Chapter 71

(I know we're miles away from the target of 1k stones, but I was y'all turned out yesterday and the day before, so a bonus chappy feels fair. Again, we're aiming for the moon during this week. The goal is 1k. Hopefully, we land somewhere close. But that depends on y'all. Anyways, enjoy.)

Jean

I was treated to a familiar dire sight as Piotr lay there in front of me, unconscious and in pain. He was hooked up to an IV, tucked into his sheets, with his eyes constantly flickering. He was in pain, so much pain that I feared looking in any deeper.

I saw flashes of the fight with Dante from his perspective—an innocent pawn coerced into being the unwilling puppet of an Outerversal being.

We shared that in common, but that was where the similarities between us ended. He was in constant pain, watching his body break down and mend itself while he was burned from the inside out with cosmic fire.

"Piotr?" I called out to him, delving into his nightmare. I was treated to a familiar scene. The fractured Mansion. The ground had been glassed over, the trees scorched, and somehow, the Mansion was also on fire.

I could've forcefully stilled his mind with my will, dispelling the illusion, but I was afraid that'd do more harm than good.

Piotr shrunk back when he saw me, bloodied and limping away from Dante, who was covered in a demonic coat of fire and demonic energy.

"Please, Jean," he begged me. "I can't anymore. Let me go. Let me die."

My heart shattered. "Piotr, it wasn't me. It was the Phoenix. She was out of control. Take my hand," I begged. "You have to wake up. Ilyana needs you."

Piotr's features softened some before they turned strained in panic. "This is just another trick, isn't it?" He looked behind him. The silhouette of Dante was stalking closer.

"He's not real," I insisted. "None of this is real."

Piotr pulled further away, shaking his head vigorously. "Don't you dare! Look at me. I'm bleeding, and I'm covered in burns from a fire that you started. All of this is your fault."

"No…" my voice hitched, and I reached out, but Piotr was already running.

"Stay away from me," he said, with one final look over his shoulder.

I came out from his subconscious, covered in nervous sweats. The sorcerer beside me stepped up, steadying me. His name was apprentice Aaron, one of Drumm's finest. He'd apparently had an altercation with Dante when he first arrived at the New York Sanctum that led to some bad blood between them, but they'd both decided to be the bigger person and bury the hatchet for the benefit of the mission.

"Thank you, Aaron."

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Hell," I simply said.

Dante eased the door open a second later and raised a curious brow at our proximity but seemed otherwise unbothered by it from what I could parse from his mind. He'd known for a long time that there was some attraction between himself and me, but he deliberately shelved it because of something in his past. I could've pushed further and read his mind more deeply, but I'd already tested his boundaries. I felt like peering into his mind could be what breaks us.

"Ready?" he asked.

I nodded, and he eased the door open.

"Come on, then," he said, giddy. "Natasha and Clint are waiting on us."

"How did they react to the news?"

"Absolute horror," he answered truthfully.

"Of course they did," I said. "I'm a monster. I hurt everyone who's shown me even an ounce of affection. They're smart to be afraid."

Dante broke his stride and turned to Aaron. "Mind giving us a minute."

Aaron nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.

As he walked off, Dante laughed. "That guy fucking hates my gut," he said. "And while I can let that bother me, I choose not to. In my case, I don't give a shit, but in your case, you need to make peace with the fact that Jean and the Phoenix are not the same people. You may have done some bad things while drunk off cosmic power, but who wouldn't? All you can do is apologize and try to put your best foot forward."

I knew Dante was trying to make me feel better, but his pep talk rang hollow when I considered the people I'd inadvertently put in danger--all of the mutants at Xaviers, Dante himself, and the wider mutant population.

"You make it sound so easy."

"It's not," he said with a frown. "There are some things you can never take back, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. There's a lot of good you can do, even when you feel like shit. Duty should always come before feelings."

"Duty before feelings." I latched onto that.

---

Clint and Natasha hid their emotions better than most. The former greeted me with a charismatic smile and a poor joke.

"I barely recognize you without your glowing hair and red eyes."

"It's good to see you're back to yourself," Natasha said tersely, and Dante clapped.

"Alright, let's go over the game plan."

Natasha laid out the plans for Pierce's house. It was in Virginia, some ways away from the Pentagon, and it was a veritable fortress that pretended to be a modest three-story on the outside.

The walls were lined with steel. The house has state-of-the-art security, a fully integrated motion-activated automatic weapons system, several blast doors, and an elite squad of SHIELD agents stationed to protect the Undersecretary.

Dante whistled. "That looks like a nightmare to get through. Good thing we can teleport right in." He grinned, turning to Natasha. "What was it you said about learning how to hack."

Natasha didn't rise to the bait and turned to me instead.

"Our entire plan hinges on you, so here's what we need you to do."

---

Dante

We came spilling out of the portal with a lurch at the edge of Pierce's property, and we immediately got to work.

Aaron and Natasha stayed with Jean as she meditated to scan the compound while Clint and I rushed down to the local transformer a few homes. There were two guards and an operative circling the area.

"Alright," Clint nodded at me. "You're up."

I pulled on the Mask that the Ancient one gave me and briefly looked at my reflection in Rebellion. I'd been transformed into a smooth-faced Redface redhead with freckles.

"Suppose it's as good a face as any."

I pulled off my Red off red jacket next, stuffing it in the backpack I'd brought. It was still embarrassing that I didn't have a full inventory yet. It was also on my shortlist. A storage ring costs 250,000 Red Orbs.

"You got the cameras?" I asked.

"Yeah, he nodded, and I shot forward like a cannon. Fifty-three points in Dexterity made me a blur. I slammed open palms into the sternums of the two rent-a-cops, sending them flying into the sire mesh walls, and immediately stepped to the side, nailing the operative with a kick to the neck. He hit the floor around the same time the guards crashed into the net.

Meanwhile, I heard grunts and shouts coming from the watchtower. When Clint came out, he produced the guts of the surveillance system.

"Did anybody see you?" I asked, and he scoffed.

"Come on."

We spent the next few minutes tying up the men and tossing them on the roof of the surveillance station before we headed deeper into the facility. Clint read over the wire and pointed out the one that needed cutting.

I produced a metal pinion I stole from the monastery and got to swinging. It cut through the connectors like a hot knife through butter, and the entire block went dark.

I blinked in the darkness, channeling demonic energy into my eyes, hoping for some night vision, but before I got around to awakening a skill, the world gained light. The Siren Mask was far more complicated than it seemed at first.

Clint offered me a pair of night vision goggles we'd prepared ahead of time, but I turned them down.

"You can see in the dark?"

"I guess I can," I said with a shrug as we hurried back to the extraction point.

When we arrived, I'd thrown my jacket back on for the extra endurance and speed. Jean, Natasha, and Aaron were about to open a portal. It turned out Pierce had changed his security team since he started putting feelers out that he planned on going after the mutants. He'd replaced his squad with an 11-member death squad.

One human, five super soldiers, and five mutants.

Pierce was in the middle of yelling at one of his men when the portal opened in his bedroom. The agent barely had a chance to raise an alarm when a finger of Orochi stabbed into his eyes, killing him instantly.

"Guess he's the human."

Congratulations: You've killed an Agent of Hydra. 10 Red Orbs.

Natasha looked slightly startled at my speed while Pierce jumped at the sudden intrusion. He tapped his wristwatch, and Jean scowled, seizing him with Telekinesis. She shoved him into the wall, and he cried in pain.

"Unhand me," he yelled. "Do you know who I am?"

"A dead man who doesn't know it yet." I grinned, and Pierce squinted his pudgy face.

"You. Fury put you up to this, didn't he?"

I was thinking of a witty comeback when Jean stretched her fingers, and I heard Pierce squeal.

"He sent out a signal. His men are on their way."

"Oh well," I said. "Saves us the trouble of finding them."

"You know what to do, Aaron," I nodded at the wizard, and he immediately started weaving strings of eldritch light while Natasha and Clint pulled out parts of a strange device that they cobbled together wordlessly.

"Get to digging, Jean," I hollered.

"Signal blocker is on," Clint announced. "Only our frequency will make it through."

Both Agents joined me at the exit of Pierce's room with their weapons raised.

"Are you sure you want to go out alone?" Natasha asked.

"Positive," I said. "After the day I had, facing humans will be a nice change of pace. I can always radio if I need you."

Plus, I didn't need either of them holding me back. They were world-class spies in their own right, but against supersoldiers and mutants, I didn't want Clint catching a stray energy beam and dying.

"How far out are they?" I called to Jean, who had her hand placed on the head of a clearly distraught Pierce. She'd taken the time to stuff his mouth with a sock so that she could better concentrate.

"They're about to turn the corner of the hallway leading to the bedroom."

"Perfect," I said as I pushed the double doors open and shot down the hallway with a runner's start. I activated Angel Evade as I reached the corner. I bounced off the far wall, depositing me behind the group of ten closing in.

I scanned all of them with the Devil's eye and came away with some disappointing results, but I got some hints as to what each was truly capable of.

As expected, five of the ten were mutants, and I figured out more or less what three of the five could do. The rail-thin girl could duplicate herself. A pudgy guy had energy projection powers. And a well-muscled man had bone spurs sticking out of his fists that he could launch.

I hoped for no crazy outliers as I observed the last two. One was a blonde girl with cloudy blue eyes, and the last one was a lanky Japanese dude with a perpetual cheshire smile on his face. 

I returned the material as I pulled out two grenades and launched them at the group.

Before the grenades even left my palm, however, the blonde mutant in the group already yelled out, "Grenades."

Suddenly, the burly man spun around and fired his spurs at one of the grenades. A super soldier took care of the second grenade with a shot from his gun.

There was a huge conflagration between us, and a few alarms went off, but both sides remained relatively unharmed.

(Read up to Chapter 94 on Patreon.com/ArtandCreativeWriting. We're over 20 chapters ahead in case you've not noticed!)