E.R./X-Men: Allegiance [7/8]
Title: Allegiance
Fandoms: E.R./X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: Up to the end of E.R. season 13, rewriting "I don't," rewriting X2, and ignoring everything that came afterwards on both fronts, except for some backstory borrowed from X3
Characters: Ray, Neela, Jean, Xavier, Abby, Cyclops, Kovac, Gates & pretty much all the X2 ensemble
Pairings: Ray/Neela, canon pairings
Wordcount: ~ 33,000 words
Rating: teen (PTSD, discussion of child abuse, mutant hate, things going boom)
Summary: Ray doesn't need the Professor to tell him that you can't outrun your past. But that doesn't mean he'll stop trying - even when his mutant powers destroy the life he has built in Chicago, and William Stryker targets his old team.
AN: This fic is a reimagination of X2 (and parts of E.R.), pretty much like the story might have worked out if Ray Barnett was a central comicverse character who thus had to have been a part of the movie. I hope that many people will have fun reading it no matter the fandom combination is so obscure! Thanks to gabilar94 for answering questions about Boston, and to millari, who did a fabulous job betaing. She, BTW, doesn't know either fandom, so if you're considering reading this despite only knowing one of them, I think it's absolutely worth a shot. Plus, there are fandom cheat sheets.
Fandom Cheat Sheet for those who don't know E.R. -- Fandom Cheat Sheet for those who don't know the X-Men Movieverse
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Stryker's base had been built directly underneath Alkali Lake Dam. Mystique had long since vanished in the spillway, taking the shape of Logan to give Stryker a reason to let her in. There wasn't any doubt that she'd be able to open the hatch for them. But Ray couldn't help having a look at the real Wolverine, perched on the ledge above the spillway corridor along with them, face hard. He looked pissed, eerily focused, and it was glaringly obvious that he hadn't just come here to save Rogue - he'd also come to settle a score.
Neela had stayed behind in the jet alongside John. It was good to have her there, Ray tried to remind himself, because she could take care of the injured if Jean or he... couldn't. He'd still rather have left her behind in Boston, though.
And speaking of Jean...
Their eyes met across the decimated group of X-Men. Hers were wide and scared and alert. It was a damn irony, Ray thought with a snort to himself, because he knew exactly what she thought - that he shouldn't be here. He should be anywhere but here, preferably at a hospital getting professional help. The same thing he was thinking about her, doctors thinking exactly alike.
Ray had never had a chance to talk to Jean, hadn't wanted to do it on-mission on the off-chance that Xavier was right about her powers. He'd wanted to talk it through another time with Hank, too, but there had never been time to even do that. There hadn't been a chance to finish studying all the problem.
Truth was, a power that lit up MRIs like Jean's did might be exactly the thing to save them all today. The kids were out there, likely dying. Cyclops and the Professor were in the hands of a man ready to use them and their powers. The X-Men might just be the last thing standing between the world as they knew it and the all-out war that Lehnsherr had always threatened would come. If Jean really could be that powerful, maybe she could make the difference. All that had happened was too much even for Ray to tell himself that it had nothing to do with him - Scott was in danger out there, Jubilee and Rogue, the kids whose health he'd agreed to make his responsibility. Concerning himself...
Ray smirked, trying to loosen the collar of his uniform, which was itching. It was Scott's uniform, of course, leather clinging to him tight in the wrong places and not tight enough in others. He was sure that Xavier, meddling old man that he was, had stored away a uniform that fit Ray's every measure somewhere, but that place hadn't been the jet.
His was an alpha mutation, he firmly reminded himself. Professor Xavier had always said so, as had Magneto back in the Danger Room days. There was a place in his mind where he had stored away his training, the attack on the mansion had shown that. Now he just had to make himself remember what he could do. All he had to do was allow his powers to come loose just for once.
Even if the thought of doing so scared the living hell out of him.
Logan jerked around first, staring down the corridor. A second later, they heard it themselves - the opening mechanism of the spillway hatch, going into screeching motion. Storm had her hand at the earpiece, likely listening to Mystique calling in.
"She's good," Logan said.
Magneto chuckled. "You have no idea."
"Let's go," Storm said, and they did.
---
There were soldiers waiting for them in the foyer in front of the control room. Ray had his hands up immediately, force field materializing and pushing hard - maybe to stop Magneto from doing something unbelievably stupid, maybe just to prove to himself that he could. There were muffled grunts, and skulls and guns cracking when all of them hit the walls at once, but they fell like dead meat.
"Huh," Logan said, quirking an eyebrow.
There was a bamf when Nightcrawler teleported across the room and knocked one of the soldiers out with his foot when he tried to get up.
"This hatch is twenty inches thick, if you believe it or not," Magneto remarked, stepping up to the entrance of the control room. "Excellent Canadian craft."
Ray had retreated to the rear next to Jean to look out for more soldiers. Now he turned to give the old man a disgusted look for the serene smile he donned when he moved forward, commandingly wiggling his fingers - and the hatch broke out of its joints with a roar.
It revealed Mystique, turning her chairs at the controls to them with a smirk. Looking for all the world like Homer Simpson at the power plant controls, Ray thought, then shrugged off the obscure comparison and followed Jean and Storm inside, happy to let them take the lead.
"Eric," Mystique just warned, and as soon as he walked into the room, Ray heard what she had meant to point out - a deep throbbing hum starting to vibrate through the walls from deep within the base.
"Isn't that..."
"Cerebro." Jean wet her lips. "They have rebuilt Cerebro."
"So Stryker has the Professor under control," Ray said.
"Whatever he wants him to do, it can't be good," Storm said, looking at Nightcrawler, who couldn't know anything about Cerebro. "Cerebro has been built to amplify the Professor's telepathy. He could kill all of us with a thought from in there. We have to act fast."
"None of my business. I'm going for Rogue," Logan said. Then, sharply turning his eyes at one of the security screens - it was showing an elderly officer and his entourage turning a corner, probably Stryker, "And then I have some personal business to take care of." And gone he was, thin-lipped Jean looking after him.
"A large portion of the energy of the dam has been diverted..." Mystique said, unimpressed, calling up a map of the base on a monitor in search of Cerebro. She pointed at a room. "Here."
Magneto turned without pause. "Come. We have little time."
"Not without us." Jean followed him without further ado. Ray threw Storm a question and went into motion as well when she nodded an affirmative. The others would be enough to take care of the children; Nightcrawler could teleport any of them to Neela onto the jet if they needed immediate medical attention. But if the Professor was under Stryker's control - god - the mere thought made Ray shudder. Back in the day, all it had taken for him to stay the hell away from Cerebro had been one hint by the Professor that an empath might be able to use it as well. But that just meant that he was perfectly aware of what it could do. 'Ro was right - if fancy struck him, Xavier could get rid of whoever had ever looked at him the wrong way, all at once.
That was exactly why Ray thought nobody should be allowed control over that kind of power, ever.
Jean and he were hurrying after Mystique and Magneto who were moving down the hallways with the surety of those at home even in a military base. Magneto was wearing his impossible helmet, the one to protect him from telepathy, and while the two of them could have moved faster than him, he still had the most reliable power to move through an underground military base - disarming any soldier before Ray took them out swiftly with the same kind of force field he'd used against Gates.
But something was wrong here. Ray felt himself growing more anxious with every hallway they entered. Something was terribly wrong, because there should be more soldiers coming at them. Security of the base had been broken, intruders and what amounted to terrorists with super powers had flooded the place, and nobody was coming after them at all.
If Stryker thought there was no need for anybody to fight them...
"Down!" Jean barked and before he could think, something - Jean's telekinesis - had pushed him off his feet. Rolling off by instinct, a red blast thundered past him with the speed of a train, exploding into sparks when it hit the wall.
Picking himself up, Ray looked up just in time to see Scott - Cyclops - moving towards them with perfectly level steps, hand casually on his visor.
"Scott!" Jean shouted, but there wasn't a reaction.
Oh god. The serum. If they'd managed to control Xavier with the serum, of course it meant they had drugged Scott as well.
Ray rolled away in time when another blast pierced through the room, pushing a massive crate against a wall, impact shaking everything.
"I'm taking care of him!"
"Wait!" He got to his feet, stopping Jean from stepping into Cyclops' path. Nodding at the space Magneto and Mystique had occupied before deciding to let them deal with this one on their own, he drew on his psionic powers, letting them flood him in preparation of letting them break loose. "We need you to take care of Cerebro. You can't let them get to the Professor first."
Almost unable to break her eyes away from her fiancé, Jean gave Ray a fleeting look, already moving. "Take care of him," was all she said before she was gone.
Ray hardened his face, readying himself.
The problem with refusing to explore your powers was that it put you at a pretty major disadvantage if you went up against Cyclops, longtime leader of the X-Men.
On the other hand, Cyclops was altered in a major way - and Ray really didn't want to die.
His force field was up the moment Scott reached for his visor again.
This wouldn't be fun.
---
"That's it."
"Where do you think you're going?"
Listening to the battle unfolding over the radio, Neela had startled out of her trance when Pyro had jumped out of his seat, reaching over to hit a button.
She jerked around at the screech behind her - the jet ramp descending.
Pyro had pressed his lips together. "I've had enough," he said. "I'm going in there. I'm tired of this kids table shit, I want to fight."
"Are you bonkers?" Neela managed to catch his sleeve when the teen passed her by. Jerking away violently, he turned to glare at her. "You can't just go in there! You couldn't even make it to the spillway without a uniform! We're in Canada, it's freezing! And what do you suppose you do once you get in there, without knowing where everybody is and without back-up?"
Rational arguments were the last thing Pyro wanted to hear, quite obviously. "I don't care! I'm not going to let them go on pushing me aside. It's easy enough to follow Magneto, I just have to follow the metal he..."
Neela stared at him in disbelief when realization dawned. "You want to go with Magneto!"
Anger blazed up in Pyro's eyes.
"Have you bloody lost your mind? He's on the run from the government for being a terrorist..."
"What would you know about it? You're just a fucking norm."
Neela set her jaw. "What I know," she said pointedly. "is that you'd throw away your life, Pyro. Think about it for just a minute. You couldn't do anything with your life anymore. You couldn't go to college, you couldn't get a proper job, you'd never have a chance to change your mind again. If you do this now, this is it. If mutants should get equal rights tomorrow, you'd still be on the run from the FBI, hiding because of one stupid mistake!"
The young man's stance wavered.
It might just have been the force of Neela's words throwing him off rather than her arguments, but Neela had dealt with a crazy patient too many to not recognize an opening when she saw one. They all just wanted somebody to tell them what to do very firmly.
She pointed at the seats. "You'll sit back down right away," she ordered. "And you'll close the damn ramp." Everything was covered in snow out there. She was bloody well freezing.
Waiting with her hands on her hips, she didn't move until he'd followed through.
---
Magneto left a barricade behind so that I can't follow him to Cerebro, Jean projected. It's going to take a moment to get through. How is Scott?
Kicking my ass. This is a really bad time to chat, Jean.
There wasn't an answer. Ray clenched his teeth, arms raised in front of him protectively, while the full force of yet another blast poured down onto his shield relentlessly. Cyclops in this altered state wasn't the same brilliant tactician from the X-Men, but he was still fast, and strong. Ray always had been fast, as well, but he'd never tested his force fields to the limit. Xavier had said he could be just as strong as Storm - he hadn't bothered checking.
It looked like today would be the day to change that. With all power Ray could muster, he threw the shield away to the side, redirecting the blast along with it. He flinched when it hit the wall again - Scott could level a mountain with those blasts, he'd told Neela, and he hadn't been kidding. But Scott's head turned towards him sharply when he tried to close the distance between them - knock him out up close - finger already on his visor.
"Scott! Cyclops!" Ray barked at him, desperate. "It's Ray, goddammit! The good guys! Most of the time!"
No reaction. The next force field was up, meeting the blast, feeble attempt to push it back towards Scott. No avail. The makeup of Scott's power was different from Ray's - Scott's blasts just kept coming whenever he opened his eyes, never tiring out. But Ray's power was in his mind, requiring focus, and his arms were trembling from the strain.
You'll win if you stay calmer than the enemy. Draw on your strengths. The voice in his mind sounded suspiciously like Magneto's, so many years ago. Well, this robotic Scott didn't remember how to get angry or panic, but. Scott's dumb as fuck in this state. He's taking aim and firing, that's all.
Ray had trained alongside Scott, so many years ago. Annoyed like hell about the prissy little dick, who'd keep his cool when Ray flipped and then outwit him in a fight, laughing at him smugly once Ray was down.
Trying to ignore the sweat on his forehead, Ray's eyes skirted through the room. He'd never be the tactician Scott was - never had wanted to be - but this was maybe just the situation to change his mind on that front.
Eyes falling upon a bunch of crates, he hardened his jaw. Let's see if I can even do that. It had been years since he'd attempted building two force fields at once. Xavier's insistence that he keep working on it had been one of the things to finally drive him out of the school.
Grunting when he threw off the blast yet again, Ray's other hand was up, thrusting the force field at the crate with all the power of his mind and sending it reeling towards Scott, the other field dissolving only when the blast crashed into the wall.
Channeling dizzying amounts of power with ease.
Scott didn't even have a chance to look before the crate hit him.
He was thrown to the side, sliding over the ground - knocked out cold.
Ray's hands dropped to his side, heaving breaths threatening to crack his chest. The crate had rumbled to a halt, the rain of debris dying down. He forced himself into motion, limping over when the spasm in his limbs refused to resolve right away, kneeling down next to Scott to check him out for neck injuries.
I hate this, he thought helplessly even when he couldn't find obvious indicators.
Ray, Jean said in his head.
I took him out, he projected back. No signs of spinal injuries or broken bones so far. I don't know how badly I concussed him.
A surge of relief flooded him, Jean's emotions spilling over, absorbed through the link by his empathy. I'm almost through, I think Magneto...
The wave of pain hit him out of nowhere, washing everything away.
Blaring white light and excruciating agony exploded in his head. The ground was coming closer, and Ray suddenly felt dirt under his palms, desperately starting to clutch his head.
There was no way of fighting it with his mental shieldings - those were just washed away, tsunami unreeling everywhere. It was Siryn's gift, like her excruciating piercing scream - except that it was in his head.
Somebody was screaming - he was screaming - and faintly, through a dying telepathic link, he could feel an echo of the same pain but within Jean, writhing on the floor.
Killing all the mutants. There was no doubt about it. It wasn't even a thought, Ray just knew. Stryker. The Professor. Cerebro. Targeting mutants - all mutants. Solving the problem, once and for all. The ultimate consequence of mutant opposition, at least theoretically what Ray had routed for himself...
I'm dying, he thought - pushed into death by an agony beyond bearing.
...it sucked.
The pain stopped.
Just gone.
Reality was suddenly back. The sound of his harsh breath filled his ears, racing heart, fingers digging into stone tiles, at his hair. Dirt and mold in his mouth, and Ray spat out, coughing, trying to come back to his senses.
His mind was empty, the connection with Jean interrupted.
Next to him, Scott groaned.
Turning his head, Ray saw the visor starting to glow when he opened his eyes.
Fear overruled fear.
Ray had lashed out and clutched Scott's throat before he could think.
Scott made a desperate choked gurgling sound when his emotions drained into Ray.
Confusion. Panic. Too weak to fight or move, but having to act, because people were in danger, something was wrong, people who needed protection and someone he'd trusted trying to...
Ray jerked away, catching himself on his elbows, slumping down.
Scott coughed. "What the hell was that for?"
"Just making sure you're not Stryker's puppet anymore."
"What's going on?"
Magneto's reversed Cerebro. Jean's voice suddenly rang through his head. It's not targeting mutants anymore, but everybody else.
Ray froze. Neela. Neela waiting for them back in the jet, writhing in agony, dying...
He had a terrible vision of County, patients and doctors - Abby, Kovac, Morris - holding their heads and screaming...
I'm going in, Jean announced.
How the hell do you suppose you do that? If the control room had had twenty inches of metal to protect it...
I think I... can just blast it open.
MRI scan blazing like a rock festival. Powers, not accessed yet, but ready for the taking, and the only person who knew what would happen if they were, controlled by a serum that none of them even understood. Controlled first by a paranoid and crazy human, then by an equally paranoid and crazy mutant. Because neither of them - neither Stryker nor Magneto - had the guts to do the dirty work in person. Xavier had at least manipulated Jean's mind himself.
Ray hardened his jaw. I need you to stay in contact throughout.
"What the fuck is going on, Threshold..." Scott said, and instead of answering, Ray just grabbed his hand again, allowing his own power to let the telepathic link seep over, allowing the other man to take part. Human relay board.
Jean didn't answer. She just opened up the link further, smooth and broad like it was nothing.
The scene changed. Looking through Jean's eyes, Ray found himself stepping into what looked like the Cerebro he remembered, except unfinished and differently lit. Smoke was dissipating from a hatch broken out of the angles and melted - oh god. A little girl standing on the end of the platform where the control panel should be, turning towards Jean with a bright smile.
Jean smiled back without any warmth at all.
"Let him go, Jason."
The girl crooked her head. "Who are you talking to?"
Jean's voice reverberated through the chamber ominously, spoken and projected words at once. "I know you, remember? Don't think you can fool me, Jason. Let go of the Professor. This is your last warning."
Blinking and trying to clear his head to switch back to the present of the hall, Ray glanced at Scott. "Who the hell is Jason?"
Scott grimaced; he was obviously in pain, his words a little slurred. "William Stryker's son. Creates telepathic illusions. Charles tried to help him with his powers some years ago, but... he was too far gone. Stryker developed that fucking serum out of Jason's spinal marrow."
It looked like he wanted to say more, probably that they had to get up and get to Jean, but they were already sucked back into the connection. Too strong - her telepathy was just too strong.
There was something weird about Jean. She was herself, but with an edge, something else seeping in.
"I know what you are," she said. She raised her hand, turning up her palm. "I know everything about you. Show yourself." She closed her hand into a fist. "And let him go."
The illusion melted away. The girl was gone, Professor Xavier sitting on Cerebro's controls instead of her, back turned to Jean - slumping into himself when he lost consciousness.
Ray heard his own body hitch a breath of relief.
Neela.
A wheelchair had materialized, another man sitting on it, dressed in what barely passed for a patient gown. Haggard like a starved man, dozens of incision scars ran down his neck and arms, veins showing brightly. His hands clutched around the arm rests of his chair, his eyes were fully focused on Jean. The real Jason.
Jean's voice was entirely ungiving.
"You'll never make him proud, Jason," she said. "He'll never let you be his son, because you have always been a tool to him. Let me take Charles Xavier."
There was no sign that Jason had even heard.
"Let me take him," Jean said. "You think you're doing this for your father? The same man who would kill you in a heartbeat..."
Something icy ran down Ray's back, balance viciously knocked out of him.
The world jerked when Jean focused on him with violent concern, the link transforming his mind into an open book to her for once.
Just like that, she closed the link.
"What the..." Ray muttered, fighting off his latest flashback with pure force of will.
Scott seemed to be having trouble to focus. Head injury, a part of Ray's mind noted faintly. Hopefully just a mild concussion.
"She cut you off to protect you."
Fuck. Fuck.
"She shouldn't be using her powers unsupervised."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's still letting you in? Stay with her. Start... talking to her if she stops sounding like herself or something."
"What the..."
"Just do it." Ray opened a connection on his earpiece, mind racing too fast to wait for the answer. "Storm? What's your status?"
Storm sounded breathless, but she answered without hesitation. "We're getting the children out. Meet us at the jet."
"Copy that."
He checked back with the X-jet next, waiting for excruciating seconds until John finally - finally - answered, timid voice confirming that both of them were fine again.
Now they just had to get out.
The back of Ray's head hit the crate behind him with a thud when he leaned back. He took a deep breath. Jean was loose somewhere in the guts of the base, nobody there to have her back when god knew what could happen to her, and it hadn't looked like the Professor would be in any state to stop her if he even came to in time. And there was nothing Ray could do about it but pray.
His senses hypersensitive from the adrenaline and fear, Ray suddenly grew aware of a faint rumble all around them, one that had replaced the hum of Cerebro.
One that sounded a lot more ominous to him.
His eyes drifting upward in dread, they automatically found the cracks Cyclops' optic blasts had left in the walls.
They seemed to have grown.
He could level a mountain if he took off those glasses.
He didn't lose time when he scrambled to his feet.
"Scott, we need to get out. Now."
"What's going on?"
"Yeah well." He took a breath. "I think you broke the dam."
---
It was all a frenzy when they reached the jet. The children were crowded inside, crying or huddled in shock, flinching away from the adults. Logan was looming next to Rogue - who was pale as a ghost, soothing a little one in her lap - his shirt in bloody shreds. Storm was powering up the jet. It took Ray a moment to spot Neela, crouched next to Jubilee, checking her pupils, while John was stumbling out of the medical area carrying band-aids.
"Thank god you're alright," Neela breathed, suddenly curled against his chest. Ray wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent and allowing the feel of her body to wash over him.
He jerked around to Jean coming in sight on the ramp, too, face smeared with dirt and on edge even when she hugged Scott. A dangerous glint in her eyes when she focused on Xavier, trapped in a passenger seat without his wheelchair.
Oh damn.
Ray swallowed hard.
"Status?" Storm shouted across the noise in the jet.
"Ready to launch," Jean shouted back, suddenly all herself again.
"We need to check out the children." Neela was talking to him without letting go. "Most of them seem to be unharmed but some have minor injuries, and I'm worried about shock. You should go look at Professor Xavier..."
"Scott has a concussion," Ray added, distracted.
"We have a problem!" Storm shouted. "The jet won't launch!"
"Have you tried..." Scott, making his way to the front, had to catch himself on a seat against a dizzy spell, groaning and touching his head.
The roar of the breaking dam in the distance grew louder, ominously looming in the distance.
"No time," a voice said behind him.
Ray jerked around to see Jean staring off into the distance.
Then she turned, abruptly, a wave of her hand reopening the ramp.
Ray disentangled himself from Neela.
"Where..."
"No time," Ray repeated Jean's words at her but with more fear. "Stay here."
Then he was off, following Jean outside onto the snow-covered valley before Alkali Lake.
It was still dazzlingly bright out here, snow reflecting sun a thousand times. The dam was hovering at a distance, and Ray grew cold from fear when he saw it had broken. Truly broken, chunks of stone breaking apart and galleons of water thundering out of it, massively rolling towards them.
It was just a matter of moments before it would wash away the jet.
"Jean!" he shouted, feeting sinking into the snow as he struggled to catch up.
She turned to look at him, pale and determined. "I'm the only one who can stop it, Ray!"
Ray's breath hitched. He knew her powers well enough, even if he'd never seen them unreeling like that. She'd need to stop the water, and raise the jet in the air.
He'd made a promise to himself to watch out for her while those powers of hers were uncoiling, coming loose rapidly after her face-off with Jason, and transforming into god knew what even further. He couldn't let her go off by herself, sacrificing herself, for no reason but the Professor's behavior making her believe that she had to take care of problems on her own.
Just because he didn't like using his powers in full, didn't mean he didn't know how to do it.
His feet were moving on their own account.
"No, you aren't!" he barked at her through the growing roar of the water. "Help them launch the jet! Let me take care of the water! We'll do it together!"
Jean hesitated, but only for a beat. There was no time for more and she nodded, retreating and letting him pass her by, her calculating eyes on the bitch of a Blackbird now.
Ray stumbled to a halt in the aisle in front of the jet, staring at the surge of water effervescing towards him - enough to wash away a town. The force of it was blowing through his uniform, mussing his hair. There was a lump forming in his throat, but feeling out his powers, he thought he knew what to do. This time around, it would be a matter of sheer dumb strength.
No surprise he'd never had a problem controlling his powers. It had been child's play when he'd used them before.
Gallons of water surging towards them, freezing the air and pushing forth a minor tornado.
"Ray!" Jean shouted, a weary presence at his back.
"I've got it!"
Steeling himself, he tried to take a position of maximum balance.
I've totally gone nuts, the man he'd been three days ago told him when he stared at the wall of water he was about to hold off. Totally lost it.
A moment later, his force field was up - expanding and expanding more, shielding him and Jean and the jet on a scale that would have made William Stryker squeak in terror. A roaring electrical buzz started filling his ears, blocking out the thunder of the water. The strangest feeling coursed over his skin when it expanded further, his body exhausting itself with the glee of an athlete's legs finally allowed to sprint.
The body of water hit with a force reserved for natural catastrophes. Ducking away by instinct and pressing his eyes shut, Ray was almost on his knees, but the force field kept up. He clenched his teeth when it held steady, expanding it to protect the corridor the jet would need in order to launch. Water could spill over, or spill in from behind. Make it grow. Those physics lessons were coming in handy.
Engines roaring faintly behind him above all the other noise told him that Jean had lifted the jet in the air, Storm taking over at the controls once the chassis ceased to be the problem, and that the students, his friends and Neela were safely on their way home.
Blinking his eyes open against the pressure, Ray just caught the last glimpse of Nightcrawler - arms wrapping around Jean, then vanishing with a bamf.
The smell of brimstone almost choked him when the blue mutant suddenly was at his side, body heat engulfing Ray when he was drawn in.
"Let go!" Wagner shouted into his ear, so Ray did, not even thinking about it. Loosening his grasp on the force field, he saw spraying water closing the chasm, rumbling towards them and--
Bamf.
They were gone.
on to the next part
Fandoms: E.R./X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: Up to the end of E.R. season 13, rewriting "I don't," rewriting X2, and ignoring everything that came afterwards on both fronts, except for some backstory borrowed from X3
Characters: Ray, Neela, Jean, Xavier, Abby, Cyclops, Kovac, Gates & pretty much all the X2 ensemble
Pairings: Ray/Neela, canon pairings
Wordcount: ~ 33,000 words
Rating: teen (PTSD, discussion of child abuse, mutant hate, things going boom)
Summary: Ray doesn't need the Professor to tell him that you can't outrun your past. But that doesn't mean he'll stop trying - even when his mutant powers destroy the life he has built in Chicago, and William Stryker targets his old team.
AN: This fic is a reimagination of X2 (and parts of E.R.), pretty much like the story might have worked out if Ray Barnett was a central comicverse character who thus had to have been a part of the movie. I hope that many people will have fun reading it no matter the fandom combination is so obscure! Thanks to gabilar94 for answering questions about Boston, and to millari, who did a fabulous job betaing. She, BTW, doesn't know either fandom, so if you're considering reading this despite only knowing one of them, I think it's absolutely worth a shot. Plus, there are fandom cheat sheets.
Fandom Cheat Sheet for those who don't know E.R. -- Fandom Cheat Sheet for those who don't know the X-Men Movieverse
Prologue -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Stryker's base had been built directly underneath Alkali Lake Dam. Mystique had long since vanished in the spillway, taking the shape of Logan to give Stryker a reason to let her in. There wasn't any doubt that she'd be able to open the hatch for them. But Ray couldn't help having a look at the real Wolverine, perched on the ledge above the spillway corridor along with them, face hard. He looked pissed, eerily focused, and it was glaringly obvious that he hadn't just come here to save Rogue - he'd also come to settle a score.
Neela had stayed behind in the jet alongside John. It was good to have her there, Ray tried to remind himself, because she could take care of the injured if Jean or he... couldn't. He'd still rather have left her behind in Boston, though.
And speaking of Jean...
Their eyes met across the decimated group of X-Men. Hers were wide and scared and alert. It was a damn irony, Ray thought with a snort to himself, because he knew exactly what she thought - that he shouldn't be here. He should be anywhere but here, preferably at a hospital getting professional help. The same thing he was thinking about her, doctors thinking exactly alike.
Ray had never had a chance to talk to Jean, hadn't wanted to do it on-mission on the off-chance that Xavier was right about her powers. He'd wanted to talk it through another time with Hank, too, but there had never been time to even do that. There hadn't been a chance to finish studying all the problem.
Truth was, a power that lit up MRIs like Jean's did might be exactly the thing to save them all today. The kids were out there, likely dying. Cyclops and the Professor were in the hands of a man ready to use them and their powers. The X-Men might just be the last thing standing between the world as they knew it and the all-out war that Lehnsherr had always threatened would come. If Jean really could be that powerful, maybe she could make the difference. All that had happened was too much even for Ray to tell himself that it had nothing to do with him - Scott was in danger out there, Jubilee and Rogue, the kids whose health he'd agreed to make his responsibility. Concerning himself...
Ray smirked, trying to loosen the collar of his uniform, which was itching. It was Scott's uniform, of course, leather clinging to him tight in the wrong places and not tight enough in others. He was sure that Xavier, meddling old man that he was, had stored away a uniform that fit Ray's every measure somewhere, but that place hadn't been the jet.
His was an alpha mutation, he firmly reminded himself. Professor Xavier had always said so, as had Magneto back in the Danger Room days. There was a place in his mind where he had stored away his training, the attack on the mansion had shown that. Now he just had to make himself remember what he could do. All he had to do was allow his powers to come loose just for once.
Even if the thought of doing so scared the living hell out of him.
Logan jerked around first, staring down the corridor. A second later, they heard it themselves - the opening mechanism of the spillway hatch, going into screeching motion. Storm had her hand at the earpiece, likely listening to Mystique calling in.
"She's good," Logan said.
Magneto chuckled. "You have no idea."
"Let's go," Storm said, and they did.
---
There were soldiers waiting for them in the foyer in front of the control room. Ray had his hands up immediately, force field materializing and pushing hard - maybe to stop Magneto from doing something unbelievably stupid, maybe just to prove to himself that he could. There were muffled grunts, and skulls and guns cracking when all of them hit the walls at once, but they fell like dead meat.
"Huh," Logan said, quirking an eyebrow.
There was a bamf when Nightcrawler teleported across the room and knocked one of the soldiers out with his foot when he tried to get up.
"This hatch is twenty inches thick, if you believe it or not," Magneto remarked, stepping up to the entrance of the control room. "Excellent Canadian craft."
Ray had retreated to the rear next to Jean to look out for more soldiers. Now he turned to give the old man a disgusted look for the serene smile he donned when he moved forward, commandingly wiggling his fingers - and the hatch broke out of its joints with a roar.
It revealed Mystique, turning her chairs at the controls to them with a smirk. Looking for all the world like Homer Simpson at the power plant controls, Ray thought, then shrugged off the obscure comparison and followed Jean and Storm inside, happy to let them take the lead.
"Eric," Mystique just warned, and as soon as he walked into the room, Ray heard what she had meant to point out - a deep throbbing hum starting to vibrate through the walls from deep within the base.
"Isn't that..."
"Cerebro." Jean wet her lips. "They have rebuilt Cerebro."
"So Stryker has the Professor under control," Ray said.
"Whatever he wants him to do, it can't be good," Storm said, looking at Nightcrawler, who couldn't know anything about Cerebro. "Cerebro has been built to amplify the Professor's telepathy. He could kill all of us with a thought from in there. We have to act fast."
"None of my business. I'm going for Rogue," Logan said. Then, sharply turning his eyes at one of the security screens - it was showing an elderly officer and his entourage turning a corner, probably Stryker, "And then I have some personal business to take care of." And gone he was, thin-lipped Jean looking after him.
"A large portion of the energy of the dam has been diverted..." Mystique said, unimpressed, calling up a map of the base on a monitor in search of Cerebro. She pointed at a room. "Here."
Magneto turned without pause. "Come. We have little time."
"Not without us." Jean followed him without further ado. Ray threw Storm a question and went into motion as well when she nodded an affirmative. The others would be enough to take care of the children; Nightcrawler could teleport any of them to Neela onto the jet if they needed immediate medical attention. But if the Professor was under Stryker's control - god - the mere thought made Ray shudder. Back in the day, all it had taken for him to stay the hell away from Cerebro had been one hint by the Professor that an empath might be able to use it as well. But that just meant that he was perfectly aware of what it could do. 'Ro was right - if fancy struck him, Xavier could get rid of whoever had ever looked at him the wrong way, all at once.
That was exactly why Ray thought nobody should be allowed control over that kind of power, ever.
Jean and he were hurrying after Mystique and Magneto who were moving down the hallways with the surety of those at home even in a military base. Magneto was wearing his impossible helmet, the one to protect him from telepathy, and while the two of them could have moved faster than him, he still had the most reliable power to move through an underground military base - disarming any soldier before Ray took them out swiftly with the same kind of force field he'd used against Gates.
But something was wrong here. Ray felt himself growing more anxious with every hallway they entered. Something was terribly wrong, because there should be more soldiers coming at them. Security of the base had been broken, intruders and what amounted to terrorists with super powers had flooded the place, and nobody was coming after them at all.
If Stryker thought there was no need for anybody to fight them...
"Down!" Jean barked and before he could think, something - Jean's telekinesis - had pushed him off his feet. Rolling off by instinct, a red blast thundered past him with the speed of a train, exploding into sparks when it hit the wall.
Picking himself up, Ray looked up just in time to see Scott - Cyclops - moving towards them with perfectly level steps, hand casually on his visor.
"Scott!" Jean shouted, but there wasn't a reaction.
Oh god. The serum. If they'd managed to control Xavier with the serum, of course it meant they had drugged Scott as well.
Ray rolled away in time when another blast pierced through the room, pushing a massive crate against a wall, impact shaking everything.
"I'm taking care of him!"
"Wait!" He got to his feet, stopping Jean from stepping into Cyclops' path. Nodding at the space Magneto and Mystique had occupied before deciding to let them deal with this one on their own, he drew on his psionic powers, letting them flood him in preparation of letting them break loose. "We need you to take care of Cerebro. You can't let them get to the Professor first."
Almost unable to break her eyes away from her fiancé, Jean gave Ray a fleeting look, already moving. "Take care of him," was all she said before she was gone.
Ray hardened his face, readying himself.
The problem with refusing to explore your powers was that it put you at a pretty major disadvantage if you went up against Cyclops, longtime leader of the X-Men.
On the other hand, Cyclops was altered in a major way - and Ray really didn't want to die.
His force field was up the moment Scott reached for his visor again.
This wouldn't be fun.
---
"That's it."
"Where do you think you're going?"
Listening to the battle unfolding over the radio, Neela had startled out of her trance when Pyro had jumped out of his seat, reaching over to hit a button.
She jerked around at the screech behind her - the jet ramp descending.
Pyro had pressed his lips together. "I've had enough," he said. "I'm going in there. I'm tired of this kids table shit, I want to fight."
"Are you bonkers?" Neela managed to catch his sleeve when the teen passed her by. Jerking away violently, he turned to glare at her. "You can't just go in there! You couldn't even make it to the spillway without a uniform! We're in Canada, it's freezing! And what do you suppose you do once you get in there, without knowing where everybody is and without back-up?"
Rational arguments were the last thing Pyro wanted to hear, quite obviously. "I don't care! I'm not going to let them go on pushing me aside. It's easy enough to follow Magneto, I just have to follow the metal he..."
Neela stared at him in disbelief when realization dawned. "You want to go with Magneto!"
Anger blazed up in Pyro's eyes.
"Have you bloody lost your mind? He's on the run from the government for being a terrorist..."
"What would you know about it? You're just a fucking norm."
Neela set her jaw. "What I know," she said pointedly. "is that you'd throw away your life, Pyro. Think about it for just a minute. You couldn't do anything with your life anymore. You couldn't go to college, you couldn't get a proper job, you'd never have a chance to change your mind again. If you do this now, this is it. If mutants should get equal rights tomorrow, you'd still be on the run from the FBI, hiding because of one stupid mistake!"
The young man's stance wavered.
It might just have been the force of Neela's words throwing him off rather than her arguments, but Neela had dealt with a crazy patient too many to not recognize an opening when she saw one. They all just wanted somebody to tell them what to do very firmly.
She pointed at the seats. "You'll sit back down right away," she ordered. "And you'll close the damn ramp." Everything was covered in snow out there. She was bloody well freezing.
Waiting with her hands on her hips, she didn't move until he'd followed through.
---
Magneto left a barricade behind so that I can't follow him to Cerebro, Jean projected. It's going to take a moment to get through. How is Scott?
Kicking my ass. This is a really bad time to chat, Jean.
There wasn't an answer. Ray clenched his teeth, arms raised in front of him protectively, while the full force of yet another blast poured down onto his shield relentlessly. Cyclops in this altered state wasn't the same brilliant tactician from the X-Men, but he was still fast, and strong. Ray always had been fast, as well, but he'd never tested his force fields to the limit. Xavier had said he could be just as strong as Storm - he hadn't bothered checking.
It looked like today would be the day to change that. With all power Ray could muster, he threw the shield away to the side, redirecting the blast along with it. He flinched when it hit the wall again - Scott could level a mountain with those blasts, he'd told Neela, and he hadn't been kidding. But Scott's head turned towards him sharply when he tried to close the distance between them - knock him out up close - finger already on his visor.
"Scott! Cyclops!" Ray barked at him, desperate. "It's Ray, goddammit! The good guys! Most of the time!"
No reaction. The next force field was up, meeting the blast, feeble attempt to push it back towards Scott. No avail. The makeup of Scott's power was different from Ray's - Scott's blasts just kept coming whenever he opened his eyes, never tiring out. But Ray's power was in his mind, requiring focus, and his arms were trembling from the strain.
You'll win if you stay calmer than the enemy. Draw on your strengths. The voice in his mind sounded suspiciously like Magneto's, so many years ago. Well, this robotic Scott didn't remember how to get angry or panic, but. Scott's dumb as fuck in this state. He's taking aim and firing, that's all.
Ray had trained alongside Scott, so many years ago. Annoyed like hell about the prissy little dick, who'd keep his cool when Ray flipped and then outwit him in a fight, laughing at him smugly once Ray was down.
Trying to ignore the sweat on his forehead, Ray's eyes skirted through the room. He'd never be the tactician Scott was - never had wanted to be - but this was maybe just the situation to change his mind on that front.
Eyes falling upon a bunch of crates, he hardened his jaw. Let's see if I can even do that. It had been years since he'd attempted building two force fields at once. Xavier's insistence that he keep working on it had been one of the things to finally drive him out of the school.
Grunting when he threw off the blast yet again, Ray's other hand was up, thrusting the force field at the crate with all the power of his mind and sending it reeling towards Scott, the other field dissolving only when the blast crashed into the wall.
Channeling dizzying amounts of power with ease.
Scott didn't even have a chance to look before the crate hit him.
He was thrown to the side, sliding over the ground - knocked out cold.
Ray's hands dropped to his side, heaving breaths threatening to crack his chest. The crate had rumbled to a halt, the rain of debris dying down. He forced himself into motion, limping over when the spasm in his limbs refused to resolve right away, kneeling down next to Scott to check him out for neck injuries.
I hate this, he thought helplessly even when he couldn't find obvious indicators.
Ray, Jean said in his head.
I took him out, he projected back. No signs of spinal injuries or broken bones so far. I don't know how badly I concussed him.
A surge of relief flooded him, Jean's emotions spilling over, absorbed through the link by his empathy. I'm almost through, I think Magneto...
The wave of pain hit him out of nowhere, washing everything away.
Blaring white light and excruciating agony exploded in his head. The ground was coming closer, and Ray suddenly felt dirt under his palms, desperately starting to clutch his head.
There was no way of fighting it with his mental shieldings - those were just washed away, tsunami unreeling everywhere. It was Siryn's gift, like her excruciating piercing scream - except that it was in his head.
Somebody was screaming - he was screaming - and faintly, through a dying telepathic link, he could feel an echo of the same pain but within Jean, writhing on the floor.
Killing all the mutants. There was no doubt about it. It wasn't even a thought, Ray just knew. Stryker. The Professor. Cerebro. Targeting mutants - all mutants. Solving the problem, once and for all. The ultimate consequence of mutant opposition, at least theoretically what Ray had routed for himself...
I'm dying, he thought - pushed into death by an agony beyond bearing.
...it sucked.
The pain stopped.
Just gone.
Reality was suddenly back. The sound of his harsh breath filled his ears, racing heart, fingers digging into stone tiles, at his hair. Dirt and mold in his mouth, and Ray spat out, coughing, trying to come back to his senses.
His mind was empty, the connection with Jean interrupted.
Next to him, Scott groaned.
Turning his head, Ray saw the visor starting to glow when he opened his eyes.
Fear overruled fear.
Ray had lashed out and clutched Scott's throat before he could think.
Scott made a desperate choked gurgling sound when his emotions drained into Ray.
Confusion. Panic. Too weak to fight or move, but having to act, because people were in danger, something was wrong, people who needed protection and someone he'd trusted trying to...
Ray jerked away, catching himself on his elbows, slumping down.
Scott coughed. "What the hell was that for?"
"Just making sure you're not Stryker's puppet anymore."
"What's going on?"
Magneto's reversed Cerebro. Jean's voice suddenly rang through his head. It's not targeting mutants anymore, but everybody else.
Ray froze. Neela. Neela waiting for them back in the jet, writhing in agony, dying...
He had a terrible vision of County, patients and doctors - Abby, Kovac, Morris - holding their heads and screaming...
I'm going in, Jean announced.
How the hell do you suppose you do that? If the control room had had twenty inches of metal to protect it...
I think I... can just blast it open.
MRI scan blazing like a rock festival. Powers, not accessed yet, but ready for the taking, and the only person who knew what would happen if they were, controlled by a serum that none of them even understood. Controlled first by a paranoid and crazy human, then by an equally paranoid and crazy mutant. Because neither of them - neither Stryker nor Magneto - had the guts to do the dirty work in person. Xavier had at least manipulated Jean's mind himself.
Ray hardened his jaw. I need you to stay in contact throughout.
"What the fuck is going on, Threshold..." Scott said, and instead of answering, Ray just grabbed his hand again, allowing his own power to let the telepathic link seep over, allowing the other man to take part. Human relay board.
Jean didn't answer. She just opened up the link further, smooth and broad like it was nothing.
The scene changed. Looking through Jean's eyes, Ray found himself stepping into what looked like the Cerebro he remembered, except unfinished and differently lit. Smoke was dissipating from a hatch broken out of the angles and melted - oh god. A little girl standing on the end of the platform where the control panel should be, turning towards Jean with a bright smile.
Jean smiled back without any warmth at all.
"Let him go, Jason."
The girl crooked her head. "Who are you talking to?"
Jean's voice reverberated through the chamber ominously, spoken and projected words at once. "I know you, remember? Don't think you can fool me, Jason. Let go of the Professor. This is your last warning."
Blinking and trying to clear his head to switch back to the present of the hall, Ray glanced at Scott. "Who the hell is Jason?"
Scott grimaced; he was obviously in pain, his words a little slurred. "William Stryker's son. Creates telepathic illusions. Charles tried to help him with his powers some years ago, but... he was too far gone. Stryker developed that fucking serum out of Jason's spinal marrow."
It looked like he wanted to say more, probably that they had to get up and get to Jean, but they were already sucked back into the connection. Too strong - her telepathy was just too strong.
There was something weird about Jean. She was herself, but with an edge, something else seeping in.
"I know what you are," she said. She raised her hand, turning up her palm. "I know everything about you. Show yourself." She closed her hand into a fist. "And let him go."
The illusion melted away. The girl was gone, Professor Xavier sitting on Cerebro's controls instead of her, back turned to Jean - slumping into himself when he lost consciousness.
Ray heard his own body hitch a breath of relief.
Neela.
A wheelchair had materialized, another man sitting on it, dressed in what barely passed for a patient gown. Haggard like a starved man, dozens of incision scars ran down his neck and arms, veins showing brightly. His hands clutched around the arm rests of his chair, his eyes were fully focused on Jean. The real Jason.
Jean's voice was entirely ungiving.
"You'll never make him proud, Jason," she said. "He'll never let you be his son, because you have always been a tool to him. Let me take Charles Xavier."
There was no sign that Jason had even heard.
"Let me take him," Jean said. "You think you're doing this for your father? The same man who would kill you in a heartbeat..."
Something icy ran down Ray's back, balance viciously knocked out of him.
The world jerked when Jean focused on him with violent concern, the link transforming his mind into an open book to her for once.
Just like that, she closed the link.
"What the..." Ray muttered, fighting off his latest flashback with pure force of will.
Scott seemed to be having trouble to focus. Head injury, a part of Ray's mind noted faintly. Hopefully just a mild concussion.
"She cut you off to protect you."
Fuck. Fuck.
"She shouldn't be using her powers unsupervised."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's still letting you in? Stay with her. Start... talking to her if she stops sounding like herself or something."
"What the..."
"Just do it." Ray opened a connection on his earpiece, mind racing too fast to wait for the answer. "Storm? What's your status?"
Storm sounded breathless, but she answered without hesitation. "We're getting the children out. Meet us at the jet."
"Copy that."
He checked back with the X-jet next, waiting for excruciating seconds until John finally - finally - answered, timid voice confirming that both of them were fine again.
Now they just had to get out.
The back of Ray's head hit the crate behind him with a thud when he leaned back. He took a deep breath. Jean was loose somewhere in the guts of the base, nobody there to have her back when god knew what could happen to her, and it hadn't looked like the Professor would be in any state to stop her if he even came to in time. And there was nothing Ray could do about it but pray.
His senses hypersensitive from the adrenaline and fear, Ray suddenly grew aware of a faint rumble all around them, one that had replaced the hum of Cerebro.
One that sounded a lot more ominous to him.
His eyes drifting upward in dread, they automatically found the cracks Cyclops' optic blasts had left in the walls.
They seemed to have grown.
He could level a mountain if he took off those glasses.
He didn't lose time when he scrambled to his feet.
"Scott, we need to get out. Now."
"What's going on?"
"Yeah well." He took a breath. "I think you broke the dam."
---
It was all a frenzy when they reached the jet. The children were crowded inside, crying or huddled in shock, flinching away from the adults. Logan was looming next to Rogue - who was pale as a ghost, soothing a little one in her lap - his shirt in bloody shreds. Storm was powering up the jet. It took Ray a moment to spot Neela, crouched next to Jubilee, checking her pupils, while John was stumbling out of the medical area carrying band-aids.
"Thank god you're alright," Neela breathed, suddenly curled against his chest. Ray wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent and allowing the feel of her body to wash over him.
He jerked around to Jean coming in sight on the ramp, too, face smeared with dirt and on edge even when she hugged Scott. A dangerous glint in her eyes when she focused on Xavier, trapped in a passenger seat without his wheelchair.
Oh damn.
Ray swallowed hard.
"Status?" Storm shouted across the noise in the jet.
"Ready to launch," Jean shouted back, suddenly all herself again.
"We need to check out the children." Neela was talking to him without letting go. "Most of them seem to be unharmed but some have minor injuries, and I'm worried about shock. You should go look at Professor Xavier..."
"Scott has a concussion," Ray added, distracted.
"We have a problem!" Storm shouted. "The jet won't launch!"
"Have you tried..." Scott, making his way to the front, had to catch himself on a seat against a dizzy spell, groaning and touching his head.
The roar of the breaking dam in the distance grew louder, ominously looming in the distance.
"No time," a voice said behind him.
Ray jerked around to see Jean staring off into the distance.
Then she turned, abruptly, a wave of her hand reopening the ramp.
Ray disentangled himself from Neela.
"Where..."
"No time," Ray repeated Jean's words at her but with more fear. "Stay here."
Then he was off, following Jean outside onto the snow-covered valley before Alkali Lake.
It was still dazzlingly bright out here, snow reflecting sun a thousand times. The dam was hovering at a distance, and Ray grew cold from fear when he saw it had broken. Truly broken, chunks of stone breaking apart and galleons of water thundering out of it, massively rolling towards them.
It was just a matter of moments before it would wash away the jet.
"Jean!" he shouted, feeting sinking into the snow as he struggled to catch up.
She turned to look at him, pale and determined. "I'm the only one who can stop it, Ray!"
Ray's breath hitched. He knew her powers well enough, even if he'd never seen them unreeling like that. She'd need to stop the water, and raise the jet in the air.
He'd made a promise to himself to watch out for her while those powers of hers were uncoiling, coming loose rapidly after her face-off with Jason, and transforming into god knew what even further. He couldn't let her go off by herself, sacrificing herself, for no reason but the Professor's behavior making her believe that she had to take care of problems on her own.
Just because he didn't like using his powers in full, didn't mean he didn't know how to do it.
His feet were moving on their own account.
"No, you aren't!" he barked at her through the growing roar of the water. "Help them launch the jet! Let me take care of the water! We'll do it together!"
Jean hesitated, but only for a beat. There was no time for more and she nodded, retreating and letting him pass her by, her calculating eyes on the bitch of a Blackbird now.
Ray stumbled to a halt in the aisle in front of the jet, staring at the surge of water effervescing towards him - enough to wash away a town. The force of it was blowing through his uniform, mussing his hair. There was a lump forming in his throat, but feeling out his powers, he thought he knew what to do. This time around, it would be a matter of sheer dumb strength.
No surprise he'd never had a problem controlling his powers. It had been child's play when he'd used them before.
Gallons of water surging towards them, freezing the air and pushing forth a minor tornado.
"Ray!" Jean shouted, a weary presence at his back.
"I've got it!"
Steeling himself, he tried to take a position of maximum balance.
I've totally gone nuts, the man he'd been three days ago told him when he stared at the wall of water he was about to hold off. Totally lost it.
A moment later, his force field was up - expanding and expanding more, shielding him and Jean and the jet on a scale that would have made William Stryker squeak in terror. A roaring electrical buzz started filling his ears, blocking out the thunder of the water. The strangest feeling coursed over his skin when it expanded further, his body exhausting itself with the glee of an athlete's legs finally allowed to sprint.
The body of water hit with a force reserved for natural catastrophes. Ducking away by instinct and pressing his eyes shut, Ray was almost on his knees, but the force field kept up. He clenched his teeth when it held steady, expanding it to protect the corridor the jet would need in order to launch. Water could spill over, or spill in from behind. Make it grow. Those physics lessons were coming in handy.
Engines roaring faintly behind him above all the other noise told him that Jean had lifted the jet in the air, Storm taking over at the controls once the chassis ceased to be the problem, and that the students, his friends and Neela were safely on their way home.
Blinking his eyes open against the pressure, Ray just caught the last glimpse of Nightcrawler - arms wrapping around Jean, then vanishing with a bamf.
The smell of brimstone almost choked him when the blue mutant suddenly was at his side, body heat engulfing Ray when he was drawn in.
"Let go!" Wagner shouted into his ear, so Ray did, not even thinking about it. Loosening his grasp on the force field, he saw spraying water closing the chasm, rumbling towards them and--
Bamf.
They were gone.
on to the next part