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Who: Kitty Pryde & Manuel de la Rocha
When: 2018, during Wildways
Where: Subterranean Mojoworld
What: Separated from the rest of the team, Kitty and Manuel work on getting back and learning to be teammates.
Warnings: Nope!
Manuel de la Rocha and Kitty Pryde had found themselves in a bad situation after getting separated from the rest of the team, dropped through a hole in the floor of the otherworldly arena they'd first arrived in. From there, they'd been sent tumbling down a chute to some lower level, a labyrinth of unfamiliar corridors punctuated with cameras. The devices gave themselves away with red lights glowing in the dim like eyes. So Mojo's beloved audience could watch, of course.
And they hadn't been alone either. There were hulking, inhuman gladiators down there with them, armed with energy weapons that could temporarily disrupt her phasing and biomechanical brains that strained his ability to manipulate their emotions, leaving them to...well. Run. Running came with its own complications, however, as the gladiators pursued them and the tunnels were fitted with traps and pitfalls.
There had been some conflict between them initially too. Manuel insisted on calling the shots, as the older of the pair and the more senior X-Man, and said she was treating the situation like a game. Kitty pushed back and insisted she knew what she was doing if he'd just listen to her. Neither of them had a clue, though, and it wasn't until after a couple of close calls that they were able to put their egos aside and start working together. Making the most of their skills to separate their pursuers into smaller groups so they could fight them hand-to-hand, take their weapons, trick them into traps, and otherwise keep each other safe.
It had been Manuel that had worked the location of a maintenance tunnel out of one of the gladiators through emotional manipulation and honeyed words, but Kitty that had been able to gain them access to a control panel and get them through the heavy metal door and into relative safety. No more gladiators. No more traps. No more cameras. Just metal walls lined with clusters of wires and a path leading...somewhere.
Now, with the door sealed behind them, Manuel looks over at Kitty. Breathless, face smeared with sweat and blood (mostly not his, thank God), he offers her a thin smile, "That... could've gone worse." He takes a moment to steady himself, then looks her over, his sense focusing on her emotions at the same time. He's ready to steady her too, if she needs it. "Are you all right?"
Kitty's smile in response is considerably wider, still coming off a considerable amount of adrenaline and excitement. They're in relative safety for now, but this is by far the most dangerous thing she's ever done in her life. And, although she's trying to temper the thought so as to not invite more scolding, the most fun. As for her health. Actually, she's not sure. She phases cautiously all the way back into solidity for the first time in several minutes and assesses. Maybe some bruises later.
"I'm fine." She insists. Kitty allows her body to stop moving for a second, leaning against the cool metal wall to actually breathe. She knows that Manny will be feeling around for her emotions and therefore desperately tries to settle them on her own. She practically stamps on a twinge of continued panic, which of course, does nothing except invite more panic. She blinks her attention to Manuel instead, poking back even though she doesn't really want to fight right now.
"Are you okay? You look worse than I do."
The girl's emotions are almost always frenetic and complex, so Manuel isn't too surprised by what his sense reveals to him. Excitement and even eagerness amidst hints of uncertainty and rising panic. At least she has the awareness to be panicking a little; that's just common sense given the situation. They're separated from the rest of the team, they're at the mercy of the whims of a psychotic extradimensional reality show host (is that right? it shouldn't be), and they still don't know where Evie is.
There's nothing to do but keep going, though.
He rolls his eyes at her assessment and puts his hands on his hip, retorting glibly, "I've never looked worse than you. But I am...fine." This is mostly true. While he's taken more damage than Kitty, a consequence of being perpetually solid, he's not too bad off. He's cut up and bruised, but at least his powers aren't on the fritz like hers have been. Though she seems stable enough now.
Turning, he looks down the long tunnel ahead of them, dim and still. He doesn't quite trust it, but it's certainly an improvement. "If we follow this, start finding a way back up, I should be able to sense the others. And anything else coming our way." Hopefully. The residents of Mojoworld, abducted or otherwise, are different from the people back home, but he thinks he's starting to calibrate to them somehow.
Kitty laughs a little at the claim. But he sort of does look better than her, outside of the wounds, she knows. He looks older, because he is. More put together, probably more fit, not a skinny 15 year old in a tight catsuit with shoulder flaps that keep hitting corners when she turns them too tightly. Suddenly feeling very young indeed, she hikes up her ponytail and looks down the hallway, placing her own hands definitively on her hips, too, like this perhaps will give her some gravitas.
"Okay. So let's get going."
The hallway is very long. She keeps her feet solid to the floor, head up, every inch a seasoned adventurer. For exactly 20 seconds. Then a stray thought enters her head, which she tilts up to Manuel to ask, "So like, for perspective. Scale of one to weirdest mission you've ever seen, how insane is this one actually?"
Manuel smiles wryly as Kitty laughs and attempts to psych herself up with a confident pose and a quick adjustment of her ponytail, but he starts walking just the same. He falls into step with the girl, not trying to lead this time, and glances around the dim tunnel as they walk. He doesn't know what he's looking for, exactly, but they can't afford to miss any hints about where they are or where this tunnel might lead. His empathic sense is the one he's really putting to work, though. He's expanding it outward, trying to catch the familiar emotional patterns of their friends or anything hostile that might be getting too close for comfort. A dim violet glow sparks in his eyes and brightens as his effort intensifies.
The question prompts him to look at her with an incredulous expression, but she's being serious. He exhales a breath, seeming hesitant to answer. They're in this together, though, so he supposes he owes her honesty. "This is, hands down, the weirdest shit I've ever seen," he returns with a slight glower, obviously unimpressed with Mojo and his games and his spectators. All of it. "Mostly, it's just...human mobs, mutant terrorists, protecting people like us, I...don't know what this is."
The longer he talks, the less composed he feels and the more his air of superior confidence seems to falter. He doesn't want it to be, but it's clear that the young man feels in over his head. His jaw clenches and he turns his eyes back to the tunnels, searching.
This, perversely, makes Kitty feel a little better. She knows insecurity when she sees it; it's written all over her face whenever she lets it fall in the mirror. It's sort of comforting to know he can experience it too. Kitty lets her steps fall in pace fully with Manny's, not tagging back a half-pace out of deference as she had been. Idly, she sticks her hand into the tunnel to feel for any wires or hidden technology. She can at least make sure they aren't being monitored, even here.
"Well. It's a reality show." She says, not sarcastically, puzzling it out in her own head. "Which are weird, but kinda predictable. Like, I bet their move right now is to separate all of us and then we get to reunite to face a big threat and probably die. Unless we can get a little unscripted. Somehow."
Stupid thing to say when they're walking down an unmarked eternal tunnel, but there are ways around that.
The relief that Kitty feels watching him struggle to remain composed catches Manuel like the prick of a needle. Sharp and unpleasant but easily dismissed. Now isn't the time to dwell on petty slights...and he does understand. He's spent much of his life finding reassurance in the vulnerability of others, the hidden aspects that his powers expose. It can put things in perspective.
Well. It's a reality show.
The young man's brows furrow at that and he considers. Reality television has never been his guilty pleasure of choice. He's watched a few episodes of The Real Housewives while spending time with Emma and he's seen advertisements for Hoarders that made him want to crawl out of his skin, but that's all and that doesn't give him much insight.
"I'll defer to your...expertise. So what can we do to throw them off-script? Or get the audience more invested in our survival than our violent deaths?"
Kitty starts pacing, back and forth, through the walls rather than letting herself bounce off them. There's more spring that way.
"So where they have us right now? We're all separated. Probably there's footage, somehow, or just like, conjecture which could be just as good, of us on our separate journeys. So they're either gonna bring us all together in an obvious trap, or hurt some of us so the others go after them, which is effectively just another trap. I know we do need to find the others, but you're right. They have to be interested in our survival. When we emerge, we gotta get our stories straight about how important to us everyone is. Humanize them. You know??"
She pauses mid-stride, catching her companion's gaze to make sure he's still listening.
Manuel feels a pang of annoyance -- or maybe panic or maybe both -- watching Kitty effortlessly weave back and forth through the walls. It makes him tense. Keenly aware of how easily he could end up trapped down here without her. But he dismisses the thought and the impulse to snap at her, instead listening to what she has to say and continuing to scan the tunnel with his still-glowing eyes.
Beyond the confines of the tunnel, his empathic sense continues to push outward, still failing to find their friends.
When the girl finishes her monologue and pauses, looking over at him expectantly, he stops and glances back at her. "Well. If you want to confess your undying love for Evelyn once we're topside again, see if they'll bring us to her, I'll do my best to help you sell it," he returns dryly, sounding less than enthused.
"No, that wouldn't do." Kitty says seriously, considering it. "They'd play that for a stars-crossed lovers thing. We could pretend she's wronged us, instead. They'd bait us into a fight and we could run away together. I bet they'd love that."
But this is still making things possibilities that might not even happen.
"...But at least, doesn't it feel like a straight line's a trap? Even this tunnel."
Crossing his arms, Manuel exhales a soft huff. He hadn't been serious, really, but part of him resents being corrected anyway. Still. Kitty may be right. The frenzied audience somewhere above them had reacted to promises of bloodlust and spectacle and novelty; they're more likely to become invested in a vendetta (with a twist!) than a reuniting of lovers. He's about to concede this point when the girl speaks up again and he frowns thoughtfully.
"...This entire place is a trap," he returns, looking down the tunnel again and shrugging, "But the guard that pointed us here thought this place was safe, out of bounds, and I would've known if he was lying. So either he's wrong and we adapt or he's right and we take the advantage while we have it. If these are just utility tunnels, there'll be a ladder or something to access the higher levels, no? We just have to find it."
He taps the toe of one boot on the ground, clearly ready to be moving again.
"Unless you have a better idea?"
He's right. And she doesn't have a better idea. She's just a little scared this seeming advantage will be an easy death, later on. But she's hard to kill. She nods, decisive, accepting his decision without further argument, which he'll know is a minor miracle.
"I mean, we should walk a little further so they're not following us. But you know I can get us up without a ladder, right?"
To get a head start, and to show off, frankly, Kitty goes intangible and demonstrates walking through the atoms in the air, gliding upward, ghostly. "You'd just have to hold your breath a little."
While Kitty hasn't been training with the team for that long, Manuel does know this. But he doesn't know if her powers are fully under control again. Or how long he can hold his breath, for that matter. He glances up, eyes briefly following her drifting and intangible form before settling on the ceiling overhead. They have no way of knowing how thick the space between levels could be and he doesn't want to think about what would happen if they couldn't make it all the way through.
He closes his eyes briefly and when he opens them again, the glow has faded. His attention is fully on Kitty.
"You're certain?"
Kitty pauses, touching the ceiling experimentally. She knows. She is certain. They hadn't descended leagues below the earth when just walking down here. His incredulity makes her smile, and she comes to a rest, solid.
"You don't trust me very much, do you." It's not an accusation, just an observation. Maybe he doesn't have a reason to.
The girl's sudden confidence is sharp and unwavering, blindingly sincere, but Manuel still has doubts. When he smiles back the expression is wry and he shrugs, "I...trust you enough. I know you are capable. The fact that we're standing here is proof enough of that. But put yourself in my position, Gatita. Would you be eager for me to have your life in my hands?"
"You sorta do."
She reminds him. They're both trapped here, in a big tunnel, miles underground. He could leave her for dead, if he wanted. She's grateful that he hasn't yet, and for once doesn't care if he feels it. He's right, anyway. She hasn't proven herself yet. And she has to, if she's going to be on this team. She stretches out her hand to him.
"But we can take just a little trip up so you can see what I mean."
Manuel looks at Kitty's extended hand.
Part of him wants to point out that relying on each other as teammates isn't quite the same as what she's proposing. That he'd be giving up control completely. That she'd be the only factor preventing him from being crushed to death in the most gruesome way imaginable as they pass through solid metal. But, fundamentally, she's right. They're in this together. Silently, he opens himself up her feelings -- her gratitude, her trust, her certainty -- and lets them flow into him. Trust has never come to him easily, but this is close enough. It gets him where he needs to be.
Finally, he takes her hand.
"A quick demonstration," he agrees, "Then we need to get moving."
Kitty squeezes the hand in hers, glad for once that she can convey to him that this really isn't a bad idea. She can be trusted. "Don't let go."
She doesn't think that he has any real desire to become stuck in a wall until death, but doesn't spell out that full danger, so as not to scare him. She lets her own molecules expand enough to slip through barriers, and so Manuel's will too. Kicking off the ground, Kitty leads them both up, up, through the ceiling and then the tunnel itself. They're swimming through topsoil before long; though it doesn't feel like it. It's like traveling through air, only the air gains a viscosity that she finds it hard to describe to anyone without showing them. Kitty doesn't go all the way up. She does take them a long ways down the tunnel in this intermediary layer, swimming back through and dropping them many yards away from where they first stood. She lets go of his hand only then, grinning.
"We got moving." She points out, maybe unnecessarily cheeky, but she thinks she's earned it.
The instruction is unnecessary; even with his mind open to the influence of Kitty's emotions, Manuel's grip on her hand is firm and tightens like a vice when she starts to move. Then they're drifting upward, plunging through the ceiling and into darkness in a way that disorients him but also gives him a rush of excitement and wonder that could be hers or his or both. He can't quite tell and he doesn't try to unravel the feeling, instead letting it linger as they continue to move through the space above the tunnel. Passing through the physical world like ghosts.
When they emerge into the open air and drop down to the floor again, he releases the breath he'd been holding along with small, awestruck laugh before he collects himself and looks at his grinning teammate.
"Vale, vale," he concedes, drawing his hand back only as she releases him and holding it up between them as if to defend himself from her beaming pride, "I get it. Very impressive. Very efficient. The obvious way to proceed."
"Yeah, I told you." Kitty says, simply, that beacon of pride not waning even a little. His laugh just now reminds her of the one she'd let out when she had found out how to climb through walls for the first time, too. It's kind of nice that someone else knows it. But there'll be time to sit in that later. He was right, before. They do have to hurry. She straightens up, all eager eyes and willing attitude all of a sudden, a far cry from the moody teen of a few minutes ago.
"Can you feel them, yet? I can take us from there."
The question brings Manuel fully back to himself and he begrudgingly shakes his head. She's proven that she can do her part; now he needs to do his. He needs to focus.
"Espera. Let me see..."
Closing his eyes, he erects his mental barriers and reaches out with his empathic sense again, pushing it as far as he can beyond its typical limits. He grimaces as hundreds of minds, thousands of emotions, reach him and begins searching for something familiar to lock onto. Most of the entities here aren't human and are so fundamentally different that he can readily dismiss them, but that does nothing to diminish the noise. The audience that's wild and eager for bloodshed. The gladiators who run the gamut from vicious to desperate to frighteningly hollow. Others he can't even begin to put faces or names to. Finally, though...he finds something he recognizes.
Focused and calm under pressure. Keen and protective but indulging in the excitement of combat. Channeling his inner Errol Flynn as he fights off some threat far above and away from them. Kurt, of course.
His eyes, once again glowing with vibrant violet light, snap open and he looks over at Kitty. "I've got them. Our fearless leader, anyway."
Kitty often wonders what the others' powers are like, and wishes she could share them as easily as they could hers. What is it, to feel the emotions of an entire city, or whatever. Or anyone else at all. It's not something she envies, but she leans in, all five feet and barely three inches of her ready to go whenever he says. When those violet eyes look up, she nods, grave. She holds out her hand again.
"Let's not let him party without us. Point me."
"Some party," Manuel returns wryly. Nevertheless, he reaches out to take Kitty's hand again and dutifully points in the direction that'll take them to Kurt. There's no time to waste.
When: 2018, during Wildways
Where: Subterranean Mojoworld
What: Separated from the rest of the team, Kitty and Manuel work on getting back and learning to be teammates.
Warnings: Nope!
Manuel de la Rocha and Kitty Pryde had found themselves in a bad situation after getting separated from the rest of the team, dropped through a hole in the floor of the otherworldly arena they'd first arrived in. From there, they'd been sent tumbling down a chute to some lower level, a labyrinth of unfamiliar corridors punctuated with cameras. The devices gave themselves away with red lights glowing in the dim like eyes. So Mojo's beloved audience could watch, of course.
And they hadn't been alone either. There were hulking, inhuman gladiators down there with them, armed with energy weapons that could temporarily disrupt her phasing and biomechanical brains that strained his ability to manipulate their emotions, leaving them to...well. Run. Running came with its own complications, however, as the gladiators pursued them and the tunnels were fitted with traps and pitfalls.
There had been some conflict between them initially too. Manuel insisted on calling the shots, as the older of the pair and the more senior X-Man, and said she was treating the situation like a game. Kitty pushed back and insisted she knew what she was doing if he'd just listen to her. Neither of them had a clue, though, and it wasn't until after a couple of close calls that they were able to put their egos aside and start working together. Making the most of their skills to separate their pursuers into smaller groups so they could fight them hand-to-hand, take their weapons, trick them into traps, and otherwise keep each other safe.
It had been Manuel that had worked the location of a maintenance tunnel out of one of the gladiators through emotional manipulation and honeyed words, but Kitty that had been able to gain them access to a control panel and get them through the heavy metal door and into relative safety. No more gladiators. No more traps. No more cameras. Just metal walls lined with clusters of wires and a path leading...somewhere.
Now, with the door sealed behind them, Manuel looks over at Kitty. Breathless, face smeared with sweat and blood (mostly not his, thank God), he offers her a thin smile, "That... could've gone worse." He takes a moment to steady himself, then looks her over, his sense focusing on her emotions at the same time. He's ready to steady her too, if she needs it. "Are you all right?"
Kitty's smile in response is considerably wider, still coming off a considerable amount of adrenaline and excitement. They're in relative safety for now, but this is by far the most dangerous thing she's ever done in her life. And, although she's trying to temper the thought so as to not invite more scolding, the most fun. As for her health. Actually, she's not sure. She phases cautiously all the way back into solidity for the first time in several minutes and assesses. Maybe some bruises later.
"I'm fine." She insists. Kitty allows her body to stop moving for a second, leaning against the cool metal wall to actually breathe. She knows that Manny will be feeling around for her emotions and therefore desperately tries to settle them on her own. She practically stamps on a twinge of continued panic, which of course, does nothing except invite more panic. She blinks her attention to Manuel instead, poking back even though she doesn't really want to fight right now.
"Are you okay? You look worse than I do."
The girl's emotions are almost always frenetic and complex, so Manuel isn't too surprised by what his sense reveals to him. Excitement and even eagerness amidst hints of uncertainty and rising panic. At least she has the awareness to be panicking a little; that's just common sense given the situation. They're separated from the rest of the team, they're at the mercy of the whims of a psychotic extradimensional reality show host (is that right? it shouldn't be), and they still don't know where Evie is.
There's nothing to do but keep going, though.
He rolls his eyes at her assessment and puts his hands on his hip, retorting glibly, "I've never looked worse than you. But I am...fine." This is mostly true. While he's taken more damage than Kitty, a consequence of being perpetually solid, he's not too bad off. He's cut up and bruised, but at least his powers aren't on the fritz like hers have been. Though she seems stable enough now.
Turning, he looks down the long tunnel ahead of them, dim and still. He doesn't quite trust it, but it's certainly an improvement. "If we follow this, start finding a way back up, I should be able to sense the others. And anything else coming our way." Hopefully. The residents of Mojoworld, abducted or otherwise, are different from the people back home, but he thinks he's starting to calibrate to them somehow.
Kitty laughs a little at the claim. But he sort of does look better than her, outside of the wounds, she knows. He looks older, because he is. More put together, probably more fit, not a skinny 15 year old in a tight catsuit with shoulder flaps that keep hitting corners when she turns them too tightly. Suddenly feeling very young indeed, she hikes up her ponytail and looks down the hallway, placing her own hands definitively on her hips, too, like this perhaps will give her some gravitas.
"Okay. So let's get going."
The hallway is very long. She keeps her feet solid to the floor, head up, every inch a seasoned adventurer. For exactly 20 seconds. Then a stray thought enters her head, which she tilts up to Manuel to ask, "So like, for perspective. Scale of one to weirdest mission you've ever seen, how insane is this one actually?"
Manuel smiles wryly as Kitty laughs and attempts to psych herself up with a confident pose and a quick adjustment of her ponytail, but he starts walking just the same. He falls into step with the girl, not trying to lead this time, and glances around the dim tunnel as they walk. He doesn't know what he's looking for, exactly, but they can't afford to miss any hints about where they are or where this tunnel might lead. His empathic sense is the one he's really putting to work, though. He's expanding it outward, trying to catch the familiar emotional patterns of their friends or anything hostile that might be getting too close for comfort. A dim violet glow sparks in his eyes and brightens as his effort intensifies.
The question prompts him to look at her with an incredulous expression, but she's being serious. He exhales a breath, seeming hesitant to answer. They're in this together, though, so he supposes he owes her honesty. "This is, hands down, the weirdest shit I've ever seen," he returns with a slight glower, obviously unimpressed with Mojo and his games and his spectators. All of it. "Mostly, it's just...human mobs, mutant terrorists, protecting people like us, I...don't know what this is."
The longer he talks, the less composed he feels and the more his air of superior confidence seems to falter. He doesn't want it to be, but it's clear that the young man feels in over his head. His jaw clenches and he turns his eyes back to the tunnels, searching.
This, perversely, makes Kitty feel a little better. She knows insecurity when she sees it; it's written all over her face whenever she lets it fall in the mirror. It's sort of comforting to know he can experience it too. Kitty lets her steps fall in pace fully with Manny's, not tagging back a half-pace out of deference as she had been. Idly, she sticks her hand into the tunnel to feel for any wires or hidden technology. She can at least make sure they aren't being monitored, even here.
"Well. It's a reality show." She says, not sarcastically, puzzling it out in her own head. "Which are weird, but kinda predictable. Like, I bet their move right now is to separate all of us and then we get to reunite to face a big threat and probably die. Unless we can get a little unscripted. Somehow."
Stupid thing to say when they're walking down an unmarked eternal tunnel, but there are ways around that.
The relief that Kitty feels watching him struggle to remain composed catches Manuel like the prick of a needle. Sharp and unpleasant but easily dismissed. Now isn't the time to dwell on petty slights...and he does understand. He's spent much of his life finding reassurance in the vulnerability of others, the hidden aspects that his powers expose. It can put things in perspective.
Well. It's a reality show.
The young man's brows furrow at that and he considers. Reality television has never been his guilty pleasure of choice. He's watched a few episodes of The Real Housewives while spending time with Emma and he's seen advertisements for Hoarders that made him want to crawl out of his skin, but that's all and that doesn't give him much insight.
"I'll defer to your...expertise. So what can we do to throw them off-script? Or get the audience more invested in our survival than our violent deaths?"
Kitty starts pacing, back and forth, through the walls rather than letting herself bounce off them. There's more spring that way.
"So where they have us right now? We're all separated. Probably there's footage, somehow, or just like, conjecture which could be just as good, of us on our separate journeys. So they're either gonna bring us all together in an obvious trap, or hurt some of us so the others go after them, which is effectively just another trap. I know we do need to find the others, but you're right. They have to be interested in our survival. When we emerge, we gotta get our stories straight about how important to us everyone is. Humanize them. You know??"
She pauses mid-stride, catching her companion's gaze to make sure he's still listening.
Manuel feels a pang of annoyance -- or maybe panic or maybe both -- watching Kitty effortlessly weave back and forth through the walls. It makes him tense. Keenly aware of how easily he could end up trapped down here without her. But he dismisses the thought and the impulse to snap at her, instead listening to what she has to say and continuing to scan the tunnel with his still-glowing eyes.
Beyond the confines of the tunnel, his empathic sense continues to push outward, still failing to find their friends.
When the girl finishes her monologue and pauses, looking over at him expectantly, he stops and glances back at her. "Well. If you want to confess your undying love for Evelyn once we're topside again, see if they'll bring us to her, I'll do my best to help you sell it," he returns dryly, sounding less than enthused.
"No, that wouldn't do." Kitty says seriously, considering it. "They'd play that for a stars-crossed lovers thing. We could pretend she's wronged us, instead. They'd bait us into a fight and we could run away together. I bet they'd love that."
But this is still making things possibilities that might not even happen.
"...But at least, doesn't it feel like a straight line's a trap? Even this tunnel."
Crossing his arms, Manuel exhales a soft huff. He hadn't been serious, really, but part of him resents being corrected anyway. Still. Kitty may be right. The frenzied audience somewhere above them had reacted to promises of bloodlust and spectacle and novelty; they're more likely to become invested in a vendetta (with a twist!) than a reuniting of lovers. He's about to concede this point when the girl speaks up again and he frowns thoughtfully.
"...This entire place is a trap," he returns, looking down the tunnel again and shrugging, "But the guard that pointed us here thought this place was safe, out of bounds, and I would've known if he was lying. So either he's wrong and we adapt or he's right and we take the advantage while we have it. If these are just utility tunnels, there'll be a ladder or something to access the higher levels, no? We just have to find it."
He taps the toe of one boot on the ground, clearly ready to be moving again.
"Unless you have a better idea?"
He's right. And she doesn't have a better idea. She's just a little scared this seeming advantage will be an easy death, later on. But she's hard to kill. She nods, decisive, accepting his decision without further argument, which he'll know is a minor miracle.
"I mean, we should walk a little further so they're not following us. But you know I can get us up without a ladder, right?"
To get a head start, and to show off, frankly, Kitty goes intangible and demonstrates walking through the atoms in the air, gliding upward, ghostly. "You'd just have to hold your breath a little."
While Kitty hasn't been training with the team for that long, Manuel does know this. But he doesn't know if her powers are fully under control again. Or how long he can hold his breath, for that matter. He glances up, eyes briefly following her drifting and intangible form before settling on the ceiling overhead. They have no way of knowing how thick the space between levels could be and he doesn't want to think about what would happen if they couldn't make it all the way through.
He closes his eyes briefly and when he opens them again, the glow has faded. His attention is fully on Kitty.
"You're certain?"
Kitty pauses, touching the ceiling experimentally. She knows. She is certain. They hadn't descended leagues below the earth when just walking down here. His incredulity makes her smile, and she comes to a rest, solid.
"You don't trust me very much, do you." It's not an accusation, just an observation. Maybe he doesn't have a reason to.
The girl's sudden confidence is sharp and unwavering, blindingly sincere, but Manuel still has doubts. When he smiles back the expression is wry and he shrugs, "I...trust you enough. I know you are capable. The fact that we're standing here is proof enough of that. But put yourself in my position, Gatita. Would you be eager for me to have your life in my hands?"
"You sorta do."
She reminds him. They're both trapped here, in a big tunnel, miles underground. He could leave her for dead, if he wanted. She's grateful that he hasn't yet, and for once doesn't care if he feels it. He's right, anyway. She hasn't proven herself yet. And she has to, if she's going to be on this team. She stretches out her hand to him.
"But we can take just a little trip up so you can see what I mean."
Manuel looks at Kitty's extended hand.
Part of him wants to point out that relying on each other as teammates isn't quite the same as what she's proposing. That he'd be giving up control completely. That she'd be the only factor preventing him from being crushed to death in the most gruesome way imaginable as they pass through solid metal. But, fundamentally, she's right. They're in this together. Silently, he opens himself up her feelings -- her gratitude, her trust, her certainty -- and lets them flow into him. Trust has never come to him easily, but this is close enough. It gets him where he needs to be.
Finally, he takes her hand.
"A quick demonstration," he agrees, "Then we need to get moving."
Kitty squeezes the hand in hers, glad for once that she can convey to him that this really isn't a bad idea. She can be trusted. "Don't let go."
She doesn't think that he has any real desire to become stuck in a wall until death, but doesn't spell out that full danger, so as not to scare him. She lets her own molecules expand enough to slip through barriers, and so Manuel's will too. Kicking off the ground, Kitty leads them both up, up, through the ceiling and then the tunnel itself. They're swimming through topsoil before long; though it doesn't feel like it. It's like traveling through air, only the air gains a viscosity that she finds it hard to describe to anyone without showing them. Kitty doesn't go all the way up. She does take them a long ways down the tunnel in this intermediary layer, swimming back through and dropping them many yards away from where they first stood. She lets go of his hand only then, grinning.
"We got moving." She points out, maybe unnecessarily cheeky, but she thinks she's earned it.
The instruction is unnecessary; even with his mind open to the influence of Kitty's emotions, Manuel's grip on her hand is firm and tightens like a vice when she starts to move. Then they're drifting upward, plunging through the ceiling and into darkness in a way that disorients him but also gives him a rush of excitement and wonder that could be hers or his or both. He can't quite tell and he doesn't try to unravel the feeling, instead letting it linger as they continue to move through the space above the tunnel. Passing through the physical world like ghosts.
When they emerge into the open air and drop down to the floor again, he releases the breath he'd been holding along with small, awestruck laugh before he collects himself and looks at his grinning teammate.
"Vale, vale," he concedes, drawing his hand back only as she releases him and holding it up between them as if to defend himself from her beaming pride, "I get it. Very impressive. Very efficient. The obvious way to proceed."
"Yeah, I told you." Kitty says, simply, that beacon of pride not waning even a little. His laugh just now reminds her of the one she'd let out when she had found out how to climb through walls for the first time, too. It's kind of nice that someone else knows it. But there'll be time to sit in that later. He was right, before. They do have to hurry. She straightens up, all eager eyes and willing attitude all of a sudden, a far cry from the moody teen of a few minutes ago.
"Can you feel them, yet? I can take us from there."
The question brings Manuel fully back to himself and he begrudgingly shakes his head. She's proven that she can do her part; now he needs to do his. He needs to focus.
"Espera. Let me see..."
Closing his eyes, he erects his mental barriers and reaches out with his empathic sense again, pushing it as far as he can beyond its typical limits. He grimaces as hundreds of minds, thousands of emotions, reach him and begins searching for something familiar to lock onto. Most of the entities here aren't human and are so fundamentally different that he can readily dismiss them, but that does nothing to diminish the noise. The audience that's wild and eager for bloodshed. The gladiators who run the gamut from vicious to desperate to frighteningly hollow. Others he can't even begin to put faces or names to. Finally, though...he finds something he recognizes.
Focused and calm under pressure. Keen and protective but indulging in the excitement of combat. Channeling his inner Errol Flynn as he fights off some threat far above and away from them. Kurt, of course.
His eyes, once again glowing with vibrant violet light, snap open and he looks over at Kitty. "I've got them. Our fearless leader, anyway."
Kitty often wonders what the others' powers are like, and wishes she could share them as easily as they could hers. What is it, to feel the emotions of an entire city, or whatever. Or anyone else at all. It's not something she envies, but she leans in, all five feet and barely three inches of her ready to go whenever he says. When those violet eyes look up, she nods, grave. She holds out her hand again.
"Let's not let him party without us. Point me."
"Some party," Manuel returns wryly. Nevertheless, he reaches out to take Kitty's hand again and dutifully points in the direction that'll take them to Kurt. There's no time to waste.
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Mojoworld is so fucked up agpdnasidg
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