Hitchin' A Ride (Part Three)

Hisako and I kept to ourselves, feeling very out of place as we stood by while the rest of the X-Men conversed. Wolverine, Beast, Emma Frost, Shadowcat, Colossus, and Cyclops, all there together, talking about some threat attacking the house, and we had no idea what was going on. They were all huddled around Miss Frost like she was some kind of threat. At one point, Miss Pryde even had a gun pointed at her. That had been intense.

It had all been something about a group called Hellfire Club... only not. And some psychic entity that had left a powerful suggestion in Emma's brain. I was able to pick up that whatever it was had made Emma do all of the weird crap like putting everyone to sleep and screwing with Mister Logan and the rest of the X-Men's heads. This included somehow turning off Mister Summers' powers. It was weird seeing him without his visor on. I still tried to keep out of his field of vision.

This was confusing. Did they have to deal with this kind of crap all of the time? Who could keep up?

I leaned over and whispered to my teammate as quietly as I could to keep from disturbing the senior X-Men, "Yo. How much of this are you actually getting?"

Hisako didn't answer me. She just kept staring out in front of herself blankly, as though she were still absorbing what we were caught up in, "We're out of our league here, Bel. What are we doing?" She said, "Why did Blindfold wake me up? She could have left me to sleep like everybody else."

Blindfold? I didn't know how the rest of the Paladins were faring. I had tucked Laura away somewhere safe (as safe as her bedroom away from all of the action could be), but I didn't know where Wing and Blindfold were, "Ruthie's awake?" I asked, "Where is she? Is she okay?"

Hisako's eyes turned to me for a moment, realizing that, no, I probably didn't know where everybody was, "She's fine, last time I saw. Dr. McCoy went crazy, and when I fought him off, I woke up in the infirmary. That's when I found Mister Logan. Since Ord and the robot hit the mansion where we were and were stuck fighting with you, I don't think she's in any trouble."

"Good," That left four of us accounted for. I'd have to hustle around campus when I got the chance to find Eddie.

"No. Not good!" She hissed back in a whisper, "We're still here. Doing this. We can't do this, whatever this is. We're not X-Men."

A pep talk about how I was awesome and we were good enough wasn't going to work here. I had a theory, that my egocentric speeches about how we could handle anything worked in proportion to how many team members I had around me at the time. The more of us that heard the confident-sounding tripe coming out of my mouth at a given moment, the more effective it was. With just one Paladin to name, who was also the one who needed calming, the euphoria of safety in numbers wasn't present. Realism set in, and there was almost no effect.

I tried to reason for Hisako's sake, "We're not even going to have to do anything. They probably just want to keep an eye on us because we're the only kids awake they can find. They can watch out for two students."

The idea of not having to do anything and just observing made her feel a lot better. Unfortunately, I was just as full of crap as I figured I was when I said it. I just didn't think it would be because Ord and Danger, complete with a brand new body, would bust in on us to try and kill us again.

The X-Men were all faster to react than I was, them all being used to defending themselves at the drop of a hat. The fight was on, but something strange happened. There was a blue flash of light. One moment, we were in one of the sub-basement rooms under the Xavier Institute, the next, we were in some other high-tech room... but everyone was still fighting, so I didn't have time to take in the change of surroundings.

In the fracas, Ord threw Wolverine off of his back and caught sight of me trying to hang back with Hisako. He made a beeline straight for me. This seemed familiar, as it was the exact same thing that had happened back at the house, thirty minutes ago.

"Die!"

The results were different this go-around. The third time was the charm, or so they say.

"Bang," I didn't take a step forward or backward. In the middle of his charge, I hit him with a two-fingered laser to the belly. He wasn't wearing a speck of his armor this time that had helped him tank the worst of my shots before. This time, it went clean through the back. I almost smiled at the sight of him dropping to his knees holding the new wound I'd just blown into him, "How's that feel, you dumb bitch?"

Yes, I was still bitter about having my guts cut out a few days ago. And as far as I was concerned, we still weren't even. He didn't have to look at his own entrails after what I'd done. Hell, I'd actually cauterized the wound I'd just made for him, so he wouldn't even bleed out if he could survive the shock.

It was then that I noticed the guys in gunmetal uniforms pointing guns at all of us. Ord took that moment to try and barrel into me again. He never made it, and not because I shot him again.

"Oh, for God's sake. Hit 'em."

A humming noise was my only warning before I felt myself pulled to the floor like I'd just been hit with a body splash from Rockslide. I couldn't move an inch from where I was, and I had super strength. I couldn't even turn my head, but the groans from everyone else around me meant that they all shared my fate.

"Celestial hell, but I am sick of magnets," Ord mumbled painfully, his voice muffled by his face being pressed to the ground.

The same voice that had issued the order to neutralize us answered him, "It's a localized gravity surge, actually. Handy for unruly passengers."

Right. Where the hell were we again?"

Mister Summers sounded extremely nettled from where he was stuck on the floor like the rest of us, "Agent Brand, you've got ten seconds to turn that off-."

"Or what?" The woman, identified as Agent Brand responded before the sound of a gun cocking shut her up.

"Or else," I heard Miss Pryde say.

"This kid's not a killer."

"You have no idea who I am."

"You gonna put a bullet in my head?"

"For starters."

It took a moment, but the gravity thing turned off, letting us all move again. When I turned to see, I saw Miss Pryde holding a handgun with the barrel pointing through the head of some lady with green hair in a ponytail, green lipstick, green shades, and green armor in the same style as the other goons around us.

Good old, Miss Pryde. I knew she scared me for a reason. Between this, and whatever psychic mess had gone down earlier with Emma, she probably really did want to shoot something today.

Despite giving in to the 'negotiations' of the X-Men, Agent Brand still tried to seem tough, "Anybody starts anything –I'm looking at you, Ord– and I'll turn the gravity so high, it'll liquefy you."

I sat up and shoved Hisako with my elbow, "Hey, I knew that Field Day endurance test you did would come in handy," I tried to joke.

"Agent Brand, the mutant is right here! Rasputin!" He exclaimed, pointing over at a metalled-up Colossus, "Finish this! My planet is at stake! What is his life against billions?"

The green-haired lady just looked at him coldly, as if she were about to lose it if one more person tried to give her an order, "Doesn't play out that way. Rasputin's an asset right now, and you're a prisoner. As for your robo-buddy," She turned to Danger who had been... startlingly docile, "I assume you tried taking over our computer systems the moment you materialized. So I also assume you know we have an aggressive defense system."

"You've given me a virus," Danger said, already aware as some of Brand's men dragged off Ord.

Agent Brand confirmed it, "Seven-hundred thousand of them."

Even so, Danger still had a measure of confidence about her situation, "They won't kill me. My consciousness is not limited to this body. Back on Earth-."

The clearly military lady let out a bark of laughter that I would consider cruel, "We're a long way from Earth, sister. The body you're in now is about to go down with a nasty bug, and you can convalesce in a cell until I figure out if you're useful at all."

That shut the fembot down. No weapons out and about. No trying to escape. There was that cold, logical part of her that kept her from doing anything dumb.

Cyclops started to stand back up, helping Miss Frost up with one of her arms around his neck, "What game are you playing?" He wanted to know, "Where are we?"

Agent Brand was very forthcoming with the information. Not that it did my ignorant ass any good, "Quadrant Theta 669, on a sub-light arc for the Breakworld. That course can't be changed. Not by the bot, not by your Miss Pryde," She made sure we all knew before softening her stance somewhat, "We've got more than a day to brief you on the situation, but if you want to now-."

Mister Summers held up a hand to keep her from going into any kind of detail, "No. Not yet," As far as he was concerned, there were other things that needed to be taken care of first. For one thing, his bedtime buddy didn't look so hot, unable to stand on her own, "You got a psychic on this ship?"

And with that, he shuffled off, Miss Frost in tow as he was escorted elsewhere on the... ship?

We were in space. We had been beamed onboard a spaceship, Star Trek style. Fortunately, there were no windows, or I would have been caught staring at the stars like some snot-nosed punk that couldn't adjust. I was spared that fate by my normally traitorous thoughts. My teammate wasn't.

Hisako sat up, looking around with wide eyes as it finally settled on her what was happening, "Why is everyone so calm?" She asked in disbelief.

I stood up off of the floor and extended my hand down to help her up, "Well, nobody's dead yet, for starters," I said, pulling her to her feet, "For me? I got to take a sweet chunk out of Ord and watch him get thrown in a cell to suffer, so I feel way better now."

Was that weird to say? I wanted some revenge, and I got it. My brain was too full of fulfilled endorphins to be scared. Besides, no one else seemed to be.

"This ain't exactly the first time we've been off-world," Mister Logan said to Hisako, putting his claws away, "Just keep your eyes and ears open. You two are the freshest outta the bunch of us," I begged to differ, having been the only one there that had really been smacked around to any degree for any extended period, "Compared to everyone else, you two haven't had to deal with any psychic fuckery."

Dr. McCoy smoothed back the hair/fur on top of his head, "True. It does seem that the team is a mite 'fried'. A-Am I using that term correctly?" He looked to the rest of us for reassurance, "Excellent. Either way, everyone should try to get some rest while we can. I fear we will be scant to have any in the near future."