Impact’s uniform was one of her precious possessions, partially because it was a remnant from her time with her first X-Team, and partially because the Kevlar weave was a godsend for a mutant with no defensive mutations. A bullet caught her in the abdomen and slowed her down, but it was not strong enough to pierce her uniform. Adrenaline and the need to defend her team drove her to ignore the pain as she plunged an elbow into a man’s chest, feeling a rib give way to her strike.

The men with guns were a problem, but none of them were invisible. The mutant was Impact’s concern, since he was a variable. She tossed one man over her shoulder into another guard, and Shivs had her back, launching a sharp flurry against multiple targets. Shiv’s constructs were a strong asset in a fight on a team loaded with heavy-hitters, but they did not save her from being taken off her feet.

Impact’s eyes scanned the area, but the man who took Shivs to the ground was, of course, their invisible man. She was trying to keep tabs of any hints or signs of where the cloaked target might be, but three men were still up and occupying her attention. It was not until her daughter started screaming that Impact realized where the man ended up: right on Seraph’s back.

The initial instinct was to fire off a blast at the man, but without being able to see him, it was dangerous. If she missed, her beam would strike Astrid, and that was enough reason to hesitate. Impact watched as Seraph’s white wings shifted into crystals, proud of her daughter’s survival instinct.

Except there was a problem. The screaming did not stop, and neither did the transformation. The crystalline structure spread across her whole body in a way Rebecca had never seen before. The screeching became more muffled, almost like it was being forced through, but it was agonizing. Rebecca watched, concerned, as Astrid’s mutation grew before her eyes.

The men who were fighting Impact took the moment to get two cheap punches to her stomach and jaw, but they made the wrong choice. If they had turned to see what was happening, they might have had a split-second to move away from a barrage of crystals in an even, horizontal row. Impact moved just quickly enough that she only had a crystal tear through the surface level of her shoulder. The guards… were not as lucky.

As quickly as the fight began, it was now clearly over. Blood seeped out of the invisible man, who had been impaled on Astrid’s back. The only people left in the room for the moment were the members of Green Team.

Impact should have told Shivs to look for the information they came for, but she would have to hope her unofficial second-in-command would take it upon herself. She was in Rebecca-mode, running over to her daughter, made of glittering crystal from head to toe, sobbing.

”Astrid—Astrid, I’m here!” Code names be damned. ”It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” She pressed a gloved hand carefully against Astrid’s cheek, knowing how sharp the points on her wings could be. ”This is all part of your mutation. We’ll figure this out, I promise. You have me here. I promise things will be okay, angel.”

Emotions were high, and Rebecca had enough sense to be careful, but she could not stop herself from throwing her arms around her daughter. Points dug into her skin, but she held on just loose enough not to draw (much) blood, and just tight enough to have Astrid firmly in her hug. ”This is natural, and it’s going to get easier, Astrid. We’ll work through this together. It’s going to be okay. Your mother promises,” she whispered softly into crystalline ears, hoping her daughter could actually hear her. Rebecca did not cry often, but she was crying openly, wanting her daughter to be okay. They would figure it out somehow; there was no other choice.

As soon as the screaming started she knew something was very wrong. Pulling all her knives in close to keep her safe, she stole a quick glance at Astrid and oh my God! Her crystals, they were spreading, covering her completely and turning her into some kind of living gem, of god and that invisible guy was impaled on her wings! This was bad, so bad. Becca was going to go crazy and the cries from their angel just got worse as the crystal over took her. Even her wings started to flex.......oh no.

Recognising the danger signs she grabbed the nearest guard and pulled him in front of her and let him take the feathers. Right now, she didn't care about getting people hurt, Seraph was in pain and she needed them right now!

Dropping him as soon as she was sure it was safe, Becca had already jumped into mom mode and was rushing to comfort her, promising that she'd be fine and everything would be alright. As much as she itched to do the same, Cait knew the boss expected her to get the job done while she dealt with her daughter. Turning away she set about the computers, getting what they needed.

Sure, she might not be the techiest person but it didn't take her long to get bring up a site map and find where they needed to go. Good the archive room wasn't far and there didn't look to be any major guard groups on the way either so when Seraph was able to calm down they should be fine. Quickly switching over to the camera feed, her stomach suddenly dropped.

A group was already on it's way to them and they were armed to the teeth, with two thirds of the team current not in commission, it was up to her. Moving back to Becca and carefully touching her on the shoulder, "Boss, we've got incoming hostiles. I'm going to deal with them, stay here and do what you do best."

Giving the sobbing girl a gentle smile, "Hey, Seraph don't worry, your moms here and I'll keep you both safe. I promise." Nodding once to Impact, she moved out the room and pulled all her knives back out. For one of the very few times in her life, she was furious. Seraph might be well trained but at the end of the day she was a kid. A kid that these people had hurt.

It was time for her to show them exactly how wrong they'd been to do that. No more forgiveness and no more mercy, she had friends to protect.

Getting into position to ambush the group, she had one final second to harden her resolve. Becca had always told her naivete would get her hurt and it wasn't until now she understood. But Astrids screams would haunt her more than anyone else's could and right now it wasn't Cait she needed, but her mom. She needed to be held by the person most important to her, to be reassure and comforted, the dirty job fell on the Scot to do.

There was a hand pressed against her cheek. Astrid couldn’t feel the hand, but she knew that it was there. She also knew whose hand it was.

”Mom…” she sobbed, her voice breaking as she did so. Codenames be damned. The hand had been what she needed to pull herself back into reality; gently tugging her away from the edge of losing it.

Despite the fact that she was not herself, she could feel tears welling up in the corners of her eyelids that were no longer flesh. She wasn’t sure how that was, but it was happening. Some of her was clearly still flesh and blood, even if it was buried underneath some new facet of her mutation.

She sobbed again and nodded at what Impact was saying. They would fix it. They would make it right. They were in it together. Because, unlike years and years ago when her mutation had first started to change, she had people that loved and cared for her, that supported her. With them, she knew that she would be alright. Even if it hurt.

She couldn’t feel the hug in the same way that she could have before, but she knew that it was happening and what it meant. Rebecca was risking her own safety in order to make Astrid feel alright again. All that she could do in response was whisper a thank you and try to compose herself.

A crystalline hand reached out to Shivs as she ran off to protect her team as Astrid silently wished her the best. She wanted to tell her not to go alone, but there clearly wasn’t another option. Shivs knew what had to be done, and she was smart and resilient. If anyone would come out from it in one piece, it was her.

”I… I need to try to get up now,” Astrid announced hoarsely, forcing sound out from her new mouth. It was strange and foreign. ”We need to go. There are people…”

It was so exhausting to try to move.

She stayed still for a minute, waiting for Rebecca to release her from the hug. She wouldn’t move at all, not with her still in danger of being harmed more by her mutation. Why couldn’t she have gotten something more useful? Like a siren call, or something. The last thing that Astrid wanted to do was harm someone, but that was all she seemed to be able to do.

Hearing Astrid sobbing, especially through the muffled quality of her crystalline anatomy, tore into Rebecca’s heart. She needed to be there for her daughter, especially when she knew there was nothing she could do to undo the changes she was now experiencing. It was pain and it was trauma, and all Rebecca could do was remind Astrid she was not alone dealing with the challenge.

She was not a traditional mother in practice or origin; she adopted an orphan just barely old enough for people to think she was an incredibly young teen mom. She encouraged her daughter to be bold and do things most parents would consider dangerous. None of that changed how important Astrid was to Rebecca. She was one of two people she loved in the world, and she would never leave her without her love and support.

Given her circumstances, it was unlikely Rebecca would ever give Astrid a sibling, (a fact she sometimes lamented.) If anyone could fill the vacant big sister role in the girl’s life, she believed it would be Cait. She was taking the lead on their mission, but before she left the room, she shared words of comfort with Astrid. Things had come a long way from Cait being the questionable stalker chick tailing the X-Team. She was someone Rebecca could trust, whether she admitted that or not. As her Leader, she was pleased with Cait for picking up responsibilities in stride. As a mother, she was thankful Cait was the one with them.

”It’s going to be okay,” she reiterated calmly. They had a lot to process, but a lab they infiltrated was not the place to help Astrid through her mutant adolescence. ”We’re going to get out of here safely, and everything else, we’ll work out from there. Together.”

Seraph was slowly pulling herself back together. She was always going to be the best part of Rebecca, because she was better than her. She was pushing herself to handle the change by focusing on people in need. She was still young, but her heart was what made her an X-Man. ”Right, let’s go, Seraph. Time to save the day.”

Impact walked out into the hallway, and for the first time she realized a sound she had been numb to in the control room: the blaring alarms ringing through the building. Stealth had carried them to a point, but they could no longer enjoy that luxury.

It was clear as she ran through the hall, Shivs also understood that things were too serious to hold back. At first glance, Impact was guessing that the guards strewn about were just maimed or unconscious, but there was no certainty in most cases. She was not going to question the bodies further; it would do no good now.
By the time she saw Shivs, she was engaging two security guards, which prompted Impact to wonder what kind of group they were dealing with? The stream of guards seemed endless, and the facility was almost certainly not their prime location. Whoever ran the lab had resources, which only made gathering information more imperative.

Impact shot a blast focused onto a basketball-sized space on a guard’s chest. She was sure she heard ribs crack. Catching up to the final member of the team, Impact took two controlled breaths, hoping to think clearly. ”Okay, we know where we’re going now. It’s vital we don’t leave here empty-handed. We need to know who we’re dealing with that could finance something like this, and even have mutants in tow.” It still sickened her that mutants would work in a place that treated their own kind like lab rats.

”We stick together, but split off if absolutely necessary to complete the mi—” Impact spun around on her heel, her dyed ponytail traveling in an arc behind her. She had just barely caught a sound, and knew it was time to shoot first and ask questions later. A wide cone of blue and green energy fired forth at the possible new target.

And then, underwhelmingly, it fizzled out and vanished completely.

”****. Adapted in play,” she grumbled to her team and the comms. This was going to be a bigger complication than she was hoping to encounter.

Agent T was in a bad mood to being with. And then the sirens went off.

She had just arrived at the hidden facility with a very clear objective: To pick up her new partner, who apparently was being kept here after some mishap with his powers. Powers. She had been assigned a mutant, out of all things, and a young one at that. You'll train him well, was what they had said, but it still made Gemma feel like a glorified babysitter. One that could not be trusted alone, not since what happened with Cervantes.

The tall, dark-skinned woman was still bearing the marks of the beating she got in the ambush, but they were fading now. She was officially cleared for service again, with certain conditions; one of them being that she immediately went and picked up her new sidekick trainee, and began work with him. Which is why she found herself in this particular S.U.P.E.R. facility, arriving a mere half hour before everything went to hell in a hand basket.

She was almost done with filling out the paperwork in some office when the sirens began to blare. Her first thought was to get the asset and get out, as per her orders; but the more she listened to the radio comms and the sounds from down the hallway, the less that seemed like a viable option. Eventually, she had to make an executive decision - and she decided to fight.

She turned the corner just in time to see the rag-tag group of uniformed vigilantes take out some of the guards. Gemma sneered, gun already in had, and she approached them, her aura pushing forward in front of her like an invisible shield. Damn mutants, with their uniforms and their agendas. She had no idea what they were doing inside the facility; they should have never gotten this far. She was not sure if there was backup on the way, but for now, she was more than willing to hold down the fort, or even take the intruders down, if it was necessary.

"Stop right there, drop your weapons, and face the wall." she said calmly as one woman's eye blast fizzled out in her aura. They knew what she was now; if they were smart, they would comply. "You don't want to see what happens to those wings if I get any closer."

It was good to be back on the job.

As soon as the first guards rounded the corner she was one them, knives flashing around her. Every single one was going to severe wounds, hamstrings, fingers, feet, anything that would take a person out of the fight for the time being. She wasn't actively trying to kill people, but it happened. It was unavoidable at this point. Astird and Becca needed her to be strong for them, to protect them for now, so she did. She channeled her anger, her resolve and dealt with the attackers quickly and efficiently.

After a while the fighting turned in to a haze, becoming a blur of bodies and alarms. She just kept moving through them, clearing out every guard that came her way. None got past her, none came close without being maimed in the process and all the while, in the back of her mind, she felt sick to her stomach. This wasn't who she was, it was who she had to be.

As she dealt with the last two guards in one particular wave a familiar blaze of energy slammed into one of them, sending him down and leaving his friend open to a knife. Turning and smiling at the boss back in action and nodding along to the quick words, "Good plan, we need to deal with these people. They are way to dangerous to ignore." Cait was still wound up tight in action mode, her words came out crisp and without the usual fake accent she put on in unfamiliar places on a mission. She was too focused to even try, all of her senses on high alert.

Impact spinning on a heel sent her into battle mode again, knives back out, shield ready to form and eyes following the bosses eye beams to the target. Or more accurately, the would be target, the damn woman was an adapted. OK, take in all the details, this would be a tough one. She had a gun, was confident and her aura looked to be maybe 8 feet? It was hard to gauge specifics but a rough idea was better than no idea. She was tall too, well built. If it came to hand to hand, she'd have the upper hand, literally and chances are she was well trained when it came to dealing with mutants. This wouldn't be easy, or safe, but she needed dealing with. The Scot needed a plan.

Which immediately went out of the window when the woman talked. She threatened Astrid. She'd unknowingly threatened the most vulnerable person there. This woman was going down, now. "Seraph, cover us. Keep any new guards off our backs. Impact, lets show her exactly how wrong she is."

Pulling a shield out in front of her to deal with the bullets, she went with the only thing she could think of right now, she launched one of her really knives at the woman in a hefty throw, while launching a construct to get a better idea of the size of her aura.

Now for the stupid bit of her 'plan'. Hauling up one of the smaller, groaning guards and positioning him between her and the gun, "You want your friend to die, go ahead and fire. Just put the poor sod out quick, wouldn't do to make him suffer." Where the hell did that come from!?

Impact said that it was going to be okay, and Astrid really did believe her. She got to her feet with the support of a countertop and swayed a little once standing. Her body was desperately trying to adjust to the new weight and centre of gravity, but it was taking a toll on both her her muscles and her heart. It was working tirelessly, to pump blood to every part of her body, but she was lightheaded and her fingertips were all numb. It was hard to tell which was the result of the crystal and which was the result of everything else that had happened.

The teen stumbled out of the room and into the hallway, using the walls and other secured items to help her. Walking felt wrong and uncomfortable, and flying definitely wasn’t an option. No matter how much she wanted to, she just couldn’t figure out how to shift back.

Once they were in the hallway, the sound of the alarm had grown so much louder. It reverberated off of the walls and forced its way through Astrid’s ears. She put her hands to her head and tried to block out the noise while she leaned against the wall.

As much as Astrid just wanted to sit there and pretend like everything was alright, Impact was right; they were there to save the day. They had gone there to save people, so that was what they needed to do. She just needed to muster up the courage and strength to do so.

They weren’t alone, though. A woman had appeared in the hallway as well as several guards. The Green Team just couldn’t seem to catch a break. In her head, Astrid was groaning and moaning enough for all three of them.

Surely, she figured, Impact would have no issue taking her out, and they could be on their merry way in a few minutes. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

An adapted. That was just wonderful. Astrid’s eyes grew impossibly sad as she watched Impact’s blast fizzle out several feet from the woman. That was just too bad. They were going to have to result to other things.

She was… oh dear God she was an adapted. Astrid could just… lay down in her field and she wouldn’t even have to shift back. It would just happen automatically, and her problem would be solved.

Only, that wasn’t something that she could do. She had a team to protect, and she couldn’t do that if she was on the floor in a puddle again. As much as she wanted to just lay down, she nodded at Cait and took up her mantle. Astrid took in a deep breath and walked around the other two women to stand guard over their backs. If anyone dared approach, then she was going to make sure that they didn’t get past her. No matter how much it hurt.

Adapteds were a rarity, and for the most part, Rebecca bore them no ill will. She was also not naïve enough to think every adapted in the world was a well-mannered, mutant-friendly bookkeeper. The ability to neutralize mutant powers was a huge gamechanger for people who saw mutants as threats, and any adapted with that mindset could be dangerous to mutantkind, who often relied so heavily on their powers to keep themselves safe.

The agent was older, but looked to be in peak shape. Dealing with her without powers would be no picnic, if the first agent they came across was any indication. The more they came across in the facility, the more Impact was concerned about the organization they were dealing with. They had resources, manpower, mutants, and even adapteds on hand. They were experimenting on and neutralizing mutants, and any goals they had beyond those things was not likely to be good for her kind.

There was a call to drop weapons, which meant nothing to Impact. ”Not about to gouge out my eyes, ma’am.” The one place she was more willing to joke was in the field, because it had the benefit of keeping her own stress low while possibly tilting her opponent. (Except for the one outlier situation where it led to Rebecca’s marriage.)

One person on the team who did regularly carry weapons worth dropping was Shivs, and she was putting her knives to use. They were holding a hostage’s life on the line. It should have made Impact’s stomach churn, but her only priority was getting the mission finished and her team out safely. Shivs knew what had to be done, and Impact could not hesitate either.

There was a chance Shivs’s gambit could work, but Impact was not interested in banking on the kindness of an Adapted leveling a gun at them. If she did not care about the guard’s life, then Impact was the most vulnerable target available. Shivs had a human shield and Seraph was likely bulletproof if her wings were any indication. Rebecca’s uniform was resistant to bullets, but she was in no mood to be shot, particularly if the agent had the aim required for a headshot.

”I’ll need at least one of you to use this opening to get to the objective,” she muttered, before jumping right into action.

A wide blast of blue and green shot forth, tearing into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling as it moved forward. The blast would not pass through the agent’s aura, but she kept it going anyway, looking to obscure vision with the opaqueness of the wall of energy. Impact was charging forward, trying not to move predictably in hopes of not getting shot through the blast (since her energy was not going to stop a bullet.)

She needed to get close enough that she could get within the aura and within the distance where a firearm was less of a threat. The beam finally stopped by force when Rebecca breached the adapted aura, halting her ability to generate it. Rebecca was charging in low with an elbow, looking to lead in with a strong engagement.

Agent T knew that she hit a soft spot when threatening the winged girl. She seemed to be the youngest of the three, and these vigilantes, unlike S.U.P.E.R., functioned based on emotional attachments to each other. It was not unlikely that they were even related to each other - or they thought they were. Either way, Gemma knew first-hand what it was like when one's loved ones were threatened.
It made people make mistakes.

>>”Not about to gouge out my eyes, ma’am.”

Even as she kept her gun steady, the agent was registering information. The woman with the eyes appeared to be the leader, based on her confidence. She could shoot energy, maybe lasers, from her eyes, which did not harm Gemma, but was dangerous to others, judging by the guards she had passed in the hallway.

>>"Seraph, cover us. Keep any new guards off our backs. Impact, lets show her exactly how wrong she is."

The other woman attacked first, and Gemma dodged slightly as a knife flew in her direction. It was not a full attack, she could tell, but rather an attempt at throwing her off balance, or testing her abilities. The woman lunged for one of the injured guards, and used him as a shield.

>>"You want your friend to die, go ahead and fire. Just put the poor sod out quick, wouldn't do to make him suffer."

"You don't know who we are, do you." Agent T arched an eyebrow, before she shot two bullets into the man's legs, one each. Once the shield was not able to support himself at all, and passed out from pain, he was dead weight, and not a good shield at all. Gemma leveled her gun again, taking aim at the woman behind the guard, when the leader stepped up again, sending another blast her way. She had to know it would not get through, but it was a smart move none the less - it blocked the agent's field of vision with a bright light, creating a different kind of shield for the team. If they were smart, they would run. Gemma did not think they were smart.

She fired two more shots blindly, not knowing if she would hit anyone, but hoping to scare them anyway. The light fizzled out a second before the woman came through her aura, low and ready to strike. She could not completely dodge the attack, but she managed to block the elbow with her arm, taking a step back from the momentum, before she brought up a knee to return the favor.

A strong of very vehement swearing went through her head. Today was not the day to push her! Not after her one woman blade storm earlier and more just irritation for this adapted woman. As soon as Impact distracted her, she dropped the guard, summoned a shield and sprinted past her, keeping her construct between the two of them and scooping up her thrown knife on the way. No words needed exchanging, no signals given, Cait was on the objective. She only hoped Seraph could cover the boss long enough for her to get records and info.

Following the map she'd memorised and making quick progress, any guards in her way soon weren't. If before there wasn't time for mercy, now she had none. Every second she saved could be the difference between life and death for the Team. Was this what the boss had meant about tough choices? Because right now the choice wasn't hard, her friends came first, especially weighed agaisnt the evil people in here. They were sick, killing one of their own like his life didn't matter.

Rounding the last corner and dealing with the last pair of black suited thugs she was in. Time for record room pilfering. Thankfully, their directory computer wasn't password locked, so soon she had a list of useful sounding documents to grab. Pressing in the thumb drive she'd been trusted with, loaded with a handy little virus Impact had told her was a remaining part of the old team, looks like they were still fighting the fight even while gone. Offering up a silent Gaelic prayer for the dead, she left the program running while she rifled through a series of filing cabinets for anything interesting looking.

What she found, what she found was terrifying. It wasn't anything important, in fact it was just a standard hard copy of a meeting. With a high ranking politician and the tone was, disturbing. They weren't working with the government, they were the government!

"You have got to be f------ kidding me! What morally bankrupt waste of space authorised this!" It detailed some of their recent 'recruits'. They were kidnapping mutants, citizens and bringing them back to experiment on. What the actual hell!

The cold feeling in the pit of her stomach after all this was getting very hot. These monsters needed stopping, government or no government. She'd fight the b----- army itself if she had to, this wasn't going to stand. It also proved how vital the info was, not just for them. The public had to know about this, had to be warned! They were living in a real world nightmare, the government just taking people from their beds and pretend they didn't exist.

But why, what was this for? Weapons for a war, rampant paranoia or just simple garden variety bigotry? So much for the bastion of freedom, home of refugees those two faced p----- running the country liked to proclaim.

Well, now it was time for a good old dose of old world freedom. Whisper on last word as the computer dinged, looks like they had everything the could get. Any more time and they wouldn't get out. Still, at least time for a little constructive vandalism. Pulling out a small lighter and setting alight a pile of files, it should spread. Let them deal with that!

By that point, Astrid was shaking. The weight was a lot, and she was rather terrified, standing in that hallway. They had already run into trouble of every sort, and it didn’t seem to be letting up at all. What would come next? More guards? More adapteds? Were they ever going to get out alive?

She did her best to push any thoughts like that out of her head as she flashed a look back to her mother and the woman that she was facing. She was right, they still had to complete the mission, despite the complications (which was why there were three of them), and one of them had to be the one to go. Astrid watched as Shivs ran down the hallway to do so. She silently wished the both of them luck.

New guards just seemed to keep coming in. Seraph was not one to kill, but she knew that they were a little out of options there, so things had to be done. Sacrifices had to be made. She shot of a row of crystals as close to the ground as she could possibly manage. If everything went according to plan, then they would only act as flesh wounds, preventing the guards from moving any closer or following them. If the screams of pain that came out of them meant anything, then they would be serious wounds with complications. The teen prayed that it would be the former.

She turned her head back to watch what Impact was doing just down the hallway, not wanting to leave her completely on her own over there. The flow of new guards seemed to have slowed, so she figured that it would be alright to leave them for a little bit.

She had been right to do so. The woman had a gun, and it was about to go off. A hoarse scream erupted from Astrid’s lips as she ducked in front of the shots, blocking them so that Impact could run into the field. The shots ricocheted off of her crystal form and flew toward the guards behind the woman. Neither of them hit, but it certainly sent a few of them ducking for cover.

Astrid took a step forward, finding that doing so put her within the field of the adapted woman. As soon as her leg entered, it shifted back to regular skin. It was so much lighter, and her muscles finally relaxed. The feeling was incomparable.

Despite the fact that she knew how wrong it was to do so, Astrid stepped, nay, barrelled forward so that she was fully within the field. She had sunken to her knees, basking in the feeling of her own skin. Her feather wings hung limply behind her, unable to be used. They were dead weight on her back, but it was nothing compared to what she had been feeling a few minutes before. She was unable to make herself exit the field and unable to think logically. She hardly even reacted when guards moved around the woman and Impact, who were locked in a fight, to grab her by the arms.

Only when they had dragged her a little ways down the hallway did Astrid begin to scream for help.

The agent made it obvious she had no attachment to the security staff of the building, sending a painfully clear message when she shot Shiv’s meat shield in the legs. Impact was right to assume there was some clear divide between the low-level guards and the higher-level agents. A mutant and an adapted. Rebeca wondered how many more like them there were hidden away in the location—assuming it was even the only location.

When Impact charged, she knew a bullet might be coming, and as she hoped, it went wide. Unfortunately, it was not wide enough, hitting her in the upper arm. Her uniform kept the bullet from piercing through her, but the pain of that kind of impact was excruciating. Her left arm was not going to be moving at one-hundred percent, and against someone trained in combat, that could be a problem.

Her initial elbow was met with an arm to block her strike and quickly followed up with a knee. Impact forcefully pushed her hands downward toward the knee, looking to block it and push back. She used her downward movement to spring up, looking to shove her opponent backward. It was less a takedown technique as much as it was a way to try moving her enough for Shivs to get past.

She was up against an opponent who knew what she was doing, which meant fighting with total concentration. Impact was exceptionally well-trained, but at best, she was evenly matched. She found herself relying on defensive techniques, trying to avoid or block blows to critical spots and avoid making a major misstep. The agent was being careful with her weapon; Impact was clearly looking to disarm her, and she was aware of the advantage keeping her gun would give her.

Winning the fight would be great, but it was more important to buy enough time for Shivs to get what they came for. If the agent tried to chase her teammate down, that moment of distraction would give Impact an opening, so until the agent took her out, she had to know she was stuck.

Impact’s fight took so much of her focus, she was unable to watch her daughter step into the Adapted’s aura and lose the crystalline shell she felt so trapped in moments earlier. It was not until Seraph started screaming that Impact realized what was happening, (and took an unfortunate hit to the jaw due to her momentarily lapse in focus.)

She could not feel the pain of the hit that landed, because Astrid was being taken away by two guards dragging her by the arms. Anger flashed through her mind and she bellowed, ”NOT A F****** CHANCE!” with all the ferocity of a mother grizzly.

When she would look back on the fight later, Rebecca was unsure of exactly how she got the agent’s firearm. Maybe her shout momentarily lowered the woman’s guard, or maybe she had just taken advantage of the herculean boost of strength that came with a mother’s need to defend her child. However it happened, Rebecca had the gun in her grasp for a brief moment.

She did not hesitate. Rebecca unloaded six shots; three in each guard. Their bodies dropped beside Astrid. The sound of the shots muted the world around her, save for the high-pitch tone ringing through her. From behind her mask, she looked at Astrid, momentarily unaware of the fight she was still actively in the middle of with a woman she was doing a disservice to by not watching carefully.

The woman was shorter and younger than Agent T, and Gemma knew from the first moment that her opponent was also at a disadvantage in training, if not a full lack of experience. Impact's blocks were effective, and she attacked with conviction and precision, although it was clear that not being able to use her powers had also put her at a disadvantage. The fight dragged on, even though from an outside perspective it probably lasted no more than seconds, maybe short minutes. Gemma got a few hits in, but not enough to bring the woman down, and her opponent's clear idealistic fury was beginning to get annoying. It was a whole different experience, fighting some fanatic that believed that she was here with a purpose, fighting evil. Gemma was not evil. But she had a job to do.

In the background, the winged girl also breached her aura, and collapsed, shedding some kind of a shell as she did so. Gemma was not sure why she even ventured into the null field, but it was clear the fight had gone out of her. "Take her!" she snapped at guards that just made an appearance; the next moment, they grabbed up the girl dutifully, and started dragging her away.

That was the point when things changed. Instead of conviction, the red-headed woman switched to the kind of blind, protective rage that the agent had rarely seen... but she knew exactly what it felt like. When someone's child was threatened, even if that someone was a mutant, instincts took over. She landed a strong hit on the woman's jaw, but it did not slow her down one bit. Gemma would later deny all possible accusations (even her own) that her hand relaxed on the gun for a split second; and yet, there was no other possible explanation of how the enemy got a hold of it. The mistake cost two lives immediately.

Gemma lunged at the woman, aiming to slam her against the wall and knock the gun out of her hand and away from herself and any other allies. She had height, weight, and experience on the redhead, but with the winged girl on the ground... this was now a whole different fight.

Sprinting back towards where she'd left her team, her path back was worse, even more guards were teeming into the facility, slowing down her movement and forcing her into a take now prisoners attitude. More than one person went down with a fatal injury, even more would be crippled for life. Right now though, she didn't care, a mix of adrenaline and anger pushing her forwards.

The enclosed spaces and multiple corner put her in her deadly element, the few guards that could get a shot off before she deal with them were easily blocked with shields. Scything through yet another small group and pausing to let a few stranglers run, her head was starting to hurt. Cait was already pushing her limit as it was, any more and she'd start suffering even more effects. It was a toss up, keep up the current pace and risk it, or slow down, start sneaking and save her strength for when she needed it.

As much as it annoyed her, she knew what Impact would tell her in this situation. Remembering the map, she took a few detours through smaller passages, taking a longer route but not the one she had before.

It worked, she managed to avoid all but one startled guard who fell to her knives quickly and with one final corner she slide to a stop with the scene in front of her.

If the Scot was angry before, she was furious now. Astrid was on the ground crying and out of her crystal form,two dead guards lay next to her and the adapted was struggling with Impact. Thing were bad, really bad, but they had what they needed. Getting out was the only thing now. No matter how much she wanted to gut the woman for putting Seraph through this.

"Impact, get Seraph up, we're done," the words left her lips as she barreled into the duel from the side. With two of them, one of them armed with weapons she doubted the agent would be so quick to move in. If she had any knives she hadn't brought them into play so for now, Cait had the advantage. "Seraph! Get up, now! We need you to help cover us on the way out!" It hurt to scream orders at the shocked young woman but if they all didn't work together, they wouldn't leave the place alive.

"And you," her eyes burned with anger as she addressed the tall Super agent, "No more games, no more mercy. You want a fight, someone isn't walking away." Threats were new, she'd never really said she was going to kill someone. It was, wrong. On so many levels. What was she becoming?

Dropping into an aggressive stance, prepared for a counter with either knife should she come, if Impact had any escape plans, now was the time to use them.

Astrid was exhausted. The shift to her full crystal form had been hard on her body, and her muscles were revolting against her. All she wanted to do was keep her spot on the floor and let the men continue to drag her along the floor. Only, she knew that wasn’t an option. She knew what would happen if they dragged her off. She knew where they would take her. 

So, she had screamed. She had screamed because she knew that she was no longer strong enough to fight them off, and she wasn’t about to shift back and risk getting stuck again. She screamed because she knew that if she did, her mother would do something to save her. It was a selfish, juvenile move, but it was the only one she still had. 

Sure enough, the two bodies dropped beside her, dead from the shots that Impact had fired off. Seraph’s eyes grew wide and she scrambled to her feet, spurred on by the voice of Shivs behind her. They needed to get going. They were done. There was a mess in their wake, but they were done, and Astrid could move again. They were going to be okay, right?

The answer was maybe. By saving her daughter, Impact had put her own life at risk by forgetting the fight that she was in, and the adapted woman had taken full advantage of that fact. The teen could only watch as the redhead was slammed against the wall and the gun was knocked from her hand. 

Thankfully, Shivs knew what she was doing. Tears had begun to spill from Astrid’s eyes as she looked on from just a little ways away. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready for any of it, and she just wanted to go home. They needed to get through the mission, but she wasn’t even sure if she had that in her anymore. It all seemed like this was something designed for someone much older and much wiser than herself, and she had been thrust into it too soon. 

Still, she couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t give up. Partially because if she did that she wouldn’t live to experience another day, but mostly because she knew that she loved Impact and Shivs, and she would rise above herself to help them if that was what was required. 

She stopped herself from collapsing against the wall and instead followed Shivs to where Impact and the woman were fighting. She was committed to helping, even if it was the last thing that she did. She dropped to a fight stance and stood behind Shivs, ready to follow instruction.