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ax_mainThe kids go to investigate the Facility where Laura was made and raised. Lucky for them its abandoned. Unlucky for them its only the living that aren't there.
Laura sat on Tommy's bed and knocked the heel of her sneakers against one of the wooden posts of the frame, glancing around the room. It was different than her and Megan's, it was neither covered in pink, glitter and pictures nor was it completely devoid of life either. She glanced over at the speedster and raised an eyebrow. "How long do we need to wait before your friends show up?"
As if on cue, there was a rap on the door, and then Shen slipped in - as much as it was possible to 'slip in' with wings that size. She frowned briefly at the sight of Laura - that answered the question of who the other survivor was - but simply nodded at the two of them. "Hey. Who else is in?"
Tommy finished messing around with the strap on the ski goggles he'd ... acquired... and shoved them in his hoodie pocket rather than sling them around his head. At least for now. "Hey," he greeted Shen from where he was perched on top of his own barren desk. "Fatale and Havok," he answered without any more preamble than that. They're Brotherhood, but I dunno if you met them at the party."
"Nope, but I know who they are," Shen confirmed. "What about Kitty?" Not that she expected her to join them in the field, since her recovery wasn't over, but that wasn't why she'd asked if Tommy had talked to her - and she was also asking about Kitty/Brotherhood tension, right now.
A portal opened without fanfare just as Shen asked her question, and Pam and Alex stepped through, the former's forehead furrowing as she caught sight of the winged girl. "Why's she here?" she demanded of Tommy. "I thought you said the four of us?" Given that there was another girl sitting on the bed who seemed way more likely to be the fourth, considering she'd seen the one with the wings at the party, this was a definite change of plans. At least, she reassured herself, there wasn't any sign of Tommy's idiot brother.
"Shen's cool." Tommy unfolded himself and dropped off the desk to stand on the floor. "And unless either of you guys have figured out flying in the last few days, I figured we could use some air support. Shen, Laura, Fatale, Havok." He went around the room with the introductions, not bothering to actually point people out.
In sharp contrast to Pam's reaction, Alex simply nodded at the unexpected arrival, though he stood protectively near to the blue-skinned teleporter. "Five or four, it probably won't make too much difference. At least not in terms of how conspicuous we'll be." Especially if Shen could fly; if there was one thing he'd learned being on a team with Phantazia, it was how rarely people bothered to look up. "We just poking around tonight, or are we gonna be full-on proactive and shit?"
Laura had heard Shen coming down the hall, so her appearance had not really surprised her, but when a portal had opened up letting two new strangers in Laura immediately sat up straighter. She watched the two like intently, her eyes straying more towards the blue-skinned girl more than the boy. She glanced at Tommy in question, wondering if these were the two he had talked about.
Shen's temper - and wings - bristled at being talked about in the third person, but she forced herself not to speak up and let Tommy answer. The keyword here was cooperation, and she didn't want to let her temper get in the way of what they were out to do. Besides, it was only now dawning on her that it was very possible that everybody else involved was a survivor of those fucking awful places (not that she could be certain), and that made her want to take a serious step back and just be there when they needed her. It was their show, not hers.
It was in that spirit that, while part of her was hoping for full-on proactive, and the rest of her was worried at the notion, she just looked over at Tommy for his answer instead of saying anything.
"Start with the one, be ready for the other?" Tommy suggested, a sharp grin spreading on his face at the second half of his proposal. He wasn't exactly dressed for fighting, though the slim track pants and green hoodie he'd thrown on were a heck of a lot better suited to moving at high speeds than jeans or body armor. "Ultimately I think it's gonna have to be Laura's call." He nodded at the girl on his bed. "This was your rodeo originally, you know better than anyone the kind of thing we're likely to run into. Or if there's likely to be anyone there we're gonna need to pull out."
"You're the one, then," Pam said, eyeing the other girl with interest and ignoring, mostly, the way wings-girl was bristling at what she'd said. Whatever. Being in fights with Eileen may have taught her that having air support didn't suck, but she wasn't thrilled that Tommy'd invited an extra, anyway. The other girl, though - she was a clone, Tommy'd said. Which was seriously fucked up, but still interesting. "You okay with this?" She meant it on more than one level, but how the girl replied would answer the extra questions, anyway.
When the girl -Fatale, she assumed- asked her the question, Laura focused her full attention on her. She wondered if she meant going back to the lab or digging through it to find information, but both had the same answer. "I have prepared myself for it. I want to know what they are up to, even if I have to go back."
"Then let's get this show on the road," Alex said, flexing his hands. He gave Tommy an apologetic look. "Sorry, I'm really not trying to be pushy, or anything. But Fatale and I should probably try to be back before anybody notices we're gone. Anybody who knows me can tell you I'm a completely shit liar."
"Hang on two secs." Tommy had his phone out and fired off a text all rapid-speed, no problem, but it would take a couple of seconds minimum to actually get an answer back. "Kitty said to ping her before we took off."
Instead of a texted response, though, there was a knock on the door. Kitty had been ready for the call, hiding in Bobby's room in the meantime, but took a deep breath as she was faced with those behind the door. At least she was ready to phase at a moment's notice.
Tommy's "Come in!" was followed by Kitty's entrance, and Shen smiled at her friend in support. Facing anyone from the Brotherhood couldn't be easy for her. Focusing on the matter at hand would probably help, though, and she nodded towards what Kitty was carrying. "What's that?"
Kitty glanced over those assembled. She flashed a small, quick smile at Shen, then tried to be cool about the others. Laura she didn't know, but knew of. Fatale and Alex...well, of course she knew them. She knew everything they'd been through, and it was easy to see how close they'd become because of it. Mostly, she focused on Tommy, holding out a small box. She flipped the top and picked out a sleek black earbud. "I have two of these prototypes. One maybe for you, one for Shen for air surveillance? And then I can link the conversation from here."
"So you're the boss' precious little Kitty-Cat," Fatale observed, her eyes narrowing. "You don't look like anything that special."
Laura raised an eyebrow at the tone the blue girl had with Kitty, she didn’t know Kitty well, but everyone seemed to like her well enough, so she couldn’t understand the problem.
“She can phase through solid objects. That is special.” She stated matter of factly because it was true. The power that Kitty possessed was incredibly useful for many situations, especially when up against an enemy.
"Easy," Alex muttered, resting a ginger hand on Fatale's shoulder. "Tonight isn't about Pyro, or Magneto. Tonight is about them, and if this is gonna help us get in and out in one piece, I don't really care where it's coming from."
"Thanks, Kitty," Shen said as she grabbed one of the earbuds, and put it in her ear. "This is great." Moving right along, keeping it all business, check. She looked towards Tommy and Laura. "Anything we need to know about the place before we head in?"
Tommy'd slid forward a little more, not quite between Kitty and Pam, but enough to put a little bit more of a barrier between them just in case shit went south faster than he'd predicted. He turned the earbud over in his hand, checking it out, then followed Shen's cue and tucked it in. "There's nothing telepathic about this thing, is there? No spying on thoughts happening?" He teased, going for lighter-mood. Laura was the only one who could answer Shen's question anyway.
Laura thought back to the layout of what used to be her home, security had been destroyed by Kinney while she went on to kill Rice. She turned to answer Shen with a small frown. “If It has been left how it was, then everything should still be there. Information, research and the left over experiments.”
Kitty quietly ignored Fatale, but smiled briefly at Alex, then Laura. To Tommy, she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Just put it in your ear," she told both Tommy and Shen. "I'll do the rest. I'm only here for facilitating communication between you guys, and to send in backup, if needed. For now," she glanced briefly at Fatale. "Just pretend I'm not here."
"Not a problem," Fatale muttered, just loud enough that Alex would hear her. The only thing preferable to that would have been her actually not being there. Tommy was so hearing about this - but later. Alex was right; they had a job to do, one that was a fuckload more important than arguing who was going along for the ride. "Are we done talking now?" she demanded instead. "And does someone have the coordinates for this place?"
Though Alex returned Kitty's brief smile, his own expression was a tight approximation of the gesture. He might have been past caring about her infiltration of their base, and Magneto's seemingly incongruous praise of it, but many of the others were not. That in itself was a sticking point. Still, he knew with absolute confidence that Pam wouldn't let her feelings get in the way of the objective; neither of them would. And he gave her shoulder another gentle squeeze to communicate that certainty. Now it was just a matter of getting a location so Fatale could teleport them into place.
"Thanks, Kittycat." Tommy held out his hand for a fist-bump, partly because he wasn't about to hug in public, partly to demonstrate just how much he wasn't presently caring about the way Pam's glare was drilling into his spine. Mission first, deal with the fallout later. If shit went down they'd all be thanking Kitty for the assist. Turning, he pulled out his phone again and resurrected the map screen. "And I've got them. Here-" He handed his phone over to Pam, so she could see the numbers and the map. See? Everyone trusting everyone else. Get with the program, gang. "Laura and I worked it out earlier. Can you get us there?" He asked with a flash of a grin.
Pam took the phone, memorized the coordinates, and nodded. Right. Mission first, bitch Tommy out later. She got the message. "Of course I can get us there. Ask for something hard, why don't you?" She took a step back, and opened a portal, the slightly fuzzy image incongruous in the middle of the room. "Who's on point?"
“I will be.” Laura stated as she moved a closer towards the portal, for half a second almost scared to think that she’ll walk through there and be back again. She took a steadying breath and turned to look at Shen. “You should go in second and take off as quickly as possible. You will be able to see what we cannot, so if they have come back I need you to tell Tommy and all of you leave back through the portal.”
She destroyed it once, she could destroy it again.
"I'm air support, I don't think I'm supposed to leave you stranded," Shen remarked simply. It wasn't her style, anyway, and it wouldn't have been her style not to point it out. "But yeah, I'll go in after you."
As much out of force of habit as inclination, Alex waited to receive his marching orders. Tactically, it made sense for Tommy to go next; his speed would enable him to react to anything immediately hazardous on the other side even more immediately than Shen or Laura, if it were within visual range of Pam's portal. But the part of his brain that liked to make things complicated suggested that it also made sense to send Alex next, in case Fatale was annoyed enough to just strand the Xavier students wherever she'd sent them. She probably wouldn't. But it was always a possibility, given her temperament. She was much less likely to do that to him.
None of which he articulated out loud. He just folded his hands into his pockets and watched, ready to do whatever he was told.
Kitty stepped back out of the way as the portal opened, pulling a small tablet out of her back pocket and making a few adjustments to the screen. Then she slipped a third comm over her ear and watched as Laura and Shen disappeared through to the other side.
Tommy wasn't considering strategy at all beyond 'let's not get killed,' and with a final check of the ear thing to make sure it was on securely, he saluted Kitty and sped through the portal. "Check one two," he added when he landed on the other side, just in case. "Anybody listening?" Even if they didn't end up needing it for anything else, it was going to be an excellent way to pester the girls. Unless Kitty had a way to turn just his off.
Fatale looked at Alex and waved for him to come through with her. "Lance does this shit way better," she observed. She pulled out a knife, just to have it ready, and stepped through her own portal, closing it behind her.
The first thing that any of them noticed, unlike the comfortable warm temperature in the mansion, was the blistering dry heat that hit them in the face the moment they walked through Fatale’s portal and into the nothingness of the Arizona desert. Laura squinted against the glaring sun, glancing around to find that Fatale had been able to get them at least past the large thirty-foot barbed wire gate and she turned around to see the entrance of the gate.
There, right where she had left them, was one body that had been almost completely mummified by now that wore a security guard’s uniform and a small mound of dirt with a stick shoved in near the end. Laura dug her nails into his palms as she looked at the dirt pile, knowing Kinney’s body was still in there where she had buried it before she left.
She turned back towards the facility, the large square gray building exactly like she had left it. The front door was still missing from when she had hacked through it originally and she gave a small nod. “No one is here.”
She made her way towards the building and stepped through the broken door, finding more bodies on the floor, only this time they had not decomposed as nicely as the guard outside and the smell was awful. “Breathe through your mouths if you get sick easily.”
Shen had taken off as soon as she'd stepped through the portal, ignoring the slam of the desert heat as she soared up into the air, hands and feet shifted into talons. She circled the facility from up high, ignoring the sight of bodies she could spot through dirty windows. She touched her earbud nervously, wondering if there was a button she should press before saying, "I can't see anyone. Not anyone alive, anyway." Hopefully Tommy would hear her.
Tommy'd thought he'd been prepared. He'd listened to Laura's description of the place, thought about the test tubes and the dead doctors, he'd been through and seen things already with his own eyes that he wouldn't wish on anyone. This place had him so far out of his depth that it was only pure spite and the desperate need not to look like an idiot or a baby in front of everyone else that kept him moving forward.
Shen went up and Tommy went out, finishing a circuit of the space before Pam's portal had closed behind her. The faster he moved the less the smell hit him. Shen's voice came in over the earpiece as he skidded to a halt in front of the broken-down door. "Outside's clear down here. Except for the obvious."
"I have a pretty strong stomach," Alex noted as he fell into step behind Laura. The bodies were ... well, frankly gross, and rank as shit, but not so vastly divorced from his experience that they gave him much pause. They were just part of the landscape, really. "I guess this means there's nobody here to rescue, and no asses in any condition for kicking. What else are we looking for, then?" At that point, he was only useful as another set of eyes, but he would try to make a creditable effort at that, at least.
"Check for intel and blow the place?" Fatale suggested, based on previous missions. It was taking some effort, but she was managing to ignore the smell. The bodies, not so much. She eyed the nearest with interest, and looked over at Laura with approval. "You?" she guessed.
Laura wiggled her nose, the smell starting to feel like it would never end as she moved over the bodies and glanced back when she heard Fatale. She looked at the body the girl was interested in and gave a small nod. “They were trying to stop me from leaving.”
They finally reached the end of the carnage and Laura led them down a hall she remembered vaguely, only having been in these halls once in her life. She looked up at the signs that told them which way was what and turned toward where one of the arrows said LABS. They came to another torn apart door and when Laura stepped through she was overcome with the sense of being that scared little girl again.
The hallway was long, lined with multiple doors and windows that could look into the rooms. “There are computers in every room. If we can get into them, they should have at least some information that will be helpful.”
"I'm on the roof," Shen said as she landed neatly on the ledge. "I'll keep an eye out from here."
Tommy lagged a few steps behind the others, partly to stay within reach of the fresh-ish air near the door, partly to cover their backs, partly to talk to Shen without being really obnoxious about it. Not that 'being obnoxious' was always a drawback -- usually it was half of the appeal of his choices -- but he wasn't feeling it right now.
"Laura's heading for the computers," he filled Shen (and Kitty) in over the comms. "I'll tag along in a minute. It's pretty rank in here; anyone who cut out didn't come back for the bodies. You think Xavier's got a funeral budget we can tap into, or should we just cremate the whole thing when we're done?" He made it flippant, light and dry, a cover for the twist in his gut.
"Oh god," Kitty breathed out over the comm. "How many bodies?"
"A bunch," Shen answered, absolutely unhelpfully. "I'm glad I'm not in there. Are you grabbing the hard drives and coming back out?"
"Dunno." Tommy looked down the hallway, trying his best to ignore the bodies decomposing in the heat. "I'll go see what the plan is."
Lacking any better ideas at that moment, Alex paused at the first door he came to and pushed his way inside. It was darker, off the main corridor, but the smell wasn't quite so bad. He approached the computer terminal and tried to power it up, only to be met with a blank screen and a silent tower. "This one's a no-go," he called back into the hall. "Should I pull out the guts, or just move on to the next one?"
Laura watched the blond boy enter one of the rooms, listening as he tried the computer with no success and frowned. “Take it out. Let us see if we can access it back at the mansion.”
She looked over at the door on the other side of the hall from where the boy had picked and walked over to it. She took a breath before pushing it open and was glad she had, glancing away quickly from the body that was cut open on the operating table inside.
“I will check on this one.” She replied harshly and moved inside, making sure the door closed behind her.
Tommy zipped down the hall, skidding into a turn and stopping next to Alex. "Haul out the insides and we'll bring 'em back for Kitty to dissect," he suggested.
"Got it," the blond Summers confirmed, yanking most of the inert wires out of the back of the desktop before turning it on its side to puzzle out how the case came apart. As he did, he glanced at Tommy, then cast a meaningful look at the door Laura had disappeared behind. He was very familiar with that tone she'd just used. He was pretty sure the speedster was, too.
"Yeah, on it," Fatale said, catching Alex's look despite the fact it wasn't directed at her. She headed over to the door and pushed it open. "Any luck-" she began, then caught sight of the body on the table and swallowed, hard. And turned and closed the door behind her.
"Autopsy? Or did they cut him up still alive?" she asked Laura. "And what were they looking for?"
Laura barely glanced back at Fatale, focusing the best she could on checking the computer. Dead, like the other, and she quickly started work on removing the hard drive, so they could leave this room. “I can hope it was after he had gone but knowing them he was still breathing and awake when they started.”
Laura pulled the small piece from the computer and sighed as she stood up, turning to face the blue skinned girl with a frown. “They were looking for whatever they could use to make another weapon.”
--
Tommy turned to follow Fatale, but the door closed behind her and he let it go. If there was anything in there that she and Laura couldn't handle together, they were all screwed anyway. Alex had the hard drive, so he turned his attention to the filing cabinet standing like a silent sentinel in the far corner of the room. The drawers were locked, naturally. And... no, he wasn't going to go searching the bodies for a likely key. Tommy frowned at the cabinet.
The whole time they'd been after him to make his explosions bigger, further away, can you blow this up over the horizon, how about from a picture... big scared him, in a way small didn't. It had been why he'd been spending his time working on small. strong. controlled. I got this. Pep talks weren't nearly as helpful coming from yourself. He focused on the lock at the top, the one sealing the bar in place that kept the rest of the drawers closed. It buzzed, rattling fast and faster against the cabinet, then splintered and blew apart with a loud >pop.< Bingo.
Much as part of Shen was happy that she wasn't in there with the bodies - and the smell - she didn't like staying up there on her own either, not with the rest of them having to face whatever horror was still inside that place. Nothing was happening out there, as far as even her eyes could see, as she paced the perimeter of the roof, uneasy about the couple of minutes of radio silence. "What's going on in there?" she asked Tommy, stopping her teeth from worrying her bottom lip. "Need any help?"
The voice on the comm startled him, and Tommy caught himself nodding before he remembered she couldn't actually see him. "Yeah, couldn't hurt. Assuming you're okay with the mess," he added as a warning. "There's a lot of stuff here that someone will be able to make useful."
"Okay's a bit of an overstatement," Shen muttered, more to herself than to him or Kitty. "I'll be right there. Where do I find you?" She headed towards the edge of the building overlooking the main entrance.
Tommy hadn't missed that aside, and he was far enough away from Alex that he didn't think he'd be overheard. "Second door on the right. But if you don't feel good about it, don't," he urged Shen over the comms. "The four of us -- we didn't have a choice about what we saw in the places we were before. You don't want this shit stuck behind your eyeballs if it's going to sit with you. I can bring these files out." Not that he knew what was in the drawers yet; he'd gotten too distracted by the conversation.
Shen was pretty sure no one was supposed to feel good about it. But she didn't say that after landing in front of the front door, tucking her wings in close as she straightened up. "Hey, you didn't just bring me along 'cause I'm pretty." She took a deep breath and walked in.
--
Fatale nodded acknowledgement, still looking down at the corpse. "Kinda doubting they found it. He doesn't look like much." She looked over at Laura. "You were their last one, I'm guessing?"
Laura looked over her shoulder again at the man, could barely be in his mid-twenties, and frowned. “The last one that lived. There were others in the process of being...brought about, but I made sure they were not.”
She turned back to Fatale and motioned towards the door with her head. “We should leave this room. I have what we need.”
Fatale paused and shook her head. "What do you mean, 'brought about'?" Had the girl killed the other test subjects? Killing scientists was one thing - killing fellow lab rats was something else altogether.
She turned when Fatale did not move and stared at her without emotion. “Other clones. They were in the embryo stage and were ready to be transplanted into a surrogate. I made sure they did not make it there.”
Embryos. Alright, not what she'd been thinking - and a hell of a lot better than leaving them to whatever bastards might have shown up looking for these. Fatale nodded. "Good call." She took one last look at the body on the table, made a face, and turned towards the door. "They do a lot of that?" she asked, waving negligently towards the corpse.
Laura pursed her lips a little as they left the room, shutting the door behind them as if shutting a door on the memories. “They see how far a mutant can go, then once they have reached their limit they pick through to find out why and how they can use it if it was good enough.”
Grimacing, Fatale nodded. "Same bastards. Or close enough," she informed the guys - and Wings-girl, who'd apparently decided to join them for the horror fest. "Anyone want to snap pictures for the Boss?" she offered, jerking her chin towards the room they'd just exited. "Or maybe your dragon-girl can do something worthwhile with her YouTube channel, give people an actual look at what they did to mutants?"
"Not that they'd believe it, anyway," Alex added glumly. Though he did take out his seldom-used phone to get a few pictures. The X-kids would get whatever other information they could recover; it was their rodeo, so he couldn't begrudge them that. But the Brotherhood at least needed to be aware of this operation. "I'll get the photos," he added handing the hard drive he'd retrieved off to Tommy as he stepped into the room Laura and Pam had just exited.
Tommy should have thought to bring a backpack, but logistics and pre-planning were really not his thing. He zipped outside with the two hard drives, depositing them by the front door and stealing himself a minute to breathe in air that wasn’t tainted with the smell of rot. Man, he really was being a baby about this shit.
Okay. There was nothing to be done for the bodies, but the files could save other people. Right. Back in. He ran down the hallway and he kept going, doing a circuit of the rest of the building to see what else he could find. Moving faster was easier, the smell not fast enough to get to him, and no risk of one of the bodies, you know, moving and catching him off-guard.
Shen was still having trouble with the smell, but breathing through her mouth made it slightly more bearable, if she didn't think about it too much. Her arms were laden by the paper files Tommy had liberated from that cabinet, an easy burden for someone with her strength. "Do we have everything?" She'd come, but it didn't mean she wanted to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary.
Laura took count of what they had, the hard drives plus files and pictures should be enough for whatever they needed. She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought and had a moment to wonder if Rice’s body had decomposed just as badly before she nodded. “Yes, I think that is sufficient.”
She glanced at Tommy. “Can you destroy it? I want it gone.”
He nodded. "I can bring the walls down, yeah. If you want incineration, total obliteration no-digging-out-possible, then I need Havok on board." He nodded at Alex. "Between the two of us we can nuke the site so hard the space station will see it."
"Nobody ever brings me along on missions just for my sparkling personality," Alex griped, but he returned Tommy's nod. "Anyway, it's what I do. You knock it down, I'll burn it to a crisp. Though I should point out the spike in heat will be so intense there's a fair chance somebody's satellite somewhere will catch it, so I think we should make it quick."
Laura thought about that and glanced off in the direction she thought Kinney was buried, the idea that once this place was gone people would come to inspect it. “I want to bring my mother back with us.”
Okay, that was going to be weird. Tommy was already most of the way out the door, but he turned and came back at Laura's request. She'd said her mother was dead, but she hadn't reacted weird to any of the corpses that Tommy had seen. And she'd been at Xavier's for weeks. "Right, okay. I saw body bags back in the storage room when I was running recon, but uh. Where is she? And how..." goopy. "you know. Preserved."
“I cannot say for certain. I buried her outside in the ground. Her body would have been protected from the sun, unlike the other body outside with her.” Laura shifted a little, hand twitching as she looked at Tommy. “Just get me the bag and I will do the rest. You do not have to help.”
"I'll help," Fatale offered. "We can get her dug up while you guys blow the place to hell. I want a look after, though," she added, looking at Alex for confirmation. "I always end up missing the good part."
Alex nodded. "Since you're our ride home, I can pretty much guarantee you'll get a chance to be impressed by the smoking hole in the ground for a few minutes before we head back." Limbering up his hands, he looked at Shen. "You didn't happen to seen anyplace nearby that would offer a decent vantage, did you? It's easier to judge how much is still not red-hot rubble from a--," bird's eye view? God, no, "--an elevated position."
"There's a place," Shen confirmed with a nod. "It's a little far to walk, but -" she looked back at Fatale, since, well, teleporter, "I can show you." Then her gaze moved back to Laura. "Is she buried far enough they can blow up the place while we dig her up? Super strength will help it go faster, if you want," she added, to explain that 'we'. Maybe Fatale had super strength as well and she wasn't needed, but maybe not, so of course she would offer. This wasn't the sort of thing she could imagine anyone wanting to draw out.
Laura felt...she felt something at everyone offering to help her with this. It was weird and uncomfortable, so she quickly jerked her head in the direction of the entrance. “She is next to the security booth by the gate. About forty feet from the facility.”
Tommy glanced back and forth, gauging the distance, and shook his head. "Yeah, I'm thinking no. Not unless you want to keep an eye out for flying bricks while you're doing it. Dig up mom first, then we all get to higher ground and bow this place from there." When the hell had he become someone who made tactical decisions? He stopped and looked at Shen, bemused, and half-waited for some comment from Kitty over the earbud.
“Should I, uh, warn Sharon, or Dr. McCoy about the body?” Kitty asked over the comms.
Tommy glanced over at Shen and shrugged before turning to Laura to relay the question. "Kitty wants to know if we're sneaking your mom back in, or if she should let the docs know."
“She is already dead. What is a doctor going to do?” Laura questioned seriously, then shook her head. “No, I plan to just bury her outside. Give her a peaceful place to lay instead of this.”
"That'd be a 'no,'" Tommy reported succinctly.
"So, let's get on it, already." Fatale opened a portal to a spot near the security booth. "Anyone coming along, the door's open."
--
Laura dragged the filled body bag until they were far enough away from the facility to be safe. She gave the bag a soft pat, letting her mother’s body know it would only take a second before they could leave. She turned to look back at the place one last time, the place where she had been born and raised and yet she felt nothing. She had what was important to her now, her mother’s body, so watching this place burn would be satisfying. She looked over at Tommy and Havok, giving the signal with a curt nod.
They had a good vantage point from the ridge, and Tommy could see the whole layout from there. Where the strongest parts of the walls were, where all the power generators fed the building with electricity, the holes Laura had made during her hasty exit the first time around.
It had felt fucking awesome to take down the place where he’d been held, to watch his own personal hell go down in a cloud of smoke and crumbled rebar. Time to give Laura’s a proper sendoff too.
Tommy braced himself and he reached, sending the waves of power out toward the foundations of the complex below them. It wasn’t visually impressive, no-one could see the way he grabbed the molecules and twisted them, pushed all the energy in his body into making their atoms spin and dance at a hundred, a thousand times normal speed. He felt his fists curl in on themselves to ground him as the walls began to shake. Dust rose up and wind whipped at him as the bonds between the pieces collapsed, metal melting and concrete slabs trying to vibrate themselves apart.
As the structure began to collapse in on itself, concrete or plastic bursting outward from the complex here and there like erupting cysts, Alex gathered as much plasma as he could safely handle into his hands--more than enough to burn this place off the face of the map, and then some--and slowly focused the stream of superheated matter toward the trembling labs and outbuildings. The energy wave struck one wall, disintegrating it in an instant, and boiling away what was left of the interior in a fantastic wave of heat that was perceptible even in the distance. When the smoke and ash cleared, there was only a crater to mark the former site of the facility, its perimeter bright with red-hot, molten glass.
Exhaling heavily, the blond leaned back until his spine gave a soft but audible pop. "Well. That's all I got, unless anybody has a burrito they want warmed. You guys ready to head home?"
Fatale reluctantly pulled her attention away from watching the smoke clear and turned towards the guys and nodded. "Ready when everyone else is," she assured them, then looked over at Laura. "Or, y'know, when you tell me where you want to take...that. I mostly get to the school by getting GPS info from Tommy, and I'm guessing we don't want to take your mother back to his room."
Laura held up the head end of the body bag, frowning as she thought of where to put her mother. “Can you take me to the grounds around the mansion? I would like to bury her there.”
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. It was just a matter of guessing distance from Tommy's room, and she'd looked out the windows often enough to manage it. "Yeah, I can do that," she agreed. She turned to look at an open space behind them, and a portal shimmered into existence, through which the farther edges of the grounds at Xavier's were visible. "Looks about right," she said, gesturing for them to precede her through.
Tommy turned and took one look back at the crater, and he rested his hand on Alex's shoulder for a moment. "Nice work," he added, though his commentary was probably totally unnecessary. "I bet they saw that from the space station," he gloated a little anyway.
Cheeks reddening slightly, Alex grinned at the compliment; Fatale complimented him on his considerable destructive capabilities often enough that he wasn't totally unused to it, but it was different, coming from Tommy. For some reason. "Maybe sometime when we're just blowing something up for fun, we should try writing our names. That'd really confuse 'em, I bet."
"That or a big 'Fuck You' across the landscape," Tommy replied cheerfully, already liking the idea.
After thinking about it for a moment, Alex concluded, "I like it. That should absolutely be a thing." His grin brightened considerably.
Laura bent down to hoist the body bag over her shoulder, an ungraceful wobble at the weight before she caught herself and stood up. It was done. It was gone and everything they had tried to do was up in flames with it. Only thing surviving from those labs was her now and she licked her lips and shifted the body. “We should move. The closest city is about fifteen miles, so they will be coming to check.”
She squinted out at the horizon, the landscape waving because of the heat. “Or someone else will.”
She moved through the portal quickly, not wanting to be there any longer.
Laura sat on Tommy's bed and knocked the heel of her sneakers against one of the wooden posts of the frame, glancing around the room. It was different than her and Megan's, it was neither covered in pink, glitter and pictures nor was it completely devoid of life either. She glanced over at the speedster and raised an eyebrow. "How long do we need to wait before your friends show up?"
As if on cue, there was a rap on the door, and then Shen slipped in - as much as it was possible to 'slip in' with wings that size. She frowned briefly at the sight of Laura - that answered the question of who the other survivor was - but simply nodded at the two of them. "Hey. Who else is in?"
Tommy finished messing around with the strap on the ski goggles he'd ... acquired... and shoved them in his hoodie pocket rather than sling them around his head. At least for now. "Hey," he greeted Shen from where he was perched on top of his own barren desk. "Fatale and Havok," he answered without any more preamble than that. They're Brotherhood, but I dunno if you met them at the party."
"Nope, but I know who they are," Shen confirmed. "What about Kitty?" Not that she expected her to join them in the field, since her recovery wasn't over, but that wasn't why she'd asked if Tommy had talked to her - and she was also asking about Kitty/Brotherhood tension, right now.
A portal opened without fanfare just as Shen asked her question, and Pam and Alex stepped through, the former's forehead furrowing as she caught sight of the winged girl. "Why's she here?" she demanded of Tommy. "I thought you said the four of us?" Given that there was another girl sitting on the bed who seemed way more likely to be the fourth, considering she'd seen the one with the wings at the party, this was a definite change of plans. At least, she reassured herself, there wasn't any sign of Tommy's idiot brother.
"Shen's cool." Tommy unfolded himself and dropped off the desk to stand on the floor. "And unless either of you guys have figured out flying in the last few days, I figured we could use some air support. Shen, Laura, Fatale, Havok." He went around the room with the introductions, not bothering to actually point people out.
In sharp contrast to Pam's reaction, Alex simply nodded at the unexpected arrival, though he stood protectively near to the blue-skinned teleporter. "Five or four, it probably won't make too much difference. At least not in terms of how conspicuous we'll be." Especially if Shen could fly; if there was one thing he'd learned being on a team with Phantazia, it was how rarely people bothered to look up. "We just poking around tonight, or are we gonna be full-on proactive and shit?"
Laura had heard Shen coming down the hall, so her appearance had not really surprised her, but when a portal had opened up letting two new strangers in Laura immediately sat up straighter. She watched the two like intently, her eyes straying more towards the blue-skinned girl more than the boy. She glanced at Tommy in question, wondering if these were the two he had talked about.
Shen's temper - and wings - bristled at being talked about in the third person, but she forced herself not to speak up and let Tommy answer. The keyword here was cooperation, and she didn't want to let her temper get in the way of what they were out to do. Besides, it was only now dawning on her that it was very possible that everybody else involved was a survivor of those fucking awful places (not that she could be certain), and that made her want to take a serious step back and just be there when they needed her. It was their show, not hers.
It was in that spirit that, while part of her was hoping for full-on proactive, and the rest of her was worried at the notion, she just looked over at Tommy for his answer instead of saying anything.
"Start with the one, be ready for the other?" Tommy suggested, a sharp grin spreading on his face at the second half of his proposal. He wasn't exactly dressed for fighting, though the slim track pants and green hoodie he'd thrown on were a heck of a lot better suited to moving at high speeds than jeans or body armor. "Ultimately I think it's gonna have to be Laura's call." He nodded at the girl on his bed. "This was your rodeo originally, you know better than anyone the kind of thing we're likely to run into. Or if there's likely to be anyone there we're gonna need to pull out."
"You're the one, then," Pam said, eyeing the other girl with interest and ignoring, mostly, the way wings-girl was bristling at what she'd said. Whatever. Being in fights with Eileen may have taught her that having air support didn't suck, but she wasn't thrilled that Tommy'd invited an extra, anyway. The other girl, though - she was a clone, Tommy'd said. Which was seriously fucked up, but still interesting. "You okay with this?" She meant it on more than one level, but how the girl replied would answer the extra questions, anyway.
When the girl -Fatale, she assumed- asked her the question, Laura focused her full attention on her. She wondered if she meant going back to the lab or digging through it to find information, but both had the same answer. "I have prepared myself for it. I want to know what they are up to, even if I have to go back."
"Then let's get this show on the road," Alex said, flexing his hands. He gave Tommy an apologetic look. "Sorry, I'm really not trying to be pushy, or anything. But Fatale and I should probably try to be back before anybody notices we're gone. Anybody who knows me can tell you I'm a completely shit liar."
"Hang on two secs." Tommy had his phone out and fired off a text all rapid-speed, no problem, but it would take a couple of seconds minimum to actually get an answer back. "Kitty said to ping her before we took off."
Instead of a texted response, though, there was a knock on the door. Kitty had been ready for the call, hiding in Bobby's room in the meantime, but took a deep breath as she was faced with those behind the door. At least she was ready to phase at a moment's notice.
Tommy's "Come in!" was followed by Kitty's entrance, and Shen smiled at her friend in support. Facing anyone from the Brotherhood couldn't be easy for her. Focusing on the matter at hand would probably help, though, and she nodded towards what Kitty was carrying. "What's that?"
Kitty glanced over those assembled. She flashed a small, quick smile at Shen, then tried to be cool about the others. Laura she didn't know, but knew of. Fatale and Alex...well, of course she knew them. She knew everything they'd been through, and it was easy to see how close they'd become because of it. Mostly, she focused on Tommy, holding out a small box. She flipped the top and picked out a sleek black earbud. "I have two of these prototypes. One maybe for you, one for Shen for air surveillance? And then I can link the conversation from here."
"So you're the boss' precious little Kitty-Cat," Fatale observed, her eyes narrowing. "You don't look like anything that special."
Laura raised an eyebrow at the tone the blue girl had with Kitty, she didn’t know Kitty well, but everyone seemed to like her well enough, so she couldn’t understand the problem.
“She can phase through solid objects. That is special.” She stated matter of factly because it was true. The power that Kitty possessed was incredibly useful for many situations, especially when up against an enemy.
"Easy," Alex muttered, resting a ginger hand on Fatale's shoulder. "Tonight isn't about Pyro, or Magneto. Tonight is about them, and if this is gonna help us get in and out in one piece, I don't really care where it's coming from."
"Thanks, Kitty," Shen said as she grabbed one of the earbuds, and put it in her ear. "This is great." Moving right along, keeping it all business, check. She looked towards Tommy and Laura. "Anything we need to know about the place before we head in?"
Tommy'd slid forward a little more, not quite between Kitty and Pam, but enough to put a little bit more of a barrier between them just in case shit went south faster than he'd predicted. He turned the earbud over in his hand, checking it out, then followed Shen's cue and tucked it in. "There's nothing telepathic about this thing, is there? No spying on thoughts happening?" He teased, going for lighter-mood. Laura was the only one who could answer Shen's question anyway.
Laura thought back to the layout of what used to be her home, security had been destroyed by Kinney while she went on to kill Rice. She turned to answer Shen with a small frown. “If It has been left how it was, then everything should still be there. Information, research and the left over experiments.”
Kitty quietly ignored Fatale, but smiled briefly at Alex, then Laura. To Tommy, she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Just put it in your ear," she told both Tommy and Shen. "I'll do the rest. I'm only here for facilitating communication between you guys, and to send in backup, if needed. For now," she glanced briefly at Fatale. "Just pretend I'm not here."
"Not a problem," Fatale muttered, just loud enough that Alex would hear her. The only thing preferable to that would have been her actually not being there. Tommy was so hearing about this - but later. Alex was right; they had a job to do, one that was a fuckload more important than arguing who was going along for the ride. "Are we done talking now?" she demanded instead. "And does someone have the coordinates for this place?"
Though Alex returned Kitty's brief smile, his own expression was a tight approximation of the gesture. He might have been past caring about her infiltration of their base, and Magneto's seemingly incongruous praise of it, but many of the others were not. That in itself was a sticking point. Still, he knew with absolute confidence that Pam wouldn't let her feelings get in the way of the objective; neither of them would. And he gave her shoulder another gentle squeeze to communicate that certainty. Now it was just a matter of getting a location so Fatale could teleport them into place.
"Thanks, Kittycat." Tommy held out his hand for a fist-bump, partly because he wasn't about to hug in public, partly to demonstrate just how much he wasn't presently caring about the way Pam's glare was drilling into his spine. Mission first, deal with the fallout later. If shit went down they'd all be thanking Kitty for the assist. Turning, he pulled out his phone again and resurrected the map screen. "And I've got them. Here-" He handed his phone over to Pam, so she could see the numbers and the map. See? Everyone trusting everyone else. Get with the program, gang. "Laura and I worked it out earlier. Can you get us there?" He asked with a flash of a grin.
Pam took the phone, memorized the coordinates, and nodded. Right. Mission first, bitch Tommy out later. She got the message. "Of course I can get us there. Ask for something hard, why don't you?" She took a step back, and opened a portal, the slightly fuzzy image incongruous in the middle of the room. "Who's on point?"
“I will be.” Laura stated as she moved a closer towards the portal, for half a second almost scared to think that she’ll walk through there and be back again. She took a steadying breath and turned to look at Shen. “You should go in second and take off as quickly as possible. You will be able to see what we cannot, so if they have come back I need you to tell Tommy and all of you leave back through the portal.”
She destroyed it once, she could destroy it again.
"I'm air support, I don't think I'm supposed to leave you stranded," Shen remarked simply. It wasn't her style, anyway, and it wouldn't have been her style not to point it out. "But yeah, I'll go in after you."
As much out of force of habit as inclination, Alex waited to receive his marching orders. Tactically, it made sense for Tommy to go next; his speed would enable him to react to anything immediately hazardous on the other side even more immediately than Shen or Laura, if it were within visual range of Pam's portal. But the part of his brain that liked to make things complicated suggested that it also made sense to send Alex next, in case Fatale was annoyed enough to just strand the Xavier students wherever she'd sent them. She probably wouldn't. But it was always a possibility, given her temperament. She was much less likely to do that to him.
None of which he articulated out loud. He just folded his hands into his pockets and watched, ready to do whatever he was told.
Kitty stepped back out of the way as the portal opened, pulling a small tablet out of her back pocket and making a few adjustments to the screen. Then she slipped a third comm over her ear and watched as Laura and Shen disappeared through to the other side.
Tommy wasn't considering strategy at all beyond 'let's not get killed,' and with a final check of the ear thing to make sure it was on securely, he saluted Kitty and sped through the portal. "Check one two," he added when he landed on the other side, just in case. "Anybody listening?" Even if they didn't end up needing it for anything else, it was going to be an excellent way to pester the girls. Unless Kitty had a way to turn just his off.
Fatale looked at Alex and waved for him to come through with her. "Lance does this shit way better," she observed. She pulled out a knife, just to have it ready, and stepped through her own portal, closing it behind her.
The first thing that any of them noticed, unlike the comfortable warm temperature in the mansion, was the blistering dry heat that hit them in the face the moment they walked through Fatale’s portal and into the nothingness of the Arizona desert. Laura squinted against the glaring sun, glancing around to find that Fatale had been able to get them at least past the large thirty-foot barbed wire gate and she turned around to see the entrance of the gate.
There, right where she had left them, was one body that had been almost completely mummified by now that wore a security guard’s uniform and a small mound of dirt with a stick shoved in near the end. Laura dug her nails into his palms as she looked at the dirt pile, knowing Kinney’s body was still in there where she had buried it before she left.
She turned back towards the facility, the large square gray building exactly like she had left it. The front door was still missing from when she had hacked through it originally and she gave a small nod. “No one is here.”
She made her way towards the building and stepped through the broken door, finding more bodies on the floor, only this time they had not decomposed as nicely as the guard outside and the smell was awful. “Breathe through your mouths if you get sick easily.”
Shen had taken off as soon as she'd stepped through the portal, ignoring the slam of the desert heat as she soared up into the air, hands and feet shifted into talons. She circled the facility from up high, ignoring the sight of bodies she could spot through dirty windows. She touched her earbud nervously, wondering if there was a button she should press before saying, "I can't see anyone. Not anyone alive, anyway." Hopefully Tommy would hear her.
Tommy'd thought he'd been prepared. He'd listened to Laura's description of the place, thought about the test tubes and the dead doctors, he'd been through and seen things already with his own eyes that he wouldn't wish on anyone. This place had him so far out of his depth that it was only pure spite and the desperate need not to look like an idiot or a baby in front of everyone else that kept him moving forward.
Shen went up and Tommy went out, finishing a circuit of the space before Pam's portal had closed behind her. The faster he moved the less the smell hit him. Shen's voice came in over the earpiece as he skidded to a halt in front of the broken-down door. "Outside's clear down here. Except for the obvious."
"I have a pretty strong stomach," Alex noted as he fell into step behind Laura. The bodies were ... well, frankly gross, and rank as shit, but not so vastly divorced from his experience that they gave him much pause. They were just part of the landscape, really. "I guess this means there's nobody here to rescue, and no asses in any condition for kicking. What else are we looking for, then?" At that point, he was only useful as another set of eyes, but he would try to make a creditable effort at that, at least.
"Check for intel and blow the place?" Fatale suggested, based on previous missions. It was taking some effort, but she was managing to ignore the smell. The bodies, not so much. She eyed the nearest with interest, and looked over at Laura with approval. "You?" she guessed.
Laura wiggled her nose, the smell starting to feel like it would never end as she moved over the bodies and glanced back when she heard Fatale. She looked at the body the girl was interested in and gave a small nod. “They were trying to stop me from leaving.”
They finally reached the end of the carnage and Laura led them down a hall she remembered vaguely, only having been in these halls once in her life. She looked up at the signs that told them which way was what and turned toward where one of the arrows said LABS. They came to another torn apart door and when Laura stepped through she was overcome with the sense of being that scared little girl again.
The hallway was long, lined with multiple doors and windows that could look into the rooms. “There are computers in every room. If we can get into them, they should have at least some information that will be helpful.”
"I'm on the roof," Shen said as she landed neatly on the ledge. "I'll keep an eye out from here."
Tommy lagged a few steps behind the others, partly to stay within reach of the fresh-ish air near the door, partly to cover their backs, partly to talk to Shen without being really obnoxious about it. Not that 'being obnoxious' was always a drawback -- usually it was half of the appeal of his choices -- but he wasn't feeling it right now.
"Laura's heading for the computers," he filled Shen (and Kitty) in over the comms. "I'll tag along in a minute. It's pretty rank in here; anyone who cut out didn't come back for the bodies. You think Xavier's got a funeral budget we can tap into, or should we just cremate the whole thing when we're done?" He made it flippant, light and dry, a cover for the twist in his gut.
"Oh god," Kitty breathed out over the comm. "How many bodies?"
"A bunch," Shen answered, absolutely unhelpfully. "I'm glad I'm not in there. Are you grabbing the hard drives and coming back out?"
"Dunno." Tommy looked down the hallway, trying his best to ignore the bodies decomposing in the heat. "I'll go see what the plan is."
Lacking any better ideas at that moment, Alex paused at the first door he came to and pushed his way inside. It was darker, off the main corridor, but the smell wasn't quite so bad. He approached the computer terminal and tried to power it up, only to be met with a blank screen and a silent tower. "This one's a no-go," he called back into the hall. "Should I pull out the guts, or just move on to the next one?"
Laura watched the blond boy enter one of the rooms, listening as he tried the computer with no success and frowned. “Take it out. Let us see if we can access it back at the mansion.”
She looked over at the door on the other side of the hall from where the boy had picked and walked over to it. She took a breath before pushing it open and was glad she had, glancing away quickly from the body that was cut open on the operating table inside.
“I will check on this one.” She replied harshly and moved inside, making sure the door closed behind her.
Tommy zipped down the hall, skidding into a turn and stopping next to Alex. "Haul out the insides and we'll bring 'em back for Kitty to dissect," he suggested.
"Got it," the blond Summers confirmed, yanking most of the inert wires out of the back of the desktop before turning it on its side to puzzle out how the case came apart. As he did, he glanced at Tommy, then cast a meaningful look at the door Laura had disappeared behind. He was very familiar with that tone she'd just used. He was pretty sure the speedster was, too.
"Yeah, on it," Fatale said, catching Alex's look despite the fact it wasn't directed at her. She headed over to the door and pushed it open. "Any luck-" she began, then caught sight of the body on the table and swallowed, hard. And turned and closed the door behind her.
"Autopsy? Or did they cut him up still alive?" she asked Laura. "And what were they looking for?"
Laura barely glanced back at Fatale, focusing the best she could on checking the computer. Dead, like the other, and she quickly started work on removing the hard drive, so they could leave this room. “I can hope it was after he had gone but knowing them he was still breathing and awake when they started.”
Laura pulled the small piece from the computer and sighed as she stood up, turning to face the blue skinned girl with a frown. “They were looking for whatever they could use to make another weapon.”
--
Tommy turned to follow Fatale, but the door closed behind her and he let it go. If there was anything in there that she and Laura couldn't handle together, they were all screwed anyway. Alex had the hard drive, so he turned his attention to the filing cabinet standing like a silent sentinel in the far corner of the room. The drawers were locked, naturally. And... no, he wasn't going to go searching the bodies for a likely key. Tommy frowned at the cabinet.
The whole time they'd been after him to make his explosions bigger, further away, can you blow this up over the horizon, how about from a picture... big scared him, in a way small didn't. It had been why he'd been spending his time working on small. strong. controlled. I got this. Pep talks weren't nearly as helpful coming from yourself. He focused on the lock at the top, the one sealing the bar in place that kept the rest of the drawers closed. It buzzed, rattling fast and faster against the cabinet, then splintered and blew apart with a loud >pop.< Bingo.
Much as part of Shen was happy that she wasn't in there with the bodies - and the smell - she didn't like staying up there on her own either, not with the rest of them having to face whatever horror was still inside that place. Nothing was happening out there, as far as even her eyes could see, as she paced the perimeter of the roof, uneasy about the couple of minutes of radio silence. "What's going on in there?" she asked Tommy, stopping her teeth from worrying her bottom lip. "Need any help?"
The voice on the comm startled him, and Tommy caught himself nodding before he remembered she couldn't actually see him. "Yeah, couldn't hurt. Assuming you're okay with the mess," he added as a warning. "There's a lot of stuff here that someone will be able to make useful."
"Okay's a bit of an overstatement," Shen muttered, more to herself than to him or Kitty. "I'll be right there. Where do I find you?" She headed towards the edge of the building overlooking the main entrance.
Tommy hadn't missed that aside, and he was far enough away from Alex that he didn't think he'd be overheard. "Second door on the right. But if you don't feel good about it, don't," he urged Shen over the comms. "The four of us -- we didn't have a choice about what we saw in the places we were before. You don't want this shit stuck behind your eyeballs if it's going to sit with you. I can bring these files out." Not that he knew what was in the drawers yet; he'd gotten too distracted by the conversation.
Shen was pretty sure no one was supposed to feel good about it. But she didn't say that after landing in front of the front door, tucking her wings in close as she straightened up. "Hey, you didn't just bring me along 'cause I'm pretty." She took a deep breath and walked in.
--
Fatale nodded acknowledgement, still looking down at the corpse. "Kinda doubting they found it. He doesn't look like much." She looked over at Laura. "You were their last one, I'm guessing?"
Laura looked over her shoulder again at the man, could barely be in his mid-twenties, and frowned. “The last one that lived. There were others in the process of being...brought about, but I made sure they were not.”
She turned back to Fatale and motioned towards the door with her head. “We should leave this room. I have what we need.”
Fatale paused and shook her head. "What do you mean, 'brought about'?" Had the girl killed the other test subjects? Killing scientists was one thing - killing fellow lab rats was something else altogether.
She turned when Fatale did not move and stared at her without emotion. “Other clones. They were in the embryo stage and were ready to be transplanted into a surrogate. I made sure they did not make it there.”
Embryos. Alright, not what she'd been thinking - and a hell of a lot better than leaving them to whatever bastards might have shown up looking for these. Fatale nodded. "Good call." She took one last look at the body on the table, made a face, and turned towards the door. "They do a lot of that?" she asked, waving negligently towards the corpse.
Laura pursed her lips a little as they left the room, shutting the door behind them as if shutting a door on the memories. “They see how far a mutant can go, then once they have reached their limit they pick through to find out why and how they can use it if it was good enough.”
Grimacing, Fatale nodded. "Same bastards. Or close enough," she informed the guys - and Wings-girl, who'd apparently decided to join them for the horror fest. "Anyone want to snap pictures for the Boss?" she offered, jerking her chin towards the room they'd just exited. "Or maybe your dragon-girl can do something worthwhile with her YouTube channel, give people an actual look at what they did to mutants?"
"Not that they'd believe it, anyway," Alex added glumly. Though he did take out his seldom-used phone to get a few pictures. The X-kids would get whatever other information they could recover; it was their rodeo, so he couldn't begrudge them that. But the Brotherhood at least needed to be aware of this operation. "I'll get the photos," he added handing the hard drive he'd retrieved off to Tommy as he stepped into the room Laura and Pam had just exited.
Tommy should have thought to bring a backpack, but logistics and pre-planning were really not his thing. He zipped outside with the two hard drives, depositing them by the front door and stealing himself a minute to breathe in air that wasn’t tainted with the smell of rot. Man, he really was being a baby about this shit.
Okay. There was nothing to be done for the bodies, but the files could save other people. Right. Back in. He ran down the hallway and he kept going, doing a circuit of the rest of the building to see what else he could find. Moving faster was easier, the smell not fast enough to get to him, and no risk of one of the bodies, you know, moving and catching him off-guard.
Shen was still having trouble with the smell, but breathing through her mouth made it slightly more bearable, if she didn't think about it too much. Her arms were laden by the paper files Tommy had liberated from that cabinet, an easy burden for someone with her strength. "Do we have everything?" She'd come, but it didn't mean she wanted to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary.
Laura took count of what they had, the hard drives plus files and pictures should be enough for whatever they needed. She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought and had a moment to wonder if Rice’s body had decomposed just as badly before she nodded. “Yes, I think that is sufficient.”
She glanced at Tommy. “Can you destroy it? I want it gone.”
He nodded. "I can bring the walls down, yeah. If you want incineration, total obliteration no-digging-out-possible, then I need Havok on board." He nodded at Alex. "Between the two of us we can nuke the site so hard the space station will see it."
"Nobody ever brings me along on missions just for my sparkling personality," Alex griped, but he returned Tommy's nod. "Anyway, it's what I do. You knock it down, I'll burn it to a crisp. Though I should point out the spike in heat will be so intense there's a fair chance somebody's satellite somewhere will catch it, so I think we should make it quick."
Laura thought about that and glanced off in the direction she thought Kinney was buried, the idea that once this place was gone people would come to inspect it. “I want to bring my mother back with us.”
Okay, that was going to be weird. Tommy was already most of the way out the door, but he turned and came back at Laura's request. She'd said her mother was dead, but she hadn't reacted weird to any of the corpses that Tommy had seen. And she'd been at Xavier's for weeks. "Right, okay. I saw body bags back in the storage room when I was running recon, but uh. Where is she? And how..." goopy. "you know. Preserved."
“I cannot say for certain. I buried her outside in the ground. Her body would have been protected from the sun, unlike the other body outside with her.” Laura shifted a little, hand twitching as she looked at Tommy. “Just get me the bag and I will do the rest. You do not have to help.”
"I'll help," Fatale offered. "We can get her dug up while you guys blow the place to hell. I want a look after, though," she added, looking at Alex for confirmation. "I always end up missing the good part."
Alex nodded. "Since you're our ride home, I can pretty much guarantee you'll get a chance to be impressed by the smoking hole in the ground for a few minutes before we head back." Limbering up his hands, he looked at Shen. "You didn't happen to seen anyplace nearby that would offer a decent vantage, did you? It's easier to judge how much is still not red-hot rubble from a--," bird's eye view? God, no, "--an elevated position."
"There's a place," Shen confirmed with a nod. "It's a little far to walk, but -" she looked back at Fatale, since, well, teleporter, "I can show you." Then her gaze moved back to Laura. "Is she buried far enough they can blow up the place while we dig her up? Super strength will help it go faster, if you want," she added, to explain that 'we'. Maybe Fatale had super strength as well and she wasn't needed, but maybe not, so of course she would offer. This wasn't the sort of thing she could imagine anyone wanting to draw out.
Laura felt...she felt something at everyone offering to help her with this. It was weird and uncomfortable, so she quickly jerked her head in the direction of the entrance. “She is next to the security booth by the gate. About forty feet from the facility.”
Tommy glanced back and forth, gauging the distance, and shook his head. "Yeah, I'm thinking no. Not unless you want to keep an eye out for flying bricks while you're doing it. Dig up mom first, then we all get to higher ground and bow this place from there." When the hell had he become someone who made tactical decisions? He stopped and looked at Shen, bemused, and half-waited for some comment from Kitty over the earbud.
“Should I, uh, warn Sharon, or Dr. McCoy about the body?” Kitty asked over the comms.
Tommy glanced over at Shen and shrugged before turning to Laura to relay the question. "Kitty wants to know if we're sneaking your mom back in, or if she should let the docs know."
“She is already dead. What is a doctor going to do?” Laura questioned seriously, then shook her head. “No, I plan to just bury her outside. Give her a peaceful place to lay instead of this.”
"That'd be a 'no,'" Tommy reported succinctly.
"So, let's get on it, already." Fatale opened a portal to a spot near the security booth. "Anyone coming along, the door's open."
--
Laura dragged the filled body bag until they were far enough away from the facility to be safe. She gave the bag a soft pat, letting her mother’s body know it would only take a second before they could leave. She turned to look back at the place one last time, the place where she had been born and raised and yet she felt nothing. She had what was important to her now, her mother’s body, so watching this place burn would be satisfying. She looked over at Tommy and Havok, giving the signal with a curt nod.
They had a good vantage point from the ridge, and Tommy could see the whole layout from there. Where the strongest parts of the walls were, where all the power generators fed the building with electricity, the holes Laura had made during her hasty exit the first time around.
It had felt fucking awesome to take down the place where he’d been held, to watch his own personal hell go down in a cloud of smoke and crumbled rebar. Time to give Laura’s a proper sendoff too.
Tommy braced himself and he reached, sending the waves of power out toward the foundations of the complex below them. It wasn’t visually impressive, no-one could see the way he grabbed the molecules and twisted them, pushed all the energy in his body into making their atoms spin and dance at a hundred, a thousand times normal speed. He felt his fists curl in on themselves to ground him as the walls began to shake. Dust rose up and wind whipped at him as the bonds between the pieces collapsed, metal melting and concrete slabs trying to vibrate themselves apart.
As the structure began to collapse in on itself, concrete or plastic bursting outward from the complex here and there like erupting cysts, Alex gathered as much plasma as he could safely handle into his hands--more than enough to burn this place off the face of the map, and then some--and slowly focused the stream of superheated matter toward the trembling labs and outbuildings. The energy wave struck one wall, disintegrating it in an instant, and boiling away what was left of the interior in a fantastic wave of heat that was perceptible even in the distance. When the smoke and ash cleared, there was only a crater to mark the former site of the facility, its perimeter bright with red-hot, molten glass.
Exhaling heavily, the blond leaned back until his spine gave a soft but audible pop. "Well. That's all I got, unless anybody has a burrito they want warmed. You guys ready to head home?"
Fatale reluctantly pulled her attention away from watching the smoke clear and turned towards the guys and nodded. "Ready when everyone else is," she assured them, then looked over at Laura. "Or, y'know, when you tell me where you want to take...that. I mostly get to the school by getting GPS info from Tommy, and I'm guessing we don't want to take your mother back to his room."
Laura held up the head end of the body bag, frowning as she thought of where to put her mother. “Can you take me to the grounds around the mansion? I would like to bury her there.”
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. It was just a matter of guessing distance from Tommy's room, and she'd looked out the windows often enough to manage it. "Yeah, I can do that," she agreed. She turned to look at an open space behind them, and a portal shimmered into existence, through which the farther edges of the grounds at Xavier's were visible. "Looks about right," she said, gesturing for them to precede her through.
Tommy turned and took one look back at the crater, and he rested his hand on Alex's shoulder for a moment. "Nice work," he added, though his commentary was probably totally unnecessary. "I bet they saw that from the space station," he gloated a little anyway.
Cheeks reddening slightly, Alex grinned at the compliment; Fatale complimented him on his considerable destructive capabilities often enough that he wasn't totally unused to it, but it was different, coming from Tommy. For some reason. "Maybe sometime when we're just blowing something up for fun, we should try writing our names. That'd really confuse 'em, I bet."
"That or a big 'Fuck You' across the landscape," Tommy replied cheerfully, already liking the idea.
After thinking about it for a moment, Alex concluded, "I like it. That should absolutely be a thing." His grin brightened considerably.
Laura bent down to hoist the body bag over her shoulder, an ungraceful wobble at the weight before she caught herself and stood up. It was done. It was gone and everything they had tried to do was up in flames with it. Only thing surviving from those labs was her now and she licked her lips and shifted the body. “We should move. The closest city is about fifteen miles, so they will be coming to check.”
She squinted out at the horizon, the landscape waving because of the heat. “Or someone else will.”
She moved through the portal quickly, not wanting to be there any longer.
