As You Were: Part Eight

by Alicia McKenzie

Working Counterterrorism usually involved long stretches of boredom, interspersed with short periods of frantic activity. Nate had grown accustomed to that rhythm over the years, had even grown to like it. But as as he suited up in the command officers' locker room, Nate couldn't summon up the sense of readiness he usually felt whenever he was about to go into the field, and he knew it had nothing to do with the fact that he'd be sitting on the sidelines this time. It wasn't that he was feeling unduly calm because of that, either; he was getting the adrenalin rush, but not in a good way.

It was just the last couple of weeks, he tried to convince himself as he pulled on his armor. They'd been too stressful. The usual rhythm of his life had gone to pieces on him, gotten all irregular. Nate smiled humorlessly, reflecting on how nice it would be if recognizing the source of the anxiety made it go away. No such luck, though.

Sitting on one of the benches, already in full armor, Nick was loading and checking his guns with the ease of long practice. "You two are going to behave yourselves, right?" he asked, the seemingly idle nature of the question not fooling Nate in the slightest. "I'm not going to have to assign people to sit on you to make sure you stay out of the fighting?

Nate heard Clare's snort from the other side of the row of lockers, where she was getting ready. "Don't rub it in, Nicholas," she said, a definite warning note in her voice.

"Should I take that as a yes, Clare? Or a maybe?"

"YES, Nick! Oath!"

"We've got our orders, Nick," Nate said reprovingly as Nick shook his head, grinning. #I wouldn't nag her,# he added telepathically, using the old childhood link so that Clare wouldn't overhear. #In the mood she's in, she's liable to try and take your head off.#

#Don't worry,# Nick sent back easily. #I'm not about to give her an excuse.# Clare came around to their side of the lockers, scowling as she struggled with one of the shoulder clasps on her vest, and Nick holstered his guns and got up to help her. "Relax, Clare, okay?" he said patiently. "I'm just here to ask how high when you tell the troops to jump."

"Better you than Sanchez, I suppose," Clare allowed grudgingly, letting her hands drop to her sides so that Nick could have a try at the clasp.

"Oh, well, thank you for that, at least." Nick wrestled with the recalcitrant clasp for a minute, finally managing to get it closed and locked. "The vest's too small for you, that's the problem," he pronounced cheerfully, giving her a teasing smile. "Putting on weight, are we?"

Clare swatted him. "It's a new vest, idiot," she growled, her eyes flashing. "I took a round in the chest the last time I was out, so I had to requisition another. Supply must have messed up on the sizing."

Nate blinked. "I'd forgotten that," he said absently, staring blankly at Clare as his other self's memories of Stef shooting her when she teleported into the Tinex chamber came floating back up to the top of his mind. Odd. A week ago, he'd thought that would be one of the images etched on the insides of his eyelids permanently. His mind must be integrating them after all--that was a good thing, right?

"Too bad I wasn't wearing a vest that night at the apartment," Clare was saying with a fatalistic smile and a shrug. "It must just have been my week to get shot."

"Don't be morbid," Nate protested, shaking himself out of his reverie and contemplating the weapons in his locker. No need for the psimitar if he wasn't going to be in the thick of the action, but he felt the need for a nice, larger than usual sidearm. Just in case. He settled on a mid-sized plasma gun, bigger than what Clare and Nick were carrying but small enough not to provoke any phallic-substitute jokes, and grabbed a few extra clips for it before he closed his locker and turned around.

Looking pensive, Nick leaned back against one of the lockers, folding his arms across his chest. "It's not that I'm not thrilled to be working with you two again, but it's been a while since I led anything but a rapid-reaction team," he said. "Anything I should be keeping in mind?"

"Only the basics," Clare said, knotting her braid at the back of her neck to keep it out of the way. "Obviously, the intent isn't to raze the place. We want to keep the suspects and the premises as intact as possible."

"So try not to kill anyone and watch the property damage, basically?"

"More or less," Nate said, checking his watch. "The teams'll be assembling in the hangar. We should get going." He caught the flash out of the corner of his eye, and tensed instinctively as Zara appeared in the doorway, smiling broadly at them and swinging a psimitar that was much too long for her lazily in one hand.

"Well, aren't you three a sight," she drawled, slinking forward into the locker room. "I must confess," she went on, stopping beside her brother and rapping her knuckles on his armor, "as good as you all look, I personally don't miss the armor at all. It's so nice to have a job where I get some flexibility in my wardrobe."

Nick gazed down at her steadily. "We can't all be troubleshooters for Black Ops," he said calmly, and Nate was pettily relieved to sense that his tension level wasn't the only one which had shot up at Zara's appearance. "Did you want something, Zara?"

"Not from you, brother dear. Not at all, actually. If you can believe it, I come bearing gifts." Zara reached up and patted him on the cheek, earning herself a dirty look. She laughed delightedly and then went over to Clare, who abruptly stood up, her expression suggesting that she was fighting the impulse to back away. Sighing theatrically, Zara reversed the psimitar and offered it to Clare shaft-first. "Here. Take it."

Clare blinked. "What?"

"A little slow this afternoon? It's for you, Summers," Zara said with a mocking smile. "Take it already."

Clare did so, a bit hesitantly. "Uh--thanks," she said dubiously, looking as if she didn't quite know what to make of this. "I think."

"Your gratitude overwhelms me," Zara said, giving her a wounded look that was so clearly over-the-top that Nate had to cough to hide an incredulous laugh. "If you must know, my mother mentioned that your psimitar got blown up with the rest of the apartment. I've been at loose ends today, so I made some adjustments to one of the standard models. It should do until you get the chance to build yourself another from scratch."

Clare ran a hand along the flat of the psimitar's blade, her wary expression melting into outright bewilderment. "That was--very nice of you," she said, sounding a little dazed. "Thank you. Really."

Zara shrugged, a self-satisfied little smirk playing on her lips. "I have my moments." Her eyes flickered sideways to Nick, who was scowling at her in obvious disapproval. "Even if I am 'the world's biggest shit-disturber'." She leaned forward and laid a hand on Clare's arm, wearing a trusting expression that would have melted the hardest heart in the world--so long as that heart wasn't in the same body as a telepathic brain that would pick up on the fact that she was laughing like a madwoman inside. "But you're only going to use that for self-defense today, aren't you, Clare?"

"Oh, you bet," Clare said absently, examining the psimitar in minute detail.

"Then everything's good," Zara said with a brilliant smile. She looked over at Nate, her eyes dancing. "Sorry that I didn't bring anything for you, Nate. But the invitation's still open--" Nate flushed, but while he was still trying to come up with a semi-dignified response, Zara emitted something that sounded an awful lot like a squeak and immediately glared at her brother. "Nicholas, would you mind?"

"Funny," Nick said dryly, "but I was about to ask you the same question."

Zara stuck her tongue out at him. "You're such a bully."

"Zara, are you ever going to grow up?" Nick sighed.

"Wasn't planning on it."

They might very well have gone on in the same vein for some time, Nate knew - they'd done it before - but the conversation, such as it was, came to a screeching halt as Dane walked into the locker room, wearing full armor and an alarmingly determined look. His intentions couldn't have been more clear if he'd written them across his forehead.

"Hey, Dane," Nate greeted him quickly, managing to keep his voice relatively light. "I thought you were off-duty?" Dane did look much better than he had in the CIC - he must have gotten a little sleep, at least - but the circles under his eyes were still there, and putting his obvious resoluteness aside, his mental state wasn't precisely what one would call settled.

"It's beta-shift," Dane said. "I was only off-duty until the end of alpha." Clare had looked up from her inspection of her new psimitar when he'd come in, and was watching him speculatively. Dane turned to her, managing a strained smile. "Hi. Can I come?"

Clare's eyes widened slightly. "Um, no."

"Don't you want to hear my reasons?"

"Dane, aren't you needed here?" Nick asked with a grimace, as if he were loath to point it out but felt obligated.

Dane met Nick's eyes squarely. "At the moment, no," he said calmly. "The doctor who looked me over in the infirmary told me that if I try to use a full-link again any earlier than next week, I'm liable to burn out my brain, so I've got Lieutenant Foley scanning the records from the armory cameras. Tower security is as tight as it's ever been, and there's not much else I can do beside hover while my people do their jobs."

"You're holding something back," Zara said softly, her voice almost singsong and her eyes lingering on Dane, full of an odd, abstract fascination, as if she were finding all of this too interesting for words.

Dane tried to smile again, and the mask cracked a little, letting some of the unhappiness behind it out into view. "I have guilt, okay? Serious guilt. Let me do something productive with it."

"I suppose it's good you're admitting that," Clare murmured wryly, and Nate gave her an incredulous look as he sensed her initial opposition to Dane's request melting into understanding tinged faintly by sadness. "But that's not a very good reason for me to add you to my team."

Dane sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes. "Look," he said, and Nate heard the effort it took for him to keep his voice matter-of-fact, "you need an electrokinetic to take out their security systems." He stopped, swallowing hard. "I know that was Lieutenant Khanjian's job."

Nate flinched, thinking about the last time he'd talked to Khanjian before the explosion. It had been nearly two weeks ago, before the operation against Stef. Ari had been trying to convince him to take part in some sort of hockey pool. "I didn't know you knew that, Dane," he said, his voice sounding hollow, and Dane shrugged uneasily.

"Not to sound like a total insensitive bastard," Nick said quietly, "but there are other electrokinetics."

"None available to go on this mission at the moment." Dane met Clare's eyes, his jaw clenching. "I know you put in a request and found that out. That's why I'm here. I'm not asking to tag along. You need me."

"There are other ways to take out their security systems," Clare pointed out, but the words had no real conviction behind them. She gave Nate a cryptic look, and surprised him by reaching out on the link, something she hadn't done in days. #But none quite as dependable as a strong electrokinetic. I think we should take him.#

#Why?# Nate challenged, a bit appalled that she was actually considering this. Dane was stressed and exhausted, and not in any shape to be going on out a field mission. #Because he thought of a good excuse to come along?#

#It's not an excuse, Nate. Besides, he's trying to be logical about this and figure out something productive to do with all the pent-up stress. This is a good thing. In case you hadn't noticed, when we Summers stop internalizing, we usually do it with a bang.#

#There's the understatement of the century--#

He got the mental equivalent of a snort in response. #Let's not get started, okay? All I'm saying is that he's got a point, and even if he didn't, it wouldn't hurt him to get this out of his system anyway. Especially when you and Nick and I will be there to keep him from doing anything stupid.#

#Dane's powers would be helpful, but Nate's right, he's awfully tightly wound,# Nick put in, sounding a bit uncertain. #If he's coming, we need to keep a very close eye on him.#

#I'd suggest a leash,# Zara added slyly.

Nate scowled and looked at Dane, who'd been standing there waiting with the same weary patience he'd always displayed whenever the rest of them were talking over his head. But it wasn't quite the same, Nate realized as Dane stared right back at him, a hint of challenge in his eyes, as if he were daring Nate to doubt he could do this. "You're sure you're up to this?" Nate asked, firmly enough to make it clear that he wasn't going to put up with the standard 'I'm fine' answer.

"I had a couple of hours sleep. And the painkillers worked wonders."

Clare sighed. "Okay, Dane," she said. "But just the security systems, all right? Once that's done, you stick with Nate and me, and stay out of the fighting." Dane opened his mouth, but she raised a hand. "Common sense, Dane. You haven't been in a combat situation for a while, and whether you want to admit it or not, you're not in any shape to be in one now."

"Fair enough," Dane said, almost grudgingly.

"And you and I are going to have a talk about this guilt thing," Clare said seriously.

#Pot, kettle, black,# Nate sent acidly.

#Look who's talking, Guthrie.#

***

The house was in a wooded area, which simplified things enormously. Natural cover was always preferable. Mel and her advance team had set up a staging area in a secluded ravine three kilometers from the target, and they brought the carriers down there, out of sight. The pilots stayed, to keep an eye on their aircraft, while the tactical teams teleported to the edge of the house's security perimeter to make a final assessment of the situation.

Nate, Clare and Dane were with Nick and Team Three, safely concealed in a particularly thick stand of trees on the north edge of the perimeter. Mel and Team One were in a similarly camouflaged spot to the south, and Lieutenant Roessner had Team Two behind a hill to the east. The 'bad guys' had sentries out walking the perimeter. One had passed by this spot once already, but Magda Bauer had empathically encouraged him to ignore the soft conversation and keep right on walking. The empaths on the teams were undoubtedly doing the same, just like they'd done plenty of times before.

The phrase 'well-oiled machine' came to mind, Nate thought, taking a look at the house through a pair of binoculars. Still some movement up there, he saw. Two cars had entered the perimeter since they'd been on site, but Clare, reasoning that it was better to get as many of the Sons of the Revolution as possible in one place, had decided to let them pass.

"So what's our final head count?" Nick murmured. They could have carried on the conversation telepathically, but they didn't know what sort of detection equipment was in play here. Only the most sensitive psi-scanners would pick up a low-level empathic suggestion like Bauer and the rest of the empaths were using, but telepathic chatter was a lot harder to shield. It took quite enough effort to mask your own psi-signature.

"Forty-five," Clare said under her breath. She was down on one knee, staring hard at the house. "Maybe a couple more." The house was heavily psi-shielded, something the advance team had reported back immediately.

Not a problem for Clare, though. Nate reflected that they'd had plenty of opportunity over the years to be grateful for that extra little edge of hers. "More than we thought," he observed, keeping his voice low. The odds didn't really worry him. The Sons of the Revolution were expecting them, yes, but none of them registered on the portable Cerebro as mutants. Some of them probably had military experience, not just weapons training, but Nate would stack three experienced XSE tactical teams against them without a single qualm, two-to-one odds or not.

"They're making a very convenient target of themselves," Clare observed. "Whatever information they were working with, it must really have panicked them."

"So is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Dane asked curiously.

Nick gave him a wry smile. "Both."

"I'm in a glass half-full mood, myself," Nate quipped lightly. It did the troops good to see their commanding officers bantering, he knew. These last few minutes were always the worst. At least his own anxiety had finally transformed into something closer to his usual pre-operation hyper-alertness.

"Always the optimist." Clare frowned at the house, and Nate sensed a restless sort of irritation stirring in her. "The shielding's strong enough I'm having trouble seeing through it. It's physical, too, not energy-based." She looked around at them, her expression tightening. "Teleporting right into the house is out."

"So we teleport to the front door and kick it in," Nick suggested, apparently unbothered by the news.

"We need something more." Clare glanced back at the house suddenly, her expression thoughtful, as if she were mulling over a sudden inspiration. "Dane," she said, "instead of just taking out their security systems, would you be able to knock out power to the whole house?" Nate gave her a questioning look, and she made an impatient gesture. "I'm just thinking about a diversion."

Dane gazed at the house, his features going tight with concentration. "They've got two generators," he said after a moment, looking back at Clare. "Big ones, from the feel of them. I'd probably wind up blowing them out--and I mean explosively."

"Even better," Clare said with obvious relish, a ferocious glint in her eyes. She turned to Nick. "You think you could move fast enough to take advantage of that?"

"If they're running for the fire extinguishers instead of their weapons?" Nick's flash of good humor came and went in an instant, leaving a simmering tension behind. "Sure. I just wish we had complete plans of this place. Going in there half-blind isn't my idea of a good time."

The house was old enough that there hadn't been a builder with plans on file, or anything similarly helpful. They had their own observations, what Dane could tell from the shape of the power grid, and what Clare had discerned looking through the eyes of the people inside. It wasn't quite enough.

"The basement's going to be the tricky part," Nate warned. He was particularly concerned about that. "Two levels, and since we don't know the exact dimensions--"

"There are at least twenty of them down in the basement. I can't tell exactly--the shields are heaviest there," Clare added darkly. "I bet they've got the bulk of their weapons down there, too."

"Telekinetics out front, then, to shield," Nick decided.

"Makes sense."

"You know," Dane mused, "I'm going to need to release the energy somewhere as soon as I pull it out of their systems. It's too much to contain for more than a few seconds. So what if I put on a bit of a light show with it?" It was perilously close to a complete non sequitur. They all looked at him, and Dane gave them a bright smile. "You know, sort of a 'Look over here!' while the teams are rushing in from somewhere else entirely?"

"It would draw off the sentries, at least," Nate said, liking the idea. There were only seven sentries out and about on the grounds, but that would be seven shooters the teams wouldn't have to worry about when they penetrated the house. "Could you redirect the energy from your light show to take them out when they come running over?"

"Easily," Dane assured him.

"This has definite promise," Clare said, smiling for the first time since they'd arrived on site. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"

Dane considered it. "Well, 'The XSE Wuz Here' in six-foot high letters is kind of appealing. What do you think?"

A ripple of silent amusement went through the team members gathered behind them, and Nate barely managed to repress a snort of his own. Clare just rolled her eyes.

"Something a little less tacky, maybe," she said, and took a deep breath, donning her game face again. "All right, then. As soon as Dane does his thing, the teams will teleport up to the house. Mel's team to the front door, Roessner's to the side. Nick, you take yours right through the bay window on the west side of the house. It's the closest to the basement stairs. Tag anything that moves, and sweep the house and the basement levels as fast as you can." Her expression went grim. "Speed's the key here. We can't give them a chance to regroup. That floor-to-floor fighting at DaCosta Industries was entirely too messy."

A few of the team members nodded in agreement, and Clare put a hand to her headset, repeating the instructions for the other teams. Once she was done, she looked back at Dane. "Any time you're ready."

"This'll only take a second," Dane said calmly, crouching down and closing his eyes as he laid a hand flat on the ground. Almost immediately, the air around him started to crackle, and the trooper on his other side eased away prudently. "Wow," Dane murmured. "This is a lot of power--"

The ground shuddered, and a fireball roared into existence on the other side of the house. "One down," Dane reported, his eyes still closed. His hair stirred a little, touched by a breeze none of the rest of them could feel. The ground shuddered again, though there was no visible explosion this time. Dane's eyes snapped open, blazing the color of lightning. "That's two," he said, his voice harsh with strain. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he laid his other hand on the ground, his jaw clenching.

Five hundred metres to the west, reverse lightning erupted up out of the ground, taking on a very familiar shape. An enormous bird made out of blue-white fire reared up into the air, flinging its wings outward and turning its head upwards to the sky in a soundless shriek.

A perfect Phoenix, Nate thought, and something went click in his brain, only to be swamped an instant later as a wave of white shock rolled up from Clare's end of the link. He looked around at her swiftly and saw her staring at the Phoenix, all the color gone from her face and a look of absolute horror forming there.

The closest sentry was running in the direction of the Phoenix, shouting something unintelligible over his communit. "Clare!" Nick said sharply, his psimitar in one hand and a gun in the other.

Clare shook herself, sense returning to her eyes. #Go!# she ordered sharply, and the teleporters on the team reached out to make physical contact with those who couldn't. The whole team vanished in a flash, and Nate saw more of the sentries heading for Dane's Phoenix, weapons drawn.

The Phoenix came apart into half a dozen separate lightning bolts, each slamming into the figure of a sentry and tossing them back through the air like rag dolls. Nate grabbed for the binoculars, raising them to his eyes just in time to see Mel's team going in through the front door.

Gunfire, immediately, and it came crashing down on Nate just how hard it was going to be to stay here on the sidelines. "Clare--" he started, but his heart lurched in his chest as Dane slumped forward suddenly, barely managing to catch himself. "Dane!"

"I'm okay," Dane muttered, shaking his head doggedly. "Just dizzy. That was a hell of a lot of power."

Nate eyed him for a moment, but didn't sense any prevarication. "Their reaction time was fast," he said to Clare, who was staring hard at the house again. Listening to the firefight, Nate realized, and sensed her mind lashing outwards. He followed her attack, 'hitching a ride', and caught a glimpse through her eyes of a tall, bearded man dropping in his tracks as he leveled his gun at Mel's back.

"Fucking shielding," Clare muttered viciously. "It's like trying to swim through mud."

There was no trace on the link now of the shock that had paralyzed her at the sight of Dane's Phoenix. Not the time to ask her about it, either, Nate knew, and raised the binoculars to his eyes again. He could see muzzle flashes through the window, but not much else.

"Shit, I'm going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning," Dane said, rubbing his temples. "How are they doing?"

"So far so good," Clare said, and then jumped to her feet at the distant sound of a car racing up the road on the other side of the trees. Nate followed suit, reaching out with his mind to identify the people in the car. He saw in an instant that they were more militia members, returning to the house after a supply run. The driver had just gotten a distress call from the house and stepped on the gas. Nate blinked and looked at Clare, who nodded at him. "Your father's going to kill us," she said grimly. "Dane, you stay here."

"Um, no," Dane said, and hauled himself to his feet. The three of them ran through the woods towards the road, Dane lagging a little.

There was a steep, bare embankment separating the trees and the road. Clare stopped at the edge, leveling her psimitar at the rapidly approaching car. A blast of telekinetic energy sent it spinning, its tires squealing as the driver fought to regain control.

He didn't, and the car went off the road, slamming into the embankment a hundred metres away. Four men emerged, firing in their direction. Nate jolted forward to Clare's side, flinging up a hand and rapidly forming a shield. The bullets bounced off it harmlessly, and one of the men shrieked curses at them. Beside Nate, Clare shook her head. He sensed her gathering in her power and lashing out again, telepathically this time.

All four men crumpled instantly. "Well," Clare said a bit breathlessly. "That wasn't so bad."

Behind them, Dane whistled appreciatively. "Cool," he said, and flung a bolt of electricity at the one man who was still moving feebly. The man convulsed once, then went limp. "Hooray for the rearguard."

Clare suddenly lurched forward, and if Dane hadn't caught her, she would have gone over the embankment. Nate started to turn towards her, but froze as a strange, painful tremor shook the astral plane, accompanied by a discordant whisper that swelled into a deafening roar in the space of a heartbeat. His knees buckling, Nate grabbed desperately at the tree next to him, reeling inwardly as a vortex spun into existence on the astral plane, tearing at the fabric of it.

Clare was cursing desperately in Askani, he could hear her. Nate forced his eyes open, but was blinded in an instant as pure white light exploded outwards from Clare's rigid form. The ground made an abrupt disappearance from under his feet, but then it was back, and he was hitting it hard, the impact driving the air from his lungs.

He tried to catch his breath, but all of his focus was being drawn outwards to the astral plane as the vortex expanded, growing into a cyclone, an astral storm with a heart of terrifying darkness. A wind out of nowhere drove him down towards it, and Nate felt his perceptions contracting, his self-awareness collapsing in on itself as the storm sucked him in--

But then something else reared up out of the sea of color and light, a tsunami of blindingly white light, impossibly immense. It smashed into the cyclone with unimaginable force, wiping it from the face of the astral plane as if it had never existed.

Nate was flung free of the backwash, and saw the white light retreating like a wave from the shore. It had done no damage of its own, he saw in a single incredulous instant. Not just that, but it was actually healing the tears in the astral plane as it retreated--

The force that had drawn him onto the astral plane was gone, he realized suddenly. The memory of what was going on around him in the real world came rushing back, and Nate rapidly shifted his awareness back to the physical plane. His body began to protest as soon as he started to pay attention to it again, the ache of new bruises and a sharper, stabbing pain in his right wrist making themselves known.

Ignoring it all, he pushed himself awkwardly up to a sitting position and blinked around blankly at his surroundings. Somehow, he'd wound up at the bottom of the embankment, almost on the road. The problem was, he didn't remember falling.

"Nate!" Dane shouted at him from the top of the embankment. Nate looked up and saw Dane bending over something--someone--Clare. The last vestiges of shock vanished, and Nate hauled himself to his feet, grabbing at his head to make sure he hadn't lost the headset in the fall.

"Team leaders, sit-rep!" he barked hoarsely as he began to scramble up the embankment. #Nick!# he tried telepathically, but just bounced off the house's shielding.

"Parrish, here," Mel's agitated voice crackled over the headset. "All the telepaths just reacted to something, but it only lasted a second--"

"Roessner here!" Team Two's leader snarled shakily. "That felt like a fucking astral bomb!"

"Logan, here." Nick sounded out of breath, pain audible in his voice. "If it was, it had to be a dud. Otherwise half of us would be out cold or dead." There was an eruption of gunfire over the headset, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of bio-blasts. "We've got a few of them cornered in the basement. They grabbed neural shields or something before we got down here, I can't reach their minds to knock them out--"

"Then just shoot them!" Nate snapped, still climbing. An astral bomb--the idea was horrific, but Roessner was right, there was nothing else that could have caused a disruption like that on the astral plane. The damned things were horrendously difficult to construct, and there were near-unavoidable design flaws, mistakes that would create a device capable of creating the same astral rift that had destroyed Denver, instead of just killing telepaths. "Dane, you all right?" he rasped as he reached the top of the embankment and half-fell beside him.

"Yeah," Dane said, breathing hard. His face was scratched and bleeding, as if he'd been thrown face-first into a tree. "I'm not the one you should be worried about, though."

He could see that much for himself. "Fuck," Nate breathed, his voice a raw scrape and his heart in his throat as he bent over Clare. #Clare? Clare, can you hear me?# Nothing, no response at all. The other end of the link was an echoing void. "Clare!" he repeated aloud, desperately. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and her armor was scorched in a half-dozen places, as if she'd been shot. The light, Nate thought dizzily, and stretched out a hand, intending to take her pulse.

But he snatched his hand back instantly. Her skin was unnaturally hot to the touch, as if she were a pyrokinetic who'd just pushed her powers to their limits. "What the hell?" he whispered raggedly, and tried again. His fingers brushed against her burning skin, but came into contact with something else, something that was shockingly cold in contrast--

His hand started to shake, but he forced himself to pull at the chain, tugging her medallion out from under her armor. His thoughts running in dazed, uncomprehending circles, Nate traced the stylized Phoenix on the medallion, not understand why the metal was so cold. It felt like ice.

Like ice.

It's been there for a long time, Clare's words echoed in his mind.

And, It's female.

His mind presented him with the image of her thunderstruck expression at Dane's choice of diversionary images. It all clicked again, and this time, there was nothing to distract him from it.

The astral bomb hadn't been a dud. She'd stopped it. She'd stopped the astral equivalent of a thermonuclear explosion.

And he knew. He knew how where she'd gotten the power to do something so incredible, and where she was now.

"Oh, fuck," Nate choked out, aghast, and then pulled Clare desperately into his arms, knowing he needed the physical contact to do this. Dane was saying something, asking him something in a sharp, urgent voice, but Nate tuned him out, closed his eyes and shut the whole world out as he dove into Clare's mind.

He hurtled down towards her subconscious, not trying to stop himself or even slow his descent. There wasn't time. His momentum was so great that he tore through her unattended defenses like tissue paper. She'd feel it, later, but there was no reaction from her now. Nothing. The structure of her mind was still there, but the essence of her was gone, vanished without a trace.

No. Not gone, just elsewhere. Fighting, most likely, and something told him this was a battle she could only lose.

Down, so far down into her mind that Nate knew how hard it would be to find his way back out again. But he didn't know how much time he had left. Couldn't risk stopping to construct himself a lifeline.

He smashed into something, a wall of utter blackness. #CLARE!# he bellowed, and hammered at it with all his strength. There was a noise like cracking ice, and he fell through--

--and found himself standing in the forest again. It had changed, changed terribly, and Nate fought back a flood of primal fear as he sized up the place that had been so quiet, so peaceful, the first time he'd seen it.

There was no peace here anymore. Black clouds boiled in the sky, streaks of red lightning slashing downwards like fiery swords stabbing out of the sky. The thunder was deafening.

All around him, the snow and ice was melting. Water dripped everywhere, running off the trees in torrents. Above, flocks of shrieking birds careened back and forth, moving in chaotic, unpredictable patterns. Nate swore and ducked as one bird dove at his head with seemingly lethal intent.

"Clare!" he shouted desperately, but couldn't even hear himself over the thunder and the screaming of the birds. Cursing, he took off running down the path he'd followed before. The trees blurred past him, far faster than he was actually running. He'd expected the opposite, expected resistance.

But the forest was fracturing, coming apart at the seams. He could feel it. The thunder was just a manifestation of the struggle taking place beneath the illusion. One way or another, none of this was going to be here in a few minutes. The walls were growing thin, and would soon be gone entirely.

"Clare!" he tried again, willing her to hear him. "Clare, answer me! CLARE!"

Nothing. But the forest blurred around him once more and he was there, at the break in the trees overlooking the pool. Nate came to a staggering stop, fighting to catch his breath. The snow that had covered the pool was gone and the ice was in pieces that bobbed wildly atop the water as something thrashed beneath its glassy surface

Nate took a step forward, but went to his knees with a cry of pain as the image he'd seen the last time he was here assaulted him once. Only there was more to it this time--it was complete, not fragmented--

--The red-haired woman leaned over and kissed the baby lying in the crib. How beautiful, she murmured with her mind, and the baby made a happy sound, waving its hands in the air. A soft white glow emanated from the crib, and the woman gave a quiet, delighted laugh. You feel the light, do you? It's yours, little one. It's you. Never forget that. Never be afraid. The woman looked up from the crib, a smile lingering on the face that might have been Aunt Jean's, but wasn't, not with eyes full of fire and far from human--

The image released him and Nate slumped forward, gasping. "I understand now," he choked out as he sensed the image--no, the memory fluttering in the area around him like a wraith. "I'll make her see--" The memory was a message, echoing out of the past and trying to get through to its intended recipient. Only she wasn't listening.

She was too busy fighting herself to the death.

Nate jumped to his feet and charged forward into the pool. Clenching his teeth at the heat of the water, he plunged in, dragging the body beneath back up into the air.

It was Clare, of course. Not some anonymous redhead, a reflection of Aunt Jean's cosmic doppleganger. The forest was--had been a prison, but not for some psychic interloper. What had been trapped here, frozen beneath the ice, was a piece of Clare's very soul.

Choking, as if she'd truly been drowning, Clare struggled weakly to get away from him, her eyelids fluttering. She was naked, every inch of her skin touched by an opalescent glow, and the heat bleeding off her was incredible. The armor he'd been wearing in the real world had manifested here as well, but it was no protection at all.

It didn't matter, Nate thought dizzily. When you played with fire, you always got burned.

Clare's eyes flew open, and Nate nearly recoiled. They were glowing a solid silver-white, serene and unearthly and absolutely unreadable, even as her features twisted in anguish. "I won't let it happen," she gasped out, her voice eerily resonant, audible even over the thunder. "I won't let it out, I won't lose control--I WON'T!"

"Clare, no!" Nate said loudly, shaking her so hard that her head snapped backwards. The birds swooped and spiraled over his head, screaming at him. "Look at me! You don't understand--you can't fight this!"

Clare grasped feebly at his armor, her features contorting in rage now but her eyes still glowing steadily. A bolt of lightning shattered a tree alongside the pool into a blackened husk, and she started to laugh, a wild, half-mad sound that shredded at his nerves. "It's the Phoenix, Nate! Don't you understand? It's the Phoenix!"

His armor was smoking, everywhere it was in contact with her skin. "NO!" Nate bellowed, shaking her again. "It's NOT the Phoenix! It's not some thing inside you, it's PART OF YOU!"

It was her legacy, her inheritance from the Phoenix, the entity who'd given life to her maternal grandmother, the inanimate clone who had become Madelyne Pryor. She was fighting a part of herself, inflicting wounds on her own psyche. He had to get her to stop.

"You're wrong!" Clare blazed at him. "You don't understand, you can't understand--I have to stop it!"

This deep in her mind, so far inside her shields, he could see it all, every detail. The stories they'd heard as children had started it all, planting the first tiny seed of doubt. Tales of the Phoenix replacing Jean, the Dark Phoenix, the Phoenix manifesting in Clare's father and nearly killing him--Clare had heard them all, and even as a child, she'd been too perceptive, too powerful a telepath. She'd seen the Phoenix through the eyes of those who'd encountered it, enough to know something of its nature and essence, and her subconscious had made the connection between it and her deepest, most primal source of power.

Then Denver had happened, leaving her with burned-out emotions, crippled judgement, and the death-screams of four million people who'd died in agony and terror imprinted on her mind. She'd teetered on the edge of insanity for months, fighting for control, struggling to reconnect to the world, and it had been then that her subconscious had stepped in to sever her conscious awareness from a part of herself it had always labeled dangerous. A defensive measure, to take the most lethal of her weapons out of her hands while part of her was still fighting the desire to start killing until there was no one left to scream, no one left to cause her pain.

Only for some reason, she'd kept this prison intact, even when the worse of her psychic wounds from Denver had healed. She'd kept lying to herself, perpetuated the self-delusion until it had gone so far that when he'd drawn her attention to the forest, she'd interpreted it as something separate, something alien.

It wasn't, though. And if she destroyed it, she was liable to kill or cripple herself, too. "If it's the Phoenix, where is it?" Nate yelled as another roll of thunder drowned out the noise of the maddened birds. "You and I are the only ones here--can't you sense that?" He could. The storm, the heat--it was Clare's anger, Clare's fear. "Can't you feel it? You're FIGHTING YOURSELF!"

"You don't know ANYTHING!" She was screaming back at him now, trying to push him away. The water was begining to steam, the last of the ice melting away. "I can't be here! I was never supposed to come here!"

"Why?" he demanded, giving her one last, hard shake. "Tell me why!"

"IT'S NOT SAFE!" Clare started to laugh again, a sound full of hysteria, and it took every bit of self-control Nate had not to release his grip on her and back away as she raised her hands and he saw the incandescent white flames licking at them. There were tears streaking down her face now, tears of liquid fire. "Do you have any idea what I could have done with this much power?" A rapid-fire sequence of images hit him; the last battle with the Unity in Jerusalem, Farouk on the astral plane, the warehouse in Rio. "What I could STILL DO?"

Nate shook his head stubbornly pushing the nightmarish memories away. "Don't you see?" he said hoarsely, feeling like he was on the verge of tears himself. "That's why you created this place! You're afraid! You don't trust yourself!"

It started to dawn on him that there must be more here too, locked away in this no-longer-frozen prison. Any emotion she'd considered dangerous, anything that had threatened her control--

Either way, it was moot. This construct was disintegrating, and fast. The colors were fading out of the forest around them, the thunder and the noise of the birds fading into the distance. Nate swallowed hard and pulled Clare close.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered into her hair as she started to cry freely. "You're not going to run out and eat the nearest star for breakfast, Clare. You're not going to lose yourself. I won't let you. I won't."

Her fists pounded against his chest, hard enough to stagger him a little, but he held on to her with every bit of strength he had. "You know what I am," she almost moaned, and Nate swayed as a sudden babble of voices filled his mind, sibiliant voices whispering things like dangerous and empty and soiled and broken almost spitefully. "How can you believe that?"

"Because I know you," Nate said raggedly. "Because I love you, ALL of you--"

"Masochist," Clare sobbed and went limp against him. There was a noise almost like wings, and as white light unfolded around them, Nate closed his eyes and held Clare tightly--

--and he was back in the real world, kneeling on the ground with Clare lying limply in his arms, still apparently unconscious, and an ashen-faced Dane watching them closely.

There was no more gunfire from the direction of the house. Everything was very quiet, almost preternaturally still.

"Nate?" Dane said slowly, and a distant part of Nate wondered what outward show of their argument had manifested to produce such stark fear in Dane. "Please tell me what's going on."

Before he could find the words to respond, Clare gave a gasping cry and opened her eyes. "Hey," Nate said roughly, his voice breaking as he sensed the roiling fear and confusion Clare was trying so hard to keep in check.

She stared up at him wide-eyed, her expression almost childlike. There were tears on her cheeks, and Nate hesitated, then reached out and brushed them away gently. Her skin still felt warm, almost feverish.

"Something's wrong," she muttered in a dazed voice, making no move to sit up.

"I know." Though he wasn't sure. Wrong, or right, or whatever she chose to make it--he really didn't know.

"Hello," Dane said, his voice brittle and his eyes glowing dangerously. The air around him startled to crackle, just a little. "Freaked-out family member, here. Someone want to fill me in on what the fuck the lightshow and all that was about before the stress makes my head explode?"

to be concluded...

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