A Rumble of Frost chapter 22

February 16th 2001, British Royal Museum, 2:00 AM EDT

Contrary  to my opinions, we did NOT end up rushing into the museum after a ten  minute check from Peter and Kitty. The girl was competent and determined  to prove herself, both to Peter and the rest of the team, and she made  no bones about the fact that the search would take as long as it took.  We, in the meantime, posted up across the street while Ororo flooded the  area with mist, letting the stuff seep into the museum itself to help  our crew.

It took hours for her to go over every inch of  the place, but when she and Peter finally came back, our resident genius  laid a small book on the table. "Ok. This is all the information I  could gather. I drew out maps for every wing, marked the guard posts,  and wrote down the timing for the patrols based on my observation. I  also took the liberty of highlighting the fastest route to Rosetta stone  room and marking not only the locations of all the sensors but the  angles of all the cameras and their blind spots."

Felicia  plucked it off the table. "Anhauser." She said simply. "Decent security  system, but the thermals they use are bargain basement bullshit. I  assume you guys were easily able to avoid the heat sensors even outside  of non corporeal form. Ororo's mist probably isolated them enough to  render them nearly useless unless someone gets pretty damn close."

The  X-men with us gave her a suspicious look when they heard how she  dissected the security, but Pete and I knew she was a thief so we didn't  bat an eye. I raised an eyebrow at her from behind my mask. "That  should be helpful. We might need to be in there a while, can you shut  down the rest of the system enough for us to walk around in there  unnoticed?"

Peter and Kitty had done a damn good job, but  they'd stayed moving, using her power and his own wall crawling to avoid  guards and security systems alike. Felicia flipped through a few pages.  "Yeah. If the cheerleader is ok with another ride along this time I can  shut it down, I need to get to the control room, but if we're going to  take up a position we're going to need to make sure the guards don't  stumble on us."

I looked over at Jean. "Can you keep an  eye on the guards with telepathy? If we know they're coming, Ororo can  create diversions with her abilities whenever they get close. Assuming  you can't just like...mind control them. I don't know how your powers  work."

She gave me a sour look. "I am NOT mind controlling  the guards." I noticed she didn't say she couldn't. "But I can monitor  them to help Ororo."

It was easy to tell she was annoyed.  It was almost funny how badly she wanted to be the rebel bad girl, but  she was too responsible to make it stick. She seemed to default to  disapproving big sister mode. I was shocked someone like her was willing  to break bad enough to bounce on Wolvie's dick. Maybe she had daddy  issues or something.

Giving a nod, I  turned and said to Felicia. "Ok, you and Kitty head in to shut down the  security system. Jean will let us know when it's done and we can head  in. Just meet us in the room with the Rosetta Stone." I turned to Peter.  "I assume you have some way of checking the thing for codes and  whatnot?"

My  masked buddy nodded, holding up a weird baton looking thing. "Multi-wave  optical frequency oscillator. MOFO for short." Kitty giggled and my  friend's chest puffed up a bit. "This will not only allow me to scan the  surface of the stone to upload the images into a program that will  cross reference all the symbols with the time period in question, it  will ALSO scan a few layers beneath the surface of the rock to find  hidden glyphs and images."

He  sounded proud as hell, and I had to admit he had a reason. I clapped  him on the shoulder. "Damn impressive man. I didn't know you had gear  like that." I was pretty sure he'd made the damn thing too, because it  looked cobbled together despite obvious attempts to pretty it up. I  might have underestimated just how much of a nerd Peter was, because  while calculating the distances of some steps to spring us from a spell  was crazy, THIS was a whole other level.

Felicia  and Kitty vanished into the mist, and I turned to Ororo. "You sure you  can hold this?" I looked around in amazement. "Because...this is a fuck  ton of mist. Like...isn't this tiring?" The fog bank here was thicker  than pea soup, and it had come out of nowhere. Not to mention she was  pushing it into the museum proper, and who knew how much effort it was  taking to move it around in there.

She  opened her eyes. "No. It isn't tiring. My power doesn't work like that.  Once I got the fog in place I only need to make small adjustments  inside the building. Not to mention this is London. Fog conditions are a  fact of life here, especially this time of night. Causing this was much  easier than it would be elsewhere, and not even suspicious because I  bet they've had this problem a dozen times."

"Still." I said. It was weird being in the fog like this. It was thick enough that  anyone more than a few feet away might as well not be there, so despite  all of us being on this side of the street we were basically alone. "This is damn impressive. You've got to be working your ass off to do fine manipulation of the fog inside. Or am I wrong?"

She  grinned at me, turning around to wiggle her leather clad ass at me.  "I'm not sure. Is it still there?" She chuckled and then turned back to  face me. "It's not easy, but I don't mind. This seems like a fun  mission, and I'm glad I got to participate. Not least of which is  because Kitty is a sweet girl. She deserves to have a chance to use her  powers like this. Thanks for giving it to her. Anyway, I need to get  closer for some small scale alterations, I'll be back." I watched her  go, happy she was so enthusiastic about all this.

"It's  time." Called Jean from off to one side. I turned to look at the  redhead through the fog as she stepped close enough to be seen. "Black  Cat was able to get it done pretty fast. She's shockingly good at this  kind of thing." She paused, and expected a comment on her thievery, but  instead she said hesitantly. "Also...she might want to look into  therapy. Her worldview isn't exactly the healthiest thing. I won't share  details because that would be wrong, but she could use someone to talk  to."

The news  that my slightly nympho revenge obsessed potential booty call had  issues wasn't really lost on me, but I wasn't in a position to tell  anyone their shit wasn't on right, so I just shrugged. "Healthy is what  gets you through the day, red. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw  stones. I'm happy with who I am but most people wouldn't consider me too  healthy either, whatever Cat needs to do to get by is on her. I'm  around to listen but I won't assume I know best for her."

She  paused. "That's...surprisingly sensitive coming from you." She  flinched. "Not that I know you at all, or can really say anything about  how you live your life or-" She started babbling, trying to back pedal,  and I burst out laughing at the panicked look on her face.

"Relax  red, I just said I'm not perfect. " I said with a laugh. "I'm not gonna  bite your head off for agreeing with me. Besides let's be real here.  Being a mind reader is bound to make anyone confident in their  judgement. I bet not being able to read me is really throwing you for a  loop. Must be shitty trying to learn to interact with someone without  the input you've had your whole life. Like trying to walk around when  you suddenly can't see."

Cocking  her head at me, she frowned a bit. "You're much more perceptive than  most people think, aren't you. I'll be honest, I kind of assumed even  without the mind reading I had you pegged. I figured all you thought  about was fighting and fucking and you just bulldozed through life. But  you think things through more than I expected."

"That  why you've been staring at me? I thought you liked the show when I was  shirtless." I knew that wasn't why actually, but I wanted to fuck with  her about it a bit.

She  blushed lightly, having stepped close enough for me to see that. "I  don't hate the view, but I'm seeing someone. It was more curiosity. I'd  like to maybe talk more though. As friends." She grinned at me. "Are you  capable of having female friends you don't have sex with?"

I  laughed. "That question shows you're plenty good at reading people,  mind powers or no. Yeah, I can do friendship, I can't promise not to be a  little flirty, it's my nature, but I can try to dial it back." I  stopped. "Wait, I should mention first that if you change your mind I'd  totally be down to bang you. NOW I can be platonic friends."

Jean  rolled her eyes. "I don't think you know what that means, but I'll  teach you all about it. First lesson, saying that you're going to be  waiting to have sex with me the second I'm ok with it is NOT platonic."

"So I should have just implied it?" I said casually as we headed for the museum entrance. "Because that seems arbitrary."

Jean  threw her hands up with a groan. "No, Billy, the issue is not the  SUBTLETY with which you propositioned me. It's that you did it at all.  Friends don't make sexually suggestive comments to each other." She  paused self consciously. "Well, I mean mine don't I know some people  have relationships like that."

"So  telling you how nice your ass is in that jumpsuit is off the table?" I  said with feigned seriousness. Then yelped as a rock slammed into my  shin. "Fuck! You did that didn't you?"

Jean  just strolled forward with her nose in the air. "I have no idea what  you're talking about. If anything hurt you just now it was probably just  the universe punishing you for your bad joke." She stopped and looked  over her shoulder, mostly hidden by the mist in all but outline. "And  don't look at my ass when I walk away." Then she turned and left.

"A  platonic female friend huh? Weird." The closest I'd had to that was  Alli, and I threw her a bone every time one of us was feeling rowdy.  Sure we hung out when we weren't fucking, but this would be a new  experience for me. Oh well, could be fun, plus I was already finding  myself ass deep in women. Having someone to talk to about it might be  nice, especially a mind reader.

Gathering  up at the entrance, Jean helped coordinate us and then led us inside,  helping our group avoid any of the patrols based on the path that Kitty  had mapped out. Once we arrived in the room with the Rosetta Stone I  looked over to our resident weather witch. "Hey, Rory, pull back the  curtain for us will you beautiful?"

The  Moroccan girl stopped and turned to me slowly. "Rory?" She said flatly. I  just stared back, until she finally sighed and rolled her eyes. She  flicked a hand and the fog within the Rosetta Stone exhibit rolled away,  revealing a large room. Peter strode forward, unslinging the backpack  he'd had the MOFO in. He pulled out the scanner, a laptop, and a few  leads with other kinds of sensors on them and started his work.

Kitty  and Felicia came out of the fog. "Ok." Said Felicia seriously. "I  couldn't justify a full breakage. The shutdown sequence is timed. The  thing will boot back up in three hours, which will be about an hour  before the place opens for the day. We'd better be out of here by then."

"Yeah."  Said Kitty excitedly. "And I was able to loop the cameras for us, so  there won't be any trace of us here." I was sure Peter would have given  Felicia some way to do that if she couldn't herself, so I assumed she'd  let Kitty help to further my goal of getting her on the team.

Peter  was so engrossed in his scans he didn't even notice when his new crush  approached, but she didn't seem too upset about it. He was typing  furiously on the laptop between passes with the wand. After about  fifteen minutes he stopped and turned to me. "Ok...we might have an  issue."

"What kind of issue." I said cautiously. "Like...there's a bomb here issue, or like a we've got nothing kind of issue."

He  looked at me grimly. "More like a 'there's a guy inside that rock' type  issue." He turned the laptop around to show me the screen, where I  could see a hazy outline.

"Who or what the fuck is THAT?" I said in confusion. "Is he wearing armor?"

"Yeah,  and it's solid gold for some reason." He highlighted some text. "Based  on this hidden string of cuneiform I'm pretty sure this is a stasis  chamber or something. Gilgamesh didn't hide the object that the Key  opens in here. He hid HIMSELF. Though I have no clue why he would have  done that. No real description either. It just explains a brief summary  of who is in there, and then the name of some Sumerian creation myth.  Enuma Elish."

We  all froze as the letters and symbols on the stone began to glow. A deep  red light suffused the room, followed by a grinding sound as the front  face of the Rosetta stone began to rise, revealing an empty space in the  center. We all turned to glare at Peter, who flinched back. "Oh COME  ON. How was I supposed to new it was voice activated? That was so not my  fault."

"You  know." I snarled. "For a genius you can sure be an idiot sometimes." I  took up position in front of the stone, condensing a pair of hypocenters  on my fists as the man inside came into view. Pale, regal looking, with  golden blonde hair and golden armor. As his eyes snapped open and I saw  the red irises I felt a sliver of ice run up my spine. I had a feeling  this was going to be a mess.