A few minutes later the convoy of armored trucks and Humvees appeared before Emilia's mental eyes, she searched through them and found herself smiling. There, huddled in the back of a Humvee near the middle of the convoy sat their target, Ulysses Klaw.

 

"Found him~," said Emilia, relief mixing with excitement running through her voice. She didn't want to stay in the warm weather any more than Jean did.

 

"So what do we do with them?" Jean tilted her head, her gaze unfocused. She was probably surveying the convoy.

 

"Well..." Emilia started, "...they are illegal weapon smugglers without ethics, nobody would miss them."

 

"We could just knock them out," said Jean, "none of them have any of those psychic dampeners."

 

"Oh," Emilia blinked, yeah, knocking someone unconscious was quite easy with their powers, "Let's do that then."

 

She wouldn't have thought twice about just snapping their necks, she always viewed weapon smugglers as moral-less people that just proliferated wars and destruction. Only a little better than the actual people using their weapons to murder others for their own gains.

 

"Thanks," that's why she depended on Jean, she didn't want to become an emotionless murderer like them.

 

"Always~," Jean sang, placing a quick kiss on her girlfriend's cheek.

 

Emilia just smiled happily at the attention, making Jean click her tongue.

 

"It was so cute when you got all embarrassed from just holding hands," she shook her head mournfully, "what am I supposed to do to see your adorable blushing face, love?"

 

Emilia forced said blushing back down with a combination of will and psychic energy. She couldn't relent right now, this was a fight just as important to her as what was to come when the convoy came closer, if not more so.

 

"Guess you'll have to be creative then," said Emilia, smirking at the redhead, "you might have to try something, new."

 

Jean averted her gaze and Emilia felt a tinge of shame and embarrassment through their bond but didn't push further. She never thought she'd have to edge the girl on when they started dating but Jean had a severe aversion to taking the final step and even Emilia with her zero relationship experience knew something was up.

 

Despite how quickly they went from strangers to passionately kissing they never once slept together, well they did sleep together but not sleep together.

 

*Take all the time you want Jean, I love you.* She sent reassuringly, making sure her lover knew she wasn't holding it against her, just teasing.

 

*Thank you,* she felt Jean's relief and love through the bond, *I just want to make sure I'm doing this right, you know?*

 

Emilia wasn't sure she knew exactly what was going on but she could guess, her girlfriend was worried she'd fuck up their relationship for whatever weird reason. Emilia also had a bunch of worries like that but whenever they found themselves in a romantic position she always got swept along by the currents and just went for it, her previous worries fading into the back of her mind.

 

Emilia snuggled up to her contemplating girlfriend, giving her a quick side hug before letting her go. The loss of the physical connection sent a feeling of loss through her but she didn't want to stick themselves together with sweat, that wouldn't be very romantic.

 

"They are here," said Emilia, sending a smile at Jean who was now finally calming down and out of her contemplation.

 

"We might not be killing them," Emilia started, her eyes narrowing, "but they do deserve a beating at least, no?"

 

"Sure," Jean laughed, "with no cameras around her we can finally let loose a bit, Europe and the USA felt so stifling."

 

"Just make sure no drones or satellites can make out what you are doing."

 

"I don't know what you mean," Jean scratched her cheek in slight embarrassment.

 

Emilia glared at her a bit, they had to leave Germany much sooner than they planned because the girl got overeager when fighting one of their occasional assailants and turned a large patch of forest into ash. Emilia was terrified at first, thinking that the Dark Phoenix took over despite all of her efforts but Jean was all the same, just with an instinctive control over psychic fire.

 

"Mhmm," Emilia nodded, not too convinced but letting the matter drop.

 

She turned her gaze towards the dust cloud still more than a kilometer away and focused. All of the vehicles appeared in her mind along with all the minds around them, Emilia first focused on the vehicles. She might have some sadistic tendencies she wasn't willing to acknowledge but knowing the unconscious would be far too boorish in her opinion.

 

She mentally grabbed the wheels of a dozen Humvees and pulled, the armored cars turned, she pushed on the gas pedals and the cars smashed into trees or just went sailing off the road wherever she wanted. Next, with firm control of her powers, she turned off the engines, letting the roars they were letting out before dying out.

 

She felt satisfied with the terrified screaming of the occupants enough to knock them unconscious soon after, before they could get out of the locked cars. For normal people, she barely had to wish for them to fall unconscious for them to do so.

 

She pulled on her thought stream that was paying attention to Jean and how she handled the rest of the convoy, reintegrating it into her main thought stream. She sighed, somewhat in exasperation and in slight disappointment.

 

Jean was lifting the vehicles, Humvees and trucks alike into the air, tearing their tires off and letting them fall back onto the ground. Sometimes giving them a spin too just for the sake of it. She stared at her girlfriend, who had a blissful smile on her face, like a kid playing with her toys.

 

"Jeanie," Emilia said calmly.

 

"Yeah?"

 

"I don't think they are surviving getting sent flying in a truck that is spinning through the air for twenty meters."

 

"Oh," Jean gasped, the last few vehicles she was still holding onto falling out of her hold for a moment before she caught them. Thankfully before they got smashed into bits on the dry dirt road.

 

"Damn," Jean muttered, her lips pulled into a tight line.

 

Emilia wanted to tease her girlfriend about being a brute but she knew this wasn't the time. Was she somehow affecting Jean badly? She was sure the movie Jeans would never lose themselves in playing with their powers but then again her Jean didn't fear her powers and was even enjoying it. She didn't want to stifle that.

 

"They are still alive," She reassured her girlfriend, "I paid attention to them while you were playing."

 

"T-, Thanks," Jean said, staring listlessly at one of the upside-down trucks.

 

While Emilia was making sure Jean was alright she also found Klaw scuttling out of a Humvee, somehow he managed to regain his consciousness despite Emilia making sure he was nearly comatose.

 

"Are you alright?" she had more important things to worry about at the moment though, " Do you think it's that thing's influence?"

 

"I don't think so?" Jean stared into Emilia's eyes, uncertain, "Maybe?"

 

Emilia bit her lips, unsure of what to do. Her marvel knowledge was sparse and lacking and then again, most of it was useless in this universe as so many things seemed to deviate from what she knew. For one she never found any sign of the Sublime, thank all the damned gods of the universe, that would have been a shitstorm and a half.

 

Emilia couldn't reassure Jean that it'd be alright, she didn't want to lie and she wasn't willing to. What she did instead, was make sure Jean knew she'd never be alone, that she would never abandon her no matter what she turned into.

 

Jean snapped out of her reverie and sent a small smile at Emilia, feeling the emotions flooding her through their bond.

 

"Ah," Jean's eyes widened, "Sorry for whining, you little rat is trying to run in the meantime."

 

"Don't worry," Emilia smiled, "I got it."

 

Finding out how Klaw regained his consciousness wasn't too hard, considering a necklace was shining with psychic energy as it swing left and right on his chest. The same amount of psychic energy that Emilia sent into his mind too.

 

Emilia grabbed the small silver chain that held the amulet at the end of it and snapped it in two, pulling the thing off of the smuggler before sending another strike of energy into his mind. Then, she floated both toward her and Jean.

 

"Let's sit in the back of one of the trucks?" Emilia asked, "Free shade."

 

"Sure," Jean laughed, and just that made Emilia's day that much better.

 

 

Ulysses Klaw was an experienced man, having evaded Wakandan enforcers and intelligence for decades he could confidently say that he had a talent for slipping out of the grasp of people. He had a smell for dangerous situations and he didn't scoff at running for his life when that was the easiest way out.

 

When some of the vehicles in the convoy started veering off the road he suspected foul play already, sabotage or betrayal perhaps but when the ones that didn't get lifted into the air he knew shit was about the hit the fan, and an astronomical amount of it too.

 

He remembered pulling his trusty amulet around his neck, it had saved him from many of those freakish mutants and he hoped it'd prove useful yet again. He didn't even realize he'd passed out until he woke up, with said amulet vibrating with energy.

 

The only word running through his mind was fuck at that moment and after a few seconds of failing to get the ignition in his Humvee back into order he opted for running for his life on the only transport he could trust in a situation like this: his legs.

 

He only got a few dozen meters away before his belief was proven wrong when his amulet was torn from his neck, he felt himself be lifted into the air by an unseen force.

 

"Son of a bi-"

 

Thoughts fled his mind, one moment he was fully conscious, and then the next he was no better than being comatose.

 

When he regained his consciousness he did so with a jolt, springing to his feet and taking in his surroundings as he looked around frantically. Much to his surprise he could do so, with no shackles keeping him down or ropes tying him down heh a full range of movement

 

He awoke on the floor of one of his trucks, but what made him gape was two beautiful women curiously looking at him while lazing around on a crate. He expected many things from the vicious mutants that made quick work of his convoy but this wasn't it, if he was being honest he was expecting tentacles based on the obvious telekinetic powers.

 

The shorter black-haired one was sitting on the lap of the ginger bombshell with a blissful expression as she was currently receiving a scalp massage. Klaw himself almost felt embarrassed for the girl with the sounds she was making, he stared and made eye contact with the redhead as her fingers stopped their work.

 

The smaller girl opened her emerald blue eyes with a frown on her face, a second later her gaze found the cause of her annoyance: him. Klaw felt a shiver run down his spine as her eyes stared right through him, taking in everything that he was and knew, evaluating, judging.

 

He didn't like the feeling but then again all of his well-honed instincts were screaming at him more than ever before, these two were dangerous, impossibly so and he couldn't anger them. He bore with the weighty gaze until the girl seemed to bore off him and leapt off from the ginger's lap, much to the latter's regret.

 

“Well,” she said, “now that you are awake we have a lot to discuss Mr. Klaw.”

 

Ah, god damn it all, she knew his name. That was bad.

 

"I don't remember being acquainted with such fine ladies but I'm sure we can reach an agreement," he said and put on his best smile, feeling like his life depended on it.

 

He felt the ginger's glare bore into him, almost burning his skin but he tried to keep his mind off of it. His mind spun so fast he could barely keep up with his actions but he turned his originally charming smile into a more businesslike one.

 

Feeling the redhead's glare lessen he held back a sigh, fucking hell, and he thought they were cute together a moment prior.

 

"Mr. Klaw," pulled the raven-haired one his attention with her soft voice, "We want to make a deal with you, I'm sure you will be ecstatic to hear it."

 

Her smile felt wrong, very wrong. Barely concealed sadism, but in its infancy, he has seen much worse people than her but none of them had her powers. His amulet floated up to her palm and started spinning slowly atop it, telekinesis.

 

"In short," the girl took a breath, intentionally taking a moment to torture his nerves, "we want your Vibranium."