[Magik]

She could have been anywhere in the world, yet she found herself hardly an hour's drive outside the Institutes grounds, entirely content. She found peace in the meadow, the ground almost as abandoned as the ground back home. The Institute had less people than where she grew up, but it also had a hell of a lot less land. Farming spoiled her--she had grown up under wide open skies and land further than the eye could see. Even the base had been enormous. Away from cities, there was no need to condense people, not when there was so much land to spare if you were willing to live in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere feeling long became nostalgic to Illyana, sometimes heartbreaking, but nothing that was good came without a price. She took a breath and reminded herself that, along with her mantra that God had a plan, as she briefly remember the gunshots that formally announced the end to her idyllic life as she laid down in the meadow. She found herself thinking about it more often now than ever before, perhaps because she was in a situation where it was safe to. She didn't need to tuck her feelings away, wrapped in the condolences of religion and faith, to make it through another day, until those feelings were so tucked away new feelings were formed without the impact of the old.

Looking up at the sky, she briefly wondered how that defined her, if that made her the person she was today or if she was just a shell awaiting that little wrapped-up box of feelings to crack open. Just as briefly as one thought entered, however, the thought left. That was the beauty of the meadow. She could lie down in the grass, look up at the sky, let memories come back to her she hadn't dared reflect upon in the safety of nostalgia and solitude. Her thoughts weren't all dark and dreary, though, in fact she had quite a few happy memories that most would classify as bittersweet, but she loved them all the more for that. She closed her eyes, letting the wind blow over her, letting the grass tickle her legs and the flowers brush against her face. At some point she ended up dozing off, which she didn't grow aware of until she heard the sound of another in the meadow.

Immediately she sat up, sharp blue eyes looking around for another presence. "Hello? Who's there?" She called out, picking out leaves and twigs from her hair. Her expression was unreadable, but she was cautiously nervous. Never had she found another person out here. Ever. She didn't even think there were hiking paths around here, she had explored a bit not to mention teleported around to know the nearest area probably was the Institute. She rose to her feet, brushing off the dirt from her clothes as she kept her eyes peeled. She prepared to teleport in an instant, but at the same time if it was just hikers she knew better than to use her powers in front of her. Last thing anyone needed was sightings of a young mutant woman within an hour's drive of the Institute.

[Hyena]

Nostalgia was in the air. Well, that was not the word Hyena used, but it was the same concept. Old memories cropping up of open lands without cities and people and machines. Just him and the dirt and the animals, in an anarchy that was somehow governed by the wilderness better than any human could. Survival of the fittest was simply a human term for those who are weaker die. Hyena knew that very well. He had scars proclaiming those same terms in a visual acknowledgement written all over his face, every inch of exposed skin, and very a very fresh layer of burns on his leg that was wrapped up in bandages and threatening to become worse rather than better. A disgusted grimace reminded him that he would eventually have to “talk” the mouse into looking at it, but unfortunately, Jack tended to shy away from anything medicine related unless he was dying or it was seriously impairing him.

This burn was neither, but it was certainly unpleasant. Pah, he would live. Jack had not gotten through life thus far by whining and complaining of simple wounds. Blood and scars, that was what drove him. Ultimately pleasure, not whining like a pup. Snorting to himself in a half-human, half-animal combination, Jack continued on his ambling trail through the patches of wilderness around New York. He was walking on the wild side today - literally avoiding shoes like the feral being he was and choosing to depend on the tough soles of his feet instead. Luckily, the burn on his leg did not extend down to the actual foot part, and even then the actual wound was covered by bandages and the cloth of Jack’s pants leg.

So, he hobbled around New York in boredom, a knife that was resting in a sheath that did not belong to it hanging at his side, and a rather civilian attire of jeans, a plain shirt, and a jacket. Almost human, but not quite, for if Jack had keener senses and more animalistic qualities, his ears would have been twitching at the noises of someone in the near distance. The world was probably relieved that Hyena’s particular power set did not include any enhanced senses, but Jack would have liked it. It would have allowed him greater capacity to destroy, but that was wishful thinking for someone who wished to live in the tangible present.

Speaking of the present, there was a voice to the side, a female voice, a scared voice. Those little invisible ears of Hyena’s perked up as he turned his head to look, catching sight of a unclear figure in the distance. What did he want to do? That was the question, now, but Jack was unsure. The bloodlust that defined his life was calmed by a hobble and the comforting sense of space around him, and perhaps Jack could calm down for one time and not go after a choice of prey, right? Aha, that’s hilarious. With a grin, Hyena began ambling over to the woman, peering out into the space to identify strengths, weaknesses, anything.

[Magik]

Illyana watched him approach with blank eyes, attempting to piece together the sight before her. The man was limping towards her, his leg clearly recently damaged, but he didn't seem to be in any pain. The smile disproved that, the focused that unsettled Illyana. There was something about the approaching man that reminded her of a mad dog and it was only the year spent at the Institute that made her considering doing anything but putting it down. Murder was wrong, but murder implied the killing of one human by another. Of course, that opened a whole muddled mess of doors when it came to speaking of mutants--did one gene make that much difference?--but it was the X-Men that tempered Illyana's choices more than anything else, more than even her religion. God would forgive her for putting down a mad dog, that she was sure of if God could forgive the other things she had done. In the case of Ororo or Scott or Jean, though, she doubted it and thought about what her brother would do.

She came to the conclusion he would make sure the man was alright, almost reluctantly. Illyana wanted to be done with the man--she might be more compassionate than most people thought, but there was a reason that amount of compassion surprised people. She wasn't compassionate about everyone. She couldn't be. She'd sooner walk away from this man than help him. He was damaged, in more ways than one, and she had given up on him the moment he came into decent view. She doubted her brother would've, though. She couldn't say for sure, of course, how much could one person know another? But it was enough of a chiding thought to prevent her from leaving. Her conscious, taking on the form of her brother in the back of her mind.

"What happened to your leg?" She called out, not bothering to ask if he was alright. Stupid question. Still, she didn't want to ask anything as confrontational as "what are you doing here?" Apparently that tended to be a bit pushier than Illyana ever intended, specifically when she was in library at the Institute at four in the morning to see a student walk in and turn on his heel the moment the question left her lips. The context was certainly different, but Illyana had trouble differentiating it. She was already putting her natural judgement on hold by remaining in place, she wasn't sure what else she had to doubt now. Could she still question if the knife at his side was his? Could she assume he was actually headed towards her, rather than just running away from some sort of attacker? She saw no panic in him, no fear, only focus. Could she even assume the edge of insanity in his eyes was harmful? She felt as if she was just being gullible by questioning any of it, but she reluctantly took a couple steps forward as she let her conscious and judgement battled it out.

[Hyena]

The girl was still standing there, watching Jack vaguely limp toward her without any attempts to stop the man. This was why he loved humanity. They were stupid, stupider than animals, stupider than anything Jack ever encountered. Even large animals knew to growl or otherwise bear their power to those who approached them. For beasts, there was no reason to trust another, except in packs, but even then you never really trusted others. You trusted the idea of the pack, and you respected the rules because the Alphas would kill you otherwise, but you never trusted the others. Predators were predators, and that killing instinct, that instinct to fight and survive and stake your claim and territory was not one that could be easily dismissed.

Predators did not approach other predators. They did not care about whether another being was injured in a human sense, only that sense that allowed teeth to jump to the other’s throat and blood to spill onto the dirt. Hyena was stalking his prey, and his prey responded to the threat by asking about his health. Haha, how human of her. Only this species would show that look of confusion and body language that showed hints of the age old desire to flee and then not do it. Ask about health and the weather and stare down the enemy without so much as a second thought.

This was how Jack’s methods worked most of the time. Humans were stupid and ignorant, and he could get close to them, take on their desire for sex with whoever was available and the drunken tendencies of the humans and then leave his prey with a knife at their throat or a pair of regrettably human teeth. Hyena hated alcohol though, and so he was more prone to pretend to drink or choose something that was not filled with the piss.

This situation, this girl, was perfect. It was isolated, it was quiet. He was hungry. The girl was stupid. She let him walk toward her with a limp in his step, a limp that would be forgotten soon enough. One step, two steps, three, a distance passed, and Hyena allowed a human noise of pain to escape him. It was fake, of course, and Jack was able to mimic noises of animals, and what were humans but the top of the food chain? ”I’m hurt.” This was the flutter of a wing, distracting his opponent with feigned injury (well, real injury, but it was surface) and pretend humanity.

When Jack was a few steps away, he took to his feet, ignoring the burns and leaping at the woman. Habit meant his knife was leading, and the mutant attempted to latch onto the girl and twist her so that his knife could sit so readily at her throat. Hopefully he’d calculated correctly.

[Magik]

Illyana knew her compassion should be better than this. If her friends were hurt, she knew she would be not simply concerned but infuriated something had harmed them. She knew this, yet couldn't bring herself to feel anything but unsettled as he came nearer. Yes, he was hurt, but that wasn't the answer she was looking for. She knew that one. But pain didn't make for the clearest mind and she sympathized enough to dismiss it, to even attempt empathizing with him until his whole body language transformed in an instant.

It was enough for the feeling of foolishness to sink into Illyana's bones as she reacted for her life. She barely moved out of the direct path of the blade. She was not fast enough to evade his sudden grasp nor strong enough to immediately wrench herself out of it, and had he not bothered twisting her around to go for her neck she knew she would be in far more trouble. As it was, she forced herself to keep her eyes open and tried to not feel like a fool for trusting someone, anyone, on a limb, despite everything her judgement told her as she strengthened her intrinsic field around her neck to block the knife inches from her throat.

Where was the lesson in this? To not trust others? To trust her instinct? Or to remind her that God had a purpose for everything, that he had given her such a past to ruthlessly prepare her for this moment? She did not speak as the questions raced through her mind. If he was so clever to trick her into coming so close in the first place (for as much as she wanted to say her judgement told her not to, the fact was she had given in), he'd surely react to her little trick quickly enough, long before she'd even think to getting a word out. Without hesitation, she shot her leg back at him, aiming to dig her heel right into his wound and drag it open.

She did not give warning. She did not even scream. She had been taught, long before the Institute, not to. She had been taught to do worse for less, even if it did not seem so at the time. With her own life on the line, so suddenly, so randomly after countless situations that should have killed her long ago, she wondered if this was another test, for God to see what she would do now that she could choose to do anything. It was what kept her from charging her intrinsic field with enough electricity to make a tazer look like a toy buzzer as she tried to pull out of his grip.

[Hyena]

Hyena was not compassionate, he was not kind, he was not gentle. He was vicious and brutish and cruel - that was what made up the mutant. There was nothing of “humanity” in him, save all those things that escaped from Pandora’s box so long ago, and even then those evils had settled in his heart and twisted until only the animal lust remained, for the hunt, for the kill. There was no hope, here, no hope for redemption. Jack cared nothing for God, just as he cared nothing for others, only for what they could do for him and to him. God was dead to him, since “he” was an entity that failed to show his face when he was most needed and let creatures like Jack roam the Earth. God was dead because Jack was alive, and that was a truth you couldn’t deny.

It was a mutant growl that escaped his throat then, neither a yell of a human nor the sound of an animal, but something in-between, something wrong. It was a corrupted cry of war, and with the knife leading, it was a death sentence. Except-

Except the girl was tougher than Jack had thought. His strike missed, and it was the fury of a hunter denied that rose up then. Earlier, Hyena had felt that bloodlust, but now, there was rage, anger, cruelty of humans meeting plain animal lust for the prey. He snarled again, this time the noise was distinctly feline, a panther sound ingrained in his memory from more than one member of the family. Though the noise did nothing but intimidate, Jack could do more, intimidate more, bring about the fear that he wanted from a prey so protesting.

The kick to Hyena’s leg brought him down, but Jack refused to let go of the girl, his grip slipping until he closed his fingers around her shirt and let his body weight pull her down as well. There was only one objective - make her look in his eyes. The sunglasses had long ago fallen on the ground, so Hyena’s stare was unblocked, and he tried to jerk the girl so that she would have no choice, set face to face with the beast of a man. This was the prize of the mutant, this was his strength - the ability to paralyze with fear, temporarily, weakly, but for a hunter, it only took a moment. The growl in his throat was loud now, even though Jack’s teeth were bared and his jaw clenched. The sound reverberated through his skull and into his chest, and it was the sound of savage chaos, wild chaos.


(Magik’s mutation should put her relatively close to Hyena in terms of his mutation. She should get a nice dose of fear from his stare, if she catches his eyes, but nothing paralyzing like a normal “prey” would get. You can obviously choose whether she’s only minorly affected or majorly affected.)

[Magik]

Struggling against his grip, she felt her shirt pull against her skin and twist her around to face him. She heard it rip, but there was not enough give for her to escape his downward pull. To say she was stronger than she looked didn't mean much--purely judging by her frame, most of the X-Students held more natural strength than she ever would. Training only helped so much. At the end of the day, raw strength held more of an advantage than she wanted to admit outright. She had been trained to turn strength against her opponent, to use technique to her advantage, but was technique could combat frenzied madness?

She flung her arms out to the side, refusing to allow her arms to get pinned against his chest. The slam of her chest against his was more than her intrinsic field could handle without a unsettling shudder, a ripple against her being that made her stomach turn in revulsion. The growl, nothing close to human yet not quite beast, caused another ripple of his own, a reverberation through her being that caused her hands to press against the ground on either side of his head. She needed distance, she needed to get away, she needed--

Contact.

Her eyes widened as she field the push against her field. What--what was he? She felt the fear coming, a feeling she learned to distance herself from so long ago the disconnect had almost become literal. She felt him encroaching into her mind, into her being, something that had not occurred in years yet felt like yesterday. She remembered begging her trainers to invade her mind, pleading them to make her stronger, to make her everything and anything the Motherland needed. She remembered fearing not the pain but the failure, fearing the disappointment and shame her existence would bring upon the homeland if she did not measure up to any and every task.

The shielding around her mind increased the moment of contact. Sloppy. She had grown so sloppy. The Motherland would not be proud. She felt the fear, the fear of shaming her country and her family and her brother, of being a disappointment to everyone were she not able to block the invasion of her being, fear a hair's breath away she almost wanted to keep eye contact. She could not remember the last time emotions didn't seemed on the other side of a glass wall, cold and out of reach. The ability to feel tantalized her, but giving into temptation required a feeling of desire that would always be blocked by cold reason.

And, hopefully, the slam of her head against his.


(Let me know if this doesn't settle right with you or anything. Happy to change.)

[Hyena]

The growl caught in his throat as the girl knocked him down and then gravity took it's toll when Jack refused to go down alone. The first motion knocked the man on his back, spine arched in an effort to twist and stop the fall, but then his attempt to pull her down worked, sending the panya crashing into his torso and hitching Jack's breath for a moment. A grunt for the collision, a rushing sigh for the breath lost, and a gasp for the recovery, then he was in motion again, the growl returning to his throat and rising to a snarl once he managed to move. The panya's arms were spread out, but Jack had kept one hand on the woman's shirt, the other flung wide so that he couldn't accidentally stab himself with his knife. That would be embarrassing, even for a beast-man.

While she planted her hands next to his head, Jack momentarily forgot about the highly useful tool in his hand, the one with the blade that was stabby and deadly. Instead, he snarled and arched up, simultaneously pulling down on the fragment of shirt he still held. In a second, his teeth snapped shut on air with a click as he struggled to try and buck the girl off and potentially pin her down on her back. What a tragedy, his attempt was so close, yet so far away, and now, with legs tangled and knife arm rising, he wanted nothing more than to see her blood run cold on the grass. Instead, he could taste blood in his mouth, probably a tooth catching on a soft bit of flesh when his jaw had slammed shut, and another snarl escaped him.

Eye contact made Jack happy, very happy, and that sick chill of pleasure that ran up his spine was not only from the sadistic tendencies. He liked seeing others hurt. He liked seeing them in fear, that wide-eyed look of terror was crack cocaine to the mutant. But, above all else, he liked the look on their face when they saw that they were outmatched, overpowered, dominated.

And then he could feel the echo. It was like seeing blood in the water. Was it your own or from your prey? Was it from the prey of your enemy? Was it proof that they weren't outmatched or overpowered, but fighting, always fighting? The fear was a constant. Only the Alphas avoided the fear when Jack caught their eye. And the kind of echo was constant, but this was different. This wasn't the human echo that he was used to. The lowest of the low, the prey. This was stronger, this was closer to home. This was someone who could stand their ground against Jack.

He didn't like that.

The knife was in motion, as was Jack himself, but the attempt to rise up and roll over was blocked, this time by blow from the girl's head. It was probably meant to knock foreheads, but Jack had bad timing and she collided squarely with the bridge of his nose, and Jack wasn't sure what was louder - his yelp or the cracking sound that rolled about in his head. Now he was seeing white spots and dizzy and in pain, and Jack flinched backwards, a crucial moment passed before he traded pain for the obvious. If he stopped moving, she would be able to get in a blow, and Jack blinked through the pain and spots to put some force behind his knife arm, stabbing blindly at the woman's side.

[Magik]

Enough was enough.

She had been trained better than this. By the Motherland. By the X-Men. This entire tussle should not have occurred. She should not have allowed it. She should have eliminated him on sight. He was a mad dog, one that should be put down, if her time in Russia had taught her anything. Her time in America, however, taught her restraint. She was taught choice. The X-Men had their own perspective, one Illyana could not always understand, one that contrasted all she knew so she could determine for herself what was wrong or right. Moreover, she had religion, something to everything consistent as she tried to make sense of all these different viewpoints and decisions. Tried clearly being the key word.

Her forehead throbbed at the collision, but the hit against the bridge of his nose caused less pain than it would have had she hit his forehead. She wanted to tear him apart. She wanted to see him scream in pain. She wanted to see him look at her with the same terror he tried to instill in her. The Motherland would have told her such thoughts were inefficient--end him. The X-Men would have told her such thoughts were cruel--best him in the fight, call for back-up. As for her religion...well, if she were honest, turning the other cheek sat least right of all, and contradicted everything rather than help to make things make sense. Whichever perspective she could've chosen, none should have put her in this situation, none should have given this outcome.

Which meant she had to figure out something else.

Maybe it was the influence of his field against hers. Maybe it was the absence of any supervised order. Maybe it was finally entropy taking control, putting her in line with the universe as her being always wished to be. Maybe it was the temptation of feeling being so close. Most likely, it was a combination of all three, overlapping and fighting for dominance as the back of her mind screamed for control and order to keep herself together. He wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it. This madman, this fight. He wasn't worth losing control over.

He wasn't worth keeping control over.

The field around her neck strengthened to something tangible, a barrier between his teeth and her flesh. She didn't want him anywhere near her, let alone something so invasive as teeth into flesh. Except she didn't want him gone, or herself gone, else she would have sent a current of electrons into his flesh. She would have created a portal beneath them both and abandoned him in Limbo. She could have pulled him apart into particles, damn the consequences. But where was the fun in that?

If she had no weapons, neither should he. Her mind jumped to disarming a knife, running through a thousand and one ways. Summon it to her. Dematerialize it and rematerialized it across the field, as though it had always been there. Remove his fingers, remove his hand. Countless ways to manipulate the particles that consisted of him, that consisted of his knife, but each way required her to engulf those particles as her own, to take ownership and allow herself to merge as a part of him, something that was disgusting and entirely unnecessary when she could extend her field to the particles of air around her hands.

Air condensed and sharpened, creating claws around her hands. They shimmered, electrons jumping and creating a charge to accompany the focus particle-blades, the edge so sharp the knife he held seemed like a hammer in comparison. She pressed the ones around her fingers towards the palm of his hand, aiming to slice through and rake her fingers down into long, crippling stripes to combat his wild swings. The other hand went for his shoulder, the fingers of her left hand aiming for the space between his collar and shoulder bone, her thumb aiming for the base of his neck to rake down from there.

(Again, let me know if this doesn't settle right with you or anything. Happy to change!)

[Hyena]

(Okay, kids, if you're sensitive to blood or whatever, I wouldn't read this. Or any Hyena posts. JUST SAYIN'.)


Blah, blah, blah, religion, blah, blah, mercy.

Enough was enough, especially from people like this. So humans believed in a God? Fuck, so mutants believed in a God? What? What did that God do to save them or help them? Mutants were doomed to be prey to the humans with their terrible survival skills and excellent weaponry. And let's just pretend mutants had good weaponry as well, albeit different. A lot of the Brotherhood was equipped with all that, but in the end, human or mutant, it all came down to survival, and who was on top and who was dead. And Hyena, nor Jack, nor Nyangao wished to die. And by whatever name you called him, he wasn't going to give up so easily.

He wanted to have fun, and though he didn't know it, so did this woman, but although they were two very different people, the concept was the same. Maybe he was fueled by a different idea, but it was still survival that fed the urge that bore bloodlust to the surface. Jack wanted to see her suffer, to see her fearful and defeated, and... this woman wished the same on him, but her anger was entirely human and violent in origin. She'd been tainted by humanity and the cruelty that lay beneath the surface, but it was for survival as well as revenge. Jack? He just wanted to taste the fear and know it. He wasn't stupid. Jack knew that he was not the dominant force in the world and that there were many mutants that could best him, and he knew the same fear, regrettably as soon as a year or two prior. He didn't want revenge. He didn't want to twist the cruelty into something else, like most humans tended to. He was a simple being and fear was all he wanted. Fear and blood.

There was no religion tying him down - he'd long abandoned that along with his humanity - nor was there any kind of moral system. What did make him hesitate was the change in pace. His nose was likely broken, but that wasn't anything new. The pain would fade, but the blood was getting in his way, working with gravity to run down his cheek and drip onto the ground where his hair didn't get in the way. Though there were no quiet moments between the action, Jack automatically licked at his lips when the metal taste reached his mouth, doglike, but that was a fraction of a second and instinctive, much like the jab of the knife.

He missed, but the girl surprised him, the feeling of blades tearing into the meat of his palm that the knife wasn't covering and ripping down, barely missing the ligaments in his wrist. Jack didn't have time to think, nor did he have a good capability to place judgement with the broken nose still bringing flashes of dark and light to his eyes, so he jerked backwards, away from the sharp edges that he would later note as claws. The constant growling heightened into a yelp with the torn flesh, but it came back with much more anger in the tone. His fingers loosened around the knife and Jack quickly adjusted his grip, but he lost the knife completely when the points of the woman's claws dug into his right shoulder, only missing the target of his neck because of a sudden motion from Hyena.

Another yelp, and this one was louder and sounded more painful and significantly more human in tone, and it should have been. This was a deeper gouge, and not just clipped skin and flesh wounds. In a desperate motion, Jack attempted to throw the woman off, putting all this strength into shoving her to the side, leaving a blot of blood on her clothes from his wounded hand. His shove only made things worse, jolting the woman's arm so that the trailing edge of a claw drew a red line on the side of his neck. He needed to get out, now.

[Magik]

(WARNING: blood, violence, etc. In case you hadn't noticed already.)

Illyana smiled.

Long, clean cuts opened blood over her hands. His yelp was pitiful, the word use clinically and without sympathy. She knew it would cause pity in others, those who had no idea what he was capable of, those who heard the sound on its own as a state of danger or panic. She heard the same sound, but the sound that created pity in others equated to a moment of success to Illyana. Finally, she was getting somewhere. Finally, he was reacting the way she wanted him to.

The second yelp, human, was something else entirely. Later, she would prescribe the first cry to a wounded animal, a predator. A killer, boiling everything down to her own survival or not. The second, however, the second was unmistakably human. Did that mean there was awareness in his fear now? Did that mean he finally realize it would take more than a beast to harm her? Did he think attempting to transform into a man would mean anything after all she had seen?

Laughter ripped through her throat. Girlish, soft. Entertained. Oh, this was silly. Everything about this. The random act of violence on a day that should have been like any other. Without cause, without reason. She could feel the world spinning at hundreds and hundreds of miles per hour in a world that took her breath away, but what kept it spinning and why went far beyond her. All she knew was that it did, it kept going, regardless of what anyone did on it.

Fingers dug into flesh and muscle and was that bone? Oh, now that could be interesting. She tried digging her hand deeper, but curiosity meant nothing in the face of rabid desperation. She wasn't strong to begin with, certainly stronger than she looked but not by all too much, and if it had come to raw, physical strength the fight would've been done a long time ago.

She kept her hand in his neck as long as she could, feeling herself draw the red line until she was slammed into the ground beside him. The wind was knocked out of her, her concentration breaking. The claws dissolved, leaving her with blood sinking into her fingers and under her nails. For a moment, she struggled to breathe, gasping as impact and his running figure began allowing recognition to what she did. She saw guilt on the horizon. She saw horror at herself. What she had done. What she was capable of doing. What she regretting not regretting. Reflection on why violence and bloodshed and pain made her feel more alive than any training-session ever could.

The claws dissolved, leaving her with blood sinking into her fingers and under her nails. She struggled to breathe, scrambling onto her feet as she watched him retreat. No. Absolutely not. He did not get to appear then vanish without consequence. His choice to begin this did not mean he got to end this. She wasn't finished. He did not get to be the one to end their little game. That was her privilege, one she would not so easily give up.

White light encircled her, creating a disc upon the ground. A second disc formed in front of the man's estimated path, lighting her features from below and creating dark shadows of her cheekbones. Hands dripping with his blood did not move from her sides. She did not need to attack anymore. She had already milked enough fear from that. Now came the fear from choosing not to attack, the fear created by the knowledge she could do so much worse that he would never know.

Stopping him was not the point. What would she do, bring him to the police? To the Institute, where the children were? Neither would solve anything. She would tell the senior staff about him, but there were only two solutions she saw. One was to kill him, which was something she did not want to explain to Cyclops and one that was altogether too ineffective when all she needed was for him not to come back.

Almost a shame, really. She couldn't remember the last time she laughed.

"Until next time," she warned, the smile sharpening like blades as she made no move to stop him. She did not think her warning needed to be any more blunt. If he returned, she would be here. He could run. He should run. Until next time. Then, there would be no more running.

Fin.

---
(If anything doesn't settle right, PM, happy to change, etc etc, but actually)