Everyone, even the players on the diamond, stopped what they were doing to look up. The boos died out, replaced by a buzz of confusion. The handheld camera tilted down to reveal the speaker’s grinning face. Surge gasped.
“There’s one,” Tattoo pointed out needlessly. “He’s the leader.”
“Ricochet,” I bit off.
“You know him?”
“We all do,” Bobby replied distractedly, “He used to be part of the Brotherhood.”
Slipping into serious mode, Keller finished, “And now he’s branched out on his own.”
“Whew,” Ricochet chuckled, as if nervous. “This is a big day for me. I’ve been planning this for quite awhile. Ever since I met my friends here.”
The camera panned left to reveal a lanky blond boy in glasses sitting on a bench seat next to two sleek-looking laptops, and a thickly built, dark-haired guy making smug, “What’s up?” nods.
“That’s Cypher, the genius who cracked the entire network system. Say hi to the kids at home, Cyph.” He waved dorkily. “And this is Richter. Richter, my friends, is a tough guy. You don’t want to be messing with him. You’ll see why. Oh, and we have our lovely camerawoman, Mercury.” The camera spun around to reveal a brunette with silver skin making kissie faces at us.
“What’s he playing at?” Bobby murmured.
“That’s just it. He is playing,” Kitty responded.
“What’re we going to do?” Jubilee asked Bobby.
“Hold off for a second. Listen.”
Mercury focused the camera back on Ricochet, who continued, “And me? Well, I’m Ricochet. A man with a dream and the drive to see it through. I am the leader of the Coalition for Mutant Supremacy. That’s right. Mutant supremacy.” A mocking glint in his dark brown eyes, Ricochet sneered dramatically, “And we’re here to make your worst fears come true, America.” Rubbing his hands together briskly, he explained, “Here’s a little history lesson for you. In 1999, Dodger Stadium was supposed to undergo an upgrade so it would meet seismic standards. Before that could happen, ownership switched from News Corp to current owner Frank McCourt, who decided to spend fifteen million dollars revamping the aesthetics instead.
“Since then, the stadium has been upgraded to the newest technology twice, but each time Frankie ignored the fact that just one-point-eight miles below this very stadium is the Puente Hills fault. Seismologists have been saying for years that Puente Hills has the potential to create the big E. An earthquake so powerful it would decimate the entire city of Los Angeles. Now, of course, this is an extremely unlikely turn of events. Earthquakes that big happen every five hundred to two thousand years. I mean, the likelihood of that kind of thing happening today of all days is, statistically speaking, completely improbable. Unless…”
Abruptly, I pitched sideways into El Cid when the concrete beneath my feet began to tremor. It stopped just as quickly as it started.
“Like I said,” Ricochet smirked, “Richter’s a powerful guy.”
The shaken crowd’s confusion turned to either to stricken gasps or cries of outrage. The people around us who’d figured out I wasn’t wearing body paint gave me uncomfortable looks, as if I had anything to do with Ricochet’s power trip. Actually, maybe they were on to something. If it weren’t for me saving John, Ricochet would still be under Magneto’s guidance. When that had become a good thing, I had no idea.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Jubilee cried, leaning on Peter for support. “There are so many easier ways to get his guys out of prison.”
“He’s not worried about them,” Keller deduced grimly. “He’s going to do it. He’s going to use Richter to stimulate the fault until it decimates the entire city.”
“But why?” Kitty asked, staggered.
John, usually dormant, stirred in the back of my mind, providing me with the justification I needed to answer that. It was simple, really. “Mutant supremacy. We have the power. Ricochet’s proving that in the biggest, most horrifying way possible. And he’s using the networks showing the game to broadcast it nationally.”
“Where is he?” Bobby snapped at Surge.
“How should I know?” she answered, wide-eyed.
Breathlessly, Tattoo realized, “He’s in the metro rail. Red line. See? You can tell by the seats and shit.”
The image on the scoreboard flipped back to the cameras on the field. Once again, the ground began to shake, this time much more forcefully. Panicky but not hysterical, the earthquake savvy California crowd headed for safety. Never having been in an earthquake before, I could only guess where that was.
Bobby was ready to act. “How do we get down there?”
“Follow me,” El Cid ordered, moving with the crowd. He whipped out his cell phone. While he dialed, he yelled to us, “They extended the track right below the Stadium to make it easier for fans to get to games. It’s finished, but it hasn’t been opened for the public yet. The entrance is in the lower level parking lot, right by the security room. Miguel,” he said into his phone. “It’s Rodrigo. Yeah, we know. There’s what? How do we get there fastest? Okay. All right. We’ll be down as soon as…It’s what they’re here for. I promise you, they’re trained for this. Right.”
We made it inside the terraced stadium and managed to break off from the compact crowd. Sprinting down the concrete floors and hopping over fallen vender stands, we made it to the other end of the stadium just in time for another, heavier shake. We crouched in the alcove leading outside, hands over our heads.
“This is at least a five-pointer,” Shannell informed us with some calm.
“I hate earthquakes,” Kitty decided frenetically, burying her face in Bobby’s shoulder. If Logan had been there, I would’ve done the same thing.
An awful groaning noise drowned out Bobby’s calming words. Peaking out between my arms, I watched in astonishment as the huge scoreboard mounted on the back wall just diagonal from us began to sway. I could hear the bolts on the back pop out. Right as the tremors subsided, the huge monitor fell forward, almost in slow motion.
Keller used the wall to stand up from his crouch, his hand outstretched. The scoreboard didn’t slow its descent. Clenching his teeth, Keller pushed more power out of himself to little avail.
“Forget it,” Bobby cried since there was no one directly under it, and pulled him inside.
The rest of us quickly followed to escape the torrent of glass that exploded in every direction upon impact. Screams echoed through the stadium. With a hoarse cry, El Cid fell to all fours, a hand-sized shard of glass embedded in his right shoulder blade.
That should’ve been me, I cursed myself. I could heal. I should’ve been the last one out of the alcove. I’d been so concerned with myself that I didn’t even think about it. Definitely not a hero. Logan would be so proud.
Losing no time, Peter put El Cid over his shoulder as gently as he could. Breathing raggedly through the pain, El Cid directed him to the employee only stairwell, which led down to the security room and, next to it, the entrance to the newest branch of LA’s only subway. The entire level was already crawling with blue-clad LAPD officers and black-clad SWAT members.
“What happened?” the uniformed man I guessed was Miguel demanded upon seeing his friend.
“The scoreboard came down. Glass flew everywhere,” Bobby replied, helping Peter place El Cid in the rollout chair one of the LAPD guys brought out from the security room.
“Are you…the X-Men?” the SWAT leader asked, giving us a skeptical eye.
“That’s right. We’re here to help,” Bobby said directly.
“Captain,” an older LAPD man said to Miguel. “With all due respect, they’re just a bunch of mutie kids.”
“They’re just a bunch of kids, too,” Miguel snapped, pointing to one of the security monitors. It showed five teenage Coalition members guarding the platform. “I’m not gonna stand here and say that we’re equipped to handle this situation. We’re not. These people are here to help, so we let them. This Richter needs to be stopped before he tears the whole city apart. If I lose my job over this, it’ll be my own fault.” Many of the cops looked mutinous, but Miguel had rank so they could do nothing.
The SWAT leader nodded his assent, and got down to it. “We haven’t been able to get down onto the platform because of these two.” He pointed out a set of twins on one of the security monitors. “They have some kind of laser beams that come out of their fingers. We’re not sure how our shields will hold against them. We’re going to cut the lights and head in with night vision.
“Down the tunnel about twenty yards, there’s a railcar that was being repaired before it went missing. The cameras are off now, but that’s where the they were filming from.” The SWAT leader pointed to a tall, broad-shouldered girl back on other monitor. Seemingly for the hell of it, she picked up a bolted bench from the ground and threw it into the opposite wall. We could hear the dull crash that accompanied it. “Strong girl. We think that she dragged the car there.”
“Okay,” Bobby said to himself, formulating his own plan. “Cut the power, but give us the night vision. Colossus, Jubilee, and Hellion – you deal with them. Wait. There’re five. All right. Surge, you know what they can do. You up for it?”
Surge rubbed her hands together, causing a few sparks. “Oh yeah.”
“Good. Tattoo, I need you to come with me and Shadowcat. And Rogue.”
Even with Bobby, I was an afterthought. Determined to be as useful as possible, I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and placed the night vision goggles over my eyes securely. Peter suited up to lead the way into the lightless subway. My eyes swept the green-tinged platform but didn’t spot anyone. The Coalition members were hiding.
I followed Bobby, Kitty, and Tattoo further into the tunnel while the others set up for the attack. We knew it was only a matter of time before Cypher had the lights back on. Bobby covered our backs by sealing us in the tunnel with an ice wall and taking out the cameras as we went, anticipating that Cypher had hacked into them as well.
While we walked, Bobby whispered his plan. “Rogue and I’ll distract them. Kitty, you go around the other side and phase in with Tattoo.”
“And I’ll use my mojo on them,” Tattoo agreed.
“What mojo?” I asked.
“Don’t you know I’m like a psychedelic butterfly?” Tattoo scoffed.
“Psychedel-a-what?”
Just then, another earthquake sent us careening to our knees.
Tattoo said, “Fiver again.”
“Oh, God. We’re going to get crushed,” Kitty moaned.
“Underground is the safest place to be,” Tattoo assured her. “The metro was built to withstand a seven-point-five. And seven-point-five, girlie, is bad. Especially in a crowded city in the middle of the day.”
“So seven-point-five is probably what they’re going for,” I stated.
“Probably,” Bobby agreed. Heedless of his bare knees and the violently shaking ground, he began to crawl toward the subway car. For once I was glad to be in gloves and pants despite the oppressive heat.
After the shaking subsided, Kitty and Tattoo darted to the other side of the car. Bobby and I crouched by the door, watching the flashlights move around inside. Bobby was mouthing the count when the dim track lights flickered on.
We threw off our goggles and then started the count again. On three, I opened the door. Reaching around me, Bobby sent in a blast of ice. I pushed Bobby aside and went in first, getting the full force of Mercury’s silvery punch. It definitely hurt, but my ruptured spleen quickly healed.
Before anyone else could attack, Tattoo and Kitty phased into the car. With a wave of the swirling pictures on Tattoo’s arm, Ricochet, Mercury, Cypher, and Richter began to sway dizzily on their feet, faraway gleams in their eyes. They poked at the air, babbling something about pretty colors and shapes.
“Are they…stoned?” I wondered aloud.
“Groovy, huh?” Tattoo winked.
Stretched out across the seat, Cypher began to make guitar noises that poorly simulated the opening of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” This, of course, made his cohorts laugh uncontrollably. The harder Richter laughed, the harder the ground began to shake.
“Shit,” Tattoo said, falling onto a seat.
“Make him stop,” Kitty demanded of Bobby from the floor.
Using the handrails for support, I made my over to the uproarious Richter. I shed my gloves and pressed my hands on either side of his face, drawing directly from his life force. He was unconscious in a matter of seconds, but the quaking continued. The damage had been done; the fault had been stimulated to life.
Struggling to file Richter away in my brain and to figure out how to stop the earthquake at the same time, I came across the glitch in Richter’s powers. “He can’t stop earthquakes,” I murmured, not wanting it to be true.
Kitty turned around one of Cypher’s laptops so that she could use it from the floor. “Man, this guy is good,” she noted to herself. “He even hacked into the – Oh, God. We’re too late. The California Geological Survey is predicting the next quake will be a six-point-six to a seven-point-o.”
“What does that mean?” Bobby asked, even though we all knew.
Wretchedly, Tattoo answered certainly, “People are gonna die.”
The four of us exchanged horror-struck, guilt-ridden looks, accompanied by the maniacal sound of Ricochet, Stingray, and Cypher giggling.
Finally, the shaking stopped again.
Bobby ordered sharply, “You three stay here and make sure they don’t go anywhere. I’m going to check on the rest of the team.”
There was nothing we could do. Richter couldn’t stop earthquakes and neither could we. We could only worry. Tattoo was sitting with her knees drawn up, chewing distractedly on her long nails. She was probably thinking about her family or friends who lived in the city. Would they be one of the ones to lose their homes or, worse, their lives? Kitty was crying silently. I would’ve joined her, but I hadn’t cried in so long – not even after Logan left – that I thought my body had forgotten how.
Without warning, the door closest to me was ripped off its hinges. The Amazon-looking girl that I’d seen on the monitor tossed the door behind her and climbed inside, her eyes immediately drawn to Ricochet’s dazed form.
Still gloveless, I threw myself at her, managing to grab her by the elbows. I tried to knock her out, but the girl who called herself Warbird fought it. Drawing from her powers, I felt her considerable strength flow into me.
Another earthquake built under our feet, knocking us out of the car and onto the rails. Unfazed by the violent back-and-forth motion of the ground, she took me by the back of the head and crashed my face into the steel track twice.
Crying out in pain and anger, I pushed up against her and flipped her onto her back. She watched, somewhat impressed, as the huge cut on my forehead healed itself. Rising to her feet with a gravity-defying grace, she didn’t stop there. She floated about three feet off the ground, no longer hindered by the earthquake. Blood pounding, I raised myself to her level.
“You bitch,” Warbird laughed. “You stole my powers.”
Not even close to being in the mood for banter, I attacked. We met each other blow for blow, but every time I landed one on her, she grew weaker from the poison in my skin.
I drew from her power and her life force equally, knowing that she wasn’t going to give up until she was cataleptic. The more her life force invaded my body, the more vicious I became. I didn’t just want to win the fight anymore. I wanted everything she had.
Pressing her down onto the track, my hands clamped hard around her throat. The part of me that desperately tried to let go was buried under the onslaught of power. It felt like she was pushing her life into me. It filled me completely, even as it drained her.
Unable to stop myself, I kept drinking it in until there was nothing left.
Silence rang in my ears. Everything was still, even the walls. Warbird’s dull gray eyes stared up at me.
With a sharp scream, I skittered backwards, away from her.
“Rogue. Rogue, are you okay?” Kitty’s concerned voice got closer as she rushed to my side.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. I killed her. I killed her. Oh, God.”
Kitty’s arms encircled me awkwardly. “It was self-defense. It’s okay. It’s over now. The earthquake’s over. The Geo Survey says aftershocks’ll be mild.”
But I, weak from stolen power, couldn’t have agreed less.