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Max watched as one by one the Underground began to leave the space. One of the newest members, Andy, attempted to get the frozen one out of the Sewers but it appeared she was too heavy. Jack grabbed them and took them out, Havok taking Saphire, Casper, James, Waverly, and Callie left soon after and Andy still stood before him. Max looked around the area, now clear of rubble, and noticed that Glimpse was nowhere to be found. He could hear the Underground calling something out behind him but it was hard to hear under the sounds of cracking stone that ground against each other. Max wanted to look around some more, check more rubble maybe she got separated like Veil had. But the more time they spent here the more clear it was they had to leave.

Massive bits had already began to fall down, narrowly missing many and almost hitting Callie as Veil deflected it off of her. Echos heart sank as he watched what happened, fear filling inside of him as he realized his sister wouldn't leave until the last ones were out. He loved her, and he respected her, but he couldn't allow that to happen. Too many things could come crashing down together and she could be separated, or crushed, or maybe even have the portal drop before she makes it. No. There were too many unknowns and Harry wasn't about to let that separate them. He did his best to hold onto the work he was doing, feeling Waverlys strain on him now as she was forced to leave, as he made his way towards his sister. "No more heroics for you, we're going."

Max jumped back as a few bits of debris fell around him, deciding there was no more time to waste here they had to go. Everything was crumbling down so far, he felt miserable about the decision but hopefully they would tell him Glimpse was safe, that she escaped somehow. Without thinking much more on it Max began running towards the portal. Avoiding the large clusters of stone that had already fallen, and making their way through a safe path as the sounds of groaning metal echoed behind them. He wanted to do one last support, one more archway or brace. One last heroic before he gave up. But he knew deep inside that it wouldn't help, he couldn't keep it all up alone and everyone was already filing out.

Harry took his sister's hand and bolted for the exit, seeing Max behind them with Andy and then never looking back again until they crossed the threshold into the Mutant Underground. As soon as they were in he pulled his sister close into a hug. Partially because he was glad she was ok, and in other parts to ensure she wouldn't leave. "I'm so glad you're ok. I just...I can't lose you too ok? I just can't. Please don't make me have to go through that. Don't make me lose my other half again." Tears streamed down his cheeks and onto hers as he continued to hold her, her vision facing away from the portal as he looked towards it to make sure Max made it in.

By now Maxs face was covered in grey dust from all the grounded stonework, patches of dark grey mud where it mingled with sweat and his hair was in strands sticking to his face. He made sure everyone went through first before finally making it in himself. Collapsing onto the floor of James room that was currently illuminated by his portal before the light vanished and the magic was gone. Everyone was back, everyone was relatively safe, and there was some hints of pride residing in Max as he lay there, Stranges student.

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Sapphire didn't really fight when Havok more or less seemed to drag her out of the area that they had been trapped in and more or less back to the main area of the Underground. Her mind was still wandering around and round in circles, so there wasn't much else she could really say with regards to the entire situation. Of course if she did choose to say anything at all it might not sound right or come out weird or something like that. Then again, she personally didn't think that she was loopy or anything at all despite what everyone else seemed to think.

"Nooooooope, I am perfectly fine. I don't have any screws loose!" she protested to Havok with regards to his comment. Of course, in the back of her brain she knew that was a lie, and she really didn't even know why she ended up acting like this really, but who cared? In the long run to her at the moment it seemed waaaaaaaaaay more fun to see things through the lens of insanity or something. Made dealing with the rest of the world a whole lot easier that was for sure. "Besides, popsicle first anyway then maaaaaaybe. Oh and she's goooooone, Glimpse left, good riddance if you ask me."

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Any sort of concern or misgivings that he had about his brother being okay went straight out the window based on his comments. Yeah, he was fine, that much was obvious, but his attention was partially diverted to the human popsicle he had brought back through. He really hoped that she wasn't dead or something like that, since that would just make this entire situation somewhat worse anyway. If someone ended up dead that is. Sapphire was acting really weird, like she was high on something, but he figured that there probably was a reason.

He went through a count of everyone after Callie asked about Glimpse, just now noticing that she wasn't with the group at all or something. Okay, well that's a bit concerning, since he had this thought of her being trapped underneath a large pile of rubble needing help. Sapphire said something, that she had left or whatever, but he wasn't too sure if he wanted to immediately believe the somewhat loopy person who also really hated Glimpse in the first place. Jack was wondering what had happened, and waited for the group to give some sort of response with regards to it.

Zari shrugged slightly when Sunshine asked about where it was that she was from again. "Not from the US that's for sure, your history here is mostly foreign to me, I just know the basics on a few things." She was being purposefully vague with regards to answering the question. She wasn't lying at all, every word in that sentence was true, she just didn't mention that she was from a different reality where the United States didn't even really exist anymore. Currently she was just thinking about what to do about the bomb.

"Sorry, just I've never tried to disarm a bomb at all, that sort of thing is foreign, but I'd happily try... If people want me to... Since it's something I've never done before well... It could end poorly and the thing goes kaboom anyway, so we'd need to make sure that if I do attempt it that the entire area is clear of people, so no one will be in any immediate danger should it blow up... I don't want anyone else getting hurt or sick either," she said, before glancing towards the direction that she heard voices indicating the others were back, "Do you want to head off to go see everyone else and we can tell them where the bomb is... Then they can figure out a plan for what to do."

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The Mutant Underground

Veil smiled wryly at her brother's overprotectiveness. It was a little bit bittersweet, having someone so worried about her. She returned her brother's hug, having dropped her force fields. She could feel him crying, she didn't need to visually confirm it. She hugged him a little tighter, hoping that it would calm him down. She had gotten used to things like this happening - she was almost a little numb to the danger and the violence. "Hey, you're not going to lose me," she reassured him quietly. "It'll take more than a few rocks to take me out."

Veil hesitated for a moment, not certain how much was a good idea to share about Glimpse at the moment. Morale was low, with the bomb threat and Stareyes' condition. They had been able to rally together for a rescue effort, and Veil didn't want to ask more of them - but at the same time, she didn't believe in withholding information. She wasn't like Xavier when it came to keeping secrets. "Glimpse killed a mutant in front of some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents," she explained quickly. "She did it to protect us from the Hellfire goons... and she decided to leave. Maybe her father can fix it for her, I don't know. I don't know if she got out before the collapse."

"Seriously, you sound worse the more you talk," Havok pointed out to Sapphire, raising an eyebrow. He had a hand on her shoulder, just to make sure that she didn't fall or anything with the way she was behaving.

Casper went straight after James (or rather, gayly after James?). He didn't know if James was going to hurl, if he had been injured, or what - everything had been completely insane but he knew that his boyfriend needed him. He found James on the floor and Casper knelt down next to him, wrapping his arms around him. He could feel the tension in James' body and even as his own head was swimming from fatigue, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that James was okay.

He rocked James gently, before singing softly a lullaby that his maman used to sing when he was sick. "À la claire fontaine, m'en allat promener, j'ai trouvé l'eau si belle, que je m'y suis baigné. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublerai," he sang softly. "Sous les feuilles d'un chêne, je me suis fait sécher, sur la plus haute branche, un rossignol chantait. Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublerai."

He didn't even consider that Max was in the room as well, just focusing on comforting James as best as he could.

Meanwhile in the entranceway, Sunshine nodded at Zarina. They really needed to go tell the others what was going on, at least the potential good news that they had. Zarina was being purposefully mysterious and Sunshine just didn't have the emotional bandwidth to press her about it at the moment. "Come on, then," she said, motioning for Greenie to follow her as she went up the stairs and found the others. She paused for a moment, seeing a human popsicle.

Her first thought was that Max did something horrible, but ice was more Sapphire's thing and Max tended to throw around fire. If there had been a crispy corpse in front of them, then it definitely would've been Max. She tilted her head slightly, trying to tell who exactly it was frozen in there - had Sapphire finally lost her cool on Glimpse? "Soooo you all clearly had fun. Greenie found the bombs, she thinks she can defuse them."

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Callie listened to Veil as she told the group what had happened to Glimpse and looked down for a moment letting out a slight sigh, if she was still in the collapsed sewers she was probably dead. Or killed by some trigger happy SHIELD agents, or she managed to escape without dying, or captured and taken out she had no idea. Callie turned to eye the ice cube that Kristina was sealed in and stared at James, she wasnt sure how much energy he had in him still to try that. And the other thing was how to thaw her out actually as well to, Sapphire seemed to be really out of it.

Callie knelt down next to James for a moment gently resting a hand on his shoulder and looked over at Sapphire. "I know you are really tired right now and this is a huge ask, if you have the energy could you try and heal her?" Callie asked while looking over at Sapphire unsure if she could actually thaw someone out. "Is it possible to try and thaw her out slowly while James heals her?" Callie asked, just as Sunshine and Zarina came up saying that they had found the bombs. At least that was some good news as she turned to look at Veil to see what she wanted to do about the bomb situation and their human popsicle.

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Waverley's eyes widened in horror when Sapphire so casually and nonchalantly said Glimpse was gone. Though her immediate assumption of the worst was quickly dissuaded by Sapph and then Veil. Not dead, just gone. Good. As the panic left her, so too did the energy that went into keeping her upright. She let herself crumple down to the cold hard ground with a deep sigh. Her eyes were barely open, but through her half-closed eyelids, she saw Casper and James holding onto each other on the ground next to her. Almost like a worm, she wiggled her body over to them, letting her body limply lean against Casper for support.

"I'm crashing your cuddles. Please don't make it weird," she mumbled, letting her eyes droop closed. They immediately opened as she heard her roommate call into the room with even more for them to do. She let out a high-pitched whining sound, lips puckering into a pout. "Ugggggghhhhh, I forgot about the stupid bomb. Can't DC save itself one fucking time...Alright, I guess we should go fix that. Thanks Sunshine, you're the bomb...wait, that was unfortunate phrasing, my bad."

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James barely registered everything around him, just cognizant enough to realize Casper crooned softly and James clung to him like a blanket. He felt like he was still in the sewers, the damp, humid air squeezing his lungs as the rubble crumbled down around them. His heart pounded in his ears, he couldn't catch his breath, lungs burning in protest, and the sobs broke out as something else touched him. He thought it was someone familiar, something about healing, but the thoughts shattered into pieces as just struggled to breathe.

The dread and the frustration and the fear settled hard and cold in his chest and he clutched at his boyfriend desperately, just wanting what ever this awful, horrible, sickly feeling was. He felt weak, his head spun, everything was too bright and too much and he shut his eyes against it all, despite the tears still pushing through, as he clung to the life line Casper offered. He tried to focus on the song but his thoughts cracked against and again and again beneath waves of panic and fear and it was all he could do to get one single word out, broken and stuttered and fragile.

"Help."

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Max tried to cough out the dust that felt like it had lodged itself into his lungs. Searching for a clean sleeve, or length of cloth on his new garb to wipe away the grey dust splotched across his lips. He watched as James sobbed on the floor, Casper holding him and Waverly joining to some extent. His hand twitched, wanting to reach out and comfort him like he had done so many times before. But the words never came, and he realized he had no idea how to fix this. Callie had asked for one last thing of James, causing a single word to escape him and touch Maxs heart. Help. That was all he needed, for someone to step up to the plate and help him remove some of the burdens he had to bear. "I can do it." His tone was short, and very matter of fact.

"Sapphires in no condition to help, and James has been needing to rest since this morning. He's over exerted himself and he needs our help now. So I'll do it." Max placed one hand on his knee to help prop himself up, moving towards the human popsicle and kneeling down besides her. "Dear gods, please let this work." It was a whisper, a silent prayer, as he was filled with fear of how he might be blamed if this went wrong. He took a slow breathe in, then exhaled. As his chest began to decompress, fire began to grow in the palms of his hands. He worked the flames around the ice, slowly melting it down until she was free of her cage. Max knew he had to work fast now, she was in critical condition, or why else would they have frozen her? The flames dissipated from his hands, turning into a golden light that surrounded them. He placed one hand on her forehead and another over her heart as he attempted to heal her. But the motions were two quick, and he too unskilled. It fizzled out and the golden light vanished. "No, no, no no, no ,no " Max tried again, sparks forming then finally a golden shimmer. The light went I to Stareyes, making her wounds glow as some began to stitch together. She wasn't fully healed, but she was stable

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Harry pulled away from the hug, nodding at his sister. Tears still decorating his cheeks. Hebwiped one away before he sniffled. Clearing his throat and listening to the knew information that was being given out. Glimpse's current situation was unknown, but if they didn't stop the bomb then it would be the same fate as all the other mutants in the area, Grim. He already had a plan in place to find and contact Glimpse after this was all over. After all he knew the world's best telepath and he had a way with finding wayward mutants. If he could at least tell him she was safe, that would be enough. "Right, so we're down a telepath and an engineer. But that's no reason to fret. James I think it's best if you stay behind and get some rest. Or at the very least sleep on the car ride there."

Harry looked about the room, trying his best to figure something out. Anything out really. They were already down so many players and the game hadn't even begun. "Zari what do we know about these bombs? Would an EMP shut them off? Or worse trigger them? What's your idea for taking them out and does that require us to get close to it? If so where can we find them? Callie if EMP is an option we may need you on standby to set off a blast if things go wrong. Can you do that? Sunshine, how confident are you in being able to contain an explosion of disease? It doesn't have to be for long, just keeping it centralized in one spot long enough for Max to shunt it away or something. Waverly, how do you feel about working with Zari in trying to defuse rhe bomb. I'm not sure where your talents end and hers begin, but perhaps together you can fill in missing pieces of each other. Much like the tunnels we have to work together, we are strongest then."

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Andy stood off to the back. She couldn't help here. She didn't even have an idea of what to do to stop the bombs. She knew how to use a computer but that was for things like the internet, not finding and defusing bombs. She couldn't heal. She couldn't do anything but punch things and kill them. Would Veil kick her out if she killed someone? Andy looked down at her hands. This wasn't really the place for her was it? She was going to have to decide soon if she wanted to stay with this group. Veil had offered it, but would she if she knew the truth about her?

She watched nervously as Max started healing Stareyes. If he failed she didn't know what would happen. Stareyes said she was sisters with someone in SHIELD. Her thoughts paused, if Stareyes survived could she call her sister and tell her about the bombs? Would they care?"If Stareyes survives...maybe she can ask her sister for help? Explain the situation to her and get more people involved in saving the city." The task seemed so big and even Harry didn't have something for her to do to help.

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"Wow ruuuuuuuuuuude!" Sapphire said to Havok with a bit of an eye roll. So mean to her, it wasn't entirely her fault that her brain wasn't wanting to work quite right, it was because she had frozen someone as in cryogenically. If she had been using her powers to try to kill someone or something, it likely wouldn't have happened. Then again, that was not a thought that she wanted to have no matter how loopy she was. That was not something she'd ever joke about no matter what other people seemed to think with regards to her.

Her attention turned slightly (even though she was having trouble focusing) towards Max as he said she wasn't in any shape to potentially help. "Why won't anyone believe me when I say I'm fiiiiine!" she protested with a slight giggle. "I'm not useless or anything!" Of course, a part of her knew that was a lie. Her brain or something in her head was messed up, what exactly? That was something she wasn't entirely sure about. All she knew was that something snapped, whatever it was probably was something important.

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Jack was glad for the most part that everyone was okay, and now they had to deal with the other thing, the sort of elephant in the room, that being the explosive that was threatening to blow in the city. That likely wasn't going to end well, that much he did know for a fact, even though explosives were kind of waaaaaay over his head in terms of how they really worked. Aside from the obvious thing of they tended to go boom. Other then that, disarming one sounded like it would be incredibly difficult something to do.

Zari came walking into the area, and despite the obvious thing being that everyone was tired. She was definitely annoyed now. She hadn't been in the best mood before (hence her snapping at Callie earlier) and here now, she was sort of being ignored. Well kind of anyway, as Waverly was saying good job or whatever to Sunshine, and ignored the fact that she was the one who had caused them to locate the bombs in the first place. "Right, tell her good job or whatever and totally ignore the fact that I'm the one who found the bombs thanks!" she snapped slightly directing her annoyance at Waverly.

"Hey just calm down a little bit, you found the bomb, or bombs plural, that's great, where exactly are they or whatever?" Jack asked her, figuring it might be a good idea to just switch to a subject or whatever to stop Zari from getting clearly even more annoyed. The girl was a bit weird, so was it really all that surprising for her to start snapping? She had seemingly gotten annoyed not too long ago for something else completely random which he still wasn't entirely sure about what had happened.

"I don't know really much about bombs what do I look like a bomb defusal expert? I'm a hacker and robotics person, not bombs. What I do know basically is that bombs if you aren't careful tend to go kaboom. I can't tell you a lot about it since we aren't even near the bombs or whatever. I can't tell you about it until we get there. Now there were a bunch of smaller ones sort of zipping around in repeated patterns, but I think we might be more interested in the other one, at some place that Sunshine called the Lincoln Memorial."

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Waverley was hovering. She hated to admit it, but she was. The moment that she saw Sunshine was safe, she didn't leave her side for the hours after. She'd feel better about it were her roommate as emotional as she was, but as it turned out, she was seemingly unshaken by the experience. Waves did her best to not seem like she was freaking out, but she was the kind of girl who held her heart on her sleeve. She was quite certain she held the MU record for most breakdowns, at least in their division of the Underground.

Eventually, when Sunshine's attention was directed away from Waverley, leaving the girl awkwardly standing at her side, she realized how weird she was being. She figured it'd probably be best for her to detach for a while. She didn't want the girl to think Waverley was just trying to be another overprotective adult trying to be some sort of mentor, because she wasn't. There was only a year's difference between the two, and Waverley knew she had a lot to learn before she was ready to teach anyone. Besides, what Sunshine needed was a friend. So Waverley sheepishly slinked back, trying to figure out where to go from there, when she saw Zarina off not too far away. She suddenly felt a pang of awkward guilt for the way she'd brushed off her offer of answers to questions that Waves found still floated about her head. So she let her feet awkwardly shuffle their way over to the younger girl, stopping a few feet away from her.

"Uh, hey Z. Sorry about earlier, with the whole...not taking you up on the questions thing. Does your offer still stand?" Waverley bashfully asked, standing just far enough away that she didn't feel like she was intruding.

Zari was just sitting off by herself when Waverly walked up, she had Mr. Jaws in her hand and a screwdriver that she was using to tinker with the robotic head. Hearing Waverly's words she glanced up slightly and shrugged her shoulders. "I mean sure, I have nothing better to do at the moment aside from mess with Mr. Jaws," she said, setting down the robotic head and screwdriver, "So what questions do you have?"

"Oh, uh, well, there are kind of a lot," Waverley admitted, relaxing a bit as she stepped closer to the girl, having been given permission to intrude. She had to pause a moment to arrange her thoughts. They'd been through so much since meeting Zarina that Waverley didn't really have a good grasp on what Z had and hadn't revealed about herself. "Okay, let's start simple: where are you from, and why are you still with us? I mean, if you have a family, why not be with them?"

"Oh, the first isn't simple, the second part is easy. I want to go home... But I can't, not yet anyway... There's something I have to do first and people are counting on me to complete the job that I've set out to do."

"Okay, I guess we can come back to that first one later," Waverley mumbled with a nod, absorbing what the girl was saying. "And what is it you're here to do? If you don't mind me asking."

"Not entirely sure yet," she said with a bit of a shrug, "All I know is that it is really important, the details or whatever are a bit hazy."

Waverley couldn't help but let out an amused snort at the nonanswer. It wasn't directed at Zarina, of course, but she couldn't help but find the practically palpable air of uncertainty that surrounded the girl a little funny. It was as if she was as much an enigma to herself as she was to the rest of them. "Wow, um...I see. So it sounds like all this mystery that surrounds you isn't gonna be something you're able to just...explain to us. So...what can you tell us? You're half Asgardian, and you've been trained by the Valkyries...anything else lifechanging?"

"I mean, there are a few other things about me that are weird," she mused slightly, seemingly debating about what to potentially tell her. "Not sure if I want to say anything else about that though, since it is a bit complex, convoluted and confusing."

"Oh, I can handle complex. I understood almost everything in Twin Peaks! ...Well, the original, anyway. The more recent one went way over my head, since they kinda let David Lynch off his leash and allowed him do whatever he wanted, so - sorry, nevermind that, point is, I'll try to understand if you want to talk about it. But if you don't that's fine too." Waverley had to cut her own rambling off, keeping herself from going into a completely unprovoked pop culture rant.

"...What's Twin Peaks?" she couldn't help but ask, before shaking her head slightly. "Alright if you think you can handle it okay here goes... My mom and dad aren't originally from this reality, actually they are from an alternate reality in the multiverse with the designation of Earth 257, which also is where I'm from. My mother when she was born got sent through and was adopted here in this reality and my father, considering my aunt the goddess of love told him that his soul mate despite being a baby had been sent here, followed through. Eventually they ran into each other while they were assigned to the same SHIELD team. Actually the same team that they are on right now... And on October 27, 2021... I was born, and they decided to raise me in their home reality..."

"...Huh..." Waverley mumbled. She went quiet for a solid minute, processing what Zarina had said. It was admittedly...a lot. But oddly enough, she believed her. After all, in the course of living with the Underground, she'd made plenty of mind-blowing discoveries she never would've believed a year ago. Eventually, she slowly nodded. "I see...And...how did you get here?"

"My watch," she said, holding it up to her. It looked like just a completely normal watch, didn't even have a digital face or anything fancy like that really. "Might not look like much now, but watch," Zari added, before she seemed to tap rather quickly a little rhythm on the clock face. A second later a holographic display popped up, almost like a little mini computer. "Tada! Time traveling and reality hopping wrist watch that looks completely normal otherwise!"

"Woah..." Waverley stared at aw at the device, eyes as wide and excited as a kid in a candy store. She lowered her face, taking a closer look at the thing. She let her mind float out towards it, expecting to find strange and new waves emitting from it, but instead finding relatively normal ones, the kind you might find in really any device. "Huh...I was expecting it to be blowing up with wibbly wobbly timey wimey signals, but...it feels pretty normal," she said, her shoulders slumping a bit.

"Why would it give off strange signals or whatever?" Zari asked, a little bit confused now. "I mean, radio wave wise this is just as normal as everything else, since time travel and reality hopping doesn't exactly leave behind radiation, at least not in the way the watch works. Any minor inconsistencies with the signals would still be in the same portion of the electromagnetic spectrum."

"You're right, I dunno what I was expecting. I guess some feeling as...unfathomable as time travel," Waverley muttered, eyes still glued on the device. "Sooo...you're a time traveler. That's cool. But you don't know...why? Like, there's no future Hitler baby you gotta kill, or a coffee shop you gotta blow up to stop it from becoming an evil omnipresent corporation? No time quest stuff like that?"

"I am on a quest! Actually so in my time and reality that I grew up in, there is a place on Earth called New Asgard. Since from what I know in my reality Asgard got destroyed or something like that and so all of the Asgardians live there now... Anyway the Norns are still a thing, and they basically state prophecies and send heroes off on quests and whatnot! I only so far figured out part of the one that they gave me, so it isn't much but eh... I'll figure out the rest eventually probably..."

"Oh, sick, a prophecy? That explains why you're kinda lost as to what to do next, those are always vague as hell. Maybe I can help! I read a lot of YA fantasy when I was a kid, so I think I know my shit when it comes to prophetic riddles," Waverley chirped, snapping back up and turning her attention back towards Zarina instead of the watch.

Zari shrugged slightly, before pulling out her notebook and flipping it open. Waverly could easily see that it wasn't written out in English, that much was obvious. "Granddaughter of the faded light and dead spring flowers, To save thyself thou shall run through sand to where time begins again,Thou must beware Rome's priestess, dark and dour. Alone to perish in Genosha's glen,To Waves or Staff the world must fall, Legacy of the Wanderer, you must save us all," she recited out loud, before looking at Waverly again. "Part of the reason when Magneto showed up and attacked the Underground or whatever, and he mentioned Genosha I was kind of interested in that... Since clearly I have to go there..."

Waverley's eyes widened a bit at the mention of Genosha, letting out an audible, "Oh shit." She absorbed the prophecy, letting it stew in her mind as she nodded her head. "Yeah, yeah, I heard about Genosha. Havok's metalbender gal pal tried to indoctrinate me. They basically wanna make a little paradise where all mutants can live in peace, and they're willing to do anything to make that happen. But what do they have to do with your quest?" Waverley pondered, raising the tip of her thumb to her teeth and chewing on it a bit. She went onto ponder the rest of the riddle for a moment, before continuing.

"If this prophecy were in teen adventure story, this is how it'd go down: first part, time travel here, which you've already done. Then you'd discover that there's a statue of a priestess in Rome that hid a secret passage into a system of dark and dour tunnels, where you'd find...some artifact that you'd then have to bring to Genosha's glen before the world ended, which, according to the prophecy, happens because of 'waves or staff'...maybe that refers to global warming? Like the staffs of corporations throwing away our planet and the waves of the melted icecaps flooding the land? Or maybe a water wizard? I dunno, that part's kinda hazy..." Waverley's rambling trailed off, ending in a half shrug. "But this isn't a YA novel, so that's probably not at all right."

"...I don't think that's what it is at all, since that doesn't make much sense to me, even less then the actual prophecy itself does... Plus how would something like that effect me? Since no offense, but I didn't grow up in this reality, I grew up in a different one. So it clearly has to do with me saving my own existence and maybe this reality too. So unless something like that gets screwed up in the next few months, then I'm still going to be born and actually exist..."

"Yeah, that's fair...sorry for rambling, I forgot how much I missed teen lit," she said with a snort, before her expression softened a bit. "Well, if it makes you feel better, I think you're safe. We had our own run-in with time travel. Long story short, Jack went back and did the hanky panky with some woman, had a daughter, came back, and found out Sunshine was that daughter. Now, I'm not a scientist, but I think the fact that Sunshine existed before Jack went back means that, like, time's kinda set in stone or something."

"...That's a bit odd... But that's completely different, time is fluid and constantly changing, one little ripple could change everything and I could just not exist. Like say I don't succeed or whatever and it results in my mom dying okay? Think about it. It's not the time paradox that is concerning, it's me failing somehow and then if either of my parents die or whatever I might not even be born in the first place. Since with that situation, it only would have mattered if Jack had died before he time traveled back in time, because of stuff. It's a bit confusing but no, I am not safe just because I'm here now."

"Maybe, I guess. Either way, I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry," Waverley replied with a noncommittal shrug. She'd assumed that the fact that Sunshine hadn't just blipped into being after Jack went back in time meant that time was stagnant. But perhaps the laws of time were everchanging, that they might be set in stone at parts and wobbly at others, like an old, rickety bridge. Or perhaps the rules were simply different for Zarina, since she came from another reality. She didn't dwell on it for long; if shows like time travel media taught her anything, it was that time was unknowable, so she quickly shrugged it off. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help with your Timequest. Maybe if we ever catch a fucking break, we can rope the rest of the Underground in on it too."

"...Actually can we just not tell anyone else? I'd prefer it to be kept quiet... I told Veil partially about it, but that's about it..." Zari responded. Truthfully she didn't really want to tell too many people with regards to it, mentioning that she was from the future or anything. One, it got to be a bit confusing, and two it wasn't something she felt like everyone should know.

Waverley's eyebrows popped a little in surprise, but she quickly gave a nod. "Sure, of course. Consider my lips sealed," she said, before straightening up, looking like she was preparing to leave Zarina to her own devices, quite literally in the case of the young gadgeteer. "Well, thanks for trusting me enough to talk about your Timequest, it's certainly been...enlightening. I should probably head back to Sunshi-" Waverley stopped midsentence, and the lightbulb going off in her head was practically visible behind her eyes. "Actually...there's been something I've been wanting to try, as sort of a gift to the Underground, and I think you might be able to help me with it, if you've got a little extra time on your hands."

"Depends on what it is, I might be able to help, what is it?"

"I don't know if you've been told what we usually do when shit isn't, y'know, constantly hitting the fan, but usually we help mutants find a life for themselves away from the bigotry that seems to be sown into the soil of this country," Waverley began, chewing on her lip as she tried to work out how exactly to explain this to Zarina. "We're happy to do it, and we all know how important it is, but...the trouble is that we never really get to see the fruits of our labors. So...I was thinking we could try to change that. Between the two of us, I think we could set up some sort of video call with some of the mutant's we've helped along the way. Just to...just to remind everyone that what we do is worth doing."

"Huh, doesn't sound like it would be too hard... I mean we'd need a TV or something like one that we could probably set up so that everyone could you know, see the screen... But other then that we should be fine with it. Sounds like it might be a bit of fun, and a challenge maybe."

Waverley immediately perked up at Zarina agreeing to help her, her lips splitting into a wide grin and hopping to her feet in excitement. "I mean, we don't need a flat screen or anything. Even just a laptop would work if people crowded around it, and I'm sure we have one around somewhere. C'mon, we've got work to do." Waverley chirped, holding out a hand to help the younger girl up. With that they were off, the pair of them hyperfocused on their newfound task and what they'd have to do to complete it.

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If there was one thing Waverley had learned about the Mutant Underground, it was that movement was perhaps the only constant. Not just in a broad sense, jumping from HQ to HQ when each was inevitably was compromised, but also on a personal level. Rest, true rest, was rare and oftentimes polluted by her own frantic mind. And yet, as she found herself in the shoddy kitchen of the Underground holding a cup of water, she found a small sliver of peace. With Sunshine's disappearance and subsequent reappearance, the turmoil in the tunnels, and now her project with Z, she couldn't resist the urge to let her mind melt to relaxed mush as soon as she was alone for more than a minute. So she let herself lean against the counter, her eyelids limply fallen over her eyes as she held the cup to her forehead, cooling off the skin still slick with stress-induced sweat.

Harry hadn't been able to find the time nor the words to speak to Waverley. He had wanted to say something back in the sewer tunnels but any thought got choked up in his throat and tangled in a knot. After that it just felt like she had been busy doing one thing or two next. As the night began to calm Harry made his way up towards the kitchen, needing a glass of water to help clear his throat from all the kicked up dust as well as to cool off his mind. When he'd walked in he stopped for a moment, noticing Waverly in there leaning over the counter having much a similar idea. He knocked on the doorframe to grab her attention. "Mind if I join you?" He asked as he leaned against the open doorway, resting his weight onto his left shoulder.

As the voice called out into the kitchen, Waverley's head flopped up away from her cup, her eyes lazily fluttering open to see Echo standing there in the doorway. She gave a small nod, making a welcoming gesture that almost looked noncommittal due to her exhaustion. "Be my guest. Zarina's nice and all, but I think it might do me some good to be around someone who isn't a super genius for a few minutes...no offense," Waverley replied, letting out a deep sigh as she finally brought the cup of water to her lips.

Harry propped himself off of the doorframe and made his way into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with water before finally sitting down. He stared into the cup almost as if he was searching for answers that never came. "No offense taken." He ran his thumb against the rim of the glass, a soft melodic sound resonating from it before he finally stopped and took a sip out of his drink. He fought about how best to approach this subject, not wanting to detract from anything he had said previously or make it seem as though he had any bias. There was silence, and then he cleared his throat. "You know...the first time I met you...well all of you...it was dark for all of us. I didn't fully understand why it was that my sister was here, what was so important. I was so blind to so many things... But then I met you guys and you've all, especially you, shown me just how much I hadn't seen. I just...I hate that it took losing my fiance for me to see it all." Harry didn't dare meet Waverly's eyes just yet, staring still into his cup back at his reflection hoping to see a better man. His voice was low, barely a whisper like a man choking back tears to clear out his mind of weight that's plagued him.

The exhaustion in her eyes quickly found itself accompanied by sympathy as Echo began to talk, her eyes pulling away from their position staring at a wall to instead look his way. She would've usually took a few moments to soak in the validation he was dealing out, but he was clearly hurting. Instead, she let out a deep sigh that filled the silence that his words gave way to, her eyes shifting to the floor for a moment. She stepped forward, closing what little distance the cramped kitchen allowed, and let a comforting hand fall onto his shoulder. "You have to give up everything for the Underground. The less you have, the easier it is to do...I don't think anyone blames you for having someone you needed to hold onto. You're here now, that's what matters."

Harry placed his hand over hers, finally looking up to meet her eyes. He gave her a weak smile as he shook his head. "You are so much stronger than I am. When I first met you, well, if he had given me that choice, asked me what he asked you...I would've taken it. I would've taken anything to bring her back but...in a way I have her here with me now." Harry placed the cup down onto the counter and pulled out a photo from his wallet. He stared at the image for a moment before turning it so Waverly could see. It was the picture of a Fae, his late fiancé. "Not shown there are her beautiful wings that seemed to glisten in the light. You remind me so much of her, like a daughter she never had but would've loved to the ends of the earth. She kept me grounded, made sure my morals were aligned and most of all she made me who I am today. I'm not a hero, I'm not meant to lead or be great. I'm just a musician here to make sure his little Val is safe and somewhere along the line...well...somewhere along the line you showed me that I was so much more than that. Just like how Fae lit a fire in me and made me wish I was a better person."

Waverley went quiet at the mention of Max's proposition. It felt like it'd happened so long ago, much longer than it had actually been. She tried not to think about it when she could help it; she was worried any thought of it would drain her willpower until she eventually gave into the tempting proposal. She let her attention snap to the picture Echo held out, like a mental life preserver, and she leaned in closer, holding the bottom corner between her thumb and forefinger. "She's beautiful...and she sounds amazing. She clearly meant a lot to you." She was quiet for a few seconds, before letting go of the picture and straightening back up. "I-...I'm flattered, but...that was all your sister. If it weren't for her, I'd still be a kid leaking footage of police brutality to my thirteen subscribers trying not to think about college applications. She has this ability to turn whatever fuckup lands in her lap into a hero. It's- I mean, quite frankly it's remarkable. She's remarkable, the most remarkable person I've ever met. Anything you see in me comes straight from her," Waverley deflected, a small smile taking over her lips as she talked about her mentor. While there had been good in Waverley when she joined the Mutant Underground, she'd always felt that it was largely Veil who'd sculpted it and turned it into something that could actually help the world.

Harry couldn't help but chuckled at Waverlys response. Though he agreed that Veil had the gift to mold heros out of anyone, it was because she was capable of bringing out what was already there and refining it into something more. Unlike him, Waverly didn't seem to take compliments easily. Having deflected them towards another instead of seeing the potential she has within herself. "Trust me, I know just how remarkable she is. Though I'm sure she'd still run and hide if she heard me singing 'Valerie', not that it'd do any good seeing as how it's my song of choice to find her even while cloaked. The point is is I can recognize her work, I can see what it is she's done and I am telling you that as much as she has helped you, you've made it that much easier for her to do so. There is such an innate strength and willingness to do good in you that act makes people want to be helped. That's what a hero needs. Someone who can bring reassurance in times of need, to ease the pain or worry by simply being there and having the conviction to do so. And you've got it. You took yours powers and used it to leak police videos, and do good. I took all my years at Xaviers and made them into a laser lightshow to make money playing music." Harry shifted his weight onto his right foot, giving Waverly a cursory glance before offering her a smile. "There's more to you than you think."

Waverley let her hand slip off Echo's shoulder, instead dropping to her glass and bashfully rubbing away a smudge that wasn't there. The sheer amount of compliments he was dumping onto her was a little overwhelming. She was more used to getting validation little bits at a time, nibble by nibble, so this complete compliment onslaught caused her to lower her head meekly and go quiet for a moment. "Y'know, you sound just like her. She said almost the exact same thing when I decided to sit out on my first big mission," she finally said, a small smile stretching across her face. She was quiet for a few more seconds, before giving a stiff, reluctantly gracious nod. "Thank you, Echo. I...I wish I could see me the way you and your sister do."

To an extent Harry should've expected that Veil might have said something similar to Waverly when they first met. They really were twins after all, and even past that they could both see what lay in this meek purple haired Mutant. His lips were slightly agape in a show of small shock before finally curling into a grin before Harry started chuckling. "Of course she did. Always beating me to the punch that one. But she was right you know? I haven't been here much but you've grown so much in the time I have been, I can only imagine how much more you can in the future. Don't diminish your accomplishments, however small, relish in them and know you are becoming a better you. And if along the line you mess up, make a mistake, that's ok. Everyone makes mistakes, it's having to learn from them that's important."

Waves' head bobbed up and down in a series of small nods, bashfully averting her gaze, as though to look at the source of all these kind words would be like looking into the sun, like it would blind her. Oddly enough, she looked more like she was being scolded than praised, with her eyes cast down towards the ground. Still, despite appearances, the words were burrowing themselves into her, causing a light warm feeling to spread out from her chest. "...Thank you. I'll try not to, but...diminishing my accomplishments is kinda my go-to. It's a middle child thing, I think," she replied, giving a small chuckle as she awkwardly rubbed her arm with her free hand.

Harry gave Waverly a very paternal look. The kind that a father would give to signify that they're concerned. He pulled her into a hug and held her for a few seconds before letting go. "Hey I'm a twin, I get it. I mean think of just how difficult it must of been for poor little Val having such a fabulous twin to live up to? Why the granduer, the pizzazz alone! But in all seriousness I understand. And I also know it can't change overnight. But little by little, step by step, I will be here to help you make the way. Know there is a shoulder to lean on, and I'm more than certain that most anyone else in the Underground is willing to lend their too. So chin up, stay strong, and remember that your heart beats to a greater song."

Waverley's shoulder's rose up around her neck as she suddenly felt the feeling of Echo's arms around her thin and stringy body, causing her whole body to tense up. After a moment, she awkwardly returned the embrace. Her shoulders dropped when the young man released his grip on her, and she snickered at his comment regarding Veil. Her lips then softened to a more grateful smile as Echo continued on, her eyes mostly staring at the floor, though they took infrequent breaks to glance up and make eye contact. She filed away Echo's rhyme for later; he really was a musician, with rhymes like that. "Thank you, Echo. It really does mean a lot."

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They were running on a clock, but no one was going to be able to perform at 100% without some rest first, James especially. Veil didn't know really how to relax and be patient in this situation. Most of the things they did were rushing around, it was rare that they would stay still with an impending doomsday situation. Professor X was proving impossible to reach, and at this point, Veil had to wonder how much of that was willful - that if Xavier never responded, then the X-Men couldn't fail to stop the X-Cutioner. She was currently pacing back and forth in the training room, deep in thought and riddled with anxiety.

Sapphire was looking for Veil, there were a few things that they really needed to talk about. Namely, at the moment, it was because she was having some problems mentally at the moment. She was having problems getting her powers to work right or do anything that she actually wants them to, aside from that shield she really managed to do earlier, and somehow freezing Kris and keeping her alive that way. Something that she still had a bit of a headache from, as if her brain had broken or something. It didn't matter now though, as she found Veil in the training room, walking into the room. "Hey there Veil," she said to her as she watched her friend pace back and forth.

"Feeling better?" Veil asked hopefully. She didn't know everything that had happened down in the tunnels with Sapphire, only that she had somehow reverted to the mental state of a child. But given the lack of giggling and snowflakes, she figured that Sapphire was feeling better - which was good, as if things went wrong putting the bombs on ice was going to be one of several backup plans. There were too many bombs for them to be able to go in with just one strategy to handle them, too many chances for it to all go wrong.

"I have a massive headache, but I'll live. It was super weird, like a small part of my brain kind of broke or something like that... Super weird, but odds are I hopefully am not going to do do something like that again since ow... If we were still in an actual combat situation then that likely wouldn't have ended well..."

"Yeah, I'm not going to pretend to understand what happened either," Veil admitted. "I never paid attention during X's psychic awareness lectures - probably should have, but c'est la vie," she shrugged. She bit her lip slightly though. Her mind was still analyzing over and over again their situation and what Xavier's motivations were. The more she thought about her upbringing, the more she realized she was still one of Xavier's child soldiers even now.

"...Are you okay Veil?" she decided to ask her friend, it was obvious that something was bugging her.

"Do you think X is actually a good person?"

"I don't know, I've never met the guy really or interacted with him at all, hard to tell just based on what I've heard on most things. Why?"

"All of this... It isn't sitting right with me," Veil admitted. "He tells us to not get involved in superheroics, but then sends us to deal with the Hounds more or less. He gives us M-Pox cures, but only if we'll go walk into a trap. And now, when the X-Cutioner is holding every mutant in DC hostage, he's conveniently unavailable... as if he expects a tragedy to happen and doesn't want to tarnish the X-Men name."

"Well I honestly don't know what to tell you." she said with a shrug, "I mean who knows really..."

Veil sighed, but she nodded. It was a heavy question that would just lead to more questions. And right now, they needed to be focused and certain. Anything less than that could end in tragedy. They could decide what to do about Xavier another day, but the mutants of DC couldn't afford to wait for a philosophical debate. "Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

"...It's a bit complicated... And a conversation in which I'd rather be talking to you as my best friend and not as the leader of the Underground, okay? So throw that out of your mind or whatever."

"Yeah, of course," Veil answered, her eyebrows furrowed. She was trying to instinctively guess what it was that Sapphire wanted to raise, but she was drawing blanks - unless this was going to somehow be about Havok, but Veil sincerely doubted that. "What is it?"

"It's uh," she started to say, but she was at a loss for words. It was hard for her to actually say anything for once, since usually she didn't have any problems whatsoever with speaking her mind. Then again, she also was horrible when it came to talking about her emotions in anyway. "...I've been having problems," she admitted. Of course, her saying that could mean a million different things, but problem was it was hard for her to find the right words to describe what was going through her head.

Veil tilted her head ever so slightly - had it not been a serious conversation, she would have pointed out that Sapphire needed to be more specific. They all had problems, countless problems - one of which was the ticking clock. "What kind of problems?'

Yeah, she knew that she wasn't being very specific, but it bought her a little bit of time to figure out a better way to answer. "I mean, every time I've done anything or even tried to, most of the time things seem to get made worse or something goes horribly wrong because of what I end up doing or something like that... It's hard to really explain what's wrong..." she said somewhat softly.

Veil nodded, listening to her friend's plight. "You're a perfectionist, Sapphire. And you're being too hard on yourself. If it hadn't been for you, Stareyes would have died."

"But others have died because of me," she said softly, referring to what had happened with Cayden before, since that was something that still haunted her, and it was something that still messed with her and she thought of it as something that she could have prevented.

She shook her head. "We can't control what other people do - the people who pull triggers on innocents and don't care about the consequences. All we can do is try and save as many people as we can... and sometimes, that isn't everyone."

"You say that, but my brain doesn't think that and never has. The only thing I ever seem to be good at is hurting people more then helping people..."

"Your words have power, Sapphire. Even if you may hear a little voice telling you that you can only hurt people, it isn't true. And you shouldn't let that voice have power over you. Only you can decide who you are and what your worth is."

"If you say so..."

Veil fell silent. She couldn't help Sapphire if Sapphire didn't want to be helped. The most that she could really do was listen and be supportive, to try to be there for her.

"I keep just seeing only every time I screw up. For instance I keep seeing Cayden's face, when he essentially died in my arms and I couldn't do a damn thing about it... Actually what I ended up doing probably made things worse rather then helped that entire situation. When Magneto attacked, I got trapped in my own head and couldn't do anything and couldn't help at all really. Then I could have ended up killing her when I froze her, I didn't know it would work, hell might as well not have done anything anything since we probably would have gotten the same result probably if I hadn't done anything..."

Veil nodded, listening to what Sapphire was saying. She felt horrible for her friend, and she didn't have all the answers. She knew that she couldn't fix Sapphire's problems for her, that the best she could do was be supportive. "I'm sorry. That's really rough," Veil said softly.

"I don't know what to do..."

"Have you thought about therapy?" Veil asked

"Contemplated it once," she responded with a bit of a laugh, "But when would I have time for therapy exactly?"

”Maybe when this is over, it’ll be time for a break. You can’t help other people if you don’t take care of yourself, you know - and with how X has been lately, maybe it’s time for us to split off from the larger Mutant Underground and try our own thing for once.”

"Maybe... We'll see since we still might be busy or something like that."

”Your well being is more important than whatever we might be up to, Sapphire, I mean it.”

"If you say so Veil, if you say so."

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Andy had taken a shower after traipsing through the sewers, and then found a quiet place to think. The easiest solution was the room she shared with Zari and Stareyes. Andy had gotten into the habit of thinking of Kristin as Stareyes after their encounter with SHEILD. It was odd to think of everyone by codenames, but she kind of liked it. Even if she wasn't too happy with her codename. Havok hadn't helped with that. She sighed and laid down on her bed. Was this what she wanted? Fighting instead of running. What all did the MU do? So far it had been fighting some really tough enemies. Heck, she had never expected to meet Magneto in her life and here he had been pulling down the roof over their heads.

Zari was currently tinkering with Mr. Jaws in their room too. Though she was at least doing so relatively quietly as she sat there with a screwdriver and was just tinkering away. It let her own mind wander to all of the chaos that had been going on lately, but the nice thing about her gadgets was that it was rather calming to her to mess with them. For the moment she was more or less somewhat ignoring Andy, though she was debating about whether or not to say something to her to be nice.

The tinkering noises Zari was making weren't annoying. Strangely Andy found them comforting. It was a sound that meant someone else was there. She considered trying to make conversation. Anything she could ask seemed invasive, or just about MU and what their group had been up to when they split up. She didn't want to talk about MU stuff. Zari was from another world and didn't know much about B-Movies which were one of Andy's interests. "Do you need help with anything?" She finally asked. "I don't know much about computers and technology but I can provide a spark of electricity if you need one." She propped herself up on her elbow, so it was tucked under her. Her damp hair pulled out of her face, but loose.

"I don't think so... Typically I can keep the power going through the circuits, however if there is a power surge a little zap of electricity might help a bit..." she said, looking over towards Andy now. "So... How are you doing?" she asked her, figuring that she might at least try to make some conversation.

"Well let me know if you ever need that zap." Andy gave Zari a crooked smile. "I'm doing alright." She looked down at her hands and the smile dropped. The day had been harrowing. "I don't know if this is the place for me. They were really upset with Glimps, which I get since she killed people in front of SHIELD agents, but I..." She trailed off realizing she was about to get really personal with someone she barely knew.

"SHIELD isn't so bad... I mean yeah, she killed someone in front of them and that sort of thing from what I'm seeing is kind of frowned upon, and usually, the response tends to be more violence, which honestly I'm used to... My mom is in SHIELD... And it's okay to not know where you belong, in all honesty, I kind of know the feeling... I'm a bit of an oddball, even by the standards of where I grew up, which if it wasn't obvious... Well isn't here."

"I don't know much about SHIELD. Just that if you get caught breaking the law around them as a mutant you end up in super max." She shivered a bit at the thought. "And I don't mind you being an oddball. I think you're interesting. Me... I'm just an orphan." She shrugged.

"There is nothing wrong with that either... Everything happens for a reason, even if sometimes that reason isn't exactly clear..." she said simply, still fidgeting with her robots.

Andy frowned at the phrase everything happens for a reason. She had never really liked it since her whole life had just been terrible thing after terrible thing. Anytime she had something resembling happiness it was taken from her. "Do you really believe that? That there is some grande scheme behind it all pushing us to a fate we have no control over? That certainly was a mood for Andy.

"Yes I do," she said without hesitation, "Actually I know it for a fact, or you can just think I'm crazy, I'm typically considered an eccentric anyway so eh, adding crazy wouldn't be that big of a jump."

Andy looked up a little surprised at how forceful Zari sounded about it. She wasn't certain if Zari believed it was a good fate or bad one though. "Do you believe that force is good or evil?"

"Probably more of neutral, neither good or evil... Everyone has some sort of fate, even if it doesn't seem like it at first, ever wonder why sometimes bad things just happen to good people? Sometimes those people then turn it around and make it into something better, or they go down a sort of rabbit hole and make everything worse... It just depends."

Andy wasn't certain how Zari's response made her feel about her own fate. What had been the first domino for her path? Had it been set when she was found in the ocean or after that when she killed her foster brother? She closed her eyes. "I hope I can turn my fate good."

"I'm sure the path that fate has laid out for you is a good one, even if it doesn't seem like it at all at first."

Andy smiled and opened her eyes looking at Zari. "I'm sure yours is too." Andy tilted her head thinking. "What is your path? I mean, what brought you here?"

"That's a bit complicated... And waaaaay easier said than done, I'll just say that."

Andy snorted a small laugh. "Well if you need help getting it done I'm happy to help." Zari was closest to her age Andy thought. And both were bits of odd ducks it felt like here at the MU.

"If I need help you'll be one of the first people I ask."

It felt good to potentially be needed. She felt useless around the MU because she really was only good at fighting. She wasn't going to be helping in finding or defusing the bombs at all. She hated that she couldn't help more. "And if I need help I'll ask you?" She said, more asking for permission if Zari wanted to help.

"That works for me," she responded happily, giving her a smile.

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It was a surprisingly tedious job to disarm terrigen bombs. The Mutant Underground worked together as a unit, disabling the many bombs hidden on the subway system. There had been a few close calls, but miraculously, everyone had survived. The most troubling part was just the sheer amount of time each bomb diffusion took - and once the bomb was disarmed, they had to figure out what to do with the thing, with their best idea being having Max open a portal for them to throw the bomb through and cross their fingers that tossing them into the sun wasn't problematic.

But finally, the end was in sight - they had ten minutes to go and just one bomb remaining - the one at the Lincoln Memorial. They hadn't encountered any resistance yet, and while no one had said it, pretty much everyone was expecting that the X-Cutioner would be at this final bomb. Everything would have to go perfectly. They'd need to defeat the X-Cutioner and disarm the bomb in ten minutes - or every mutant in the D.C. area would die an excruciating death.

The Mutant Underground stepped through one of Max's portals, arriving on the steps outside of the Lincoln Memorial. It was nearly midnight, and given that it was the middle of February, there weren't very many civilians around - just a few crazy college kids hanging around and chatting it up. In front of the gigantic statue of Lincoln, there was a single figure with their backs turned to them. Those who had gone to the Glitter Bomb would recognize the X-Cutioner.

Ben reappeared at Casper's side, having scouted up ahead quickly. "He's the bomb, Cassie."

"Wait, what?" Casper blurted out, ignoring his phone vibrating in his pocket - the caller ID said Maman. "How can he be the bomb? Is he made of terrigen or whatever? That's impossible, right?" he asked quickly, hoping that his ghost pal was somehow mistaken. Disarming a bomb while fighting a crazy guy with a fun(?) X-Men themed serial killer name was one thing, it was an entirely different thing if said serial killer was the bomb. But what choice did they have, really? Casper didn't need the power to see the future to know that they were on their own - his precious father wouldn't send his golden X-Men team here to deal with this, it was too risky, better to send the expendable mutants.

"You know those suicide bombers who wear the bomb? It's like that," Ben said. He then sighed. "I don't know how we're going to be able to handle this. It's too risky. He probably has a button or something that he just needs to push to activate the bomb early."

"Hey, Buzzfeed Unsolved, mind sharing with the class what your ghost pal had to say?" Havok asked, clearly irritated with Casper.

"X-Cutioner is wearing the bomb - like John Watson in the pool scene in Sherlock, except I don't think he'll be threatening to burn the heart out of us. Also, Moriarty is definitely in my fictional character fuck list. Like I'd let him put it in hard," Casper rambled. "Of course, I'd want it to be during a threesome with my babe," he then added, smiling innocently and goofily at James. Maybe the stress of the situation was getting to him - but also, this was Casper. He was always a bit of a mess.

"Shit," Veil cursed. She had them all cloaked at the moment, using the cover of invisibility to keep the X-Cutioner from seeing them. They only had one chance to get this right. She took a deep breath, trying to think through their options. Would Sapphire be able to freeze the X-Cutioner solid quickly enough? Could Max open a portal under the X-Cutioner's feet that would drop him onto the surface of Mars? Could Sunshine somehow grow stronger so rapidly that she could stop it all? Maybe Casper could channel Ben and the tentacles could take the X-Cutioner by surprise? Could Zarina take control of the bomb before the X-Cutioner could activate it?

Every plan required extreme speed and perfect efficiency - something they had never managed to pull off before. If only they had Glimpse - her speed and telepathy would have been incredibly handy here at the moment. The only advantage they had was that the X-Cutioner didn't know they were there yet. "We only have one chance to do this right. If he realizes we're trying to disarm the bomb, he'll pull the trigger. I think our best chance is having Zarina try to take control of the bomb away from him, but I'm open to suggestions."

Sunshine's anger was threatening to consume her, now that she was face to face (well face to back) with the X-Cutioner. She found it so easy to hate humans. They had never done anything good to her, everything humans had done just created more pain and suffering. And here, here was an evil human trying to kill innocent mutants just to attract the attention of the X-Men. She hated the X-Men too now, since they were willing to sit back and let mutants die. They were traitors, not even real mutants anymore in her mind.

"Maybe I make him so sick his fingers fall off," Sunshine muttered. She really wished that she knew more diseases, other than the basic ones. She was fairly certain there had to be some sort of illness that caused people to lose fingers, but her powers always worked better if she had a clear idea of what she was going for. The common cold? Easy. Some weird type of flu she'd never really heard of before? More complicated. "I say we just kill him. He can't see us. So, like, it'll be easy."

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Callie went through the portal with the others after disarming the second to last bomb, she looked around seeing the Lincoln Memorial in front of her and X-Cutioner in front of her. She listened to Casper for a moment, apparently X-Cutioner had strapped the last bomb to himself, sighing slightly it wasnt a good thing then. Callie looked at Sunshine and shook her head slightly, killing him right away would be way to easy he probably had a failsafe in case he was killed before the time limit was off.

"I'd imagine he'd have a failsafe, maybe a deadman's switch or something like that if we kill him it might set the bomb off." Callie said, as she thought for a moment if Zari could disarm it with her powers then it would help them alot. "If Zari can't disarm the bomb and it goes off, Veil maybe you could create a forcefield around him it could contain the explosion, and Sapphire could freeze the air within the field and then Max can portal the remains out into space or wherever he wants it to go." Callie suggested to Veil and Sapphire looking over at the three of them, it was the only plan that she could come up with in her mind.

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Kristina was still feeling really sore but she was really glad to be alive still she looked over towards Sapphire for a moment grateful that she saved her from bleeding out, and for Max healing her. She didnt blame the SHIELD agents for shooting her, or what had happened in the last mission with everyone else. Kris looked around the area she had gone on a few walks with some friends from time to time or during the late nights and wanted to get some fresh air.

She stared at the back of the X-Cutioner he hadnt spotted them yet which was a good thing then as she looked at Callie for a moment coming up with a plan that might work if the bomb did go off. If they could contain it from going off it would be a good thing then, she thought about calling her sister to let her know about what was going on. But after being seen with the others by other SHIELD agents that would paint a target on all their backs as well to. "Just tell me what you guys want me to do." Kris said looking over at everyone else, she wasnt sure if using her laser vision on him would cause the bomb to get damaged and going off wasnt a good idea in her opinion either.

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Andy was thinking of what she might be able to do. Could sending a bolt of electricity through the bomb prevent it from going off? Frying the circuitry. She should have asked Zari about computers more. She looked at the back of the man called X-cutioner. She remembered him from the fight at the college, but she hadn't really interacted with him. She had been dealing with the Purifiers during that fight.

How much damage could this bomb do? She had seen enough people sick with M-Pox, but had thankfully avoided getting sick. She looked over at Stareyes glad that she was okay and here with them. Then looked to Veil. Andy wasn't going to start anything prematurely. That had turned out real bad last time.

She took a long slow deep breath and thought of her parents and wondered what they would want her to do. Jamie believed in helping everyone. He taught special classes and was so caring that half the town had been friends with him. Ash had been just as caring. They would want her to help as many people as possible. They would want her to care about others.

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James stepped through the portal, eyes already locked on the X-Cutioner. After Magneto’s attack on the mutant underground, attempted murder at the Glitter Factory, nearly losing half the team to a tunnel collapse, a full break down, discovering Glimpse had all but martyred herself, and dealing with the sheer amount of stress invilved with dealing with bombs they weren’t fully prepared to handle, James felt empty. He’d gone through more emotional whiplash today than his entire life and now they had to deal with this insane murderer’s horse and pony show. Everyone knew even if the X-Men showed up, even if they agreed to hear out his demands and considered fulfilling them, he’d still pull the trigger. Shy of an aggressive confrontation, this man was popping this bomb one way or the other. It’d cripple the entire organization and cemented another catastrophic failure in history for the group and while James had no doubt there was more to his choice of location, it was clear the X-Cutioner wanted the public to witness his crowning achievement.

Of course, Havoc was still being his jackass self. James held his tongue when he snapped at Casper, knowing better than to aggravate the group, but James did put himself between Casper and Havok and sent him a warning look. James really didn’t give a fuck about this guy, especally after discovering he didn’t have an issue putting everyone in the Underground in danger to get his dick wet, and if the situation wasn’t so serious, he’d have glady put his fist in the asshole’s face. He definitely shouldn’t be getting on someone who was actively helping the situation when all he was doing jack shit for the group.

But his attention wandered back to the matter at hand. James found himself wishing he had even one more scrap of information, one more little tidbit about this guy, that would give him a way under the X-Cutioner’s skin. He fit too many criteria, too many archetypes, with the limited amount of information they had right now. Other James prided himself on twisting people against themselves and while this James didn’t like the idea of doing that, he’d give an arm and a leg to even have the opportunity. “Who is Moriarty?” James asked his boyfriend absently, only partially processing Casper’s rambling. He agreed with Callie’s plan but there was one more thing they needed to consider.

“We also need to deny him the use of whatever device he uses to teleport with. Even if we can temporarily gain control of the bomb, he can always manually detonate it somewhere else at a later date once he takes it back or transfers the gas into a new device.” James considered quietly. “Although without Glimpse, I’m not sure we can replicate any effect like that. Sunshine, are there any illnesses that can target motor functions close to instantly that you can replicate? Preferably without killing him.”

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Max was the last one to step through his portal. Always worried that if he didn't someone might get left behind on his account. The day had started out grim, and it only got worse from there. Hebwas mentally beating himself up over this, had he not gone missing, had his powers worked properly, the X-Cutioner wouldn't of had this opportunity at the Glitter Factory. They wouldn't of been searching for them, and maybe they wouldn't be having to solve such a huge crisis with such limited people. They'd talked about the idea of asking the Hellfire Club, given how reluctant the illustrious X-Men were to show up, or at the very least Charles Xavier. He balled his hand into a fist, anger coursing through him before Casper began to talk to himself, or Ben, it was hard to tell at times. It seemed their ghostly scout had found out that the X-cutioner was the bomb, and theories came pouring out. Max listened carefully to each as he considered his own.

"We need to move under the assumption that he does have a Deadmans switch. And that teleportation can be an issue, so to those who have seen it first hand how does he do it? James you mentioned a device? Is it a belt? Wristwatch? Anything we can go off of more. That way if I can see him make a motion towards it I can at least try to bind his hands the other way." Max reached into his bag and pulled out his digital camera, noting the time before pressing his eye against the viewfinder and zooming all the way in. The extremist was holding a large red button device in his left hand, perhaps a detonator of some kind. He passed the camera to Zari, pointing as to where to look. "He's holding a red button in his left hand. Either a detonator, or a red herring, I don't know. Zari, Waves, can either of you feel any tech in it? Can you guys disarm it without his knowing from this distance? It could afford us some time if he goes to use it and it doesn't work. The confusion would only give us a moment, but it could he a tide turner. Aside from that I'm on board with Callie's plan. I'll...I'll have to think of where to send him..."

Max clearly wasn't ok with the idea of sending him to space. He wasn't here to play judge, jury, and executioner. They had to be better than who they were up against, and he had seen people with his power attempt to play god and it wasn't pretty. Max thought on calling for help from Wanda but last he knew of her she was most likely joining the X-Men for her brother. His mind went to Strange, but would he just seem incapable and needy? Or was it Hubris to think he could handle this without his aid? The line was thin, and Max was unable to see it. He gave a defeated sigh for a moment as he mentioned for Zari to return his camera. "Veil if things go bad, if you think we can't do it alone, give me the sign, I'll try and get help here. Even if it's just them...I'll trust your call."

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Harry felt absolutely useless as they went about disarming bombs. There wasn't much of anything hr could do except for pace and wait for it all to be over. When the penultimate bomb was defused he was beginning to look concerned. It was nearly done, just one more to go, and yet there wasn't any resistance at all. This last bomb, the Lincoln Memorial, it was going to be big. When he crossed the portal and saw the barrenscape, save for the few college kids about, he thanked his stars that there would be minimal casualty if a fight did break out. Just as he was beginning to see the brightside, Casper delivered the bad news, and Veil compacted it into a greater warning. They had one shot, one chance to get this right. This wasn't even a fight, it was a delicate dance on a razors edge, and Harry wasn't sure if they could keep up.

He tapped his fingers against his lips, thinking. There wasn't much he could do to stop him from teleporting, save ruining his hands or eyes. But even then Harry wasn't sure how delicate of a touch the tech needed. If it was the slam of a button he could do it even if he only had a stub. "Just let me know what part I need to play in this and I'll play it. I can distract, blind, or just keep blasting him, but I'm sure we want him alive." It wasn't just a question of a deadmans switch, it was a question of morality. "Veil if things go south...I love you little sis."

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Waverley was the second to last one through the portal, holding the exact same fear as Max; that he'd leave someone behind. She didn't say this, of course. In fact, as she stepped out to the other side, she didn't seem to acknowledge Max at all, instead intently staring ahead into the open air of the Lincoln Memorial. Her eyes immediately snapped towards the figure of the X-Cutioner, bathed in the golden light of the monument, his bulky back to them. She stared for a few moments, right up to the point when Casper began to speak.

"Fuck..." she mumbled as Casper asked his invisible companion how the X-Cutioner could possibly be the bomb. She'd seen enough movies to know exactly how he could be the bomb, and it didn't take long for her suspicions to be confirmed by the medium, followed closely by his usual erotic ramblings. "Not the time Cas...but if you ever do manage it, tell him to give Irene my number," Waverley replied. Casper always made using humor as a coping mechanism for stress hard to resist. Still, she didn't show even a hint of a smile as the group voiced all their ideas. Out of the corner of her eye, Waverley saw Max pull out his camera, using it to get a better look at the man, voicing his minimal findings, which gave Waves an idea. She never considered herself a petty person, but she couldn't deny the feeling of smug childish satisfaction that came as she unzipped her own backpack, pulling out her bigger, bulkier video camera, which she immediately used to get a closer look at the villain. As she took in all she could, she leaned into Sunshine, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"That's the fancy medical drama way of asking if you've got anything that'll fuck up his ability to move around," she whispered to her roommate in a way not unlike a student whispering the answers of a test to a friend. She spent a few more seconds taking in the X-Cutioner, before finally speaking up for the others to hear, though still keeping relatively quiet. "Hm...not seeing anything new. Big red button, bombs strapped to his body..." her voice trailed off as she stretched out her mind, feeling for the telltale feeling of the trigger sending out signals she could manipulate. Alas, she felt none. "...It must be physically wired to the bomb, which means it's out of my wheelhouse. Sorry."

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This was an interesting sort of situation for them to all be in. Sapphire stepped out of the portal, not too sure what to really expect. After all, currently they had to deal with a bomb after several of them nearly ended up crushed to death in that cave in down in the sewers. But now her attention needed to be completely on the incident at hand, and bombs were typically very bad. Especially if it went off, since she wasn't too sure how everything would go over all if that happened.

Jack was more or less tuning out his brother's sort of ramblings, at least sort of tuning it out until he hopefully eventually said something useful. Of course the something useful was probably going to end up coming from Ben technically if he had to guess or something like that. Of course no telling what to do with regards to everything. Then again, he had no idea this was the way his life was going to go, but then again, now he more or less had to deal with it anyway, but no matter what he probably would have anyway too.

Zari was bored, just completely and utterly bored. Sure, a bomb could go off and kill and hurt a whole lot of people, but currently she had to go deal with something else that could result in her not existing or something like that. She still found the entire thing confusing, like why would someone just want to kill all mutants like this though? That made no sense. One thing she did know for certain was that she did not like this guy at all, especially since he had broken Mr. Eyeball during her first encounter with the guy.

Glancing over towards Callie, Sapphire contemplated her words, thinking about the idea in the event that the bomb did go off. "...You are talking about there being a perfect chain reaction of events that could result in us saving everything in the event that the bomb went off. Which would mean we'd have to be so perfectly in sync, and knowing this group that isn't very likely, we likely wouldn't be able to do that. So how about we try to not blow everything up... Plus our reflexes would have to be insane in order to do that at the drop of a hat."

"So great then, the guy is a suicide bomber, that's just fantastic... Do we actually know what we're doing? Since think about it... One wrong move and this entire area could go up in smoke, both figuratively and I guess literally too. We just have to be really careful..." Jack wasn't so sure about this entire situation, they were flying blind here, and they could end up causing more damage if they weren't careful. Oh the joys of trying to do the right thing.

Zari focused for a moment, before she went to see about messing with the bomb. Well, more of she was examining the bomb from a distance before she even thought about trying anything. What she found wasn't exactly an overwhelming bit of support for what they were going to attempt. "I'm not sure this is a good idea... I'm not a hundred percent confident in trying this... Since it's about a fifty-fifty shot that I'll blow us all up as opposed to disarming it..." she really was not confident with this entire situation at all.

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Veil nodded slightly, considering Spark Plug's suggestion. It could potentially work, but she wouldn't be able to maintain a force field around an explosion and keep them cloaked at the same time. She'd need to put all of her energy towards the shield. Plus, it required pretty much excellent precision from the others and assumed that the X-Cutioner didn't have anything else nasty planned. He struck her as the type to be over-prepared. He had to know that they had disarmed the other bombs.

"Oh, Moriarty? He's like this sexy professor who kills people for fun, and he's obsessed with this detective, Sherlock Holmes. He's veeeery queer coded and dresses so pretty," Casper rambled. "Except he takes Sherlock's not boyfriend but queer coded friend John to this pool and makes him wear this heavy coat, and Sherlock's all 'whaaat why are you here John' and then John opens up the coat, and BAM! He's wearing a bomb! And Sherlock's freaking out because he's also queer coded. Honestly come to think of it, pretty much every character in that show is queer coded, but not actually queer, because the BBC can't let us have nice things... And Waverley? It's always the time. That's how time works. It just keeps on going."

"Wait, what do you mean by them? I thought Daddy-O's circus ponies weren't coming," Casper blurted, confused by what Max had said.

Veil furrowed her eyebrows, before realizing the most logical person for Max to refer to - or people, however. The thought sent her stomach twisting up into knots. She always believed that the means and the ends had to both have honor in them - but here, when they were seconds away from the X-Cutioner's deadline, could they really have the luxury of being choosy? If they could save the mutants in the D.C. area, didn't they have to try every option available to them? "I don't think this could get much worse, Warlock," Veil admitted. "I believe in us. But belief might not be enough."

She turned to look at her brother, studying his face briefly as if it could be the last time she'd see him. "Je t'aime aussi," she replied softly in her native French.

Sunshine bit her lip, scrunching up her face as she tilted her head sideways. Most of her diseases that she caused were admittedly pretty unimaginative - just since she didn't know a lot. It helped her to know the name of the thing and the general effects. She'd never heard of a disease that could paralyze someone before, and she decided to give it a name in her head - Max Disease - as she twitched her fingers. No green smoke appeared around her hands.

Everyone seemed to be coming up empty and it worried Sunshine as much as it made her angry. They were a group of powerful mutants and here, some stupid flatscan with some weird tech was about to beat them all and they weren't even going to try? If this was the best that mutants had to offer, then maybe they deserved to be wiped off the face of the planet. They weren't just survivors - they were fighters, warriors! Like igniting a flame underneath a hot air balloon, Sunshine's anger allowed her to soar. Green wisps appeared in her hands, and her eyes turned emerald green. "I don't know how long it'll last, but... Fuck this flatscan." Sunshine then threw her green smoke orbs, her secondary mutation of perfect aim allowing them to connect.

There was silence, tension in the air, as the X-Cutioner fell still for a brief moment.

"You did it, kid," Havok said, his eyes wide as he started to collapse.

And then suddenly, the X-Cutioner began to move again. He turned and looked right at the group, since although Veil had made them invisible, Sunshine's actions had revealed their location. "I know you are there. There's little use in hiding now. Come into the light - or I will detonate the bomb."

The color drained from Veil's face. They only had one advantage. The X-Cutioner didn't know how many were present. She did a quick calculation, before gambling on their two best hopes. She removed the cloak of invisibility from everyone except Sapphire and Max. "X-Cutioner. You asked for us to come. We're here. What do you want?" Veil called out.

"I asked for the pathetic X-Men, Xavier's spawn - not some gutter children."

"If you want X-Men, I'm the real deal," Havok offered. "Take me - just let everyone else go."

The X-Cutioner laughed. "A real X-Men, boy," he threatened, his hand resting on the detonator. It would take very little effort for him to cause the bomb to go off. "How fitting though - Xavier shows his true colors, abandoning you and all the mutants in D.C. in favor of his chosen children, his pet monsters. You're all demonspawn, born of Lucifer's sin. Consider this a mercy killing, mutants. I'm your real savior."