feathers ↣ w. worthington iii

(21) What's HE Doing Here??

"I want to die with my blue jeans on." Andy Warhol

The five mutants holding on to Lilli all looked at her in confusion upon her reaction to seeing Cas and Kezing. None of them recognized Kezing— she was the only one apart from Peter and Warren who'd ever seen him. She needed to tell Ororo and Scott who is was, but she didn't want to scare the kids lest their fear give them away to Cas.

"That's him," Lilli mouthed to Ororo and Scott. Their faces immediately paled— they knew who she meant.

One of the boys nudged Lilli. "Who?" He mouthed.

"Cas," Lilli lied. The three boys all nodded in understanding and turned to watch as Kezing and Cas turned and started heading up the stairs—straight towards them. Lilli immediately tried wiping her mind, thinking of nothing except for Footloose— she couldn't let Cas hear her thoughts. Kick off the Sunday shoes...

Cas and Kezing passed within feet of the invisible mutants. Lilli didn't even dare to turn to watch them go by in case they hear her clothes rustling. One of the boys started turning to watch them go by, but Scott quickly reached up and turned his head back forward. The six mutants stayed there, frozen, not breathing, until finally Kezing and Cas reached the top of the stairs and turned down a dorm hallway.

Almost immediately, the entryway flooded with Kezing agents. They came out of rooms, dark corners, underneath tables and chairs, and behind large potted plants. They all started mixing together and talking amongst themselves as they glanced up the stairs. Even the Kezing agents themselves had been hiding from Cas and Kezing!

Scott started nudging the mutants down the stairs. Lilli broke out of her reverie and realized they still had to get back to the bunker as quickly as possible. "Come on," she whispered to the three boys. The six invisible mutants finished heading down the stairs and down to the basement. They maneuvered around to the storage room, where Lilli dropped the invisibility.

Peter stepped out from behind the pile of boxes he'd been hidden in. The three boys jumped. "What's he doing here?" One of them asked.

"Helping us. Keep singing a song in your head!" Ororo hissed as she pressed the stone that opened the doorway to the small room. "I will go through with two of you, and then the rest of you can come through after."

Lilli took hold of one of the boys and pulled him with her and Ororo into the small closet. The door slowly slid shut, plunging them all into darkness once more. Lilli felt Ororo fumbling for the stone at the bottom of the wall, and suddenly the back wall slid open, revealing the sloping hallway down to the bunker. The three mutants stepped out and watched as the wall slid shut behind them again.

"Keep singing the song— Cas can still hear our thoughts," Ororo instructed the young mutant. He nodded and peered down the hallway at the flickering torches, but didn't say a word.

A half moment later, the wall slid open again and Scott, Peter, and the other two boys came through. They all immediately hurried down the hallway, trying to get to the bunker as fast as they could before one of their thoughts slipped and Cas heard about the bunker. They finally reached the dead end, and Lilli pressed the stone that opened this last door. The wall swung open, and the X-Men hurried the boys inside the bunker. The wall swung shut behind them all, and Lilli breathed a sigh of relief.

"You guys are safe now," she said. "Professor X will be here any minute to explain everything. Have fun."

And with that, Lilli immediately took off across the assembly room and down one of the main hallways. She weaved through many more smaller hallways and took a few shortcuts through some rooms until she ended up in the room where Hank's device was at. She looked at the log on the device to see if any new messages had came while she'd been out. But no. The log still stated that the message from Kurt had been the last.

Lilli sighed in frustration. She turned and stomped out of the room and back out to the assembly room. Warren still wasn't back, and there was nothing Lilli could do about it except wait in agony for his return. She didn't even know why she cared so much for his safety, and she prayed it wasn't because she still liked him. That would definitely complicate things, and she needed to just focus on the current situation. She couldn't let Warren distract her.

Lilli finally walked back into the assembly room. Over the past week, the mutants had dragged out some furniture into the room to furnish it some more. In the corner by the door were a few tables and chairs arranged in a circle. Professor X, Jean, Scott, Peter, Ororo, and the three boys were sitting there now. Lilli made her way over to the group and sat down in an empty chair beside Ororo.

"Then, as we were making our way down the stairs, Cas and Kezing walked into the entryway," Ororo was saying.

"What?!" The three boys exclaimed in unison. "That was Kezing?"

"You're joking," Professor X said flatly while Jean dropped her face in her hands. Scott reached over and rubbed Jean's shoulder consolingly, and she looked up to give him a small half-smile.

"Kezing is here?" Peter asked in a quiet voice. Lilli looked over at him and felt her heart break. He looked so... broken. So dejected and sad. He'd obviously had the worst experience with Kezing out of everyone. Lilli stood and went over to him, joining him on the loveseat he was sat at. She leant her head on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm positive it's him," Lilli said to everyone, watching as their faces fell at her words.

"Professor, what are we going to do?" Jean asked in a desperate tone, looking at Professor X for guidance. Lilli looked up at him as well. He shook his head slowly.

"I- I don't know. We'll come up with something," he said after a moment. "We have to."

"That's it?" Peter asked hoarsely from beside Lilli. "Our school has been invaded and all you have to say is we'll 'come up with something?'"

Professor X clenched his jaw as he looked around the mini circle. Everyone watched him expectantly— he was their leader and needed to come up with a way out of this. Finally, Professor X spoke: "Let's just go get Hank and Raven and figure all of this out. We can't be fighting right now."

Lilli sat up off of Peter. "I'll go find them," she offered, glad to be given an escape from the palpable tension that had arose when Peter had questioned Professor X. Lilli stood up and left the circle of chairs, heading across the assembly room and down a hallway to the lab that Hank spent most of his time in. She walked quickly, eager to get Hank and Raven so that they could start their scheming.

Lilli was so preoccupied with thinking of ways to kill Kezing that at first she didn't notice the loud beeping sound. But it soon grew louder and louder, breaking her line of thinking and causing her to stop her quick pace. "What the hell?" She murmured to herself, looking around her. Then it suddenly clicked— that was the sound that Hank's device made when it received a message! Lilli was only a few hallways away from that room, and she suddenly took off in a sprint towards the room, throwing herself around the corners and hurtling through as many shortcuts as she knew.

She finally flung herself into the room and straight to the machine. It was sitting tall, bulky, and proud in the center of the room, screeching its loud signal. Lilli threw herself into the device, looking at the screen and reading the bright message:

We have been discovered.