cutting_edgex23 | For Cass and Stitch

For Cass and Stitch

We will need help.

Laura told him that, and Julian--because really, she was the only one that knew what was going on. At least he hoped she did--set them down on a rooftop.

How the hell they were going to get reinforcements here, he had no idea.

"Hey, don't do--"

But she'd already cut through the locking mechanism on the door, slipping through without much of a sound.

Ten seconds later she was coming back through, accompanied by--was there a restaurant in there?--some people.

Mutants? This is getting weirder by the minute. And it was pretty damn screwed up already.

"Laura, what the--"

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The only hint of Cass' rising tension is the slight tightening of her hand around Julian's. Other than that she's settling into the zone, getting ready to do what needs to be done.

She also approves of X's choice of entry points. Windows are good.

The grin gains an edge as the distance between the group and the window closes. Stitch flattens his ears and narrows his eyes.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAW!"

X tucks into a ball as they hurtle through the window, dropping into an almost-empty room.

One lone guard looks at them, jaw dropped.

It doesn't last.

The alarm blares out, the guard says something--Perimeter Breach in Building One. All Security Personnel Report--into his comm, and--

X and Julian, at least, shift to cover each other's back. X remembers to let go of Stitch, too.

Just in time for a squadron of guards to show up.

With guns.

The ball Cass rolls into is rather similar to X's, and they roll to their feet pretty much at the same time. Cass notes the lone guard and decides someone else can handle him so she's already headed in the right direction when the guards arrive.

Her fist snaps out in one long, smooth punch and there's one less guard aiming guns at her friends.

Stitch drops to the floor in a clatter of claws, growling loudly as he too charges. Stitch, while fast and agile, is nothing like Cassandra. Which is a few gaurds may get off a round before he closes the gap between them.

One gun he can dodge with ease. Three and it gets tricky. An entire armed squadron? Not so much.

The experiement hits the closest gaurd headfirst in the midsection with enough force to send him sprawling.

"Hey!," Julian yells. "Stay close!"

Sadly, no one is listening.

Not even X. Though she keeps an eye on him all the same. He is her teammate.

But right now most of her attention is focused on the enemy.

snikt

And then she is moving, adamantium claws slicing through gun barrels like they aren't there. They could slice through armor, too, but--

She is trying not to kill anyone today.

Cassandra approves of X's restraint. She demonstrates this approval with a spinning kick that catches three guards at the same time. There's even a moment spared to flick a batarant into the back of the hand of a guard trying to draw a bead on Stitch despite all the other guards in the line of fire.

The tackled gaurd is layed out with a punch. Helmet or no, that's gotta hurt.

Which lets Stitch's immediate attention transfer onto the guy howling in pain and clutching his hand, weapon fallen at his feet. He too is quickly silenced by a small blue projectile colliding with the side of his head.

Julian, in between hitting guards with TK, is also doing his best to keep a shield up between himself and the vast array of weaponry in the room.

He's also trying to keep some on Laura and her friends, but by and large they are too fast-moving and far away.

It sucks.

X backhands one of the guards, hard enough to knock his head into the wall. He goes down, tripping up the one next to him.

A flying kick takes that one out, giving X an aerial pivot-point to launch herself off, moving back toward Julian.

They need to clear out this room and buy themselves some space so that she can track Cessily.

This feels too slow.

But she is glad Cass and Stitch are here.

It is--easier.

And more sensible.

Sensing some of X's urgency Cassandra picks up the pace. Of course rushing makes her a bit less precise. She still steps among the guards, and they still go down after one touch, but instead of a simple nerve strike or blow to the head the need for speed leads Cass to break bones and dislocate joints.

The effect is mostly the same: men go down and they don't get back up, but this way is noisier and messier.

Noisy and messy is kind of Stitch's style when he's not pressed for time. The most recent recipient of his attention is still clinging to consciousness when an iron grip seizes him around the ankles.

And proceeds to use him as a make shift flail against several of his compatriots. There is a terrified shout which cuts off abruptly as one guard’s visor becomes very well acquainted with another's knees.

X dives under a blow from one guardsman, rolling onto her back and kicking his knee out with an audible pop.

She uses that momentum to get back on her feet, slicing through another gun barrel or two before delivering a quick series of punches to someone that has gotten much too close to Julian's back.

Julian, meanwhile, sends a sharp burst of TK, taking out two guards that had a bead on Laura's back.

She casts him a quick look, taking the time to reassess the terrain.

He grins. "No need to thank me or anything."

X doesn't reply (not even with a withering glare), just turns to continue clearing the ro--

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The noise is piercing, the pain is almost blinding, and Laura goes to her knees, hands covering her ears.

A tall statuesque woman strides forward, smirking broadly, her hand held high. Some sort of device rests in her palm.

"I do so love telekinetics. They're so overconfident." The screeching sound which somehow makes it hard to breathe, much less continue fighting, only increases in intensity as she gets closer. "Mind powers are useless when you can't form a coherent thought."

Cass weaves back and forth where she stands, her sense of balance almost completely destroyed by the sound tearing through her head. She manages to get one hand up to shove one of the earplugs integrated into her cowl into an ear, but it only helps a little bit, and her other ear is getting the full force of whatever the tall woman is carrying.

There is a long continous hiss from the small alien curretly writhing on the ground. Nothing of what the new arrival has said reaches him. Nothing exists except for this small patch of floor. And the pain.

What X wants to do is fling herself at Kimura, beat her down, turn off the noise, and get her friends away.

What sits in her hindbrain is the intense desire to kill Kimura, quickly and efficiently and forever.

What she has almost, for the moment, forgotten is saving Cessily.

What X actually does? Manage to lift herself three inches off the floor before staggering and falling back down.

It is so loud.

Julian doesn't even manage half that well.

Kimura's smile doesn't waver as she clips the sound emitter to her shoulder and stops to look down at X on the floor. She glances over at Julian and says something, but it's lost in the sound.

Then she reaches down to grab X by the hair and effortlessly lift her. She draws a knife from her belt and looks carelessly over at Julian again as he stares helplessly up at her, "Keep watching handsome. You won't want to miss this."

Kimura's laughter is lost in the noise as she turns back to X. "Welcome home," she smirks as she slams her knife up through X's ribs, slicing open a lung.

X chokes in a breath, blood bubbling into her mouth.

This is old hat with Kimura.

That does not mean she has to like it.

But she still cannot think clearly enough to move and--

At least if Kimura is hurting Laura, her friends are safe. And maybe they will be able to get away.

"No!"

The quickest way to get to Julian is to hurt one of his team. And there's already been one occasion in which he's thought they lost Laura.

"You're dead!"

He slams Kimura against the wall with TK, the pain in his head a distant concern. He doesn't even register Laura dropping to the ground behind him.

It's fortunate that the sound emitter gets jarred loose on impact, shattering as it hits the floor.

"Do you hear me? You're dead."

And then everything's silent, except for the sound of Julian's rough breathing.

As soon as the noise stops Cass is back in motion. A quick glance at Julian reveals that he's angry enough to kill, but also that he has enough restraint and training not to. So she doesn't feel the need to intervene on Kimura's behalf.

Instead she turns to the few guards still standing. They all apparently had some sort of countermeasure to the sound emitter, so they think they're ready for her. They're not.

All of a sudden she's in among them, kicks smashing out into diaphragms, elbows snapping into temples, punches striking deep into nerve clusters. These men never stood a chance.

As the noise ceases Stitch rights himself, frantically trying to get his bearings as the pain clears. The pretty boy's got someone up against the wall. Cass is having fun with a cluster of stragglers over to the left. X is...X is down. But no, definitely breathing. And moving. What in the- OW! Bullet proof or not, anything traveling at that speed will make you sit up and take notice when it hits.

Stitch turns, snarling just as the gunman squeezes the trigger a second time. It is ignored. And then the gun is sliding across the floor as the unfortunate guard impacts heavily with the wall and... crashes through it, coming to rest in an immobile (but breathing) heap.

Kimura's smile hasn't faltered even though she's stuck against the wall. Her muscles visibly strain against the force of Julian's telekinesis, but to no avail.

Being indestructible isn't all that helpful against someone who can hold you in place with their mind.

X struggles to her feet, swaying momentarily while she waits for her healing factor to finish its work.

Her eyes, green and clear and cold, fix on Kimura. If she were a normal girl she might look like someone who is face-to-face with the monster in the closet, the nightmare under the bed.

But she is X-23, and her expression is as affectless as ever.

"Kill her, Julian."

Beat.

"I cannot hurt her."

There is too much truth in that, but X does not flinch away from it.

"But you can destroy her insides."

There should be pleading here, but X has never been good at that. Instead, it is a mere statement of fact.

And Julian is still hesitating.

Is that supposed to hurt?

Cass doesn't know many words. They're just not important to her. But 'kill'? That one she knows.

She finishes breaking the arm of the man who just tried to punch her before spinning to frown in the direction of X and Julian (while delivering a back kick to another guard's face).

She recognized the word, but she hadn't been watching so she's not sure what's going on. But she's pretty sure that she wouldn't like it. Not with X's stance radiating the emotions it is.

"Toobaga," Stitch growls after the hapless gunmen turned wrecking ball. And then X's statement reaches him as well. He spins towards her and his already large eyes widen further as two very alarming facts make themselves apparent to his olfactory nerve. X's scent caries two pieces of information it never has as long as he's known her.

X is furious. And X is terrified.

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