RILEY.
“I can feel home again,” Holly had told Riley not too long after she’d pressed her fingers to Source. Los Angeles was what she meant, of course, where the two of them had their only true home as children before the darkness of life and encroached on them, molding them into what they had become as teenagers before they’d arrived at Xavier’s. Unbeknownst to her, the powers she’d been slowly losing when boosted on Source unlocked the ability to draw a greater strength from the urban areas and population long lost. She felt Los Angeles, but not a living Los Angeles. She remembered nearly going insane kneels on the streets of her birth city, the one connected to her via an empathic connection, as the the Sentinels torched, burned, and exterminated their way through it in 2024 as part of their California cleanse. Holly wasn’t sure how she’d made it through those months following, but the pain had eventually lessened, but it always felt like something was missing. But now it was back, and it felt right in her mind even though it was swirling miasma of anger and pain that gave her energy a dark glow around her frame when she channeled it. As if she were bathed in black light, that the fury of those the Sentinels had killed had come back to aid her in this time of need. It was right, too, that where she’d began played in a part in where she’d end, if necessary, because there was absolutely no way she wasn’t seeing this through. The whole mood in her head had given her a twisted edge, bloodthirsty, and ready to extract vengeance.
Riley too, at her side, felt right in ways she couldn’t describe. The immense boost and effect of her powers slotted with her best friend from the past made her feel almost complete in a way she couldn’t describe and certainly couldn’t remember feeling for a long time. While she was doing this mainly to ensure Riley’s departure, after the last few days she was going to do this so that she could eek out a future for herself with Cleo, which was a horribly hilarious and sappy thought, if Holly did say so herself, but it was there. No longer was she simply waiting for her powers to leave her, for her body to give up it’s life, but she was actively working towards a goal. Step one though, and mostly importantly above all else, was getting Riley home. Full stop. Thoughts of Cleo all aside.
There were two reasons why Holly hadn’t even argued about Riley’s inclusion here, and in fact, despite her words originally, she’d wanted her here. First, practically, Riley could read the mutagenic auras of their Gen IV opponents, could give Holly and the other others a head’s up on what they were downloading from their network before they made a critical error and walked into a forcefield or death aura or something. Secondly, because if this whole fucking plan went to shit, Holly wanted Riley here with Helena, Meg, and that fucking device. She would fight her way through the Sentinels here, and demand the two take Riley back with them, forget about everyone else out there already lost. Riley deserved that much, to go home, and she’d already failed her twice. Her best friend might have forgiven her, but the fact remained that they never should have been in a situation where Riley had to die in the first place. They ought to have been better than that, and now Holly was dedicated to making sure that this time would end differently, even if she had to turn on everyone at the 11th hour and demand it happen, stand against whatever resistance she had to in the event of things going south.