On a Wing and a Prayer

Posted on Tue Aug 6th, 2024 @ 11:06pm by Scott Summers & Bobby Drake & Jean Grey & Pietro Maximoff & Mara Ricci

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: Alchemax Tower | New York City
Timeline: October 12th, 1990

The skyline of New York City shined in painted hues of deep purple and fiery orange as twilight descended. Alchemax Tower stood tall and imposing, its glass façade reflecting the fading light as shadows gathered around its edges. The once-grand R&D facility owned by Shaw Industries now bore the name of its latest owner, Oscorp. The building's sleek, modern design failed to mask its dark history.

Topped by a high razor-wire fence, the tower's perimeter was surrounded by a concrete wall. Security cameras strategically placed along the perimeter blinked their red lights in intersecting sweeps. Guard patrols move around the complex. There had to be something inside worth protecting.

Vehicle and pedestrian traffic were kept at a distance by the reinforced concrete wall. No delivery vehicles passed through, even though the area around the tower was bustling with the evening crowd.

From the midst of random pedestrians came Cyclops and Quicksilver. They blended into the shadows around the tower's base, their presence unnoticed amidst the urban hustle.

Changing of the guard was happening soon. With the right timing, they could enter the building without being noticed.

Cyclops scanned the building through his ruby-quartz visor, analyzing every detail. Reed's upgrades were proving most useful. If only the scanners weren't limited to physical traits. The Alchemax Tower had changed corporate hands numerous times. Senator Peter Krane, the sponsor of the Mutant Registration Act and prominent member of the Friends of Humanity, had recently acquired a significant shareholder stake in Alchemax. That had raised red flags amidst the resurgence of Sentinels. Alchemax stock shooting up by leaps and bounds only added to suspicions. Someone this company was making a fortune without any clear product or offering, which means their funding was blacklisted. And that was precisely the corporate profile that X-Factor had identified. Alchemax might not be the culprit but it was at the top of the list.

"Keep your eyes peeled," Cyclops said to Quicksilver. "Might be nothing, might be everything."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm the one who sees color," Pietro grumbled as he watched the guards and their relaxed posture while they eagerly awaited the next shift's guards to appear. Within a matter of minutes, the new relieved the old from their duties and a momentary gap in surveillance was created. It would have been an easy pass for the two had the one of the guards not stopped and turned around to start a casual conversation with the other. Quicksilver braced Scott by the head and back before pulling them both into a sprint. His superhuman speed made it easy for them to reach the service entrance undetected.

"We're in." They both spoke the words in unison and gave one another a sidelong stare. Working together was still a new dynamic for the two mutants who were both accustomed to giving orders.

Now that they were inside, they turned their attention to the objectives at hand. The sterile, cold environment of the facility hinted at the secrets it held. Cyclops and Quicksilver moved silently through the corridors, their senses on high alert.

Cyclops nodded, his eyes darting around as they navigate the labyrinthine hallways. They had come across a laboratory door marked Restricted Access. "This looks promising," he said.

~* 'Going in without your backup?' *~ Jean playfully chided Scott for advancing so far into Alchemax Tower while Jean, Bobby and Mara had to travel across town to meet them. ~* 'We're on-site and closing in. There are eight guards in total who watch the building. Including one in the security camera room that doesn't care that all of the building's cameras suddenly stopped working.' *~ He could feel that smug smirk on her face knowing that she had saved his cover. ~* 'You're welcome.' *~

~Thank you... dear~ Scott let the combination of love, appreciation, and sarcasm flow back to Jean through their psychic rapport. ~We had an opening and took it. Good luck getting inside. Security is thick~

For all the sneaking and careful planning Cyclops and Quicksilver had to do in order to get into the building, the path was perfectly clear for Jean, Iceman, and Interface. Patrolling guards suddenly departed from their assigned stations, each one suddenly remembering something of the utmost importance that caused them to immediately leave, only for them to forget what was so urgent once they had exited the now locked building. Wires unplugged themselves from the backs of security cameras, their blinking red lights and oscillation stopped. Jean casually strolled down the hallway to the awaiting Cyclops and Quicksilver, she was almost gloating at her over the top flex of telepathic power. Her point had been made, she had shown them how much easier it would have been had they entered the building together.

"Alright, Mr. Eager Beaver. Let's go," Jean teased, now Scott could see that smile he had felt in her tone.

Scott knit is brow at Jean in a gesture that she knew indicated a hard squint. His lips pursed as he fought to maintain his faux frown. ~Well done, Mind Girl~

"I'm going with her next time." Quicksilver chuckled at the rapport between the two. Relationships in a team could be problematic, especially when they soured, but these two seemed to thrive in the tension of the situation.

"Yeah, we waltzed right in," Iceman said. "So where's the party?"

"Down there," Scott said with a nod. "On me, X-Factor."

X-factor. That was… Mara didn’t know how she felt about it. Weird for sure. They had also come up with the code name “Interface” for her on the way over. It fit, of course, but she felt as if she’d been thrust into a spy movie and not given a script. An improve spy movie- that’s a novel idea.

She had, of course, immediately noticed that the entire building was computerized. She hadn’t bothered to attempt to break into the system, yet, because there didn’t seem to be a point and also she didn’t want to alert anybody to their presence just yet. Still, it was worth noting.

Without a word, though, she followed Cyclops- remembering to think of them as their code names was tricky- to wherever they were leading her.

With a narrow beam optic blast, Cyclops knocked the door mechanism clear through to the other side. The door slid open. Inside, they found rows of workstations, blueprints, and what looks like prototype Sentinel parts. The body of a Master Mold was on display in the middle of the room, a replacement and rather poor quality head was jury rigged to its elegant frame.

~* 'This area is empty, I'm not picking up on any thoughts from people working.' *~ Confirmation of the all clear was provided to everyone and it allowed them all to relax a little.

"This is it. We have the smoking gun." Cyclops smirked in victory. "Let's get as much of this information back to X-Factor HQ as possible. Take as many photos as you can, and let's get out of here before we're discovered."

"Interface." Jean looked over at Mara as they entered the room. "Find whatever computer system you can, anything related to that headless Master Mold would be a huge asset. I'll stand watch over you while you work."

“Got it,” replied Mara. And now she finally touched the computer system she had detected earlier and began tapping into it, gently at first, so as to not raise suspicion, but finally probing the admittedly feeble security they had in place. Her one advantage was that computers were still relatively new and hackers still relatively unskilled, which left systems open to her. “The window is opened,” she muttered as she gained access and began rooting around in files, looking for anything important.

As they gathered evidence, a soft hum began to fill the room. Cyclops' eyes narrowed behind his visor. "We've been made. Quicksilver, move!"

But the door that had opened for them slid shut with a hiss. Reinforced plating began shunting over every surface in the room, locking them inside. Cyclops loosed an optic blast, only for it to ricochet around the room.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? A few X-Men stumbling into my trap like moths to a flame."
It was a digitized voice speaking through an intercom.

"Who is that?" Bobby asked. "Sounds sketchy."

"Doesn't matter who it is," Cyclops said. "We're exposing him."

"I'm not ashamed of my name. I'm proud of it. But you won't live long enough to appreciate the finer points of what you've stumbled into."

The digitization gave nothing away. Yet the mystery man had identified them as X-Men. Somehow he knew them. Scott needed more to go on. "Just another mid-level tech firm. A dime a dozen. This quarter looks good but will you last the year? Probably not."

"Shaw Industries will rise again!" shouted the voice behind the intercom.

Cyclops smirked. When provoked, the man had given himself away. "Back from the dead, Shaw?" If he was too scared to show his face, then maybe calling him out by name would unsettle him. "Magneto will be disappointed."

For an instant, it seemed to have worked. "I... You should know by now, Cyclops, that it takes more than Magneto to kill me." He chuckled at that, almost too much.

"What's your game? More Sentinels?" Quicksilver scoffed. "We've all beaten them before."

"Oh, it's much more than that," Shaw boasted through the intercom. "You've only seen the beginning. But don't worry, you'll have a front-row seat to the new era I'm about to usher in."

"What is that?" Jean's brow furrowed. It was almost like a switch had been flipped and a mental signature suddenly appeared in the room. But it wasn't really a person... at least not in its entirety. ~* 'Scott, I don't like this, there's something not quite human in the room with us.' *~

Cyclops had his hand to his temple and at the ready. "Quicksilver, run the perimeter and call out threats. Iceman, you're on defense. Throw interference at whatever comes our way. Interface, stay behind me."

Pietro nodded in response to Cyclops' request and he vanished in a blur of blue and silver.

Without bothering to ask permission, Mara began searching the computer for the door controls. They weren’t hard to find, but convincing the computer to actually open the doors was a bit trickier. It wanted an access code. She found it, but it was encrypted. “It’s going to take me a minute,” she told the others, “but I can get the door open. Be ready because it might not stay open for long.”

" Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the future of Shaw Industries, think of it as my gift to you." Shaw chuckled, the sound was gravely through the intercom. " It is something old, something new, something borrowed, and of course, something blue. "

The overhead lights were suddenly cut, leaving only the ambient glow provided by Mara's computer screen and the emergency lighting. The large workshop took on an eerie and cavernous feeling in the near darkness that made the members of X-Factor feel rather small and vulnerable.

Quicksilver returned to the center of the room and provided a report of his findings "Everything is locked, all doors and exit points are sealed and bolted shut. If we're going to leave, we'll have to make our own way out."

"What about a weak spot?" Iceman asked. "Some gap in the blast plating."

"There aren't any!" Quicksilver said. "Weren't you listening?"

~* 'Quiet!' *~ Jean's tone was urgent, it added to the ominous feeling the room provided ~* 'It's moving...' *~

From the darkness in the back of the room a few padded footprints were heard before a whisper soft rustle of something metallic, then a return to deafening silence.

~* 'I can get a read on it...' *~ There was strain and frustration in Jean's words ~* 'I can't track its thoughts, just that it's here and it's hunting us.' *~

Glowing red eyes ignited in the shadows. "Switching to thermal imaging," the hunter stated.

"Is it robotic?" Cyclops pondered aloud. "Interface, take cover." Fighting a robot would be different than a flesh and blood adversary.

Mara had, of course already done so. She had crawled under the desk as soon as the glowing red eyes had appeared.

As she complied, Cyclops flipped through the options of his upgraded visor until he found thermal imaging as well. By the time the resolution came into focus, the red eyes were gone. A rush of wind overhead was the only warning that it had taken to the air.

"Hit the deck!" Cyclops shouted as he did the same. A whirring sound whizzed overhead where his chest had just been. The clang of metal piercing metal resounded behind him. "Iceman! Defense!"

Iceman grunted an affirmative as he threw up walls around them of intersecting latticework that would stop projectiles more reliably than a single thick barrier would. "If someone doesn't open a door, I'm about to make one!"

Whatever this thing was, it was flying around overhead, tossing apart industrial chains and parts in its high-speed circling. And then the harpoons it was shooting began to detonate, blowing smoke and debris into the air. The hunter was closing in face, throwing them off balance and looking for an opening. It would only be a matter of time before he got lucky.

"Do it!" Cyclops ordered as he started spraying optic blasts.

Despite the widebeam spread, the flying hunter bobbed, weaved, and barrel rolled without so much as a scratch. Even Quicksilver missed the timing on his flying haymaker.

~Jean, try and slow him!~ Scott said. ~He's too fast and agile to track in the air!~

Jean’s eyes narrowed as she focused on creating a telekinetic wall in the empty space above them. Like a bird flying into a glass window, the winged hunter crashed into the unseen barrier. There was no human sound of discomfort from the impact, only the sound of machinery adjusting and calibrating to compensate for the damage that had occurred. The clatter at least created a temporary location for where the hunter was in the dark room.

Jean reached out once more with a telekinetic hold on the hunter’s body, she managed to pin it to the ground for the time being.

“I have it!” She called out to the rest of X-Factor “But it’s slippery and hard to hold onto.”

Quicksilver didn’t waste any time, he approached the restrained assailant and they began to grapple and scuffle. He grunted and heaved as they exchanged blows.

“God damn, he’s strong!” Pietro barked in the darkness.

Calculating the adjusted trajectory thanks to the mitigating actions taken by Jean and Pietro, Scott lined up a bank shot. When he loosed it, the optic blast went diagonally around Pietro and ricocheted into the back of the flying hunter that was squirming against Jean's telepathic restraint. The impact knocked him forward into Quicksilver's supersonic punch that would normally punch a hole through an unprotected chest. Now there was a crack of bone on metal followed by a grunt.

"Quicksilver, sound off!" Cyclops called out.

"Holy fuck, he's filled with metal." Quicksilver took a step away from the attacker as his hand tingled and burned before it went numb. "That hit barely phased him."

"How's that door coming?" Cyclops asked Interface without looking over his shoulder. Before she could reply, there was a hiss as it opened. "Retreat! Interface, Marvel Girl, through the door! Quicksilver, Iceman provide cover!" Cyclops himself would bring up the rear.

Mara didn’t need to be told twice. She was out from under the desk and through the door in a flash.

Jean followed behind Mara, watching her back as they all attempted to depart from the workshop turned ambush.

Between the dogpile from Jean, Scott, and Pietro and the sudden, swift retreat, the robotic attacker broke loose and went straight for Mara. In the light of the door, his rocket-propelled wings were spread wide as his red eyes glowed like an angel of death.

"Interface!" Cyclops shouted. He cut loose a full wave from his visor, but he had to cut it short for risk of hitting the others.

Seconds before the hunter made contact with Mara, a frozen sheen shot up in between her and the flying robot. Rather than break the charge, Bobby put a curve onto it that deflected the attack and sent the hunter sliding sideways into the corner of the room.

The hunter spun around in mid-air, hit the wall in a sideways crouch, and propelled back the way he had come toward Mara. Ready for round two, Iceman had summoned a thick ice cudgel and already had it swinging in motion. It made contact on the hunter's head with an echoing smash, cracking his armored head and sending him reeling to the ground.

"Come on! Put 'em up! Put 'em up!" Iceman shuffled his feet to and fro like a boxer and even formed protective ice around his fists to protect them while he went toe to toe with the enemy he had knocked down. "I ain't scared of you, Megatron! Give me your best shot!"

Standing to his feet, the robotic hunter pulled the cracked helmet away from his head to reveal a bluish visage framed by a matted mop of tangled blond hair. Even in the dim lighting and unusual coloring, there was no mistaking those features. The chiseled jaw. The hawkish brow. The pert lips.

"No way..." Bobby said with a gasp, his frozen fists dropping from the guard position. "Warren? It can't be!" But it was. Bobby's face shifted back to flesh and blood. "It's me, Warren! Bobby! Oh, Jesus Christ, I don't know what they did to you but we're bringing you home!"

The hunter faltered for a moment, his eyes fading back to dull reflectors. Nothing was said. No action was taken. Just pure hesitation.

"Guys! Look!" Bobby looked over his shoulder to the rest of the team. "It's Warr—"

"Kill him, Omega Sentinel!" Shaw's voice shouted through the intercom.

And the Omega Sentinel complied. His mech wings unfurled about him, their furthermost edges stabbing Bobby through the chest and hoisted him in the air like forklift tines. Bobby's mouth fell open as gurgles and blood trickled from his mouth and chest.

"Iceman!" Jean screamed in pain as she dropped to her knees clutching her own head. Bobby's pain and fleeting consciousness filled her mind. The distress was far too similar to the torture she had endured on Krakoa and it caused her to panic and sob as her own hardships came to the forefront of her mind. Shell shocked and momentarily disabled, Jean was lost to the horrors of pain and death.

"No!!!" Cyclops shouted as he shot another blast at the Omega Sentinel.

The blast caught Omega Sentinel—Warren—in his own chest, though his unfurled wings deflected much of it to either side. He let Bobby slide off the razor sharp tips of his wings.

"Bring me the technopath!" Shaw ordered.

Darting forward as he had before like a cybernetic bird of prey, the Omega Sentinel surged toward Mara, and took her by the neck and shoulders in one fell swoop. His wings folded while he tucked their bodies together, pivoting in midair, where he then shot through the open door. Jet boosts kicked afterburn in his wake.

"Quicksilver, get Bobby back to base!" Cyclops ordered. "We'll go after Interface!"

But Mara was far from helpless. Rule number one of self defense: make yourself very difficult to hold. As anybody who has tried to pick up an angry toddler will know, if someone lifts their arms above their heads and kicks their legs, they become very slippery. So, almost triumphantly, Mara lifted her arms as high as she could get them and began kicking her legs furiously.

The squirming had little effect, as Omega Sentinel Warren just wrapped his cybernetically enhanced limbs around Mara's, forcing her body straight while he flew at breakneck speed down the hallway.

Scott bolted toward the door and slid between it as it started to slide shut again. Dropping to his knees, he unleashed a full blast against the frame itself, which twisted it sideways and pinned the reinforced door in place. Despite the twitching, the door remained half closed.

~Come on, Jean~ There was no need for Scott to verbalize commands. He and Jean fought as one. He broke into a sprint down the corridor they'd entered through, knowing it headed back to the maintenance area. ~Can you tell if they're still in the building?~

~* 'He's so fast.' *~ Scott's words brought her back to the present and the mission that was falling apart right before their eyes. Jean knew she had to try to reach out to Warren, his mind had once been familiar to her. Her telepathic presence moved through a brain that no longer registered as her former friend's. It was metallic and cold, wired and emotionless. Despite the fact that it didn't feel human, Jean plunged further in only to be met with sharp psychic pain.

Jean recoiled and screamed in agony from the blast of an attack that invaded her mind. Whoever had designed this Omega Sentinel knew exactly how to keep a telepath out. She felt blood trickling from her nose as she reeled and doubled over in agony.

~Jean!~

The psychic onslaught nearly brought Scott to his knees. He skidded to a halt, nearly stumbling. Pivoting in a sharp about face, he ran back to Jean. He reached her just as she began to sink to the floor. His strong arms caught her and held her up.

"Jean! Jean, look at me!" Scott all but forced her eyes open, imploring her to focus on him. "Concentrate... come back to me, Jean!"

Jean’s eyes rolled back into her head as her body went limp in his arms. For all of Scott’s efforts he was helpless to prevent any form of psychic attack against her or any other member of his team. The most he could offer was a plea to fight the assault. Jean heard the whisper of his words in her mind and felt the tether of her psyche his, it helped her return rather than succumb to the darkness that had invaded her mind.

She choked and gagged on the blood that trickled down her throat and the gasping need for air brought her back to consciousness. Scott felt tension return to her body, she was no longer dead weight in his arms. Jean snapped forward and sputtered and coughed as her hand moved to her bleeding nose.

“Bobby.” She whispered as she caught her breath and her thoughts returned to her.

“What the fuck!?” Pietro barked at the chaos that had occurred around them. Scott had abandoned his role as leader the moment Jean went down. It made him doubt the praise he had given earlier.

Quicksilver heard Jean’s words and he went for icey figure of Bobby. He picked up the rigid frozen form and looked at Cyclops. “Where should I take him?”

"HQ," Cyclops said without hesitation. From what he knew, there wasn't anything a random city hospital would have that the Baxter Building wouldn't short of a surgical suite, and he wouldn't bet against Reed having one of those as well. Bobby was resilient. If he wasn't dead yet, then he stood as much of a chance there as at a regular hospital.

Scooping up Jean in his arms, he made to carry her away. "The others are long gone. Let's get out of here before the police show up."