The X-Project

Day two in Casablanca brings a phone call from a potential business-participant for Elpis's skills training centre. Catseye and Nathan head to the port for a meeting, leaving Monet to catch up. Things are not, however, quite what they seem.


"Really?" Interest sharpened Nathan's voice, and he rose, leaving Catseye alone at the table with the breakfast they'd ordered from room service. Monet hadn't yet emerged from the bathroom and Catseye seemed to be grappling with the fact that she was expected to eat stewed beans for breakfast, so he hadn't minded when Maya had called from the centre and interrupted things. Especially given that she had good news. "No, no, that's fine," he assured her, "I can head over there right away. If they want to talk to me, I can certainly oblige."

Catseye had turned up her nose in true cat fashion at the tea and the beans, but she had enjoyed her pancakes and the bread. In the interests of sharing, she had left Monet and Nathan all her tea and beans, and while Nathan was on the phone had eaten the pancakes off Monet's plate, and the one Nathan hadn't quite finished. "BigHairGirl!" she shouted in the general direction of the bathroom, "come out or Catseye will eat your bread!"

"Be out in a minute, Cats, and if you drink my tea, I'll kill you!" Monet glared at the mirror and at the reflection of her hairbrush, which was currently very thoroughly snared in a clump of hair. She began the slow, painstaking process of unsnarling the tangle, trying to save the brush - in this situation, there was always the chance that this time, her hair would win out over the brush.

"Okay, thanks, Maya. Talk to you this afternoon." Nathan flipped his phone shut and eyed the bathroom door thoughtfully. "Monet, ETA on you being ready to face the day?" he called.

"Gimme fifteen minutes? I've got to fix this and put my face on, if you want me looking decent," she yelled back. "And that's skipping breakfast, too!"

"Catseye is eating BigHairGirl's breakfast so she will not have to be even more slow eating!" the catgirl assured Monet in her most helpful voice. "But Catseye will let BigHairGirl drink the tea, even if Catseye could beat BigHairGirl in a fight to be killed."

"Oy! My breakfast. I'll eat it in the damn car!" Monet stuck her head out the bathroom door. To her credit, she was at least mostly dressed in business wear. "Also, Cats? You'd lose. And leave me one of those damn pancakes or I really will sell you for dim sims. Understand?"

"Monet, you don't need to-" Rush, was what Nathan intended to say. Instead, he blinked for a long, thoughtful moment at Monet's head. Or hair, rather. Well. That's rather terrifying. "Why don't you, um... well, we don't need all three of us at this meeting. And then we've got nothing until this afternoon. You can take your time, maybe meet us over at the port?" He went over and scrawled down the address Maya had given him. "Then we can go out and see some of the city before the next round of meetings."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll meet youse there and y'know, actually look professional." She grabbed some tea and retreated back toward the bathroom.

Catseye stuck her tongue out at Monet's retreating back. "Catseye doesn't know what a dim sim is but BigHairGirl can try it and get bitten!" She finished the last pancake with a devilish grin, then turned to Nathan. "BigHairGirl should be a catgirl," she mused. "Cats bath themselves and it is much faster to get ready for the day than what BigHairGirl does!"

Nathan had slightly more tact - and kept his witty commentary telepathic and directed only at Catseye. #I say we beat a hasty retreat before the hair takes on a life of its own and comes looking for the one who ate the pancakes,# he sent back, scrawling down the address on a note and leaving some local currency for a cab. "Monet! Left you cab fare! Don't maltreat the cabbie!"

---

The front door led into the shipping company's offices, Maya had said, and as Nathan pulled their rental car in front of the warehouse, said door opened and a slender, dark-haired woman stepped out, peering at their car and then waving at them beckoningly. "We must be at the right place," Nathan said to Catseye, pulling the keys out of the ignition. "Ready to make nice?"

The catgirl cocked her head in apparent confusion. "Catseye is always nice! But Catseye will use her eyes and not her mouth if that is what MisterNathanSoftHands means." She knew that some humans didn't appreciate her honesty or her questions, and because Nathan was taking care of her she would respect his feelings and do what he wanted her to do.

"Just a joke, it's okay," Nathan reassured her with a chuckle. "They called us, so they're likely to be willing to hear what we have to say already. We don't have to be overly diplomatic." He got out, waiting until Catseye did so as well before locking the doors.

"Catseye is diplomatic," she muttered to herself, pouting a little as she got out of the car. "Catseye only eats at human mealtimes now and Catseye calls people by silly human titles and knows about privacy." She was carrying her notebook and pencil in her tail and bounded over to Nathan, unable to contain her excitement at being able to participate in Nathan's work outside the office even through her pout.

Nathan winked at her. "You may be diplomatic," he murmured. "I'm not." They reached the woman standing waiting for them, and Nathan eyed her for a moment before shaking the offered hand. "Nathan Morrow," he introduced himself. "This is my assistant, Ms. Smith. I somehow don't think you're Mr. Farid." He offered her a crooked smile.

She shook her head, smiling. "No. My name is Rabeia - I'm Mr. Farid's assistant. Please, come in." She showed them into the offices, which were spartan, at best; Nathan sized the place up with a glance, but didn't draw any conclusions. Nothing wrong with a company that was all business.

#How come MisterNathanSoftHands told the lady his name was Morrow when he tells other people his human name is Dayspring?# Catseye thought at Nathan, though she had enough sense not to ask out loud.

#It's my working name,# he sent back amiably. #More of a normal-sounding name, don't you think?# He smiled again at the administrative assistant as she gestured them to seats. "Ms-"

"Rabeia, please, Mr. Morrow. Mr. Farid called me only a few moments before you pulled in." Her English was nearly accentless. "Unfortunately he's stuck in traffic, and may be a while longer in arriving. Can I offer you some coffee?"

"Of course." Nathan lowered himself into the chair, ignoring the twinge of pain in his hip. "We don't have any other commitments this morning, so the delay isn't a problem. I'm very eager to talk to Mr. Farid about our program."

Catseye followed Nathan's example of sitting, tucking her feet up underneath her and setting her notepad and pencil in her lap. #Catseye thinks Dayspring makes a prettier picture for a name than Morrow,# she commented, #but Morrow is easier to say than Dayspring, and it has less letters so Catseye understands.# "Hello," she said to the woman, smiling broadly, and was going to comment on her voice but closed her mouth instead.

"Hello," Rabeia said, with a genuinely friendly smile. "I hope you're enjoying your time in our city, Ms. Smith, Mr. Morrow," she said as she went over to get them coffee. "Had you been here before?"

"This is Ms. Smith's first time," Nathan said. "I've passed through a number of times over the years. How long have you lived here?" The woman's English was very good, which made him wonder.

"Oh, since I was quite young," Rabeia said, bringing them the coffee, "although I was educated in America. It was good to come home."

"I imagine so," Nathan said, sipping at the - very good - coffee. Rabeia headed back towards the desk, and he tilted his head slightly. "If you have other things to be doing, you can pretend we're not here," he said with a brief grin. "We've got no problem just sitting and waiting for Mr. Farid."

Rabeia laughed, looking back over her shoulder at him. "Oh, no, Mr. Morrow, I wouldn't be so discourteous. I just thought you might like some background information on our company to look over while you're waiting." She sorted through files on her desk, humming to herself for a moment.

"That would be wonderful, actually. This is all very short-notice, and I was feeling a little sheepish, not knowing as much as I should about your company and where our prospective graduates might fit in."

Catseye watched the woman carefully. Rabeia moved like Jay did now. Like a predator. She was approaching with the files, and something about her had Catseye's every sense sharpening with alertness. The woman had reached Nathan's side, and the files had slipped out of her hands. Nathan leaned over in his chair to help her pick them up. Something was funny about the woman. #MisterNathanSoftHands?# Catseye began telepathically.

Rabeia was moving the files around oddly, Nathan was thinking as he tried to help her pick them up. Sorting them, maybe, if that was what the shifting them back and forth to different piles was all about. She seemed flustered all of a sudden, and even as Nathan opened his mouth to assure her that it was all right, hardly anything to worry about, he heard Catseye think at him, her mental voice tentatively alarmed.

And felt Rabeia's mind shift in a very intent way, His head whipped back around, but even as he drew back, she was snapping something around his wrist, a heavy metal bracelet that had been under one of the files she hadn't dropped, in a single smooth movement.

The lock on it clicked shut, and Nathan's telepathic awareness went dead. He was on his feet in a shot, backing away. "What the fuck are you doing?" he snarled, pulling at the bracelet - the inhibitor bracelet - desperately.

Rabeia rose, hands raised almost defensively, and when she spoke, her tone was actually soothing. "It's all right," she said, her eyes wide and full of sincerity. "We don't mean you any harm - Nathan. Please, you have to believe me."

Catseye leapt to her feet in alarm, absorbing everything in a state of shock tempered by instinctive reflexes that led her to use her claws on the bracelet, trying to cut it off Nathan's arm. When the bracelet proved immune to her ministrations, however, she shifted into BigCat, knowing that Nathan could use his telepathy to keep her from doing anything VeryBad in the primitive cat form. But instead of lunging she simply stood at Nathan's side, growling and showing her teeth, Nathan's protector, ready to strike when the woman proved herself a real threat.

"Listen to me," Rabeia said, lowering her hands partway, but keeping them palms-up, as if to show him that she didn't have any other tricks up her sleeve. "I'll explain. You're in danger, Nathan - surely you know that." Her tone, her voice, was all too earnest. "They nearly killed you in Puerto Rico, and they know, they know now that they didn't finish the job. They'll come after you, as soon as they can find a way."

"Who the hell are you, and what the fuck does this have to do with putting an inhibitor on me?" Nathan growled, trying to work the lock, watch her, and watch a very angry-looking panther at the same time.

Rabeia gave a helpless, slightly shaky smile. "I'm so glad I managed to get that on you - we want this to be as painless as possible. I wasn't sure my mental discipline was up to the job. I haven't been training all that long." She tapped her temple. "I thought I could manage it, if I gave you no reason to scan me."

Son of a bitch! He wasn't getting this bracelet off. Not without some sort of tool. Nathan reached out an unsteady hand and touched Catseye's head briefly, hoping she wasn't lost enough in the big-cat form to miss the signal not to attack the woman. He needed at least one more question answered here. He had to know what to expect.

When Nathan had growled at the woman Catseye had taken a menacing step forward, still baring her teeth and growling low in her throat. Her muscles tensed in anticipation of a strike. But Nathan's hand, the nervousness she could sense in his touch triggered something in her head that battled with the cat's base instincts, something that told her Nathan didn't want her to attack and so she shouldn't attack, but she didn't completely understand why she was holding back. She had to protect Nathan, therefore she should attack the woman who had made Nathan angry. Except something was telling her that Nathan didn't want her to attack. It was confusing, and she sat down on her haunches to try and think, still watching the woman warily.

"You have to know who sent me," Rabeia said, still so earnest. "Tara knows much more about Taygetos than she's ever let on to Shaw. She knew she had to do something, to make sure you were taken somewhere safe-"

She might have said more. In fact, it was entirely possible that she had been planning to say more, but Nathan's lunge across the distance between them gave her only enough time to acquire a comical look of shock before she was on the floor, out cold and bleeding profusely from the nose.

Nathan stepped away from her, jaw clenched. He didn't usually punch non-combatant women in the face, but when the situation called for it, he had no trouble at all making exceptions. The next thing he did was crouch down in front of Catseye, taking the panther's head in his hands so that he could look into her eyes.

"We have to get out of here," he said harshly, willing her to understand him. "We're going to make a run for it. You do exactly what I tell you, do you hear me?" He tried to put the command into his body language and his expression as much as his words.

Impressed that Nathan had attacked the woman on his own, the panther relaxed and yielded to the alpha male. She licked Nathan's nose with her rough tongue before bounding towards the door, struggling to ignore the scent of blood coming from the nose of the prone woman.

Nathan was there almost as quickly, and swore, immediately reaching out to stop Catseye again. "Fuck," he hissed. He didn't recognize any of the women getting out of the van, but the tall, dark-haired man leading them was another matter entirely.

And he was not going to try and take on William Moses without his powers. Because he was not a suicidal idiot. "Out the back," he muttered under his breath after a quick look around the offices. One of the doors led directly out into the warehouse, and he led Catseye there, closing it behind them and hurrying through the suspiciously quiet building. The place didn't even look like it was in use. How the hell had they set this up?

Catseye had paused for a moment at Rabeia, the smell of blood overwhelming the animal's instincts, but the alpha male was leading her away so she followed, albeit reluctantly, and when they were through the warehouse and away from the threatening people she shifted back into girlform, ignoring the hunger pangs in her stomach. "What did the woman do to SoftHands and who are the people in the car?"

"It's an inhibitor bracelet. It shuts off my powers." And it was not fucking coming off. How could I have been so stupid? He'd missed it entirely. "And the people in the car are moronic people, who are apparently here to kidnap me for my own good," he grated, holding out a hand to stop her at the back loading doors of the warehouse. "There," he said, nodding at the maze of shipping containers stacked on the docks beyond. "We can lose them in there."

"BigCat can eat the moronic people if SoftHands wants," she told Nathan, though she was already moving towards the shipping containers.

Something that was almost a laugh escaped Nathan. "Let's not. But - I am going to need your help. I can't sense anything. I need you to figure out where we should and shouldn't go."

The purple-haired girl nodded emphatically. "Catseye will do it in catform but not BigCat unless the moronic people come because Catseye will attack if they try to take SoftHands but if SoftHands powers are shut off BigCat could eat anything or not help SoftHands at all and that could be a BadThing." Satisfied with her own logic, she shifted into her regular catform without waiting for an answer from Nathan and bounded off between two shipping containers, all senses alert.

He was no less furious (and frightened) than he had been, that this was happening when he had a student with him. But Catseye was not your average student, and Nathan realized very quickly, as they made their way through the maze of shipping containers, just how lucky he was that she was with him.

Catseye took off at a lope through the maze of shipping containers, conscious of the fact that she couldn't let Nathan lose sight of her. She bounded down each corridor made by the containers to inspect where they led and if they were dead ends or she sensed danger, headed back to where she'd turned before Nathan had caught up from her last turn. At this speed she could save him the trouble of wrong turns or encountering anyone unsavoury. She found one such character around a turn and backtracked quickly, leading Nathan down a corridor that split off into two, taking the left path and hoping the woman would head right. Another was close enough for Catseye to smell, but she estimated they were two corridors to the right so she led Nathan left, then dashed ahead again. This was a fun game, but the catgirl preferred to be the one doing the chasing, not the one being chased. Hoping Nathan wouldn't lose her, she scouted a bit further ahead, catching the scents of more pursuers and more dead ends before returning to him. She was growing impatient at the thought that she was expending needless energy checking out every path when there was an easier way. Leaping up onto Nathan's shoulder, Catseye used him as a platform to jump on top of a container. From here she had a much better view of their enemies and the path ahead, and if she stayed to the edges Nathan would still be able to see her. The containers were even close enough together that she could jump between them. Taking off again, she guided him deeper into the maze.

He needed to warn Monet. "Catseye, hold on for a minute," he said softly, waiting until the purple cat had paused above him on a shipping container before he pulled out his phone and began to dial.

---

Monet had just finished paying the cab driver when her cell phone rang. "Monet, it's a trap," was Nathan's greeting as she answered. He sounded tense and out of breath. "It's Trask, it's a set-up - I've got a fucking inhibitor bracelet on."

"Shit." The cab speeding away, Monet stepped back against a wall, doing her best to duck out of sight against a column. "Where are you? And Cats? Is she okay?"

"I don't know where the hell we are." There was an ominous pause, broken by the sound of Nathan saying something to Catseye that the phone didn't quite pick up. Then he was back, sounding increasingly angry. "She's fine, but we all need to get out of here. Problem is that we made a run out the back, and now I'm all turned around. Shipping containers as far as the eye can see."

"Shit. Shit. I'll try to find you both before we get out of here." Monet headed toward the shipping containers at a little under an all-out run. "Message me if you find a landmark or some place sa --Jesus fuck!" Screams rang in the air and people scattered aimlessly as an explosion ripped through the port. Monet kicked off her shoes -the heels weren't made for running - and sprinted toward the disturbance, unwilling to fly and attract even more attention.

As she approached, there was another explosion, a shipping container flying briefly up into the air before it crashed back to the ground, mere feet away from her. The source of the commotion was almost immediately obvious, one she was close enough. The man causing it was as tall and powerfully built as Nathan, but it was definitely not her lost teammate. His face was nearly as familiar; the X-Men had tangled often enough now with William Moses that his file was frequently reviewed, and drones wearing his face often starred in some of Scott's more complex Danger Room simulations.

Moses looked out of breath at the moment, and rather put off, as if his plans for the day had just been dramatically and permanently derailed and he wasn't quite sure what to think of the situation he now found himself in. He aimed another concussive force blast to his left, and swore in a language Monet didn't recognize as he missed his target.

Irene Merryweather rolled back to her feet, tossing blonde hair out of her eyes and focusing once more on her opponent. She raised a hand, heat-shimmer in the air around it, and as Moses dodged desperately, something burned a man-sized hole in the side of the shipping container, just behind the spot where he'd been standing. Molten metal dripped away from the edges of the hole as the metal curled back from itself, as if shrinking away from the heat.

Monet skidded to a halt and ducked down against a mini van, hiding behind that brief bit of cover. William Moses was high on the list of people Monet had never wanted to meet. Ever. She swore and ducked a little lower, hoping he hadn’t seen her. Irene appeared to be holding him off or even winning (God, was everyone a mutant these days?) and if Monet knew anything, it was that she had no chance at all of taking Moses on her own. She bit her lip, weighing out her options: find Nate and hope Moses didn’t find them, any of them, (not much chance of that, if Trask was here after Nathan) because Nathan would be useless for a while even after they got the damn inhibitor off him, or... give Merryweather a hand now, and hope that they won. And then deal with the Merryweather problem later. “Shit. I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die here.” She took a deep breath, working up the nerve to leave her spot of shelter and join the fight.

---

They'd almost made it. They were nearly to the edge of the yard full of shipping containers - another warehouse was right there - when they were finally cornered. Nathan didn't need Catseye's frantic meowing to warn him that they were in trouble. He heard the running footsteps, Trask's team calling to each other, and then there was someone blocking the way ahead, and someone else behind them. Boxed in. He supposed it had been inevitable.

"Stay up there!" he shouted at Catseye, still high above him on the shipping containers. Then he charged the woman ahead of him, barely keeping his temper in check. If Catseye got hurt amidst all of this, got one single fucking scratch, Trask was going to wish he'd do her the mercy of putting a bullet in her head.

The woman was nearly his height - and build, which was a little frightening - and Nathan knew as soon as he closed with her that he was dealing with some sort of brick. But old age and ruthlessness had their pluses, and she was holding back, probably under orders from Trask. He didn't have to. He went for the incapacitating strikes, the ones that would have put a non-enhanced person down for the count. It was enough to keep her on the retreat, brick or no brick.

Seeing Nathan attack the woman, Catseye felt she had to disobey Nathan's order to stay up on the container. There were too many enemies and not enough Nathan. She had to shift into BigCat form and help him, and hope that she retained enough of her higher intelligence not to attack Nathan. She hadn't hurt her friends when they'd fought in New York all that time ago, after all, because BigCat had recognized that they were Colony, and Nathan was just as much a part of her colony as her fellow students were... so he would probably be okay... of course he definitely wouldn't be okay if the enemies got him...

The BigCat leapt off the container, straight onto the back of the woman behind Nathan, who had been attempting to sneak up on him as he battled with the other woman. The woman fell, and Catseye let out a roar. The purple feline was about to take a bite out of her prey when another attacker joined the fray in an attempt to get at Nathan, and Catseye turned her attention to them instead, taking another leap towards the body.

The woman looked briefly bewildered at the sight of a purple panther leaping at her. She flung up her hands and a glowing blue bubble of energy surrounded her. The cougar hit the shield with an audible whump and was thrown back against a container and to the ground, where she lay on her side, stunned.

"Catseye!" Nathan lost his shaky grip on his temper, all at once, and grabbed the closest thing to hand - heavy ropes attached to a pulley, lying there as if a port worker had set it down and forgotten it. He swung it, catching the woman he was fighting across the face. She dropped like a sack of potatoes, clutching at her eyes, and he flung himself at the second woman as her shield flickered. He grabbed her by the back of the shirt and introduced her head-first to the shipping container beside her, knocking her out. Nathan let her drop and ran for Catseye, managing to half-lift the panther and pull her out of the main corridor between the shipping containers.

"Hey," he whispered urgently, stroking the large purple-furred head. He heard more shouting, and in the distance, what sounded like an explosion. Shit, that had better not be Monet-

Smelling Nathan's scent mixed with his fear and feeling his touch on her head brought Catseye back to her senses, and she licked Nathan's cheek as she struggled to her feet. Just in time to catch the woman she'd jumped on lunging towards Nathan. She leapt over Nathan and knocked the woman over again, this time making sure she sent her into a shipping container to knock her out. Shifting back into girlform and doubling over from the pangs that attacked her stomach and the wooziness from her hit to the head. "What went boom?" she asked Nathan, worried.

"I don't know," he said, reaching out to support her. "Come on, we need to get out of here now." He managed a strained smile. "Not precisely how we intended to spend the afternoon, was it?"

Before they could take more than a couple of steps, there was a familiar click, and Nathan froze. "Stay there," he said softly, and stepped away from her, turning to face the woman with the gun. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that you're going to shoot me," he told her.

An athletic-looking brunette with no visible mutations, she looked first edgy, then determined. "Not anywhere critical," she said in a British-accented voice, her words clipped and precise. "But I think Tara would forgive me a bullet in your leg if it meant bringing you back to her safely."

"SoftHands is mine," Catseye growled in her girlform. "No one hurts my humans." She shifted back into BigCat, taking a menacing step towards the woman with the gun.

"No!" Nathan said sharply, flinging out a hand to stop her. "Don't you dare," he said to the woman, breathing hard. His gray eyes blazed in his suddenly pale face. "If you shoot her - if you even try, you're going to have to empty every bullet in your clip into me. And then I'm still going to tear you limb from limb with my bare hands."

The woman's gun shifted slowly towards Catseye. "If you're worried about her, you can make this easier. I'll let her walk away. If you come quietly."

A wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him, and Nathan tottered on his feet, grabbing desperately at the shipping container beside him to keep himself upright. The memories seared through his mind's eye - that basement in Puerto Rico, the guns, the children.

When Nathan tottered Catseye stepped closer to him, leaning against his side, hoping to steady him. She licked his hand and glared at the woman, growling.

The rough, wet scrape of the panther's tongue brought him back to himself, and as his vision cleared, then got fuzzy, then cleared again, Nathan managed to refocus on the face of the stranger holding the gun on him. She looked... concerned, yet still determined. It was a strange combination.

"This has all been much harder than it needed to be. Please - come with me. End this. Don't make me-"

"Not again," Nathan said under his breath, his voice hoarse, and charged her. His hands weren't tied. A bullet to the arm or leg wouldn't put him down, and if he could just reach her-

The crack of the gunshot made him stumble to a stop. But there was no pain, and he stared in disbelief as the woman toppled forward, her gun sliding from her hand as she hit the ground.

And the man standing behind her, the man who'd shot her, lowered his gun, gazing uncertainly at Nathan.

"Are the two of you all right?" Malachi Hark asked.

Nathan's eyes went wide as he stared at the mysterious courier from that night at the Hellfire Club, the man they hadn't been able to track, or find, or even identify. Small world, he wanted to say, but didn't. Now wasn't the time for banter.

The cat kept growling and took a step towards Hark, posture threatening. The newcomer's voice didn't sound hostile, but she didn't trust him either.

Hark raised both hands. "Hey, easy. Believe me, I'm not with them." He raised both eyebrows as he holstered his weapon. "Look, you need to get out of here," he said to Nathan, more briskly. "Moses is taken care of-"

"Wait, what-" Nathan started blankly.

Hark spoke right over him. "-and we can cover your retreat," he went on calmly, "but you need to go now. If we don't clear out before the authorities get here, we're all up shit creek."

"Now hold on," Nathan growled, taking an involuntary step towards the younger man. Hark blinked, but didn't back up. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on!"

"There's not time," Hark emphasized, as if he was talking to someone who wasn't quite hearing him. But he went on rapidly, and Nathan's jaw all but hit the floor at his next words. "We're breaking a promise to your mother, being here, but there was no option. We couldn't let Trask take you. Now will you please get out of here before her reinforcements get here and your purple friend gets caught in the crossfire again? We'll get your car out of here, we'll make sure there's no trace you were ever here, but you have to go, now."

Nathan jerked backwards, the reminder of Catseye's presence, the danger he'd unintentionally put her in, hitting him like a slap to the face. "Fine," he said after a moment, his heartbeat thudding sickly in his ears. "Shift back," he told Catseye. "We have to get back to the hotel."

---

Moses lashed out with another blast at Merryweather, who dropped to the ground in a perfectly timed roll, coming back up with both hands outstretched. The heat-shimmer gathered around her hands again, and this time, Moses didn't dodge in time. He screamed as his clothes and hair caught fire, and Merryweather's jaw clenched as she shifted to track him with her outstretched hands, the heat-shimmer only increasing.

Okay, time for a new plan. "Oy! What are you doing to him?" Monet's plan, such as it was, hadn't involved killing Moses. Just maybe breaking his legs a bit.

Merryweather ignored her completely, dropping her hands to her sides as Moses went down. Emotions flashed across her face in an instant - fear, determination - and then she dashed across the distance separating her from the fallen man. She went to her knees at his side, reaching out to grasp his wrists as he raised his burned arms feebly, trying to fend her off.

"We warned you," she hissed at him, an instant before a flash of brilliant white light blotted out the world. When it cleared, Moses was lying motionless on the ground, and Merryweather was staggering back to her feet, blood trickling from her nose and her balance clearly gone.

...that was not good. "Jesus! You killed William Moses. What did you have to do that for?" Monet shouted. She was almost next to Merryweather, unsure what to do.

Merryweather tottered slightly, her eyes wild and not entirely focused as she looked in Monet's direction. Then she jerked backwards, as if the younger woman's proximity was a shock. Her hands came up almost instinctively...

...and discharged another type of energy entirely. The concussive force blast slammed heavily into Monet, knocking her away. She went flying, landing against a pile of packing crates. Monet stood, pushing aside the crates and winced. So much for keeping a low bloody profile in Morocco. She walked toward Irene, doing her best to not look like a marauding, barefoot mutant who'd just gone flying. "Dude! We need to have a little chat here. Or maybe, someplace less full of dead bodies."

Merryweather looked quite literally ill. There was an alarming gray tinge to her skin, and the nosebleed was only accelerating. As she heard Monet, however, she straightened - and ran in the opposite direction, heading for the street at an impressive clip given the state she was in.

Monet followed after her through the slowly growing crowd of people who were torn between doing something about the Damn Mutant Incident and their understandable unease about doing anything to piss off the crazy mutant lady. Unlike Irene, however, who seemed to be relying on being a crazy mutant lady, she could use her reasonably minor telepathy to project a steady message of 'just don't play attention to me, okay?' to the crowd as she hurried after Irene.

She wasn't hard to follow. Taller than most of the people around her, and stumbling as she ran, Merryweather was reeling into the occasional passerby, her blonde hair whipping like a flag in the wind as she kept looking back at Monet.

Monet's unwillingness to fly after Merryweather (a vain and probably useless attempt to avoid further attention) meant that she didn't gain as quickly on the other woman as she'd have liked to. On several occasions she almost closed on her only to be headed off by taxis, mini busses or crowds of pedestrians.

In the end, she probably would have caught up, and who knew where things would have gone from there? But even as Monet started to get closer, it became all too obvious that something a little alarming was happening to Merryweather. Pedestrians started to shift away from her, a few crying out as they spotted the glow forming around her hands. However she had acquired Moses's power, it clearly hadn't come complete with full control.

Merryweather glanced back over her shoulder, spotted Monet not far away, and started to turn, not really watching where she was going. She collided with someone, throwing her hands up almost defensively.

The blast careened wildly, into the road, where it sideswiped a minibus, sending it flying through traffic.

Monet screamed. Abandoning Merryweather for the moment, she hurled herself into the bus's path, doing her best to stop it skidding off the road into a crowd of pedestrians. Feet sliding on the road and shoulders aching from the weight of the bus, she eventually stopped it. When she looked around, Merryweather was gone. A moment later, her phone was buzzing with a text message from Nathan. Reading it, Monet took it as her own cue to quietly slip away and head back to the hotel.