Nicholas turned his head to the sound of the rustling, and looked at Mattie as she sat up. His eyes lit up in relief to see that she was okay, but he could still see the fear and confusion in her own eyes. "Mattie," he said softly. Jacob had grabbed the bloodied shard from the dresser and was now in the bathroom, where sounds of running water could be heard. Which left Nicholas and Mattie partially alone for a moment. But there was nothing that Nicholas could say to her. He'd probably ruined all of her trust in him. So he swallowed past the growing lump in his throat and buried his head in the pillow in front of him without saying another word.

"Bad news and good news," Jacob said as he came out of the bathroom. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Mattie sitting up. He nodded at her, said, "Glad to see you're awake," then continued with his original proclamation. "Nick, this is a shard of obsidian, and it was poisoned. That's the bad news. Which means...either you happened to land on it by sheer miraculous coincidence, someone stabbed you with it while you were in the air and amazingly neither of you noticed, or someone knew exactly where you two were going to land and sabotaged you." His eyebrows raised and he shook his head in awe. "The fact that...this happened, is amazing. We've been hiding out for so long. The good news is that I got it out in time before much poison could transfer to you."

Jacob sat the newly-cleaned shard on the dresser again. He crossed his arms and faced his brother, who was now looking at him. "The fact that this happened is going to set off our plans for another few weeks while you heal. I can't have you out there fighting with a gaping hole in your back. It will compromise our position. Mattie's-" he paused and glanced at the woman in question, "-not looking like she's going to be willing to help us."

"As long as we keep her safe," Nicholas muttered.

In response to her name, Mattie shot Nick a glare to make anyone glad looks couldn't kill. She was sitting straight as a board, and when she'd finished with her wordless "fuck you" her eyes went shifty, flitting from object to object to possible escape route to Mr. Shitdick, which was her new name for Nick.

And of course, when Mr. Double-Fudge Oreo Filled With Lice (known reluctantly as Jacob) reentered the room, she went a few shades paler and growled softly. Apart from that, she was remarkably self-restrained. When he addressed her she hissed loudly, but still she was speechless. Waiting. She listened sullenly but attentively to the entire shpeel with the obsidian shard. The poisoned obsidian shard that she herself should have landed on, if Double-Fudge was correct.

"Mattie's––not looking like she's going to be willing to help us," he finished with a glance at her. She returned his glance with a venomous stare and a proud middle finger.

"The hell I'm fucking not," she finally said, speaking over whatever Nick had muttered. "I'm more likely to chop off your wings and your balls––if you have any––and sew your balls where your wings were, and your wings where your balls were." She hadn't intended the outburst, but boy, did she hate being talked about in the third person.

Jacob ignored Mattie's outburst. He'd figured she'd be as angry with him, and he knew it was well deserved. In response to Nicholas he said, "She'll be safe, don't worry. Not only can she take care of herself, but we'll have scouts."

"Yeah," Nicholas said. "Alright. I get it." He paused and chewed on his bottom lip for a minute before saying, "And Alice?"

Any light that was visible in Jacob's eyes was now diminished. His lips pressed into a thin line and he looked away from his brother, saying, "Alice...won't be coming. We'll talk about that later. This is bigger than us. I need to eat and my keys are still outside. Want anything?"

The rapid subject change surprised Nicholas, and because of that, he could only suspect the worst had happened to his brother's lover. This new information needed to simmer in his brain before he could fully process it. When he responded to Jacob, he sounded far away in his own mind. Things were happening too fast. "Yeah," he said, "Um...uh, just, two chicken burgers, large fries, and a chocolate milkshake." He glanced at Mattie and said, "Get her four burgers, two large fries, a peach milkshake, and a large orange soda."

Jacob clicked his tongue, pulled out his wallet, counted his money, then shoved it back into his pocket. "Alright. But you owe me when you get paid." Then he walked out the door.

"Piece a' fucking shit," spat Mattie after the door shut behind Double-Fudge. She got out of bed and stood up, flexing her wings experimentally to see if they hurt. They ached a little, which was to be expected, but surprisingly seemed mostly unharmed. Funny. She'd thought at least one of them was bleeding when they'd landed.

With that finished she rounded on Nick. "Why don't you tell me the whole truth next time, huh, you dingleberry? Maybe if you'd been a little less fucking vague I wouldn't have tried to leave, and then you wouldn't have fucking––attacked me––like your savage-ass brother did three years ago! And then we wouldn't be here!" She paced as she spoke, feeling sick. "Oh, and, take the burgers. I don't want food he's touched or been within five feet of."

She wanted to ask for every single thing he knew, but had conveniently forgotten in her anger. As usual.

The window was still there if Double-Fudge had locked the door. She looked toward it. But maybe she should wait for Nick to fall asleep or something. Unless she wanted him to go after her again.

"I was trying to tell you the truth," Nicholas mumbled without looking at her, still lying on his stomach. "You weren't listening. You were dead set on still hating Jacob. I get it. I get he hurt you, I get he tried to kill you. I don't think you understand that he wasn't in his right mind. He was...brainwashed. By those stupid pieces of shit. You're the one who put your hands on me first." He was breathing hard again, and he buried his face in the pillow again and spoke through it with a muffled voice, "I wasn't trying to hurt you. That could've been you who had this big ass hole in your back."

She snarled loudly. "It should have been me!" she retorted. "If you hadn't turned me around trying to play the hero, you'd be fine." Luckily, he'd piqued her interest. She mercifully dropped the subject (perhaps she'd grill him for it later) and went at it from a different angle.

"Who brainwashed him and why? How was he...cured?"

Nicholas kept his head down in the pillow as he spoke. "The scientists, from the lab. They had him on the drug. He was one of the first ones out of the batch. We were supposed to be on it, too, but we escaped. They'd been distributing it to him even before we got out of the simulation. Which, we think, is why he acted the way he did inside of it." He turned onto his side to face Mattie, and hissed in pain from the movement. His entire back was aching now. Poison. "I don't know what the point of the drug was before we escaped, but like I said, the reason they're getting us on it now is to return us to the labs. But...how he was cured. Alice. He met Alice sometime after I'd left, while tracking me. She'd kind of captured him. She can read auras, and she could tell that he was still under the affects of that drug. Well, she and some other Rebels developed a serum quite some time ago that not only acts as a sort of vaccine for the drug, but enhances your abilities, like flying, strength, speed, etc."

He paused and took a breath. "Alice kept him for months and trained him in morality again. They...fell in love. She's supposed to be, well, she was supposed to be coming with us, to confront the mutants. There's a group of them in the city. They have a base. We know where the base is. We have to...take them out. We can't go back to that lab. We can't."

"So..." She swallowed a lump in her throat. It was all a lot to take in, especially at this pace and so suddenly: yesterday she'd been carrying out the routine that she'd fallen into. Today she'd had it confirmed that there were others like them. She'd seen Nicholas shoot fucking fire out of his hands like some kind of stupid anime character, right after he'd tracked her down and knocked on her door out of the blue as if nothing had happened, and she'd found out that the psycho who'd tried to drown her was considered a "good guy".

"Okay," she said after a sizable silence, with a sigh. "So you're going to go beat up God-knows how many drugged supermutants and then... give them a different drug? Anything to keep us out of that lab, I guess..."

Mattie sat back down on the bed she'd leaped out of. Everything was insane. Everyone was insane.

With a slight, nervous laugh, Nicholas shook his head, "You make it sound easier than it's going to be." When Mattie sat down, he turned back over onto his stomach, head facing her. For a few minutes, the two sat in silence. Nicholas listened to his own heartbeat as it steadily quickened. How much poison made it into his system? It couldn't have been enough to hurt or kill him, considering Jacob was rather calm about the whole thing. Who, then, had tried to poison him? Or Mattie? He could vaguely recall changing his and Mattie's position in the air so he'd be the one to hit the ground first -- had he subconsciously known?

"We have a little less than an army," Nicholas joked. "We still need to recruit others. Right now, they're scattered throughout the city, and other surrounding cities. We don't know how far the mutants have traveled from the main lab. We just know...that they're around here, mostly." He looked at Mattie, slightly confused, "You mean to tell me you haven't come in contact with any other mutants the entire three years?"

Mattie shrugged and managed a small smile. "I guess I'm just not as popular as you," she responded. She had done her best to blend into human society as much as possible, cramping her wings against her back to look normal, wearing colored contacts over her unusually-pigmented irises, denying her reality at all times of the day except when she was training her flight. The truth was that she didn't want to be this...thing. She wanted to be human––just human, and nothing more.

"So," she went on, "you and Do––er, Jacob, you two go around town finding others and recruiting them to your...army...? And distributing some kind of wonder-drug to them? And you're going to go fight a bunch of brainwashed mutants."

She blinked.

"Okay. I just need to let that sink in."

"I understand," Nicholas said, resting his head against the pillow. He was already tired, and it was barely noon. The events from yesterday and today had already worn him out. The main relief, he figured, was that Mattie was okay. He couldn't believe he let her set him off like that. Enough to unconsciously shoot fire out of his hands. He shook his head slightly against the pillow.

"Grab that shard off of the counter and bring it to me, please," he said to her.

"Hm," she said. She got up and walked to the counter, gingerly picking up the shard. She turned it around in her hand, careful to avoid the jagged edges. There was no way a poison-covered rock could have just been lying where Nicholas had landed by pure coincidence. Her heart picked up just looking at it.

She strode back over and held it out toward him.

Nicholas silently thanked Mattie with a nod, taking the shard and holding it in front of him enough to examine it. It was obsidian, Jacob had been right about that. A smooth, carefully crafted piece of obsidian cut into a long-headed pyramid, fashioned so intricately so that it could rest on flat ground with the sharp edge pointing up. It was no coincidence that Nicholas had landed on it; it was a deliberate attack. Which meant there was an enemy on the opposite team, tracking them, with some such powers that he or she could have predicted or seen the exact spot where Nicholas and Mattie would have landed. His heart was racing, breathing heavy. Jacob was right. This was so much bigger than them. The most powerful member of their immediate team that had any type of future sensing abilities was Javier, and he could only see minutes in advance. Another mutant couldn't have had enough time to escape had they only been able to see minutes before Nicholas and Mattie landed. Not without Jacob seeing them.

The rock had an extremely faint glow around it, whispers of a bright blue floating around the shard. There was a symbol etched crudely into its surface. A symbol that Nicholas was unfamiliar with. A symbol that neither he nor Jacob, to his knowledge, had ever come in contact with. Whether or not the spirals were significant was unclear to Nicholas, but he figured that bringing it to his brother's attention could give them a lead as to who'd inadvertently attacked him. However, the blue glow was unsettling. Something not so scientific had been done to this weapon. Something almost magical. Even though he was a super mutant with wings who shot fire out of his hands and whose eyes glowed red when he was angry, Nicholas had never found himself believing there was a such thing as magic being involved in their reality. Now that this shard had come into his existence, he was doubting his beliefs.

"Look at this," he said, beckoning Mattie closer. "Look at this symbol. Look at the shard -- it's glowing. Have you...ever seen anything like this? We've seen some pretty screwed up stuff, but have you ever seen something like this?" His voice was awed, eyes glittering with anticipation in finding out where this shard came from, what the symbols meant, and what new information it might bring about.

The wound in his back was aching -- partly from the wound itself and partly from being dabbed with alcohol. The initial sting had, obviously, faded. Super mutants could endure a lot of pain, he'd come to find out. That was the lucky side of being so genetically twisted and abnormal, especially in situations such as these.

Mattie leaned forward to observe the symbol, which looked like some kind of Celtic spiral. Interesting, even pretty. And now that she looked closer, it seemed to be glowing, but whether that was a real observation or some kind of optical illusion she wasn't entirely sure. It certainly was a well-crafted weapon. Almost beautiful.

Nick seemed impressed with it too, despite the thing having actually stabbed him. She was glad they were on the same page, but also terrified of the prospect of finding out who had created or placed the shard.

"Well, I know that rocks don't normally glow," she said hesitantly. "Maybe we should just get rid of it. It's a little creepy."

Nicholas and Mattie both stared at the rock for a considerable amount of time, admiring its beauty and examining the symbol engraved into it. The spirals almost looked like they were moving, combined with the slithering curtain of blue glow circling around it. He held the weapon with a firm grip. It was an awkward position -- still lying on his stomach, gripping the rock in front of him.

"Maybe we should just get rid of it. It's a little creepy," Mattie said. Nicholas practically jumped out of his skin, hitting the rock against his chest over his heart and holding it there almost protectively.

"No!" he shouted, only realizing afterward that he had raised his voice. "No," he said, quieter, "We can't. It's obviously, uh, important."

"Oh. Uh...I guess," conceded Mattie with a cocked eyebrow. She'd been slightly startled by Nick's sudden outburst having not expected the response to be so strong. She hadn't given any appearance of being frightened: that had proven to be counterproductive, so she'd begun to make an effort at hiding gut reactions like that. Bluffing would be a powerful skill to have against other mutants if she managed to develop it enough, so she might as well start practicing now.

Still, it seemed weird that Nick had responded in the way he had. It wasn't...normal. It wasn't natural, to be so possessive of an attempted murder weapon. But she pushed this feeling to the back of her mind. It wouldn't help either of them to argue again.

So she flopped back onto the bed that was for the time being hers, and she wondered what to do. She couldn't possibly just go home and work and train again pretending that everything was business as usual. She saw no way to help the cause that Nick had apparently joined. She had no idea how to even verify that all this information was correct!

"Am I allowed to go outside...y'know, to take a walk or something?"

A breath was released, and Nicholas had relaxed with the rock. The sudden jerking of his frame had irritated the wound, and the pain was beginning to pick up again. He gently set the rock on the side table beside his bed. He wondered why he'd reacted the way he did, and why he felt so drawn to keep the rock -- the very thing that could have killed him had Jacob not been around. Because he doubted Mattie would have known what to do in that situation. It was irritating, not being able to lay on his back. He preferred being able to look around leisurely instead of staring at the headboard of the motel bed.

It surprised him a bit when Mattie asked if she was allowed to go outside. He didn't want her to think she was a prisoner, and he knew Jacob wouldn't want that either. He turned on his side to face her and said, "Yeah, I don't see why not. You don't have to stay here if you don't want to. Jacob was just making sure you were going to live." He paused and then added, "He'll be back soon with our food, so don't go too far...I mean, unless you don't want it. I get that. Just let me know if you go home. Okay? And be careful...there's no telling what's out there now. Or who."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna take food from him," said Mattie. "I mean, for all I know he's the one who put that freaky-ass rock out there where you'd fall on it. I don't even want you somewhere where he's living, but it wouldn't exactly be wise to move you. Anyways, I took care of myself just fine for three years with no run-ins with other mutants––I'll be fine out there." Seemed pretty logical to her. Based on her own experience, it seemed like freaks such as herself and Nick were few and far between.

She hesitated at the door and turned her head to look at him. He was so vulnerable, and she was just heading out for a stroll...

But she went anyway. She needed the air, and she needed to clear her head.

In the exact moment the door shut behind Mattie, Nicholas let out another breath with a slight groan. It was a bit odd to be alone now. Last night, he had slept on Mattie's couch, cuddling her. The nights before that, he was at least in the same room as Jacob for quite some time. He almost felt scared or panicked, being by himself, nobody to help if trouble did arise. However, trouble shouldn't arise. Then again, there had been a future-predicting super mutant that just tried to kill either him or Mattie or both. Nicholas wasn't quite sure what to think anymore. He now felt like he had upon first escaping the simulation -- confused on his reality.

But he reminded himself that his reality was this: he had super strength, super speed, super wits. He had survived this long without getting himself killed, and the whole time he'd barely known anything about his life other than what he'd experienced in the simulation. He was going to do just fine.

Then, before that thought could barely come into existence, the rock began to vibrate. The sudden sound startled Nicholas, and he looked at it incredulously, as if to say how dare it just suddenly start vibrating. The blue wisps that had been circling around the rock were now more visible and moving faster. It was a creepy but awing site, and Nicholas couldn't take his eyes off of the weapon. Even as a human figure began to rise out of it, like a spirit. He pushed himself into a painful sitting position, swinging his legs over the bed, preparing to run. "Mat-!" He tried to call out Mattie's name, but just like that, a hand was pressed over his mouth and he vanished.

On the other side of town, Jacob was having no trouble at the local McDonald's. In fact, he ordered his food and received it in record time, which was amazing considering every other establishment he'd been to had taken five years and three days to get his order correct and to him. As he neared the motel where he and Nicholas were staying, and now seemed to be harboring Mattie, if she decided to stay, he came upon said Mattie who was walking along the side of the road. He slowed his car to a halt beside her, less than half a mile from the motel.

"Hey, where's Nick?" he asked, eyebrow raised behind his sunglasses. "You just left him? You know he can't move, right?"

Mattie growled at the sound of Double-Fudge's voice and turned around swiftly. Her wings started to rise and spread, as if by reflex action, but she felt them beginning to lift her shirt and quickly folded them back up, neatly against her back. "Where do you think he is? He can't just get up and leave. Besides, what's the worst that could happen apart from having to look at you?"

These past two days just got worse and worse. First her deadbeat ex came back out of nowhere, then he'd grabbed her out of the sky, then they'd ended up with this poopy leaking asshole.

"And is it wrong to want to get outside?" she huffed. "What are you going to do, you Double-Fudge Oreo Filled With Lice, drown me?"