everything, but that just makes it seem even weirder that they’re here of all places.”
The larger McCoy grabbed three packets of fairly cheap pasta, throwing it into their trolley and ambling along.
“That would come from you not knowing your history. The boba tea establishment on main street - do you know what that used to be?”
Zeke shook his head, thinking he was being particularly sneaky as he slid two extra packets of cookies underneath the cereal that Hank had chosen.
“It used to be the Graydon Creed Candidacy HQ. Creed was a radical anti-mutant campaigner some years ago, before his untimely death, and he was quite, quite popular here. For some people, it was the job opportunities he represented - populist hate always draws in the unemployed, the maladjusted, the poor, with work answering the phones, campaigning for money, a down payment on jobs that they swear will come, just as soon as their chosen scapegoat group of undesirable individuals is wiped from the face of the Earth. For other people . . . well.”
Hank’s face was dark as he thumbed through the small spinner of books near the check out.
“For other people, they just hated mutants. That was all it needed to be for them. The Tavern, just across from the HQ, was where you would go on a Saturday night to ruminate on how mutants had ruined your life in a carefully orchestrated blitzkrieg of job theft, wife theft, pride theft, so that people didn’t have to confront their own inadequacies.”
Zeke looked dubious.
“But that was years ago.”
Starting to unload the trolley of food so that it could be checked out, Hank shook his head.
“Hate dies slowly, if indeed it ever does. Orchis seeks to draw on that wellspring of hate. Far easier to build a base where you have ample natural resources than to try and build from scratch.”
Zeke didn’t seem wholly convinced, even as he emptied out the last of the food onto the belt. He seemed to be musing to himself, but not saying anything - a rarity for him. Hank was almost concerned, about to open his mouth, when he realised the old woman at the checkout was smiling at him.
“Hello again, Mrs. Thomas. Doing well?”
“Now, young Henry, you know I’ve told you that you can call me Brianna - oh, but who am I kiddin’, if you didn’t listen to me when you were yay high, you aren’t going to listen to me now! Always just so polite.”
The younger McCoy was now smirking at Hank as he seemed to get a little flustered, grabbing his wallet to give him something to do that wasn’t being doted on by a friend of his mother’s.
“Er - well, yes. Apologies, Mrs. Thomas - Brianna. I suppose I’m just so used to calling you by your proper title that - “
“Proper title - can you believe him, kiddo? Known this boy since he was just six years old, bouncing around his mom’s feet like a jumping jack, and he has the nerve to grow up so tall and well spoken and handsome, and polite, on top of all of it?”
Zeke always enjoyed this part of their irregular food shopping routine. Watching Hank become so effusively embarrassed was a treat almost as worth savouring as the cookies he liked so much.
“Well. Thank you, Mrs. Tho - Brianna. I, ah. Try my best. I believe that all comes to $38.50, doesn’t it?”
The older woman shook her head, a smile on her face.
“Try again, kiddo.”
Hank sighed, beseeching her not to do this.
“$35?”
“Try again, Henry.”
“Mrs. Thomas.”
“$30, and not a penny more.”
“Mrs. Thomas, there is absolutely no way you’re making money from this transaction with a discount that steep.”
“You’re right! I’m selling at cost, so hand it over, Henry, before a line starts forming.”
Looking to his right, Hank could see that there was, indeed, another customer waiting, and he grumbled softly as he fished thirty dollars out of his wallet, handing it over Mrs. Thomas, who patted him on the back of the hand.
“Attaboy, Henry. You should know better than to argue with your elders, now.”
By now, Hank had been affectionately scolded into red-faced complacency, and he accepted the bags of groceries with a grumble.
“Thank you, Mrs. Thomas.”
“Brianna, Henry. And there’s a good boy. All my love to your mom and pop. Next please!”
Zeke was practically giggling on their way out of the store, even as Hank shook his head.
“I’m glad you find it so funny.”
“Dude, it’s so funny. You act all small and mindful and demure the instant she gets nice! You’re like six three and she’s this tiny little seventy year old, it’s great.”
“When did you learn the word demure?”
“Meme. Anyway, you never said why she gives you that discount. What did you do, save a truck full of kittens from a racist fire or something? Must’ve been pretty heroic.”
Zeke had learned very quickly that there was nothing that irked Hank more than being treated nicely. It was clear, even to people who hadn’t been inside his head, that he felt that he didn’t remotely deserve such treatment, and he couldn’t very well tell a kindly seventy year old to stick said kindness, so he just fell back onto embarrassment instead.
“It wasn’t that heroic.”
“Which means it was heroic. C’mon, man, just gimme the story, or I’ll just ask her next time, you know she’ll tell me.”
Hank adjusted the bags of groceries self-consciously.
“It was . . . oh, I don’t know. Nearly twenty years ago now. I came back home after I - changed. The town was in the grip of a paroxysm of fear. Animals were dying, seemingly randomly, and the leading theory was that some kind of apex predator was killing them.”
Hank sighed again.
“Instead, it was just . . . radiation. Contaminated bodies, workers at the nearby nuclear power planet, had affected the ground soil and water table. A friend and I worked out what was happening, she reported it to the local authorities, and my name became attached to it, even though I had barely done anything.”
There was a strange soberness to the conversation now.
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing worth noting. I was only home because I was moping and feeling sorry for myself because of my own damn fool actions . . . I suppose the more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m doing the exact same thing now.”
Zeke shook his head.
“You still saved people.”
“Dunfee still has one of the highest cancer diagnosis rates in the country. Whatever I did, I didn’t do enough.”
Jennifer’s mother and father had both died before he came home, both succumbed to a long, slow, wasting illness that had caused them untold pain. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so eager to run off and prove himself a hero, to show off, he might’ve been home, might’ve realised what had happened earlier. They might still be alive.
“You can’t save everyone, Hank. That’s your real problem. You can’t accept that, and it’s gonna %^&* you up every time.”
“If we could just drop the subject, please.”
“Dude, I’m serious, it’s gonna - “
“I said drop the damned subject, Ezekiel.”
He dropped the damned subject, even if it made his face as sour as a lemon as they crossed the street, but Hank couldn’t have been less in the mood at that very moment, and it showed in the annoyance that worked its way across his face when his phone began to go off.
“Who in the world . . ?”
For a moment, he debated the wisdom of even taking the device out of his pocket, but curiosity, as was so often the case, was Henry McCoy’s undoing, and he fished his phone out of his shorts pocket to see a number he didn’t recognise. He fully expected it to be a spam caller.
“Hank? Hank, please tell me I’ve got the right number.”
Jennifer?
“Jen? What’s wrong?”
Ezekiel dropped his pout long enough to realise that something was wrong, and he stared at Hank as the man planted one foot down while the other came up to support the underside of his bag of groceries, leaving one of his hands free to press his phone to his pointed ear.
“Oh thank god. Listen, how quickly can you get to the Lab?”
“The - Lab? I don’t - what?”
“My Lab, Hank! Remember, before we went out for karaoke? Please, I need you to go there right now and help, I need someone to do something, they can’t just take her - “
Already seeing where this was going, Hank caught Zeke’s eye and motioned him over, handing him the bag of groceries as he immediately began to pick up speed, heading in the direction of the Nyles Lab. Six blocks away - nothing, if he was fast.
“Who’s taking who? Why?”
Jen was talking, but it came out like a deluge, words falling over one another, and Hank winced. It had been a long time since he’d heard her quite so upset.
“Jen, I’m already making my way there, but if I’m walking into something, I need you to tell me everything you can. That’s the best chance you can give whoever it is you need me to help.”
There was a ragged, fluttering breath, and Hank was fully prepared to end the call and just bolt, but Jen was made of sterner stuff, and despite the situation, he found himself smiling a little bit as the signature Nyles steel surfaced.
“All right. All right, it’s - one of my lab assistants. Her name is Lanfen, she’s - she’s a mutant. I thought - I thought that giving her some stable work away from prying eyes would keep her safe, but somehow those jackbooted thugs found out about her and they just took her, Hank, they just took her! They can’t do that! Can they? Tell me they can’t just do that.”
Four blocks away. He needed to pick up speed.
“They think they can. Listen, Jen, I have to end the call if I’m going to move fast enough to catch up, are you - ?”
She had ended the call before he could even finish his sentence, and he stuffed his phone back in his pocket with a grin as he propelled himself three stories up with a single, spring-loaded bound, clambering up the brick wall and leapfrogging from rooftop to rooftop at an uncanny speed.
“And to think, McCoy, if you’d just played your cards right, you could have married that girl.”
*
By the time he had arrived at the Lab, it was, unfortunately, almost all over - he came to a skidding halt and perched on top of the roof of a nearby building, watching as a young woman was roughly pushed into the back of one of those damnable decommissioned S.H.I.E.L.D land cruisers. The jackbooted thug that shoved her head down and didn’t seem to care as it collided with the edge of the car door earned a dark look from the grey furred gargoyle across the street, and Hank made a note of the man’s name, face, and build in an instant.
Thankfully, there was only one place that they would be taking her - the Orchis Centre for the Enrichment and Protection of Humankind. From what Hank understood, most mutants were being taken into custody rather than killed outright unless they proved too dangerous to imprison; he didn’t quite know why, but he had to guess it might be a way to gain leverage over the X-Men still fighting out in the world. He hoped it was something that simple. With an organisation like Orchis, you never knew when it could be something considerably more ghoulish . . .
Bouncing from rooftop to rooftop, Hank slid his phone out of his jacket pocket and thumbed through to a saved contact. Zeke picked up almost immediately.
“Hank? Hey, what’s up, what happened?”
“Orchis. They took a young mutant working at the Weather Control Lab. I wasn’t able to stop them before they got her, but I’m trailing them back to the recruitment centre.”
“O - kay, that answers that, but, like. You’re not gonna - ?”
“Can you think of a convincing reason why I shouldn’t break the place in half?”
“Uh, the fact that the last two times you took on Orchis on your own, you got cut in half by machine guns and a tank shell?”
“And yet, here I am, fit as a fiddle, so clearly I’m not averse to applying a touch of elbow grease if that’s what’s required to solve the problem.”
Zeke sighed down the phone.
“You need back-up, though. Like, come on, you’re smart, you have to know that this is a dumb idea, going in on your own like this.”
“There’s a reason I called, Ezekiel, and it wasn’t just to tell you where I am and what I’m doing. I’m not going to go in alone. You’re going to help me.”
Zeke immediately began to protest.
“Uh, no, I am not, I can’t do half of what you can d - “
“Please do allow me to stop you before you stray any further into what sounds perilously like a compliment, I know you’re allergic to giving them. Grab my counterpart and my laptop. You’re going to be keeping an eye on him, and he . . . as loathe as I am to accept any help from the man . . . is going to be my cyberwarfare suite.”
The boy’s voice was incredulous.
“Your what?”
“The collection of spare parts I’ve been been tinkering with ever since we fixed that CAD student’s computer - it’s actually a neurocomputational interface, designed to hook into the ports on the back of Dark Beast’s jar. It’ll allow him a degree of control over any electronic device that you plug him into. You’re going to be plugging him into my laptop.”
“Your cruddy Chromebook?”
Hank allowed himself a smile as he executed the kind of triple front flip that would’ve made even the stingiest of Olympic judges wet themselves, landing with barely a noise on the roof opposite the Orchis Centre, watching as the car holding Lanfen pulled into the parking garage.
“It’s a little bit more than a Chromebook now, Zeke. Now, when you plug him in, you’re going to need to watch him carefully. I’ve created a digital sandbox environment that should funnel him into certain directions and certain directions only; in this case, the backdoors I’ve been working on in Orchis’ secure networks, but he’s crafty and, sadly, incredibly intelligent, so I don’t know if it’ll hold him. That’s where you come in. If he starts doing anything that looks remotely suspicious, yank the line and tell me, all right?”
There was an uncertain silence on the other end of the line as Hank slid down the drainpipe, taking a moment to switch the line over to his earpiece so that he could go hands free.
“Hank, I really don’t know if I can do this. If something goes wrong and he does something - “
“Then I’ll take responsibility. But I trust your judgement, and, more to the point, you should trust your judgement.”
Another uncertain silence. Hank’s lips thinned.
“Zeke - “
“Okay, okay, okay, fine! Fine, I’ll do it. %^&*. You’re so pushy. Ugh. Fine. All right, let me get his stupid head and his stupid cables . . .”
*
It was tricky, getting the jar and the laptop in an arrangement that didn’t risk either of them tipping over while also keeping them within Zeke’s reach and eyeline - Hank’s work was all jury-rigged, made of pieces left over from a dozen little tech jobs, and that meant the connections for the interface didn’t exactly line up perfectly, or some cables were shorter than others.
It certainly didn’t help that Dark Beast kept muttering at him.
“Boy, if you put that cable in the wrong port again, I’m going to find a way to tear out your throat.”
“Yeah, okay, goldfish head. It’s my first time wiring up an evil super-brain to a Hollywood hacking machine, so you’re just gonna have to deal with a little bit of fat finger syndrome.”
“Ignorant little twerp - AGH! Wrong. Port.”
Zeke’s voice sounded a little less genuine in its apology this time.
“Sorry. Fingers slipped.”
With a click, the last of the neuro-computational interface cables were properly linked in, and even if Zeke did occasionally have to adjust the laptop so that it didn’t slide too far forward, it looked like it was working - the screen was advancing without any touching at the keys, command lines appearing and disappearing and filling with text faster than he could read.
“Hey, Hank didn’t say go ye - “
“If you think I’m waiting around for his go-ahead, you’ve another thing coming, boy. Besides, if he’s going to be taking on an entire building full of armed flatscans, he’s going to need the layout, security measures, pathways - all of which I want to see before it’s needed.”
Zeke pouted and flicked at Deebee’s jar. “How do you know his password, anyway?”
“Because he has terrible network protection standards and he doesn’t even have any special characters or numbers in his security keys.”
Over the line, Hank’s voice came through, loud, clear, and sounding just a little bit embarrassed, but defiant.
“Some of us have things that need doing that don’t include pontificating over passwords. Besides, it’s not as though anyone’s ever guessed what it is.”
Dark Beast’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “ednanorton, Hank? Really? I was genuinely surprised it wasn’t starsandgarters.”
Hank sounded a little more embarrassed this time. “Apologies for having parents who actually loved me. I’ll try cut-myself-on-all-this-edge-1234 next time, shall I?”
Before the head could fire back, Zeke was quick to interject, seeing a three dimensional model of the Orchis Centre building come up on screen, then flicking to a closed circuit camera feed that promptly began to feed the internal security room looped footage, while Zeke and Dark Beast were treated to a dark shape flicking past so quickly that anyone would have assumed it was a bird or a rat.
“Hank - south-east side door, yeah? Footage is looping now.”
Just like that, there he was, examining the keypad by the side of the door.
“Correct. Key combination?”
Dark Beast sounded bored and not too concerned about what he said next.
“No clue. It appears to be on an entirely separate system, I don’t have access to it. Guess.”
Eyes narrowed, Hank looked up at the camera, glaring at his ‘support system’ with an expression of pure peevishness.
“You guess! There’s no way you’re being stumped by a numeric keypad of all things! Check security emails, see if there’s any mention of what they’ve set the code to.”
Again, Deebee’s voice was laden with exasperation. “Unlike some people, it’s not an easily guessed number, and they’re smart enough not to put codes or passwords in emails. Just kick the damned door in, you’re strong enough, and I can contain the alarm signal before it hits the system.”
Hank was getting haughty, casting his eyes around in irritation. “Oh, because that’s a delicate solution. There has to be - wait.”
There was a moment of silence as Hank turned around and looked over at something Zeke and Dark Beast couldn’t see, and Deebee raised an eyebrow when his counterpart turned back to the door, pressed six digits - and the door opened.
“That was a lucky guess.”
“That wasn’t a guess.” Reaching up, Hank grabbed the camera and manually moved it over to a dumpster just out of the camera’s sightline. Perched atop a small mountain of uncollected garbage was a pizza box with six digits scrawled atop it in black ink.
*
It was just a little too perfect to conscience, was Hank’s thought as he slipped inside the Orchis building, sliding between doorways and letting the few staffers that weren’t otherwise engaged pass him by. A secure entrance into a facility manned with armed guards and security cameras, with mutant holding cells in the basement, and the code for the back door just happened to be on a pizza box in the alley? It had to have been planted. But for him? Even he hadn’t known he was coming here until roughly 35 minutes ago, and it wasn’t as though he had any allies inside Orchis.
Or many allies at all, he thought to himself as he strode past a camera, the footage seamlessly cycling thanks to one of the few allies he did have left. He’d done a particularly fine job alienating every last one of those, and that wasn’t even getting into those he’d turned into outright enemies. So who, of all people, would be helping him now . . .
And, to another point - why in the world were the hallways so empty?
“Is there a reason I’m not dealing with more resistance at the moment? Where is everybody?”
Dark Beast was doing his best to maintain his usual levels of bored indifference, but Hank knew him well enough to detect the telltale signs that even he was starting to develop an interest in what was happening.
“Oddly enough, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Henry. Judging by the internal network traffic, there appears to be another priority alpha target in the area, someone they’re trying to nail down with prejudice.”
Someone else? Who? He hadn’t picked up anything on any of the encrypted Krakoan channels he still had access to, hadn’t felt any psychic aftershocks, none of his detectors had gone off. Who could possibly be sneaking around like this? It was one thing to avoid the jackboots, they were, by their very nature, ignorant and blinkered, but him?
“Anything more than that? I’d rather walk into this with some idea of what’s going on - blundering around in the dark isn’t usually my style.”
His other self’s voice was dry and sardonic.
“And yet here you are, blundering into the enemy stronghold, in the dark. No idea, just keep going. On your right - training hall, it leads to secure access and the holding cells. I don’t have coverage, so be on your guard. Or don’t, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Rolling his eyes, Hank made the turn nonetheless and pushed open the double doors into the expansive training hall that was a holdover from when this place had been a gym, even as Zeke mumbled in his ear.
“Wait, why don’t you have coverage in that area?”
Hank had just enough time to take in the scuffed floors, the training dummies, the crash mats - right before the unconscious body of an armed Orchis guard came flying through the air and impacted against the padded wall, bouncing and then falling with a crumple to the floor.
“Ah, right on time! I was beginning to worry.”
Stood in the centre of the hall, surrounded by a veritable mountain of Orchis security, was.
Him?
*
Hank felt as though he were going quantifiably insane.
The fact that his other self was smiling at him wasn’t helping matters.
“Yes, yes, I know, it’s all very confusing - “
What was this? Shapeshifter?
“No, not a shapeshifter.”
The intrusion upon Hank’s internal monologue made him frown, even as his other self only smiled all the wider.
Alternate timeline?
“No, not an alternate timeline, either. He’s still sitting safe at home in the apartment.”
So they had an awareness of Dark Beast, and his current location. Perhaps they had cracked Hank’s communications, perhaps -
“No, not a leftover clone, either. The rest of X-Force still doesn’t know we’re here, and anyone who has enough awareness of our security protocols to brute force their way into your comms is currently indisposed, so far as I’m aware. I’m you, from further along in our personal timeline.”
Well, that did explain why looking at the man gave him a headache.
“An unfortunate side effect of our temporal senses - instinctively, you know I’m not truly meant to be here - “
It was these words that had Hank pushing forward, grabbing the other man by the front of the unstable molecule Kevlar weave harness he seemed to have taken to wearing - judging by the bullet heads that had already impacted upon the front in several places, it seemed a wise precaution. This . . . other self, looked at him rather more soberly now, over the rim of red lensed sunglasses that looked rather familiar.
“So why are you here? The last time we did something of this nature, it blew up so spectacularly in our face that - “
“The rest of the X-Men held a rather poorly executed intervention, yes, I’m aware. Believe me, it wasn’t a choice we made lightly, and you’ll understand our logic perfectly when you get to the point I’m at, even if, from your perspective, this seems like unimaginable folly. If it helps, we weren’t the ones to fire the first shot.”
Hank took in a sharp breath at that, his eyes narrowing.
“Temporal warfare?”
“Orchis doesn’t take our meddling lightly, unfortunately. What we do here today rather pisses them off. Escalation was inevitable.”
“To temporal warfare?”
“Unfortunately, our prior indiscretions have made it on file - they know about our dalliances with time travel, and sent someone they felt capable of nullifying that particular advantage, just in case we still had a trick up our sleeve. Which, you don’t, but I do. But, that’s quite enough future knowledge for you, young man.”
The other Hank booped him on the nose, earning a wrinkle and wave of the hand, even as the present version of Hank took in the dozens of unconscious Orchis personnel that his future self was surrounded by, clearly having cleaved his way through them as though he were parting the Red Sea.
“You’ve been busy.”
“I promise we tried our best not to enjoy it, but they did rather have it coming, and, though you don’t know it, since I also didn’t know it at the time, you needed the assistance, going off half-cocked as you did. There were too many for us to take on alone.”
Hank raised an eyebrow at that, crossing his arms.
“This? This is nothing. We’ve been doing this since we were seventeen, how would this give us trouble?”
The other version of him shook his head, turning and gesturing at the hall’s only other point of egress, which promptly burst open with a hydraulic assisted slam, the doors flying through the air and cracking as they hit the walls. With a sleek, servo-assisted whirr, a cadre of Orchis exosuits filed in, each of them wielding a variety of weapons, each one more exotic than the last.
“This, in conjunction with that. But, not to fret.”
The future Hank unholstered a familiar, chrome plated gadget. A handheld magnetic field generator, what Iceman had once called an ‘anti-Magneto gun.’
“We’ve got this well in hand.”
*
It was an uncanny experience, working in concert with yourself.
It wasn’t unfamiliar to Hank, of course - he had, in his time, fought alongside Dark Beast, his time displaced younger self, his undisplaced older self, and, in a limited capacity, even with his clones. As far as working with versions of Henry McCoy went, Henry McCoy was perhaps the best qualified man on the planet.
But they had all been subtly different to him - faster, slower, stronger, weaker, more brutal, less. Even the clones had been altered, given weaker eyesight so as to remind them of their place beneath the original, but this . . .
This was him.
It was almost balletic.
“Target the joints on the right leg on that one - manufacturing defect!”
The present Hank slid onto his side and swiped viciously at the hydraulic joints of the exosuit ahead of him, the pilot of which let out a frustrated scream as the suit’s leg suddenly buckled and his wide swing of a powered axe ended with the blade buried in the floor.
“And how, pray tell, did you know that? Do we travel back in time and introduce that fault into a whole line of exosuits for just this occasion?”
The future Hank laughed, slamming a hand straight through the protective glass on another exosuit, yanking the pilot out and sending him flying into the wall.
“Not at all! I know because I told you when I was you! I rather think it might be a bootstrap paradox!”
A bootstrap paradox - the introduction of knowledge, events, or even entire objects without the need for them to have existed before, brought into existence purely because a stable time loop meant it had always been there and had never not been there.
Oh, he could feel the Watcher losing his temper with him already.
“Then stop talking! We’re already playing merry hell with the timeline as it is, I’d rather avoid as much contamination as possible!”
His future self was still laughing, even as he leaped, using his past self’s head as a springboard from which to plant a devastating dropkick on another exosuit, sending it tumbling into one of its fellows and setting off an elaborate domino effect that there was no way he could have anticipated -
OH, DAMN HIM!
“STOP! DOING THAT!”
His future self refused to stop laughing.
“Oh, dear boy, relax! You haven’t noticed? No Blinovitch Limitation Effect! You touched me, and I’ve touched you, ergo, this loop is stable! Everything that happens now is meant to happen, and, in fact, has to happen! There’s simply no point in getting upset!”
The present version of Hank let out a growl, frustrated - it was precisely this casual abuse of fundamental laws that had led them down the road to hell in the first place, and -
“Enough of that, young man - you need to duck, and not pontificate.”
Still frustrated, Hank ducked, a fist he hadn’t seen coming sailing over his head with a whistle. The other version of him whipped around and activated the magnetic field projector, slamming the one ton mechanised suit against the wall and frying its electronics in the process.
“You keep calling me young man - exactly how far in my future are you from?”
The future Hank shook his head, driving a powerful knee into the power feed of one of the last remaining exosuits, severing the connection and leaving it dead in the water.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
The present version of Hank snarled in annoyance, slamming his fist multiple times into the glass of another exosuit’s cockpit, reaching inside once it shattered and digging his claws into the controls. The pilot tried his best to wrestle a pistol from his side, take a potshot at him from point blank range, but Hank simply yanked it out of his hand, crunched the pistol beneath his fingers, and threw the lump of metal to the floor.
“And why is that?”
With a grunt of exertion, his future self picked up a severed arm, still clutching a concussive baton, and slammed the business end of it into the cockpit glass that Hank had just broken, knocking out the poor, beleaguered pilot in an instant.
He’d live. Albeit, with a ringing headache.
The future Hank dusted off his hands, and the present version of the same furry mutant took the opportunity to catch his breath, still awaiting his answer.
“I said, why - “
“Because I didn’t tell you when I was you. Ergo, I can’t tell you.”
“. . . Except that there’s no actual, tangible reason why you didn’t tell me the first time, and there has to have been a version of these events that played out where you weren’t here, a version that made us decide, in the future - “
“Except that you know that that’s not how stable time loops work, Henry, this has to happen this way and it can, in fact, only happen this way. The instant you perceived me, these events were locked into temporal superposition, and you, eventually, have to become me - the me that doesn’t tell you how far in the future I come from.”
The present version of Hank sighed, rubbing at his forehead. He hated time travel.
“That isn’t true. You love time travel. It’s the other variable in play at the moment that you don’t love.”
They shared a long look at one another, before present Hank brought up a hand, dismissing it, moving to exit through the door that the Orchis exosuit squad had unceremoniously opened for him.
“Fine. Forget it. Go do what you have to do. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”
“I know. But, one last thing?”
Their eyes met once more.
“Teresia Karisik.”
Hank’s brow furrowed.
“Who is - ?”
“Just. Remember it. You’ll find it useful very soon. Until we meet again, young man.”
The other version of him left through the door that Hank had come in through.
*
By this point, the command centre of the Orchis facility was practically on fire.
“ - the security systems just aren’t working, lockdowns aren’t engaging - “
“ - cameras are showing empty hallways, I can’t guide you to something I can’t see - “
“ - yes, I’m well aware that patrols are still making their way back, I’m just saying you could - “
In amongst the maelstrom, Commander Ocampo did her best to appear an unflinching rock, unperturbed by the waves of bad news that kept hitting her over and over again, but those who knew her could tell that it was getting to her. The vein in her left temple throbbed ominously, her jaw kept rolling, and her pace back and forth over the exact same six steps was growing more and more agitated.
She needed good news. And she wasn’t getting it.
One of the support technicians walked up, a harried look on her face, and Olivia brought up a finger, practically shaking with fury.
“If this isn’t good news, I don’t want to hear it.”
The technician stopped dead, and Ocampo sighed, knowing she needed the update more than she needed peace of mind. “Fine. Hit me.” She gestured, steeling herself.
“Sir, from what we can work out, we appear to be under attack by two individuals, but . . .”
The tech hesitated. Olivia inhaled sharply.
“But?”
“It’s just - confusing, sir. All the reports we’re getting back from the operatives who are conscious describe the priority alpha target, just wearing different gear. We’re not sure if his equipment is degrading over time, if he’s adapting to what we’re sending his way - “
Ocampo’s eyes widened, and she cut the technician off, moving over to another section of the support desk. The weedy little man with glasses tried to avert his eyes, but his Commander had need of him and his desk specifically.
“Wide band scan for temporal emissions - chronometric waves, chroniton particles, Adler-Lasky radiation, whatever, I need it now.”
He nodded and initiated the scan, Orchis satellites responding to his request instantaneously, and -
“Positive result, sir! It’s small, but it’s definitely in the immediate vicinity. We have confirmed temporal warfare.”
Ocampo swore under her breath, and moved back to her desk, pulling up the lid covering a dark blue button that linked back to Orchis central command. She hesitated for a moment, and then pressed it. In an instant, the signal was sent, prioritised above all others . . .
And a good thing, too, because the power went out in the situation room almost the moment after she had pressed it. Before she could say anything, however, it came back . . . only . . .
“If I might have your attention, please?”
Staring out at them, from every screen, every monitor, every tactical display, was a grim, grey furred face, glowing yellow eyes with cold black pupils boring into them.
“I’m sure I need no introduction to members of such a devoted group of stagnant, jackbooted, murderous gene-police officers, but, given what I’m about to do, it only seems polite.”
A few nervous glances were exchanged at that.
“Doctor Henry McCoy. You might know me better as Beast. I’m sure you have quite the file on me. Suffice it to say, whatever it says is true, and probably omits a good amount to boot. Now, you’re probably wondering, what’s prompted the good Doctor to visit his vengeance upon us today of all days? Well, you see . . .”
The picture changed, this time to a recently taken mugshot of a young Asian woman, sporting a heavy black eye and a defiant look on her face.
“This, is Lanfen. She, is nineteen years old, and wants to be a botanist when she finishes her qualifications. Her mutant power, awful and awe inspiring and destructive as it is . . . her crime. Is that she has prehensile hair. She can move things with her ponytail.”
There was a moment of silence, broken by Beast’s voice, laden with sardonicism.
“How . . . awful. What an affront to the natural order. So much so, in fact, that you took it upon yourself to take this young woman off the street, bundling her off into an unmarked van, holding her captive not eight blocks away from the home she’s lived in all her life. You took it upon yourselves, to hurt her.”
A dark tone entered McCoy’s voice.
“And now I’m going to take it upon myself to hurt you. But, don’t worry. Unlike Lanfen, you actually have something you can learn as a result of the experience. I hope you do, in fact. Because the alternative is that we do this again, and again, and again, until you learn.”
The only warning they had was a high pitched, electrical sound, not unlike a power su -
The room all but exploded, every single monitor, display, every electrical circuit, every light, anything connected to power, all overloading in an instant. Glass and metal danced like leaves in the wind, almost every person’s vision exploded with bright, white light, and though it was over and done with in just mere seconds, the cries for help and groans of pain would last far longer than that.
The few people that had had the foresight to stand back, away from anything powered, moved to take care of those who had been caught unawares. Ocampo was one of those people, though her right cheek was slick with blood, hers or someone else’s, she couldn’t quite tell - she didn’t have time to check, her subordinates needed her.
She put pressure on a nasty looking wound, what looked like it had only narrowly avoided becoming a full on laceration, and looked around for a med kit -
One was handed to her.
By large, grey furred hands.
There was a low, threatening rumble in her ears, and she swallowed, one of her hands nervously scrabbling around inside the medical kit even as the other was kept pressed down on one of her technician’s wounds, McCoy’s hand right on top of it, applying pressure as well as keeping her in place.
“Commander Ocampo. Your people will live, I’ve made sure of that. But you have higher security clearance than they do, so you know that not everyone who comes up against me of late is quite so lucky. Nod, if you understand.”
She nodded.
“Good. You know what Orchis high command doesn’t want everyone knowing - that there are mutants who aren’t just bad, who aren’t just malevolent, who aren’t just powerful, who aren’t just smart; there are mutants who are successful in ways that Magneto never was. You . . . know what happened to Terra Verde.”
She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. She - nodded. What else could she do?
“. . . Now, as I explained to Mr. Heller, one of your field officers, I’m trying very hard to be my best self right now. And you, are not, making, it, easy. You want, to make it easy. Because the last thing a minor cog in the machine of hate that is Orchis, the last thing a human, wants to do, is annoy me off to the point where I really pull out all of the stops. The last thing anyone, even a petty minded, blinkered, stupid little ape like you, wants to do, is guarantee that I come after you with everything I’ve got, because I’ve killed more people than the rest of the X-Men combined. With satellite lasers, with viruses, with scalpels, with guns, with my bare hands, and I am sick of it. I have gorged myself on blood, and I am sick of it.”
He brought up a hand, grasping her chin, a look in his eyes that made her freeze.
“But. Not so sick that I can’t be pushed. So do not push me. Now. You’re going to give me the code to unlock all of the mutant holding cells in the sub-basement; you’re going to sound a general retreat; and you’re never going to darken my doorstep ever again. Nod, if you understand.”
*
As Hank moved back towards the elevator, the voice in his ear finally decided to perk up again.
“You didn’t mean it, did you? What you said?”
The grey furred beast sounded supremely tired as he shuffled into the lift, thumbing the control for the bottom-most level.
“Not a word of it. But it sounded appropriately threatening and masculine, and if anything’s going to get a response, it’s that. I just have to hope that they aren’t stupid enough to force the issue.”
“Wait, what? What do you mean, force the issue?”
Dark Beast’s voice came on over the line, sounding supremely amused.
“He means that he’s just escalated the conflict by a factor of, oh, I don’t know, a few genocides, and he knows it~ He invoked a level of violence upon the good Commander’s people that he knows she’s not going to stand for, because no-one would take that lying down, least of all a human supremacist, the most addled and stupid of all creatures spawned through evolution’s many mistakes. Oh, she’ll retreat. He might even never see her again. But there are going to be consequences for throwing his weight around like that.”
‘Orchis doesn’t take our meddling lightly, unfortunately. What we do here today rather pisses them off. Escalation was inevitable.’
Hank’s own voice sounded in his ears, and he brought a hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose.
“I am well aware of that fact, thank you.”
“And yet you still did it. Because you weren’t feeling challenged, I suppose. Why not tie a hand behind your back next, Henry, or shoot yourself in the foot? To make it fair on the poor things.”
A sour, ugly note was beginning to brim in Hank’s responses, and Zeke winced at the sound of it.
“They stole someone. A child. Too many children. From their friends, from their parents, from - people who had promised, who had done their best to protect them. Yes, I was emotionally compromised. No, it wasn’t the smartest move. Are my actions open to debate at this time? No. Over and out.”
He yanked the earpiece out with an irritable growl, stuffing it into his pocket, before moving forward the instant the elevator doors opened onto the prison complex.
“Hands up, this is a secure - !”
The hapless guard found his head engulfed in an oversized hand, the fingers of which flexed around him, making it clear that it could crush his skull like a rotten watermelon if so inclined. He suddenly became very quiet and limp.
“Frankly, my good man, I’m not in the mood. Leave. Now.”
Releasing him, Hank moved to input the code he had so graciously received from Commander Ocampo, and inputted it, all of the doors to the holding cells opening with a cacophonous BEEP. Slowly, unsurely, a good two dozen mutants poked their heads out, only to see the large, visibly mutated man standing by the garage exit, bowing and gesturing as if to say, ‘after you.’
“If you could all be so kind as to find a motor vehicle of the appropriate size to transport you where you need to go, as well as designate a driver, I’ll be along shortly to help you start your engines so that we might skedaddle. Oh, but, ah - is there a Lanfen here? And, perhaps, an Ava?”
Moving out from behind much larger mutants, a prehensile ponytail waved hesitantly, while a young girl, brown haired and mousy, peeked her head from behind one of the cell doors. Hank smiled.
“You’ll be riding with me, if that’s quite all right. I know some people who are going to be very happy to see you.”
*
The plan, naturally, was to get Ava back to her parents as soon as possible, but, given that the only reason he even knew her name was because of young Rina, Hank felt it was only kind that he bring her back to the apartment building, so that his neighbour would rest assured that while something horrible had happened, the worst hadn’t happened. It was after he had explained said plan to Ava that he called Jen, letting her know that she, too, might want to make a trip to Hank’s apartment, so as to be reassured that Lanfen was all right.
Quite a bit more social than Hank was used to after the last few years, frankly, but he’d done something good today, something that he could tangibly be happy about, so, he supposed he might as well enjoy it.
“Just up here, yes - just a few more flights. That’s the spirit, aaaaand here we are.”
He gave young Ava a warm smile as they made the last few steps up the staircase - she wasn’t malnourished, exactly, but she did look quite frail and small; whether that was just her build, or because Orchis didn’t exactly put much stock in mutant nutrition, he couldn’t quite tell. Regardless, he felt he wasn’t wrong to be a touch overprotective.
Knocking on the door to young Rina’s apartment - or, more accurately, the Kuzmina’s apartment - Hank heard the footsteps, and moved out of the way with precise timing so that Ava was left standing in the doorway.
“Hello, yes - AVA!”
With barely another word, Rina was upon the other girl, pulling her into a hug that looked like it might strain something, and Ava let out a little yelp as she was yanked almost all the way off her feet, the tips of her trainers kicking a little bit, even as she hugged Rina right back.
“Ava, you’re all right! You’re all right, I was so worried - but how are you - ohhh.” She caught sight of Hank smiling at her, leaning against the doorway, waggling his fingers in a cheeky ‘hello.’
“Mr. McCoy was nice enough to drive me here, so I could see you. He said you - you talked about me.”
Both girls were very pink now. Hank felt obliged to pour a little gasoline on the fire.
“In very glowing terms, I might add.”
Rina stared daggers through him, her cheeks burning red, and he chuckled, gesturing.
“There’s a car downstairs - if you need me to drive you back home, Ava, just knock on my door, but if I remember correctly, Yekatarina, you - “
“I have a learner’s permit! I have a permit. I can. I can drive her. Yes.”
Even redder now. Hank pulled back, winking at Lanfen, who laughed and waved at the other two girls, even as Ava found herself being very carefully pulled into the Kuzmina’s apartment, presumably to be fed and talked to before being driven home after what seemed like quite an ordeal. Hank waited for the door to close before clearing his throat.
“I dare say they’re a little sweet on each other. Good for them. Now, as for you, Miss Lanfen, I do believe that Doctor Nyles should be along any - “
The sound of the apartment building entrance door being bowled open echoed up the stairs, and even as Hank moved over to see what was coming their way, all he caught was a flash of blonde hair before Jen was up and pulling Lanfen into a hug. The poor girl looked a little beleaguered, clearly not having believed that her friendship with the doctor was enough to warrant this kind of treatment, but, Hank was all too aware that Jen took hard luck cases very seriously.
He would know, after all.
“Lanfen! Lanfen, I am so sorry - I’m sorry, I didn’t know that they were - that they were going to to just grab you like that, I thought you were safe - they’ve hurt you! Are you all right? Hank, she’s all right, isn't she?”
Hank brought up a reassuring hand, squeezing at Jennifer’s shoulder.
“A black eye that looks worse than it is, but I rather think you could do with asking the young lady herself.”
Catching herself, Jennifer let out a frazzled laugh, inviting Lanfen to speak up.
“I’m alright, Doctor Nyles. They roughed me up a little bit, but I’m okay. Just a little hungry. And, please don’t apologise - you’re the only reason they didn’t get me sooner, so, please, please don’t feel bad. Please?”
“Okay. Okay, I . . . sorry. I just, when I saw that you were gone, I just got so worried about you, what they might do. I can’t even imagine what I sounded like on the phone to Henry . . .”
“You sounded compassionate and concerned, Jen. Nothing to be ashamed of. Now, Orchis shouldn’t give you any more trouble, but, for the moment, I would advise lying low, until such time as you can work out what to do next. Lanfen, I wish I could tell you where is safe, but there aren’t many places that are anymore.”
Lanfen shook her head.
“I know. I think I must leave, go somewhere a little less crowded - it was optimistic, I think, to stay so long. Doctor Nyles, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish the lab work that you assigned me - “
Jen already had her hand on Lanfen’s back, guiding her back down the stairs.
“You, of all people, aren’t allowed to apologise. Okay, kiddo? We’re gonna get you some food, and then we’re going to work out a plan, and if we can, we’re gonna work out some remote work, because you’re damned talented and the last thing I want is for you to be bored and going to waste while you wait for all of this to blow over.”
Lanfen smiled, waving at Hank before letting Jen take the lead. The older woman turned back for a moment, looking at Hank, his expression sober and unreadable, and she nodded, heaving a soft sigh, before putting on a smile for Lanfen’s benefit as they left.
When this all blows over . . .
*
“Well, I imagine you feel quite pleased with yourself.”
Henry, naturally, sounded snide when Hank entered the apartment, Zeke rolling his eyes and being a little less gentle than he maybe should have been as he yanked the neurocomputational interface cables, both Hank and Zeke doing their best not to enjoy the yowl of pain that resulted.
“Considering it was on the to do list, I can’t say that I’m displeased with myself. Granted, I would have liked to have done it a little less gung-ho, and I certainly would have preferred not to rely on you, but, needs must. It wasn’t exactly nice, knowing it was there and that I wasn’t doing anything about it, but it was a two person job. I’m lucky it went as well as it did.”
It had, indeed, been a two person job. And he’d doubled up.
Which was still extremely concerning.
“Any chatter on the Orchis channels?”
“I was going to sort through it, but Ezekiel here decided to yank me, so now I have no idea. You look.”
Zeke rolled his eyes, handing Hank the laptop.
“Deebee’s being real tetchy today. He got a taste of the computer and now he thinks he’s people.”
Hank did his best not to smile at that remark, especially when Dark Beast erupted in a cacophony of swears and insults, Zeke firing right back, Hank finding the background noise almost soothing as he flipped through the Orchis channels he still had cracked - he imagined it wouldn’t take long for them to re-scramble and re-encrypt, so he had to make the most of it while he . . . had . . . it.
Oh dear.
“ - isn’t that right, Hank, he’s just a - wait, where did he go?”
Both Deebee and Zeke turned to see that Hank was gone, the laptop dropped onto the loveseat and the door wide open, footsteps sounding upwards. Without a word, Zeke grabbed Dark Beast’s jar and hurried on after the other man.
*
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Hank had come to a dead stop on the roof, a grim look on his face. Zeke wheezed a little, even as Dark Beast muttered about the rough journey upwards, and he had to lean on the side of the fire escape as he caught his breath.
“W-What? What is it, what? What am I missing?”
Hank gestured upwards.
“What, is it gonna rain or - oh.”
“What are you simpletons being so dramatic about, what could possibly - oh.”
The three of them stared up, engulfed in shadow.
Overhead, a gunmetal grey mass loomed, massive, turbine powered engines moving faster than the eye could see, the downforce, even from this distance, stirring up a soft wind. A pair of planes came in for a landing, their bellies exposed, then swallowed up by that dark block in the sky, obscuring their view of the sun.
A fully armed Helicarrier.
Bearing Orchis’ insignia.
What looked like a small city of turrets, mounted weaponry, and surveillance cameras dotted the underside of the beast, to say nothing of what the top probably looked like.
Silence reigned for a heavy moment, only to be broken by Dark Beast.
“Well, that does present a problem, doesn't it.”