[color=ffff00][b]House of X, Building 01[/b]
[i]Unincorporated Genosha[/i][/color]

[color=gray]It was a primal rendezvous; even more than she had any intention of. In the pre-dawn hours at the House of X central building, Emma Frost was a sparkle of white in an otherwise still and dark interior. There was luck that the top of the two residential floors had been occupied by Hank, Scott, Thomas, and herself. Hank wasn’t even present, Thomas a deep sleeper—not that she had stalked through the hall.

Scott was awoken with lips near his waist, and calmed with a telepathic surge of her presence covering him, and her hot breath upon his inner thigh. A corset, and little else, was little enough; yet she had spent nearly an hour of determination beforehand showering, moisturizing, and applying just small touches. Enough eyeliner that when their eyes met across the length of his upper body, he’d notice. A difference of perfume between her wrists and the back of her neck, so a different rush came depending on a difference of position, and other touches he’d never know, but would notice in his waking lust.

Not that she allowed him to take initiative. Oh, no. Emma held him there and placed an index finger on his lips, wicked eyes and a domineering gaze commanding he wait until she was done. Until he was breathless and utterly relaxed in every fiber of his body. Then, if he could manage a second go of things, he could have his way. Scott Summers had never failed to take advantage of a second, or third, go of things.

She was sweat covered and laying her head at the foot of his sweat soaked bed, as he lay catching his breath, his head at his pillows, as she explained the meeting from the night before, with the two. “I may have to take more time away. Storm and yourself will manage perfectly fine, but it may be worth considering another telepath to the team if—”

Emma stopped as the alarm sounded. It was a softer ping rather than a harsher klaxon. Each member of the team knew the differences in alarms. This raised her brow especially because of what it meant, as she left the room, mentally, and touched with the person down in the control room in their basement: [i]Storm, what’s happening?[/i]

Munroe was brief, [i]Xavier and Cerebro have alerted us to as an incident in the US. Be ready in five.[/i]

Emma could have laughed. [i]Fifteen, but I do promise to hurry, darling.[/i] She sat up and swatted, playfully, at the rear-end of Cyclops. “Down in the control room in five, Summers,” she said as she slipped off the bed and rushed for her shower and closet, “I’ll meet you down there.”

Even a mind honed from decades of discipline and conflict took more than a handful of moments to rally from the combination of an early morning with Emma Frost followed by the call to arms. He was just about coming to terms with the revelation of her impending absence, gazing down at her languid, naked, form. Quite distracting him from the matter was the dappling of moonlight over the softness of her skin, highlighting the sloping curve of her hips, before she was already moving, the look of sudden unrelated amusement on her face a clear sign of the telepathic conversation even as the ping roused them both from the post-erotic haze of their pleasure.

He did manage a murmured assent, his own hands catching her a moment after her own swat, pulling her briefly back to him for a moment by her waist to place a kiss to the side of her neck, then allowing her free movement, only pausing a little longer to watch her leave. [i]Hate to see you go[/I] he thought the first part of the anecdote, knowing the words would bleed through to her without voicing them, before he was up and changing himself. She’d taken the shower, so that left him with rather more limited options to become presentable and still on time, especially as on time to Scott Summers was at worst the second person in the room, but he’d manage, such was the sacrifice of leadership. He felt there were few who would feel he had any right to complain about the wake up he’d received.

Getting changed was made only slightly more difficult by the aftershocks and perspiration of the previous hours, with enough product used to mask, if not entirely cover, the scent of him and her upon his skin. By the time his suit was on, his mind was on serious matters, and it truly took him less than two of those five minutes to be out the door. In contrast, Emma had just about switched the shower on.

Despite the situation of his wakeup call, Scott was the second to arrive, only Storm was present, as was to be expected, before him. He gave her a tired but respectful nod of greeting. He didn’t press for an update before the rest of the team had arrived, at this hour there was no need to have her repeat herself. Instead he set to making himself a coffee, offering the same for the longest standing of his remaining teammates in the interim.

While they may not have been as punctual as their leaders, the rest of the team weren’t far behind, and so Scott steadily added increasing numbers to his ‘order’ already knowing the personal preferences of each, which as this hour was mostly different varieties of ‘strong’ with disconcerting amounts of sugar for some. For someone who could be so famously sharp, Miss Frost certainly didn’t appreciate it in her coffee.

“So, Storm, what have we got?” Scott finally asked, returning to the briefing table with the full complement of coffee even before the aforementioned telepath arrived, timed perfectly to her sweeping in, the last of them, but still within her offered time limit, to reach the impromptu gathering.

“Ya look awfully cheerful this morning, Scott.” The woman was cross from the early hour and the rude awakening of the alert. Her Southern gulf coast accent thicker than the humidity on an August summer day in a bayou. Standing just next to Summers, Rogue couldn’t help but side-eye him and ask. 

“He does look, hmm, uniquely chipper…” From one heavy accent to another, Kurt’s speech clear and concise after a sip of steaming hot coffee from the wide, thick, brown mug he handled carefully with both hands, seated on the other side of the briefing room, the middle of it taken up with the holographic projection of a globe, framed by the kind of booth seating usually only found in restaurants and dinners, yet somehow was seen as functional here. 

The House of X was a strange mismatch of styles and construction. 

“This one,” Magik said, motioning with a thumb to the woman in white beside her, “was smirking and is oddly quiet for her. They fucked.”

Ororo Munroe’s face fell into a palm as the room fell into snickers and laughter at the declaration of Illyana Rasputin, who’d been standing near the door when the White Queen came in at the last second and took a spot next to the Ruler of Limbo. 

Emma sighed and rolled her eyes, but Storm was done with the distraction. “Houston, Texas. In one of the upper middle class suburbs we have Seven Lakes High School, Katy, Texas. According to the Professor the mutant we’re looking for is sixteen year old Carmen Cruise; not certain about her abilities. Whatever it is, it has the X-Desk alerted and dispatching local FBI. We’d like to get there first, but according to Sage it’s gotten worse in the past half hour.”

“Law enforcement? In Texas? However could that get worse?” Emma didn’t need to smirk, the tone of her voice was already the perfect mix of sarcastic and smug.

“According to Sage monitoring social media feeds, Reavers are aware of the incident.”

Emma frowned, “Oh.”

“No time for a jet, I think,” Synch stood up from the booth seating, and looked at Illyana…who stared at him in confusion. “Oh, I…I didn’t know how it works. Would I want to be teleported while I’m seated? Wouldn’t I just fall? Or…? You tell me…?”

Magik looked past the new X-Man, to Storm and Cyclops, a small smirk spreading across her lips at agonizing slow speeds for Synch. “He’s gonna be fun. Let me see?” Magik motioned to the holographic globe indicating the location. It was little more than a holographic projection of Google Earth, allowing Storm to zoom in to the southwest US coast, to the city of Houston, to the eastern suburb of Katy, and finally, to the highschool surrounded by upper middle class suburban homes. “Yeah. I’ll try not to land us in the retention pond next to the school.”

The disc of light appeared blinding bright and warm to the sensation of touch, growing from it’s relatively small size to develop the time crammed in the tight debriefing room, before the light faded, replaced instead by the harsh and bright Texas sun, the humidity and nearly hundred degree heat index, leaving them in the far side of the southern parking lot of the massive American high school campus.

[color=ffff00][b]Seven Lakes High School, South Parking Lot[/b]
[i]Katy, Texas, US[/i][/color] 

“...that wasn’t so bad,” Synch allowed, smiling at Magik.

The demon queen snorted, as Emma projected the telepathic image of their girl to the team. “This is Ms. Cruise. Sophomore.”

Storm was busy looking at the curb just off the south entrance of the school, and the curb: government black SUVs. She inhaled to begin to speak, before Emma Frost cut her off—”I’m feeling fear,” the telepath reported, grim faced, “The Reavers are inside. And armed.”

“Kurt and Emma, the girl. The rest of us need to get between the Reavers and the authorities, and make sure no one gets hurt. This is a school filled with children, let’s make sure no parent grieves tonight. Scott, point.”

Scott, used to his own authority, didn’t balk at the directive for a moment, already shifting to gain a headstart on the others to cut off the problem before it began. It was usually too much to hope that nothing would go awry, beyond whatever reason had called them to action, but that was rarely the case. This was Texas, the grounds of any school were more sprawling than they needed to be and he broke into a jog quickly, ignoring the slight tease of telepathic feedback from Emma. The White Queen tended not to rush and found it amusing enough in others, despite the circumstance.

He was business now though, business enough that when he turned the last corner and felt the immediate whistle of something passing rapidly through the air he ducked out of the way of the speeding rock without checking his step.

“Mutant scum! Get the fuck away from our kids!” There it was, barely minutes into their arrival and already a reminder why they’d put aside their various differences in Genosha. Not all humans, but a bloody lot of them. He’d long ago managed to master any flare ups based on suppressed emotions, so when the red line across his features suddenly lit up in preemptive anticipation it had nothing to do with the small gaggle of aggressive humans gathered at the school gates. The duck from the stone turned into a full combat roll as a series of impacts clattered across the ground he had previously inhabited.

“Found a Reaver.” Scott had time to warn the rest of the group before a pale skinned cyborg was upon him. They’d responded almost as fast as the X-Men to the situation, it would seem, and the gathering of hostile parents had provided one of their number the time to get close, leaping from the crowd brandishing a large blade. The screams were already in the air, the call to crowd violence forgotten in the presence of a true threat. Luckily there had only been the one to emerge from the crowd. Unlike some, Scott couldn’t entirely rely on his powers, and so motions honed in training pushed his limbs to knock away forceful blows aimed for him. The force shook his body, not the ideal situation for him to be in. Time to even the playing field.

The already concerned cries from the school gates intensified as Scott’s eyes roared into bright ruby life, the controlled cascade of energy rolling across the figure attempting to strike him down with superior force, sending them sprawling back and smoking. Such an outburst had a good chance of killing a human, but if he was lucky he would have disabled the cyborg, that was usually at least the aim. As the steam rippled from the Reaver’s form, his eyes were already turning to the perimeter, finding the startled gaze of a local officer, handgun already raised. At him, of course.

“Put that thing down and get these people out of here, we can discuss who’s fault this is another time, lets save these people.”

Winds whipped at the skin and eyes of the small crowd, as mist crept across the expanse of concrete filled with cars, bordered with neighborhoods of pristine newly constructed homes. The winds were localized enough to hopefully avoid damage to the nearby neighborhood, the fog disorienting and obfuscating to the crowd, as Rogue stepped up and crunched the firearm pointed at Cyclops as she walked past, leaving nothing but a stunned school cop behind. “We ain’t got time for this. There's babies in that building.”

Synch borrowed from Emma, and reinforced Cyclops’ instructions to the school cop with telepathic forcefulness. Rogue, he thought, was right; they didn’t have time for this. “They know we’re about to enter. Most of them have peeled off and seem to be waiting for us in the cafeteria.”

“Are there children in the room?” Storm asked.

Synch took a heartbeat to answer, “A few, not many. A dozen of the Reavers.”

“Magik,” was Storm’s only direction; the disc of light followed, “act fast.” 

[color=ffff00][b]Seven Lakes High School, Cafeteria[/b]
[i]Katy, Texas, US[/i][/color] 

Before the light carried them to a corner of the massive, two story tall interior space of the school’s cafeteria, they were acting as Synch switched from Emma to Rogue. Storm was the first, a beat after they teleported arrival to the cafeteria, taking a Reaver from behind and lighting him up with enough electricity for Synch to smell burnt flesh immediately.

He crashed into an immensely tall and muscular Reaver, the man felt half machine as Everett struck with clinched fists enhanced with Rogue's strength into the Reaver’s midsection. Cyclops and Magik stayed in the corner, at first; Magik opened a smaller a teleportation disc before them, a handful of small discs appearing around the air in the room before Cyclops let loose with a blast as ruby red concussive light ping-ponged upside Reaver heads. 

He heard a Reaver scream as Rogue threw him by the ankle out of a tall window. Storm suddenly had knives in her hands, making a Reaver regret approach. Magik was howling with violent delight as she leapt into a duo of Reavers. It was bloody melee now, as Synch battled the oversized Reaver with fists, shrugging off blows with Rogue’s durability and strength, his mind kept in the present despite wanting to find the others.

[center][color=gray] ———  [color=ffff00]⭙[/color]  ———[/color][/center]

[color=ffff00][b]Seven Lakes High School, Ms. Meyer's Sophomore English Classroom[/b]
[i]Katy, Texas, US[/i][/color] 

The teacher fired three shots at the center mass of the first one through the door, as some children screamed in the far corner of the interior, windowless, classroom, desks hurriedly braced against the door but pushed aside by the three Reavers that burst through and into the class. The shot Reaver looked shocked, as he fell to his knees, some combination of blood and what smelled like hydraulic fluid leaking out of him, his hands covering the gunshot holes. 

One of the two Reavers just behind the one dropped to his knees from wounds pointed a gun of his own at the forty something blonde female teacher in a Navy blue dress. Shock gave way to clinched eyes as she readied to be shot; and there was no scream from the teacher as she heard gunfire, and breathed in a panicked inhale of air filled with the scent of brimstone. 

Violence was a blur of light, smoke, and blue fur before the teacher’s now open and wide eyed stare. The voice came gently, as thick in accent as the air had just been in air, “Frau Meyers, it is alright…don’t shoot.” 

The woman didn’t even seem to notice she was still holding the gun, aiming it forward, where Reavers had been there now was a blue fur covered man with a soft expression and pleading eyes, misshapen hands with only three fingers held up, palms up and out, as his body language mirrored his speech. 

The fear in the woman abruptly gave way to a stronger will as the gun fell, and her eyes blanked—her mind no longer her own as a crystalline Emma Frost stepped over two bodies and smashed a diamond fist into the back of the skull of the initial Reaver into the room, placing from his knees and bleeding out to an unconscious and leaking heap onto the floor behind Kurt.

“Emma, she’s scared,” his protests were immediate.

And just as immediately, Emma Frost dismissed them, as her body went from diamond to flesh and designer skinny slacks, corset, and gloves near to her elbows, eyes on the children, “She’s fine. Take the gun. Children? Let’s move.”

“You’re X-Men,” said one of the huddled children, behind a smartphone pointed at them, recording.

Emma was unphased, as sweet a smile as her lips could find suddenly on her face, the tone of a headmistress mixing stern warning and affection suddenly upon her, “Yes and now let’s get moving, all of you. Into the room across the hall and to the right.” Emma had that teacher, Mr. Roberts, unlock the door and await Ms. Meyers class.

Nightcrawler took the gun from the teacher, placing it on the desk behind her, as students began filing out, Emma reached out and barred the way for a brown haired, brown eyed latina girl wearing jeans and a blue pull over blouse. “Not you, Ms. Cruise.”

“What’s going on?” A pale girl with a heart shaped face and red hair, a green shirt and black tights was the last one not to leave, sticking next to the girl Emma stopped. [i]Best friend[/i], was the telepathic explanation Emma gave Kurt, Emma’s tone remaining just as it had before as she regarded the other girl, “Your friend Carmen is in danger, we’re simply getting her to safety. Please go with your class, Anna.”

The other girl blinked at the use of her name. There were a few moments of silent words between the two girls as they exchanged looks, ending with Anna hugging Carmen and telling her to call her later, before she gave one last look to Emma, and Kurt, then following her class to across the hall. Ms. Meyer followed, still not quite under her own control until she was in Mr. Roberts room and the door was locked after her. Emma alerted the rest of the team they had what they came for. Storm responded quickly for them to meet in the cafeteria. Kurt put as hand on Emma and Carmen, and with a quick [i]bamf[/i] they were with the others in a trashed cafeteria littered with unconscious Reavers. 

“Hello, child," Storm's greeted Carmen with a small smile and supreme confidence, "We will get you home soon, but first we need to see to your safety.” 

Carmen Cruise stared at the group, ignoring the Reavers entirely, as if she stared at ghosts. “...I saw all of you die.”

[b]“DOWN ON THE GROUND, NOW!” [/b]

The ‘verbal judo’ strong command came from men in tactical gear behind ballistic shields, training combat rifles in the group’s direction. Local law enforcement’s tactical response team. Storm looked unimpressed, as none of them moved an inch, “Magik, if you please.” 

Magik smiled brightly, and waved at the men late to the party wearing tactical gear in true smartass fashion as the light disc grew, encompassed the mutants, and left nothing but Reavers and a trashed school cafeteria behind. 

[center][color=gray] ———  [color=ffff00]⭙[/color]  ———[/color][/center]

[color=ffff00][b]Task Force 2, Mobile, Jungle Roads[/b]
[i]Andean Foothills, Ecuador[/i][/color]

They double-backed five times. Went off road just as often as they were on a road. The trucks struggled with the terrain, but he knew they had to be sure. He’d spent his fair share of training time in the South and Central American jungle as a Navy SEAL. What had started as a simple escort had turned into a tense game of cat and mouse. They had picked up the technical expert from the small airstrip once used to smuggle drugs, now used by their organization to smuggle in resources like equipment and people.

All he’d been told was to pick up the technical expert. They met the contact at the airstrip; a man in his late thirties. Caucasian, midwestern accent, with the right identifier. He’d never seen the man before, but that wasn’t unusual; their organization was heavily fragmented for operational security reasons. One ‘petal’ was separate from the others, and all of them separated from the central column. All he knew was his CO; Lieutenant Colonel Kravik. 

It was Kravik who had sent the warning: [i]Warning Echo-Alpha-Nine. Do not proceed.[/i]

His blood ran cold when he first read the message. Echo-Alpha-Nine? Well, shit. His time at SHIELD was more than enough of an education on that threat. To his six man squad, and the technician they were escorting, he simply informed them they would have to shake a tail. When his men pressed for details, he gave them little. Just covert operators sent to spy and track them to their destination.

They couldn’t allow that, obviously. Hell yeah, his squad replied, and that was that. The technician had wanted more, but he wouldn’t give it. When they stopped for fuel, the first night, things exploded. Echo-Alpha-Nine caught them. Of his six man squad only four were able to withdraw in time, with only one of the trucks. The technician had been in a panic, and required strict measures to keep in line; he had to punch the man out, cold. While he was out, the four remaining of his squad began talking, nervous. 

They had enough fuel to make it to Extraction Point Charlie, he told them. He was right, but no one was coming. Kravik had made that clear after he requested assistance. [i]Shake them. You were trained for this.[/i] The man wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right, either. The second day and into the night they never stopped zigging-and-zagging between off road and on road, nearing Extraction Point Charlie as the jungle night got truly dark, the only warning was the sound of a motorcycle engine behind the truck. Then the operator was on them. He was able to toss his device before the truck crashed and it all went black. 

He woke up, his right leg bloody and mangled, from the crash he had to assume, a source of pure agony that told his mind it was a broken leg, seated against a tree just off the side of the dirt road. They were less than a click from Extraction Point Charlie, but they never made it. Deep down, he wasn’t sure they were ever going to make it. He heard enough stories about Echo-Alpha-Nine to know that much. 

“Been huntin’ you Orchis boys for months,” threat designated Echo-Alpha-Nine said, as he finished restraining and gagging the technician, the only other one of their group still alive that he could see, “you wanna do some talkin’, or we doin' this the other way, bub?” 

He looked up at the Wolverine, and glared. Torture? He expected it, to be honest, but the sight of those claws…nothing got you ready for that. Or how sharp they were. Or just how surgically precise the mutant was with them. Or the dark, dead, predatory look in his eyes. “I don’t know enough.”

“...no, I wasn’t figurin’ you did. But between what you do know, and what that egghead is gonna tell me, and what that phone you tossed might tell me…gonna have to be ‘nough.”

The technician was set up to watch. He didn’t blame the mutant. That was just smart. Make the untrained watch in horror, make them more likely to talk to avoid the same fate. He wouldn’t be alive for much longer, but somehow, the look of that technician’s eyes as the mutant made him start to scream was the worst part. 
[/color]