Pulse, Part Sixteen

by Tangerine

 Domino stood up, ripping the IVs from her arm and heading to her neatly kept pile of clothes, dressing quickly and with little thought to the pain.  Emma might be content sitting around and waiting for Psylocke to destroy herself, but she was not.  She didn't care at all about Psylocke, but she had left Shatterstar with them, and she would be damned if one of her own got trapped in the mess.

 *You shouldn't be doing that.*

 Domino stopped the scream from escaping her lips, turning her torso to frighten the boy into submission, but he merely glared back at her, refusing to back down.  "I don't care what Emma says.  If I don't go now, bad things are going to go down."

 Chamber nodded. *I understand.  She said that you needed me.*

 "Need is too strong a word," Domino replied, lacing her boots with vigour, pretending that she wasn't hurt, that Apocalypse hadn't gutted her, but the burning in her stomach, the sharp twinges of pain with every breath, reminded her of the bad shape she was in.  "I could use your help."

 *Then you got it.* Chamber watched her dress, trying hard to appear cold, aloof, strong, but he was aware that she had lived a life and he was still young.  It made him wary, overly conscious of his failings. *I'm not much in the way of fighting.*

 Domino looked at him.  "Of course not.  You're young, and you need training, but you're a powerhouse with a good head on top of your shoulders.  You'll do all right, Starsmore.  I don't expect anything more than your best."

 "I imagine we will be departing shortly."  Emma shook her head at Domino's apparent injury, watching how the otherwise poised and fluid woman lurched and grimaced with every movement.  "You are suicidal."

 "No," Domino replied with a grin, "just crazy."

****

 "So we basically sit here and wait until Sinister lets us go?  What are we?  House pets?"  Bobby shifted on the couch, smoothing his uniform out over his legs.  He had lost weight, and he hadn't realised it until he suited up.  This was why he didn't worry.  It killed his appetite.

 "Nah.  We're collectibles," Remy replied, "the really ugly type."

 Bobby snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.  Keep laughing, keep joking, Remy, Bobby thought miserably, smiling in denial, and I'll keep replying, jesting, making this seem less worse than it is.  "You're the ugly one, LeBeau."

 "Getting us confused again, homme.  Me, Gambit.  You, Iceman.  Got it?"

 "Shut up."  Bobby smirked, his gaze moving from Remy to Betsy, who sat with her eyes closed, napping Bobby hoped, then to Shatterstar, who sat on the floor, watching them quietly.  Always the silent observer, seeing things so clearly.  "We should get some sleep since Sinister doesn't seem to opening the doors to freedom.  It's gotta be late."

 Remy nodded, reclining on the futon and sprawling out comfortably.  Bobby looked with distaste at the ottoman he sat in then looked with envy at Betsy and her couch.  He hoped that she was okay.  After all this time together, after all the months of only each other, he still couldn't tell what she felt most of the time.  If only she'd tell him, he wouldn't worry so much.

 "I will stay awake and keep watch," Shatterstar said, frozen in position, watching the door.  He sat there as the others fell asleep, Bobby snoring softly and Remy muttering the occasional French curse, listening to the sounds, memorising the normal noises so he would be able to recognise the ones out of place.

 As the night pushed on, Shatterstar's attention never waned.  He had been trained to stand guard for hours, days if the need presented itself, always ready to fight and defend.  When he was liberated from the Arena and its games, the Cadre Alliance had underestimated his skill and dedication.  He went from the role of slave to the role of watchman, neither of which suited him.  It wasn't until he halted an assassination attempt on one of the Cadre leaders that the eyes of power fell on him and realised what they had: a human-humanoid hybrid of extreme mutant power.  It had been the first time he used his mutant power.  It was also the last for many years.

 Shatterstar shifted his position but moved very little beyond that.  He could still taste the blood in his mouth, feel the burning in his limbs when he remembered the first time he converted sound into plasma, not light, energy.  Every time thereafter, usage of his skill had crippled him, made him sick to his stomach, caused him pain.  It humiliated him.

 From what he had understood, Cable had come up with an idea akin to a thesis on the subject, was that his human mutancy was incompatible with his Mojoverse heritage.  To his logical mind, it made sense, but he thought it was unfair, not that he was petty and honestly cared but that it handicapped him so severely.  It also seemed too easy an explanation.

 He was unlucky.

 Shatterstar hung his head, removing the elastic from his hair and letting it out.  Evidently, or so he had been told, it was not proper for men on this world to pride themselves on something so paltry as their hair.  Women were allowed but men were not.  Boomer had explained this to him in one of her many attempts to get him to hack it all from his head.  Waist length hair makes you look like a queer, she had said, jokingly as if she meant nothing by it.  He had not cut his hair.

 And what did she know anyway?  What did Julio know for that matter?  He liked Bobby, enjoyed his company and knew that this like would not wane anytime soon.  When they came back, he would tell them all what he thought about them and their presumptions.  He knew this world's history, he knew that the best of the Spartan warriors fought alongside their lovers.  Alexander the Great had lived up to his name, and he took a man as his lover.

 "Fekt," he muttered under his breath, the word low and guttural like language of the Cadre.  It was a rough dialect, with hard sounds and abrupt endings, like him.  It had suited him, the warrior's life, it was perfect.

 Shatterstar looked up, catching the sight of Sinister and wondering immediately how long he had stood there, watching him like a specimen in some experiment he was conducting.  Perhaps that is what this was, an experiment in which he was an unwilling participant.

 Shatterstar frowned.  Why had his thoughts been of himself first and not the team?  If Sinister had truly meant to assault them while they slept, Shatterstar would never have seen it coming.  Worrying and fretting over human concerns and not paying attention to the task at hand!  There was a time and place for that and this was certainly not it!  And suddenly he was venomously angry at himself for forgetting the rules, for forgetting his promise to guard his teammates and failing them so severely.  Sinister had come into the room and he hadn't even noticed!

 "What do you want?"

 Sinister tore his gaze away from Psylocke and focussed it on Shatterstar instead.  "You can either give me what I want from you or I will take it.  One move and you will be dead before you reach the door.  No harm will come to you otherwise."

 Shatterstar wondered briefly what a real X-Man would do, would they fight or would they allow Sinister his game?  Or would they have noticed when he came into the room and stopped it then?  Shatterstar stood up, leaving his swords on the ground and walking to Sinister without a sound, careful so the X-Men would not wake up.

 "Good."

****

 Bobby woke up before the others, stretching loudly and looking around the dim room.  Remy was upside down on the futon, his mouth hanging open and muffled snores escaping his lips.  Betsy was curled upon herself in a position Bobby doubted was comfortable.

 Shatterstar was missing.

 Bobby sat up and looked around, pushing to a stand as if that meant somehow the mutant would miraculously appear.  He didn't, but his swords came into view, discarded absently where Shatterstar had sat hours ago.  Those swords looked lost without his hand to grip them.

 Bobby sat and worried, which is something he realised he did all too often, but he knew he had to fret.  Things just weren't right anymore, and now one of them, the one Bobby had a more personal interest in, had suddenly disappeared.

 Pulling his knees to his chest and laying his head on his knees, Bobby's eyes strayed to the door as it hissed open.  Shatterstar walked though it, his face empty and stoic.  Sinister looked in as the door shut, and Bobby shivered, afraid and wishing he was stronger.  It was so wrong that they were here in the lion's den just waiting for their own deaths.

 "He is as his name suggests," Shatterstar said quietly, nursing a badly bruised arm.  Bobby's glance rested on the wound, his eyes rising for an explanation, and Shatterstar bowed his head, hiding his face behind his red hair.  "He would have taken my blood anyway, so I gave it to him to make it easier, to simplify the situation."

 "Well, I can't say you did the right thing," Bobby replied slowly, "but I also can't say I would have done differently.  You're right, once he wants something, he's not likely to give up that dream.  Betsy's a prime example."

 "I should not have done it."

 "Listen," Bobby said when he realised how seriously important this was to Shatterstar, "you did what you had to do.  Maybe it was a mistake, but it maybe it wasn't either.  Betsy allied herself with Sinister, bad thing, but only to save her baby, good thing."

 "You X-Men seem to make the laws of good and bad."  Shatterstar sat down on the ground in front of Bobby, looking at him.  Bobby shrugged and grinned a boyish grin, trying be relaxed and comfortable but coming across as awkward and overly self-aware.

 Shatterstar sighed.  This man was more deficient in the way of mating than he was.

 They both looked up as Betsy moaned softly, sitting up from sleep and clutching her stomach.  In an instant, Bobby was at her side, nursing and protecting her as had become his role in life.  "Betsy?  Are you all right?  Do you need anything?"

 "I have to get out of here," Betsy muttered, burying her head in her hands.  She had been dreaming the most awful dreams, bloody images of the dead that scattered her past, and she saw her daughter lying with them.  "But he has taken the shadows from me and has negated all of our powers."

 "No, he hasn't," Bobby said slowly, but Bobby tried to ice up, to call upon his mutant powers and nothing happened save for a lot of unnecessary exertion on his part.  He scratched his head, puzzled and unable to explain one very important thing.  "But I saw Shatterstar use his powers yesterday."

 Betsy looked at the young warrior sharply.  "What?"

 Shatterstar nodded, frowning slightly at the way she phrased the word.  "It is true.  My powers are still my own."  Gaveedra paused and thought about something that had been sitting in the back of his head since the destruction of the chair.  "But they did not make me sick when I used them."

 "He can't truly negate our powers, only dampen them to the point they are minuscule, useless," Betsy said slowly, the ache in her belly growing worse as each minute passed.  She had to get out of there, now, before her child was born into Sinister's waiting claws.  "If yours are still your own, only lessened, you must be far more powerful than you let on, Shatterstar."

 "Are you accusing me of lying to you?"  Shatterstar asked sharply, her tone harsh and bitter, and it angered him that she would make such assumptions.  "I have never been power-classed as a mutant.  To use my powers at their top level would probably kill me."

 "Calm down," Remy said quietly, interjecting as he saw a fight rapidly approaching.  Oddly enough, he also acknowledged it had been started by Betsy.  "It doesn't matter why he has them just that he does.  Betsy, if he can kill the lights, can you get us out of here?"

 "Without my telepathy, we could find ourselves in any number of places, but yes, we will no longer be here."  Betsy looked at the faces of her teammates, reflecting on the odd mix of people.  If someone had predicted a year ago that she would have actually appreciated Gambit, relied on Bobby or fought alongside Shatterstar, she would have called him a liar.  "Shatterstar, if you give me darkness, I can get us out of here."

 "I do not need convincing.  I will do whatever you wish of me."

 Betsy stood with the help of Bobby, who supported her weight because the cramping in her abdomen hampered her ability to stay upright.  Remy grabbed his coat and stood close to them, waiting for Shatterstar to make his move.

 Shatterstar, clutching both swords in his hands, began to hum, alternating pitches until he found the strongest sound.  He held it in his throat, feeling the heat rise in his body then lifted his swords, pointing them at the two largest light sources.  This was going to hurt him.

 A flash of light faded into dark, and Shatterstar called upon his powers again, systematically destroying all the light.  In the distance, he could hear alarms, but the room was already dark and that was all that mattered.

 They were gone before Sinister reached the door.

 "This is not over," Sinister said, looking at the charred remains of the room.  "They have not won.  They will never win!"

****

 "I have them!"  Emma cried, feeling Betsy's presence emerge onto the astral plane with a roar.  She was walking when it happened and stumbled, losing all sense of where she was for a moment then finding herself in Chamber's arms.  "I found her."

 Domino looked up sharply.  "Where is she?"

 Emma closed her eyes and shook her head, not at the question but where Betsy had put herself.  "I don't understand why she's there, but she's below us, in the tunnels, and the other X-Men are there but not near her.  I don't know what she's doing."

 Domino looked at her teammates then punched a wall in anger.  "Fuck.  She just has to make things more complicated, doesn't she?  Goddamn it all the hell!  Come on, let's save their sorry asses before they're all killed."

 Chamber smiled as much as he could without a mouth and looked to Emma, who was rabid with annoyance and outrage. *Charming, isn't she?*

 "That is not the word I would use."

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