Children of the Atom - X-Men

Kim stared at the strange man incredulously for as long as she could before her eyes too started to droop. She fought to keep them open, wondering why she felt so tired as she did. It made no sense for her to be tired. It had been days since they'd been low on rest, and Kim was never really low on energy except when she didn't have that. So why was she feeling tired? Whatever the reason, the situation was too iffy to be half-asleep for. 

Slowly so as to not draw attention to herself, Kim reached into her pocket and found a small rock. She'd picked it up some time back, as it was sharp enough to prick herself with in case of an emergency when she needed to be faster or stronger, but also small enough that she could prick herself under her fingernail and make it completely hidden from sight. Maybe it was just her being overly paranoid like she knew she could be, but Kim didn't want to risk her friends ever getting hurt again, and this was a situation she didn't want to be unprepared for, so with that thought in mind she pricked herself under the nail of her thumb.

Her energy spiked as adrenaline coursed through her veins, snapping her to full alertness once more, but something was off. Her body felt hot in a way that was abnormal. Not painful, but strange. It took Kim a moment to realize that the sensation came from the fact that the adrenaline was not stopping. It was still being made, heating her blood and giving her energy. But why? She hadn't even done anything yet, there was no reason for her to be tired and so low on energy that she'd need adrenaline to make more-

Oh.

Kim glanced over at her companions, and saw what she had suspected — they all looked tired too. The sight of the stranger had her second suspicion confirmed, that he didn't look even slightly tired. Her conclusion might have been a bit unorthodox at any other time, but considering how the past month had been, the odd wasn't that out of the realm of possibility anymore. She didn't scream, like Gambit had told her not to, but she did speak a few quiet words to him and the merry band. 

"Guys, I think he's draining our energy somehow."

"Dats why.....why I'm not feelin' so hot...." Gambit closed his crimson eyes for a moment, trying his best to stay standing tall. Sherrie did not fair as well, dropping down in a seated position like she had just ran a few miles in the middle of the desert. Rosa propped herself up by using Sherrie's shoulder, but soon she too found herself on the ground.

"You know, it's been a while since I've had so much to feed on," the tattooed man grinned a large, menacingly toothy grin as he spoke, watching the band succumb to their weary bodies. Cam said nothing but his glare spoke volumes. He tried to pull out his knife...but it was far too heavy. His hands were even heavier. His body...he sunk down as well.

"Plenty of tasty morsels here, Doc," the tattooed man nudged the silent girl at his side with his elbow, "the Cajun one has a spice to him, but....her..."

He motioned to Kim, his eyes narrowing as his grin grew into a darkened smirk.

"She's a buffet. Tell me, girl, how's it you're not passed out by now? I've drained bears less than I'm draining you right now...but you're still full."

"I'm not a doctor." The quiet girl sneered as she moved out of range of the tattooed man's elbow, fading into the background once more when she was done.

Kim, in contrast, moved forward a bit, putting a small amount of distance between her and the others. She didn't go far, only taking a few steps, but as she stopped and crossed her arms, her meaning was clear. The man wasn't going to get through to her friends. 

"I guess I'm just special like that." Kim responded with a grin and a shrug. "But I think you've had your fill of the others, so how about you stop whatever it is you're doing to them, mkay? Besides, how will you find out how long it takes to drain me if you're not focused on me? Don't you wanna know? Or are you afraid you won't be able to?"

Her smile became a smirk as she uncrossed her arms and spread them wide, an open challenge. Kim didn't know how to stop the man from doing whatever it was he was doing, wasn't smart enough, wasn't good enough, but this? This she could do. She could be loud, she could be annoying, and most importantly she could survive, so if she could get him to focus what he was doing on her, make him stop targeting the others, then she could hold out and protect them until the Blackbird arrived. After all, his gift, if that's what it was, wasn't really affecting her. So she would be fine, she would live up to her name, and that's what she would do. She would make herself the target, draw the man's attention, and keep her friends safe until help arrived.

It was her turn to play the shield.

The tattooed man's face twisted into dumbfounded expression, not expecting the fearlessness of this young girl. Grown men had groveled like dogs at his feet, and yet here a young girl was standing there, calling his bluff. He tensed his body, gripping his fist at his side. He glared down at the young girl...

And then he laughed. He bellowed a thunderous laugh like he had been told his favorite joke at the perfect time. He held his hand upon his hand and another on his gut, trying to physically hold himself together where he mentally could not!

"HAHAHAHAAAA! HOOOOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOOO.....ooohhh.....ohhh I like you, brat! You got spunk!"

He tossed a grinning glance over to the now slumber-induced band, then back to her.

"How stupid do you think I am? You think I haven't seen the 'leave my friends alone, take me' schtick before? It's the oldest trick in the book. Luckily......I JUST DON'T CARE! HAHAHAHAHA!"

He licked his lips, finally letting go of his stomach.

"You wanna see what I can do, huh? Sounds good to me!"

In an instant, before a breath could enter or escape the lungs, it had felt like the whole world had come crashing down on Kim's shoulders. Unfathomable weight, like trying to hold up a skyscraper hit her muscles, energy no longer draining like a faucet but like a flood gate. Kim had gotten her wish. The man no longer set his invisible fangs into the entire radius around him.

He now focused everything on her.

His eyes seemed to widen even more, and across his body raced a streak of energy like a bolt of lightning in the shade of light blue, then another, then another!

"I was wondering why someone would dish out the dough for the red masked guy on some kids, but your being mutants changes everything! Tell me, pipsqueak, if you can talk...what's your name?"

And in that one instant, with that unfathomable weight came heat, endless, impossible heat crashing through her system. It was like fire in her veins, lava through her blood, a bright sun burning from the inside. Like being in the center of an explosion, of the Earth, of a supernova, hot and intense and inescapable. She felt it in every cell, in every molecule, in every atom that she was, and the feeling didn't stop.

But it didn't hurt.

"You know, you're supposed to introduce yourself before you ask someone else their name." Kim called back, her voice as strong as ever, her expression never faltering. "But that aside, you can call me Survivor. So what about you? What's your name? Or am I just gonna have to call you Zappy or something?"

"And you're still up! Very nice! Might just get a fight out of you yet!"

The tattooed man seemed as excited as ever. He shrugged at Kim's proclamation that he should've introduced himself first. He never did anything that anyone else told him to do, and he wasn't about to start now.

"You guys even got code names? That's rich. They call me Blitzkrieg, but for the few seconds you're able to speak you can call me Blitz. The good doctor back there is Voodoo. Don't mind her, she's not minding you."

He stretched his arms out, groaning as he worked out the tension in his muscles...before slamming his fists together! As he did, the trees around them blasted away in angles, the force like a vicious shockwave and rumbling like thunder! At his feet, the ground buckled into a small crater!

"So is this about to get aggressive or is it just me?"

Even with everything that was going on, Kim couldn't help but think what Blitz had just done was super cool. "Blitzkrieg, huh? As in lightning war? Fitting, what with all the zappy and the fight talk and stuff. And Voodoo? Wait, you're a doctor? Really? You don't look any older than I am! Wow! Or did he mean — wait, off topic. Right. Well, anyway, I'd say it's nice to meet you both, but I'm not sure that would be true, and I don't like to lie. And it's kind of just you, Blitz. I hadn't exactly planned on fighting, but something tells me I'm not gonna be able to talk you out of it, am I?"

She actually didn't mind too much, the fighting part. Brawling was something she'd enjoyed since she was young, since before her gift had appeared. There was a certain thrill in it, an addicting rush, a feeling of being so alive even as bruises (or now, scales) were forming. What she didn't like were the current circumstances. Fighting back then there had always been a sort of agreement, that they would only go so far and that there would be no major, purposeful consequences. This? This was a whole other ball game, and Kim didn't like the rules. The stakes were too high, the band was at serious risk, and failure in any form wasn't an option. It was like Gambit all over again, like the Brotherhood goons all over again, maybe worse, she didn't know. All in all, it didn't look good.

But it didn't look all bad, either. That jet, the Blackbird, was coming in just a few hours according to Gambit. She could definitely last that long, could definitely protect the band until it arrived. Blitz didn't even seem interested in them anymore, focused solely on her, just like she'd wanted. She could keep Blitz away from the others, and she could keep it that way, and she would keep it that way, and everything would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

Meanwhile, under her breath, the newly introduced Voodoo protested once again that she was not, in fact, a doctor.

"So are you gonna make the first move, or is it ladies first?" Kim asked as she took a couple more steps forward. "Because I'm fine with either."

Before Kim's lips could touch again off of her final word, her teeth clacked together, a fist on her jaw! He had appeared as if out of thin air, rocking the force of a car crash into Kim's chin and sending her through the air with a shockwave that rumbled again like thunder!

"I never did like that ladies first thing."

When she landed and righted herself, Kim brought a hand to her jaw, feeling over the scales that had formed to prevent injury. They were abnormally thick, a sign of just how powerful the impact had been. Of course, the shockwave and thunder had been pretty good indicators of that as well. She knew her bones had changed too, become stronger so they wouldn't break or move too much and hit something that would damage her. Blitz was seriously a powerhouse, Kim observed, and a fast one at that. Was he using the energy he got from her and the others to enhance himself? Because if that were the case, well...

...Well, whatever.

"Noted. I'm not much of a lady anyway." Kim replied, grinning, and then she imagined.

The scene in her mind was the same as the fight with Toad, with the ground crumbling beneath her so she could be faster, but there was one difference. Instead of imagining the ground was disappearing at a rate three times faster than the fastest she'd ever seen Cam move, her baseline for last time, now it was the speed Blitz had just used to reach her so quickly. If she was going to be able to hit him, she would have to be able to move just as fast as him, if not faster. The strength to hit him with was already there.

Still more adrenaline flooded into her body, white-hot and searing to the core, but it didn't hurt, it didn't hurt, it didn't hurt-

Kim raced at Blitz and clocked him in the jaw, returning the favor.

Before her punch connected, Blitz flashed the first signs of a grin. This girl was something else, and as her punch connected with his jaw he too flew through the air, spiraling. Then, in an instant, he was gone in a gust of air! In a flash, the sun over Kim's head was blocked out, and before thought could process a right kick slammed into her mid-section, kicking her up into the air! On the way down, Blitz turned, throwing a punch up and catching Kim in the mid-section again on the way down with the roar of a thunderclap! The energy exerted in the punch seemed to course from Blitz to Kim, the streaks of blue temporarily coursing over her body from the strike!

"So that's what you do! Hahaha, thought it was just an energy thing but you adapt to harm, don't you? Now the name makes sense....."

He removed the mp3 player form his pocket, cycling through his music until he found something new he like. He nodded his head to the song.

"Great coincidence, really. In a way, so do I. Let's put it like this, I feed off of everyone around me. I eat their energy, man. Their very being...then I use it for myself. I add everything they've got to what I have, and you, little girl, are a meal that doesn't end."

He placed one hand on his side.

"So let me make this clear. It doesn't matter to me that you can change, because I'm always getting better according to how good my meal is. I'm always going to be faster, to be stronger than you are! CHANGE TO WHATEVER YOU WANT AND I'LL STILL SMASH YOU TO BITS!"

"Nice of you to explain that for me." Kim responded with a grin as she stomped down on Blitz's foot, rammed a fist into his stomach, and used the other fist to hit him once again in the jaw. She'd used the time he had spent explaining to get close again, as her mutation had protected her from the fierce blows and lightning, but not from being sent through the air and to the ground.

Kim had already figured some of what Blitz had said, that he used the energy he pulled to enhance himself. What she hadn't guessed was that he got better depending how much she changed. She thought it was simply the amount of energy, not what the energy was being used for. The news was unexpected, to say the least, and she was sure how it was going to affect the fight.

But didn't matter if he was faster than her, it didn't matter if he was stronger than her, it didn't matter if he was better than her, it didn't matter at all, because she was going to triumph regardless.

She was.

She had to.

She would make contact, at least.

The blows connected as intended with Blitz, though the oddity still hung in question as he was rocked back and rolled a bit. How did she catch a guy off-guard that could move, no pun intended, like lightning? The gargled laughter did not help as Blitz began to pick himself off of the ground, back to Kim. The laughter only grew louder as Blitzkrieg turned around, his lower-jaw covered with blood and saliva, slacked and hanging open as if on it's own power. Blitz placed his hands under his loosened jaw and with a push, snapped it back into place with an audible pop! With a groan and a few test bites, Blitz turned his sickeningly pleased attention to Kim.

"Was hoping you'd hit me harder this time. You don't disappoint, brat!"

With a stomp, Blitz sent a large rock into the air! He rotated in the air with it, and with a kick sent the rock hurdling at Kim!

"Do it again!"

"I aim to please." Kim said as she threw both her fists forward in a double punch, her body changing to give her the ability to shatter the incoming boulder. Which was exactly what happened, the rock exploding with a boom into a large cloud of dust. Dust which she used to her advantage, as cover to run up and hit Blitz again faster than before, and as a weapon like she did back with Gambit, throwing it in her opponent's face in hopes of distracting or temporarily blinding him.

Whether either tactic worked or not, Kim launched another yet stronger attack at Blitz, a double punch to the gut like she'd done with the boulder followed by grabbing his head with both hands when he curled into the blow, bringing his face down to slam into her rising knee. That was followed by slamming both her fists down on his shoulders, before finally kicking him up and away.

"Any good?" Kim asked, grinning, even as she was unsure of just what to think or feel when she was fighting a man who laughed with a broken jaw.

Before her sentence could finish, Blitzkrieg's foot slammed into her chin, using the flip as momentum! As she rose, Kim came eye to eye with Blitzkrieg, and the manic expression on his face did not reflect that of a man beaten, but of one who just grew more and more excited with every punch! He turned in the air, landing a second kick to the side of Kim's neck, sending her soaring to the ground!

In a flash, he was gone...and on the ground again! Blitzkrieg grabbed a hold of Kim's head as if she fell in slow-motion, before blasting her under the jaw again and into the ground, burying the young mutant into a small crater formed by the impact!

Rearing his foot back, Blitz slammed a kick into Kim's mid-section, the forced sending her cutting through the ground in a straight line until grinding to a halt!

"Not too bad. Nothing great, but not too bad!"

Kim was pretty sure she had more scales than skin by now, but ignored that along with her lingering confusion about Blitz and his debatable sanity. That was one question she wasn't sure she wanted an answer to.

"I'll try to do better." She drawled as she shot up and raced back over to Blitz, leaping and striking a foot against his temple when she got close enough. While he was off-balance from the blow, Kim crouched down and swept at his legs, sending him crashing to the ground. Kim then rose and slammed her heel down into his mid-section, a place Blitz seemed to be rather fond of hitting her in, making a crater of her own this time along with a sizable tremor.

Would that be enough for him?

After a moment, a battered and bloody Blitzkrieg stumbled up from the crater, grin just as wide on his beaten face as ever before. He chuckled as he stepped back onto even ground, one hand held on his mid-section where Kim had landed. He had a broken rib...or three. It hurt to laugh, but he couldn't stop doing it. Blitzkrieg turned his head over his shoulder, calling back to Voodoo.

"Hey Doc! Time to do your job!"

His grin grew only that much more sinister as he kept his eyes locked on Kim's.

"I'm not a doctor." Voodoo said yet again as she pushed off the car and walked over to Blitz. She put her hands against his back, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

Nothing fancy happened. There were no glowing hands, no bright auras, and even if her eyes had been open there would have been no change in their color. Anything interesting about her gift happened solely within Blitz, and even then there wasn't much to see. His bones shifted under his skin, rearranging themselves, regrowing themselves, but the sight was understated and the most prominent area where it took place, his ribs, were covered by his shirt. Any swelling and forming bruises faded from his body, but there hadn't been many and it hadn't been long enough for them to form in earnest. Perhaps the most noticable thing that happened was that Blitz regained some color as Voodoo replenished his blood supply, but even that was incredibly slight, the man barely having lost any at all. There wasn't much to see with her gift.

And yet, Kim let loose a barrage of questions anyway, content to simply wait while Voodoo clearly though subtly healed her opponent. "Whoa, so that's what he meant by doctor! You're a mutant who can heal people! I mean I kinda guessed because it didn't make sense that you would be a REAL doctor because you don't look any older than I am. That and it made a bit more sense to me that mutants would travel together. But still, wow! How cool! So can you heal, like, anything? I'm guessing you can heal cuts and bruises and broken bones and stuff, considering you're doing that now, but what about when someone is sick? Can you heal that? And can you heal yourself, or can you only heal others? It seems kinda silly that you'd only be able to heal others and not yourself, but hey, what do I know? Can you heal animals? How long does it normally take you to heal things? How-"

"Fucking shut up, would you?" Voodoo muttered, pulling her hands away from Blitz and stepping back. The process had taken less than ten minutes, and she called over her shoulder as she left to watch the fight from the car once again. "Done."

Blitz's eyes rolled into the back of his head as his body shifted under Voodoo's power. His bones snapped into place, his blood bubbling. It was excruciating. It was horrendous. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life....and he loved it!

"Ooooohhhh....yeeeaaaahhhh, that's the stuff!"

Placing his hand under his chin, Blitz popped his head left and right, the cracking of his neck audible over the entire road.

"I'm still looking for the red mask guy, but I'll tell ya Brat...a punching bag that doesn't get worn is pretty cool too."

Looking down at the bloodstained tank top over his chiseled form, Blitz grabbed the shirt and ripped it off, exposing all of the skulls, tribal tattoos and ghoulish faces inked forever onto his body.

"But.....I've got things to do. So....."

Placing his arm out, Blitz began to swing his fist in a circle, his entire arm rotating around again and again, speeding up every time until it formed into a blur like a fan at high speed! The surges of energy passed around the rotating arm, before Blitz shot like a bolt of lightning across the ground, the ground parting in his wake and the sonic boom of his movement. It was too fast to see, to register, and only after the heat of Blitz's fist plunged into her chest did Kim realize the strike was thrown. In a burst of kinetic energy, she was thrown back with the thunder roar!

"I gotta put you down!"

It hurt.

The sentence was true, if a gross understatement. The fire in her body was joined by knives, hundreds upon hundreds of knives, stabbing her in the chest over and over and over, unrelenting and merciless. If it wasn't for the fact that her bones had become stronger so as to not be shattered by all of Blitz's earlier blows, her ribs would have surely folded in and pierced through her heart and lungs to reach her spine. Instead she knew, somehow, that they were only minutely fractured, and that they were going to bruise dark and deep, and that the world was spinning and that nothing made sense and that she couldn't breathe.

It hurt.

But it didn't.

Once, only days ago, Cam had asked her if she would be alright keeping watch over a fire-eyed man who he was convinced was no good, even though he knew there would be no pain.

Once, only hours after Crenshaw's destruction, Trevor and the rest of the band had been concerned that she, the best actor of all of them, the best pretender, wouldn't be able to fake being injured.

Once, when she was thirteen, after the first night she had ever run away and one of the worst arguments with her parents in her life, she had come to the conclusion that her gift made her invincible, that she could not die.

Once, when she was fifteen, with blood running down her back from a cut that would be the first of the two scars on her body since that fateful day five years ago, she had been proven wrong.

Now, when she was seventeen, she was reminded again that she could get hurt.

Except she couldn't.

Because she couldn't let herself think like that, couldn't drive herself insane with the possibilities, with the what-ifs and the maybes she'd locked away in the back of her mind. She couldn't let anyone know, not her opponents, not her friends, not her parents, because the first would exploit that, and the second would worry, and the last would never let her go. She couldn't get hurt, because she couldn't go back to the way she was before, back to that miserable, hopeless person she'd once been, she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't—

—she couldn't get hurt and it didn't hurt.

Kim was very, very good at pretending.

When she finally stopped flying through the air, after she finally stopped tumbling over the ground, Kim stood up. The spot where she'd been hit was completely covered by her shirt, unable to be seen by even herself, so there was no risk of the injury-to-be being spotted now or later. Still, she imagined being punched by Blitz again, except slower, so the spot would be covered by scales. She looked up at him then, positively beaming, like she didn't have a care in the world.

"In case you're just not remembering my name, it's Survivor!" Kim told Blitz, not down or out or looking even slightly pained from his attack. "And I have my name for a reason! But if you want to leave, then go right ahead. You're the one who decided to stop by and pick a fight. I won't stop you if you have other things you need to do."

"I felt your ribs."

Blitz called over to her, the world becoming that much less colorful in the wake. She was a great actress, and if Blitz had not thrown the punch himself he would've been fooled just the same. But he felt them. He felt them give, her unbreakable body shuttering under his strength. He had hurt her....HE HAD HURT HER!

"You can talk big all you want but words don't beat proof, brat! How's it feel? HOW'S IT FEEL?!?! It burns, don't it? Feels like little knives stabbing ya! Ohhhhh it's.....so....good..."

Blitz licked his lips as he took a slow step closer. He stomped steadily closer, hand on his side.

"Savor it, but don't worry. There's plenty more where that comes from! We're gonna have ourselves a ball for a long, long ti-"

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!"

HEY READER! This is lame, let's get to the good stuff! So the tattooed guy was going all bladdy blah to the chick with scales who talks too much, but then the ground around him was all BLOOM! BLAM! BWWWWWWWWAAAAAAHHHH!!!! He fell on his back like a stuck turtle (Or his Mom! ZING!) and was all, "Ahh, wha? I'm a big meathead! What happened?!" He looked up and DA DA DADAAAAA! Our hero arrives (that's me)! The magnificent example of manliness (still me!) twirled the pin of one of his favorite frag grenades (I called him Mongoose, RIP), red mask looking....errr....red in the sun!

"I could've sat there read- er, watching this fight but gah the whole 'I hit you, you hit me, nobody gets hurt' thing is so overdone! I mean come on, I stole it fair and square form Wolverine!"

Blitzkrieg stood to his feet but his eyes were fixed upon the masked face of the newcomer. He was here! The fight had paid off, the man in the red mask had heard the fight and come! He was here! Now Blitz could stop playing with the girl and finally try to kill...

"Whatcha lookin' at, hoss?"

Blitz raised an eyebrow as he looked to his side, finding the same masked man now standing next to him! He swung, the masked man clicking a button on his belt buckle and disappearing in a flash, reappearing back where he once was!

"Haha! Nice try, but I'm too fast! They don't call me Deadpool for nothing!"

"What...does that have to do with dodging?"

"What not?"

"What?"

"Hmmm?"

A confused silence passed between the three before Deadpool checked his wrist (he wasn't wearing a watch), then pulled a gun from his side.

"Hey Sailor Jerry, I'd love to talk about me more with me later me, but I got a whole heap of money to collect by killing some unconscious teenagers, so let me just get thiiiiiiis over wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith...."

Deadpool took aim at Kim, the white eyes of his mask narrowing as he focused in. He went to squeeze the trigger, only to have his hand knocked away and impaled by a sharpened rock!

"OW! THAT'S MY SECOND FAVORITE HAND!"

Before he could say more, Deadpool's head was knocked back as a second rock smacked into his forehead, piercing through into his skull! He dropped, Blitz's jaw dropping as he turned to the source. Standing there, hunched over, stood Cam. He barely held himself up, every breath burning, and yet he was there. He forced a foot forward, then another, stopping for another breather.

"You.....you killed him!"

Blitz's anger grew.

"HOW ARE YOU EVEN UP?!? HOW ARE YOU-"

He stopped. He had focused in on the girl....and just her. His focus had left the entire field and pinpointed onto the one.

"I......doesn't matter! You die. You die right now!"

"Whoooa....wait, no, hold on!"

Deadpool suddenly rose to his feet,stumbling before pulling the bladed rock from his head, throwing it on the ground.

"No, no, it's....I'm good! Let's get this out of the way right now, kiddies. I can't die! So can't we just all act like adults and get shot in the face!"

Cam finally shuffled over net to Kim, blade-like stone clutched into his hand. He heaved breaths but was not about to back down.

He wouldn't let them get to her.

This stuff just can't be made up.

Kim shook her head, a little incredulous at the entire predicament, at Blitz and this Deadpool character. She knew her imagination was good, not to mention overactive, but this was something too out-there for even her to come up with. Apparently it wasn't a lie that the truth could be stranger than fiction.

But for now, she had more important things to focus on.

Her first priority was, of course, Cam. Kim twisted to look at him, amazed by the fact he was awake and standing, even if barely. How was he up when the others were not, when he was obviously still so drained? Kim had no idea, but one thing was certain — he would never be anything less than a marvel to her.

Yet marvel or not, there was a part of her, a tiny, tiny part of her in the utmost depths of her heart that wanted to ask him to hang back, to not get caught in the crossfire, to not risk getting hurt. It was a part she ignored. As strong as that small part was, as much as she didn't want him getting hurt, she couldn't make herself ask him to stand down. If it were her, if she was somehow impossibly in his place, she would have been on the border of never forgiving if she were asked not to fight when her friends were in danger. Besides, it was clear even to her that he wouldn't be backing down, no matter what. For someone so quiet with such an unreadable face, Cam had very expressive eyes.

...They were also very pretty, but this REALLY wasn't the time.

Highly aware of her unnatural strength, Kim placed a hand on her friend's shoulder and squeezed ever so gently, shooting him a smile before dropping her hand and turning her attention back to Blitz and Deadpool. Her second priority was to figure out what to do with the two of them.

She could attack neither of them, in hopes the two would somehow knock each other unconscious in the scuffle that Blitz clearly wanted to happen, but that wasn't a surefire thing and Blitz hadn't bothered trying to attack when Deadpool was taking his time aiming the gun at her, so waiting possibly wasn't an option at all. She could attack Deadpool, the only one who seemed to be actively seeking her and her friends' deaths (a point which she'd have to think on later), but if Blitz's reaction to Cam 'killing' the man with the red mask was anything to go by, he wasn't going to take that lying down and would immediately turn on her for getting in his way. She could attack Blitz, try to get him out of the way first, but that would allow Deadpool to go after her friends, and she did not want the man with a gun and sanity as (or more, or less) questionable as Blitz's anywhere near them. Those were her options, but none of them seemed to be very good.

Well, I could try to attack them both at the same time.

So Kim did just that, racing up to Blitz and punching him hard enough to send him flying into Deadpool with an audible crack. Maybe THAT would knock some sense into them.

"How about we don't get shot in the face. Or at all."

"WHOA! BAM!" Deadpool exclaimed as he placed his hand upon his belt buckle, disappearing in a puff of smoke as Blitz passed by, barely missing contact! The tattooed mutant flipped, digging his fingers into the ground. His momentum carried them through in large ditches, until finally stopping his movement! Behind Kim, Deadpool reappeared! He pulled the katanas from his back, spinning in the air like a buzzsaw!

"SLICEY SLICE!"

Before the blades could come down, they were stopped by the makeshift knife of Cam, who swiped Deadpool's arms away just in time for a hard kick to the ribs! Cam reared back, sending an exposed fist into the masked face of Deadpool, sending him to the ground! The poison from his hand soaked onto the mask, but there was no coughing or signs of struggle. Deadpool healed as quickly as the poison did it's damage. The mutant stood almost as soon as he was put down, brushing off the damage.

Cam said nothing, but he couldn't believe the resistance Deadpool had. It was like....like fighting Kim. He couldn't be hurt.

A bellowing roar perked Cam's ear as Blitz began his charge, leaping and sending a kick into the ground that rocked the earth with a thunderclap, sending a wave of rock and earth toward he and Kim!

Anything Blitz could do, Kim could do better. Or at least she could try. So she did just that, sending a kick of her own into the ground to make a wave of stone and earth, matching Blitz's and canceling it out. Immediately after she repeated the motion with even more strength, launching a wave larger and faster than either of the two before straight towards the tattooed mutant.

With that done she turned her attention on Deadpool, noticing how he didn't seem to be affected by Cam's poisonous touch. Not only could he not die, it seemed, he healed quick enough to not be impared by injuries as well. Which made it unlikely that they would be able to knock him unconscious, but hopefully that wouldn't be necessary. The most important thing was to keep him occupied so he couldn't kill the others until the Blackbird showed up. While him being out cold would make things much easier, Kim was sure it was possible to hold him off for...how long had it been since the fight started, anyway? It felt simultaneously like weeks and no time at all.

In the end she shook her head, clearing her thoughts. It didn't matter how long or how much longer, because she wasn't going to fail.

Deadpool's teleportation wasn't something she had many ideas how to get around, but it was something she needed to figure out. It was too hard to hit him when he could appear anywhere on the field with the push of a button, and it would make it way too easy for him to get around her and Cam to reach the others, helpless in their unconsciousness. The only idea Kim had to get around it was simple in theory, but perhaps not in practice. She needed to get rid of his belt. His belt seemed to be the only thing that allowed him to teleport, and if that was gone then things would be easier. The only question was getting to it. It wasn't impossible to hit him, as Cam had just demonstrated, but she'd have to be lucky, and she'd have to be clever, and she'd have to be quick about it.

Kim wasn't sure about lucky or clever, but she could definitely do quick.

"See if you can break Deadpool's belt." Kim murmured to Cam before she imagined herself faster, faster than ever before, and then tried to do exactly that, moving to slam a fist into the mercenary's face with one hand and reaching to yank off his belt and crush it in her grip with the other.

"BAM!" Deadpool hollered, his image fading just as the ludicrously fast Kim's punch forced through the afterimage of the mercenary. In a flash, the red-clad killer phased into reality behind Cam, an attempt at opera from his disguised mouth sounding at as he spun, swiping down with this katana blades.

"AAAA-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOOOH WHAT THE HELL?!?!?"

Interrupting his bellow of victory, an explosion of rock and a rumble of thunder were the precursors to Blitzkrieg, bursting through Kim's wave of rock and dirt like a rocket, launching through the air and snatching Deadpool like a bat to a fruit fly. Flailing his full-body weight like a small toy, Blitz swung back before slamming Deadpool into the ground, forming a crater! Blitz began raining blows down on Deadpool's head, each shot roaring like a gunshot.

"Ow! He-ow! St-ow! My fa-ow! Can we just talk about- ow! Owie!"

Blitz's bloodshot eyes grew as wide as his sick smile as he continued his punching on the now not-head of Deadpool. There was nothing he cared about now. Not the two teens he had battled, not the blue skies or the grass...not the sound of jet engines closing in on his position.

On the horizon, a small speck turned into a black form, which then turned into a larger one and so forth. A jet was closing in on their position.

Kim's attention should have focused on Blitz and Deadpool, considering that both had been trying to kill her and her friends and Gambit only moments ago, but for whatever reason her attention was drawn to the sound in the distance. The sound that, upon looking into the sky, she discovered was coming from jet engines. From a jet. A jet that she really hoped was the Blackbird, because help would have been nice however long ago this whole mess started. It was a black jet, so it would have made sense with the name, at least. Unless the Professor was a fan of irony or something?

Shaking her head, Kim forced the speculation out of it. Either it was the Blackbird or it wasn't, and if it was then good, and if it wasn't, well, they'd deal with it.

Hope that's you, Professor, she thought anyway, because she really, really did.

There was no point in attacking Blitz or Deadpool just then, so she kept half an eye on them as she went back over to Cam, wanting to be sure the two didn't suddenly stop fighting each other to try to kill her friends and Gambit again. She also couldn't help a mental wince of sympathy as she did so. Deadpool had said and proven that he could not die, and he was proving it yet again, but not being able to die was far from the same thing as not being able to be hurt. Kim knew that very well, and if all the ows were anything to go by, Deadpool could clearly feel pain. Still, it was a small mental wince, and she pushed it aside as she had with the jet before, turning her attention to more important matters.

Mostly, anyway. She wasn't going to risk taking all of her attention off either of the men.

"You okay, buddy?" Kim quietly asked Cam when she reached him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. She wasn't sure if Deadpool's earlier blow had connected. It hadn't looked like it, with Blitz...well, blitzing the red-suited mercenary almost as soon as the man had lifted his blades, but better safe than sorry.