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ax_main2019-05-26 12:09 pm
ax_scarletwitch) wrote in ax_main2019-05-26 12:09 pm
Sinister Discoveries - Scott, Jean, Jean-Paul, Warren, Wanda, Nico, Tommy, and assorted Brotherhood
Scott's team takes on Sinister and his Marauders, and finds that his lab contains more secrets than they'd expected.
Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts
The personal laboratories of Dr. Nathaniel Essex were never completely quiet; in a way, Dr. Gordon had come to appreciate that. There was a constant hum and whir of technology, of sophisticated biological apparatus built into the very structure of the building, that never really quieted. It helped muffle the distant screams and shrieks of less-than-willing test subjects, the cold drip-drip-drip of blood and other, less wholesome fluids onto the irregular black tiles. Made it possible to sleep at night, when sleep would come.
Which, if Dr. Gordon were being honest with himself, was not all that often.
Overtired, underfed, and lacking an immediate assignment from Dr. Essex to keep him in motion, the scrawny, balding man toyed with the cellular phone that was kept in his charge when his Master had no need of it. In the past, it was kept offline more often than not--until Essex had taken an interest in that poor Tam boy. Now they left it on, in the event he wanted to get in touch. In the event he had no other choice than to get in touch.
Gordon was mostly inured to the casual cruelty and everyday sadism, by now. It had been a painful adjustment, but the Master was singularly adept at making moral quandaries a secondary concern.. He felt a distant pang of some faraway regret for the position that Simon was now in, but that would not keep him from doing as Essex had told him.
They all did. They had no other choice.
His watery blue eyes took in the familiar black panels of the walls surrounding what passed for a common room in the facility, a faint red glow marking the seams between them. Clear pipes transporting various, multicolored fluids to other parts of the facility broke up the otherwise uniform background, and machines whose function he himself didn't fully understand protruded into the room at incomprehensible intervals. If Hell had been fully industrialized and given over solely to amoral genetic research and manipulation, Gordon mused, it would probably look very much like this.
When they had gotten Shadowcat's intel, the timeline for preparation had been compressed to mere hours. It was impossible to know how aware Sinister and his henchdicks were of their electronic footprint, and whether or not they knew the phone had been tracked.
Knowing Sinister, Cyclops was of a mind to assume the doctor knew something about the intrusion and move swiftly, before the intel grew stale or extensive response preparations could be made. Better to be wrong and overprepared than wrong and underprepared.
So Cyclops had sent out the pre-arranged call: Phoenix, Northstar, Scarlet Witch, her teleporter, and Angel to coordinate and run any necessary interference with the faculty or students. He dressed for any eventuality, his uniform beneath non-descript dark jeans and a hoodie. If they ended up in a city or other populated area, better to blend in. If they didn't, and ended up in Sinister's psycho-asshole-lair, the clothes wouldn't matter. Secured in a holster behind his back rested a handgun that was undoubtedly illegal for him to possess in New York,
"You all ready?" He asked his team, before they could head out. If anyone had cold feet, this was the time to find out.
"We're ready, Summers," Wanda said in a bored tone, making a gesture to move it along. In truth, she was less sanguine about the situation than she appeared. Illyana, who she'd counted on for transport when the time came, was off in Genosha with Pyro, leaving her with Nico as her only teleporter. Unfortunately, she had only Nico's word that he could even transport this many people through the shadows, but hopefully, he wasn't overestimating himself.
She hadn't been sure how to dress for this; it wasn't a Brotherhood mission, and if it went to hell, she didn't want them involved. She'd finally gone with a pair of black jeans, a red t-shirt, and a black leather jacket over the X-Force uniform she'd kept after the Right takedown mission, and pulled her hair back with a black headband. Given what Scott was wearing, she'd apparently guessed more or less right. At least there was that.
But fuck, she really wished her own teammates were here.
"Ready." There was nothing but conviction in Jean's mental voice. Her street clothes mirrored Scott's (unintentionally, she was mostly sure), but she was unarmed.
"Just say the word," Jean-Paul added. "This bastard's had it coming for a long time now."
"Remember to keep each other updated. And me. Stay cool." Warren was aware the latter part was a tall order. Scott liked to look cool, but he wasn't, and how could he be? Jean... well, she was all fire under that sweetness. And Jean-Paul... haha. Yeah.
"It's almost like you don't trust us, War," Scott said dryly. He looked around at the others.
"I think it's fairly unlikely we will be going to Sinister directly; he's too smart to keep the phone on his person. So we will be looking to gather intel on where he is, if we are lucky in the same building, and track him down."
"Angel, you know what to do." He turned to Wanda's teammate. "Were ready when you are."
Nico was pretty sure he was no ones (including his own) first choice for this mission. And to be honest, he was pretty terrified he wouldn’t actually be able to shadow walk all of these people.
But hey, when in Rome, right?
He hadn’t gotten the dress up memo though and he felt a little underwhelming in his black T and jeans.
“Well boys and girls, grab some hands.”
Once he was pretty sure everyone was in the chain, Nico took a step back into the more shadowy portion of the room. He hadn’t thought to warn the new shadow travelers of the ice like dunk they’d feel, or the mild to moderate nausea.
Oops.
He sent a quick prayer down to the big guy below that they’d all even make it in one piece. This many people? To a place he hadn’t actually been before?
Cool, cool cool cool cool.
Closing his eyes and concentrating, he felt the shadows start to envelope them. He focused hard on the place Wanda had showed him, wishing Yana was here so he wouldn’t get stuck with this mess. When he felt them emerge, he peaked one eye open.
“Everyone in one piece? Are we there?”
"We're there." Or at least, given the red-highlighted black walls and the pipes full of odd colored fluids, she couldn't imagine where else they'd be. The man with the cell phone was just added confirmation, but Wanda left him to the others and turned to Hades, who hadn't been doing this long enough to be here. "Out. Wait with the Angel in case we need an exit, okay? And don't say anything to anyone else until you hear from me. Or don't, for at least an hour."
Nico frowned at Wanda giving him orders. Who died and made her queen? Fuck it. No skin off his back if these people didn’t want his help.
Made them idiots, but whatever. Nico have the most mock salute he could and told her, “yes ma’am.”
Jean sensed the other presence in the room before she saw anyone. She'd been braced for this, dragging up memories of the men who'd murdered Nick's parents, of the Right, of the utter evil she'd seen perpetuated against Scott to tamp down her empathy.
Without word or leave, she plunged into the man's brain - Gordon - and locked every limb in place.
"I've got one of Sinister's lackey's." she informed the others via telepathy.
He looked frozen, immobile, and if Cyclops didn't know how aware of what was going on the lackey was, he was, at least for the moment, not an immediate threat.
Does he know where Sinister is? Cyclops asked, even as he began to pat the white-coated asshole down. Key cards, keys, flash drives...anything of any possible value in their search and, if it went to hell, things that might be used to take the fuckers down later. We should shake this place down, look for anything of value, he instructed.
Scarlet Witch, kill the cameras.
Unaccustomed to telepathy, Wanda opened her mouth to protest - then shut it as she realized it beat the hell out of all the shouting they used to communicate on a mission. On it, she replied, without even pointing out that if he'd wanted cameras out, they should've brought Phantazia, who lived for that shit. Instead, she focused on the cameras as a ball of hex energy formed in her hand, and narrowed her eyes and threw it. The camera she'd aimed at fizzled and popped, and a second later, a few others did so as well. No different than hexing the ones on the ATM, after all. Just less reason to be subtle about it.
Gordon had only just overcome his surprise long enough to open his mouth--to tell these children they should not be here, that this was the last place on Earth they wanted to find themselves--when his body locked up, his voluntary muscle control almost completely seized. His eyes flickered between the figures--mutants, obviously, and in all likelihood from the same school Simon Tam had attended--and he gave a faint groan as he saw one of the cameras flicker and fail in his peripheral vision. The cameras weren't for security. Cameras weren't necessary for that. The cameras were there because sometimes the Master liked to watch.
There was no possibility that Sinister was unaware of their presence, unless he happened to be off-site, at that moment. Given the total collapse of the Right and the breach in security at the orphanage in Nebraska, that possibility seemed minimal. Given that probability, unless he were waiting to gauge their intentions, or simply stalling for his own amusement, a response was probably already on the way.
Forehead breaking out in a cold sweat, Gordon dearly hoped he would be unconscious before it arrived.
Jean-Paul shifted restlessly, gaze on the doorways. So far, so good... but he'd expected more resistance. Maybe they were just that good. Or that lucky. But he didn't really trust to luck.
He rose a few inches off the floor, trying to take the edge off this uneasy energy... then the world turned sideways. He swore and took a moment to reorient, kicking off the wall just as the doors slid open.
A wave of vibrating force preceded a figure in black leather, a silver visor covering the top half of his face in an odd mimic of Cyclops'. The force threw tables and lab equipment sideways and back in a cacophony of breaking glass and thunderous crashing of furniture, but the figure moved through the chaos with a calm, determined stride. A familiar one.
Avalanche said nothing, but put out one hand, sending another brutal wave of force at Northstar just as he was attempting to right himself in the air.
"Hey!" Jean threw out a telekinetic shield, even as she struggled to keep her footing. It managed to muffle some of the shockwaves, but not entirely stifle them. She staggered, but at least Jean-Paul didn't wind up flung against the nearest wall like a ragdoll.
Incensed, Jean tried the same trick she had on Sinister's lackey, reaching into his mind to take control -- but it was like plunging her mind into mental quagmire. She pushed the connection, then gasped quietly.
"Wanda! That's Lance!"
"No shit!" It wasn't as if she hadn't lived with him for years, Wanda reflected, though she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Jean confirmed it. Mind control. It had to be fucking mind control, because there was no way Lance would... she pushed that thought aside and instead readied a hex. "Get him off the-" she cut off abruptly as a bullet passed through her coat, and threw the hex at a Native American cyborg who was still aiming a seriously huge gun at her. He flew backwards into the wall, but was already getting back into the game as she readied another hex and finished her sentence with "-ground!"
The shockwaves of Avalanche's attack had destabilized Cyclops for a moment, and as he regained his bearings he did a rapid scan of the room. Trusting Northstar and Phoenix to keep Avalanche occupied for a moment, he fired off an optic blast in the direction of the guy with the massive gun, only just managing to hit the firearm before a massive wave of nausea hit him. "The fuck," he managed to get out, barely avoiding hurling onto the floor.
Jean-Paul gritted his teeth at the wave of disorientation following the literal shaking-up. He could see other figures approaching, but there were also a couple of very big problems right in front of them. The most prominent of them being Avalanche.
Hoping to hell his aim was better than it felt, Jean-Paul launched at him, delivering a hail of super-speed punches.
Still physically locked in stasis, Gordon could only groan as the seismic powers of the Master's newest acquisition sent him toppling painfully onto his side. He could only hope that was the worst he would suffer as Sinister's enforcers dealt with the incursion.
Avalanche slammed back into the doorframe, blood appearing at the edge of his lips under the hail of brutal strikes, but it was almost like he didn't register the pain. Almost immediately, he was raising a hand at Northstar again, using the close distance between them to get another massive shockwave off at the speedster before he could retreat.
Too busy to look and see what Jean had done with her information, Wanda fired off another hex at the cyborg, even as he began lifting his gun to target her. For once, her issues with electronics were going to pay off, and she smirked as the electronic parts of his anatomy began sparking and he fell to the floor.
Jean released Gordon, turning her full concentration to the fight - shielding Northstar and pushing hard into Lance's mind. The queasy sensation of oily, dark motes climbing over her mental skin wasn't any pleasant the second time, but she drilled deeper, less careful than she wished she could be. Her every action felt muted - all she wanted to do was strip this gunk off Lance's mind and bring him back to himself, but that was going to take more time and precision than she could afford at the moment... if she could manage it on her own at all. But she'd settle for knocking him out.
For a moment, Avalanche just stopped in the middle of the room, his face blank. Then, without warning, he dropped to the floor like a puppet with his strings cut.
Once Cyclops had fought past his need to hurl, he spotted her. In the back, partially in shadows, somewhere she'd be easy to miss and could (if his present nausea was any indication) inflict some damage and wreak havoc. He fired an optic blast aiming not for her, but the metal corner piece of the wall. His beam lanced out and ricocheted, catching her in the side.
Status, he asked his team telepathically. No need to give their enemies any unnecessary information.
Bruised. Good otherwise. Jean-Paul was already on his feet, looking for the next target.
One down. Two if you count Avalanche. Wanda moved to where Lance was crumbled on the ground, set her jaw, and threw her arms out to create an energy dome around them. No one was taking him out while he was down, and if he came to still fucked up she had him right there where he hopefully couldn't hurt anyone else. Mind control, Phoenix?"
Definitely the case, Jean "said" faintly. He's just asleep for now. I'm not sure how he'll be affected when he wakes up again.
So keeping an eye out for that, Cyclops noted. He couldn't give it his whole mind, though, because there were at least three more (assuming Sinister wasn't intending to send something more their way, which couldn't be ruled out). Keeping Avalanche in his peripheral vision, he turned slightly to take in the room. A lot of angles that he could work with, and, at least for the moment, between Northstar and Phoenix they had control of the 'sky,' as it were. They'd taken the cameras out, which was to their advantage.
If he couldn't see what was going on on screen, it might niggle at Sinister's grotesque curiosity and enjoyment of suffering enough to draw him into the room to see it for himself.
Cyclops saw the huge asshole with the gun taking aim, and made some rapid-fire calculations as to force, speed, trajectory, and other moving variables (specifically Northstar). Dialing up the power of his visor, he shot a beam up at the metal ceiling, sending a beam of concussive force downward hard and fast directly at the gunman's stomach.
Jean-Paul frowned. This was taking too long. Every moment they took to find their bearings was another in which this place seemed to cough up some new superpowered thug of Sinister's. Time for the kid gloves to come off.
Phoenix. Hold them.
He felt Jean frown in his mind. I'm not sure I can, not for long anyway.
Give me three seconds to build up speed. He'd practiced potential takedowns for super-durable opponants in the Danger Room, and it had gone just fine. Well... not "fine" for his targets, but that was the point. The Danger Room constructs weren't flesh and blood, though.
Worry about that later.
He was in the air as soon as Jean had a telekenitic hold on their last two enemies, building up as much speed as he could in the confines of their makeshift arena, until he was more sensed than seen, until the air screamed and wind whipped in his wake. Then he took that force, all of it, and hurled himself at the earth-shaking woman (and the mutant behind her) as a living missile.
The force of the impact was enough to send the pair hurtling into the nearest wall in a crushing impact, black panels buckling and curling around them as they struck. They remained upright for a moment or two, then slumped bonelessly to the floor, motionless, save for regular--if pained--breathing. A few seconds of stillness fell over the space, before music, tinny and unsettling, began to play over unseen speakers built into the lab's structure.
On the side of the room furthest from the fighting, one of the lab's many invisible doors extruded from its housing in the wall and slid aside, revealing Nathaniel Essex--Mr. Sinister--pale-skinned face ghoulish in the ruddy half-light, and smiling with a particularly disturbing good humor, a smile that revealed a startling excess of too-white teeth. He had shed his lab coat, standing only in the polished, carapace-like armor he customarily wore beneath, like the exoskeleton of some monstrous onyx-colored beetle. Incongruously, Essex held a small, black-and-white cat in the crook of one arm ... at least, it looked like a cat, at first glance. The leathery, bat-like wings tucked up close to the creature's sides, and the way its tail curled unnaturally around Sinister's forearm, however, suggested that it, like everything in this place, had known the mad doctor's tender ministrations at some point.
"Children," he said, with the faintest echo of an English accent. "You certainly make a noisy entrance." Sinister scratched beneath the cat-thing's chin with pointed fingers. "Was there some greater purpose behind this intrusion, or did you simply wish to volunteer yourselves as biological samples in the most obtrusive way possible?"
His presence sent ice water down Scott’s spine, but he shoved his automatic terror at the manifestation of his nightmares into a tightly locked box in his mind. There wasn’t time for that. They had to focus on now. Focusing on now is how they would survive.
Hold, Cyclops told the others, to prevent any rash attacks. Essex, Sinister, was too calm. Too confident. He may well have tricks he was counting on to fend off an immediate offensive.
“Informed volunteers? I didn’t know you were familiar with the concept.”
Hex energy swirled around Wanda's hands as she narrowed her eyes menacingly and glared at the man she could only assume from Scott's reaction was Essex. Hold, he'd said, and she'd hold (or try to, at least) but that didn't mean she was going to keep her mouth shut. "What the fuck did you do to Lance?" she demanded.
Jean-Paul was on his feet already, seemingly unharmed from the impact, and glaring murderously at Sinister. This was the bastard who'd tormented Simon and used Scott as a fucking lab rat. He'd promised Scott he'd keep himself under control, but...
A light telekinetic check and a wordless warning from Jean tugged Northstar away from that line of thought. She knew that this man was more dangerous than he looked, and he looked like a walking nightmare. Their only chance was to wait until they had a real advantage to lash out at him.
Scott's observation drew a chuckle from the corpse-skinned scientist. He spared a glance for Wanda when she spoke, extending the arm cradling the strange winged creature to one side. With a shaky flutter of its wings, it glided over to perch on Gordon's shoulder, where he huddled on the floor with his knees tucked up to his forehead, face hidden. "Advanced psionic behavioral modifications combined with temporary chemical enhancement of his natural mutation," Essex told her clinically, examining the unconscious body of another of his underlings, mouth straightening into a dissatisfied line. "A fairly routine augmentation, really, and far from my best work, but I have yet to make a final determination regarding Avalanche's value. Seemed imprudent to invest too much effort right away."
His vicious jocularity returned as he suddenly met Jean-Paul's enraged stare. "I did warn Simon he should do what he could to discourage the rest of you from looking for me. It appears his efforts were insufficient, more's the pity. I wonder if his heart was actually in it? I suppose I could always pull it out and see for myself.
"Still," he went on, smile fixed beneath his soulless eyes as they turned again to Scott, "it's convenient to know that Xavier's delivers. I've been meaning to renew my acquaintance with Alex for some time now, and it would be much easier if he just came to me, the way the rest of you have."
Cyclops looked nonplussed. “Are those threats supposed to frighten us?” He asked coldly. It would be stupid to threaten to kill Sinister if he do much as looked at Alex or Simon. After all, both Essex and Scott knew why he’d come.
Getting angry himself would be useless. Pissing off Sinister, however...
”How bad are you at your job, that over a year of having me locked in a basement and Alex’s extended lab visit wasn’t enough to get the Summers data you needed?” He glanced over at Lance. “Guess that’s why your bullshit didn’t make him anymore effective too. Lack of talent.”
To Jean, he sent, Can you let Angel know he’s here?
A wordless affirmative, laced with wildfire, brushed across the surface of his mind. Jean's anger was no less present than Jean-Paul's, but much better hidden. And in the time it took to think in Scott's direction, the signal had been sent.
"Not that his long-term projects were so much better." Jean-Paul glanced coldly down at the crumpled bodies of Sinister's guards. "Maybe you should consider a change of careers."
Were they going to talk him to death? Hex energy flared around Wanda's fingers and a few pieces of equipment began sparking. "Maybe we should help him with that," she suggested, her voice low.
"Adorable," Sinister noted. He took a moment to regard the bodies on the floor, then clucked his tongue and gave a brief shake of his head. "Disappointing to be certain. But their failures will assist with the growth of the next batch. Adversity is the greatest assistant to progress, children." There was a flash of crimson around the mad doctor's chalk-white temples, and the black panels comprising the floor began to fall away, one after another, dropping Sinister's unconscious minions into the unlighted depths below. The cat-thing's leathery wings flared, hoisting it into the air as Gordon vanished beneath her, and gave an unhappy yowl, even as the plates beneath the students shifted down and away. Leaving only a seemingly-bottomless drop where once there had been solid floor.
Cyclops glanced around as floor tiles began to drop away. So far, none beneath his own team, but he doubted Sinister would let them rest easy for long. Be ready to keep to the air on your own power, he instructed the others. Northstar and Phoenix he had no doubt could keep themselves aloft. Scarlet Witch was more of a black box there, but her floating was also improbable so he suspected her command of the odds would work in her favor.
That just left him. Phoenix, can you keep me up? She'd levitated him before, but she was coming off a fight and he didn't want to drain her too much. Fuck knew what else Sinister had to throw at them.
Fuck! Wanda watched as the floor around her began dropping, wishing she'd actually gotten around to asking Billy about the whole flying thing Tommy said he could do. She couldn't seem to wrap her head around it, somehow.
On the other hand? It was seriously improbable that the part of the floor that she and Lance were on would be the one that didn't drop, so she focused her attention and a fuckload of hex energy on that.
If I need to, Jean sent back to Scott. It'll take a lot of my concentration, though. If this bastard has anything else up his sleeve...
I can keep Scott from going splat, Jean-Paul assured her. Then, smugly, at Scott, See? Told you I'd be hauling your ass all over the map some day. Get ready to play turret.
Despite Jean-Paul's seeming self-assurance, there was anger prickling across his thoughts like a thousand glass needles. The only thing currentl keeping him in check was the promise he'd made to Scott months ago... and even then, just barely.
The panels beneath Scott, Jean-Paul, and Jean fell away in sequence with the others, but the one supporting Wanda and Lance only juddered beneath them. Sinister's smile now showed a few pointed teeth, and crimson flared around his temples again. Now, the wall panel closest to Scarlet Witch and her unconscious charge swung outward on invisible hinges, attempting to sweep both into the abyss.
Cyclops carefully shifted in Northstar’s grasp to fire off a blast that destroyed the rogue plate. It wouldn’t solve the problem forever, knowing how adaptable Sinister could be, but it would give them a temporary reprieve.
To extend that breather, he fired another shot. This time, his aim was between Sinister’s cold eyes.
Wanda saw the wall panel sweeping towards them, but before she could act a blast she easily recognized as one of Scott's obliterated it. Relieved that the floor was at least staying put beneath Lance's unconscious body, she spun on her heels back towards Sinister, just in time to see Scott fire another blast at their adversary. Narrowing her eyes, Wanda fired off a hex at the same target. Somehow, she doubted Sinister could handle both at once.
Now or never, then. Jean lashed out with the full force of her telekinisis, sparing barely enough concentration to keep herself from plummeting into the dark. This was the monster that had haunted Scott for so long. She hardly let herself dream that they could kill it, but she'd put everything she could into making sure it hurt.
Scott's concussive beam drove right through Sinister's face, though his smile remained in place despite the sudden hole through his head. The flesh and bone had already begun to knit together again when Wanda's hex energy struck, causing the plate beneath him to suddenly buckle. Essex caught himself on a cushion of telekenetic force, just as Jean's telekinetic lash struck home, driving him into the far wall with enough force to buckle the smooth black plate. He gathered himself, brushed a hand carefully across his mouth, and regarded the teenagers assailing him anew. This was more than simply amusing. This was interesting.
"Well done," Sinister said. "Even better than expected. But I think our final confrontation is best saved for a more appropriate time, don't you? And I do have other matters requiring my attention."
Psionic energy flared around his temples again, and Sinister dropped into the abyss with a grin. Almost before he disappeared into the black, the remaining wall panels virtually flew from their settings in the wall, shearing through the air in a barrage of fast-moving black metal.
"Motherfucker," Cyclops muttered. That goddamn egg-sucking son of a bitch! FUCK! There was nothing that could be done to stop him, either, because every blast sent in his last-seen direction was one more blast that couldn't be directed at the shrapnel now hurling around them all like a razorblade cyclone. Even yelling after him would be a waste of energy that they'd need for the far more present threat.
He began firing liking the turret Jean-Paul had joked that he was, trying to hit everything he could before it nailed one of the others - or him, for that matter - because fuck knew what the shit materials Sinister had built his terror dome out of. Left, right, the thing headed towards Jean, a plate aimed straight for Lance...the room was awash with their various powers and flying metal.
It was then that he saw it. A wall of shards flying at him and Northstar.
He couldn't hit them all.
Cyclops took a deep breath, and blasted Jean-Paul a clear path to fly through before he felt his uniform give way in multiple places before the world went black.
Jean-Paul tucked Scott as close to his body as he could and dove through the opening Scott had made for them. At the speed he was moving, even simply holding on to Scott would leave bruises, but it was better than waiting for the certain death hurtling toward them. He felt something catch his side, then tear free, sending a blaze of fire up his side.
Then they were through, and he was left dodging as best he could with Scott a dead weight in his grip.
Hold on! With Sinister beyond her reach, Jean's immediate priority became trying to shield the most vulnerable of their group... and as much as it twisted her heart to do it, that meant lending her shields to Wanda and Lance, not Scott.
I could try lifting us out of there, but there's nowhere to go! she said, her mental voice more angry than desperate. I could hammer a way out, maybe, but if I drop these shields, we're going to catch shrapnel.
Gimme a sec, Wanda requested. With no need to shield herself or Lance, she focused her attention on the shards and made a swirling motion with her hand, and those in the immediate vicinity altered their trajectories and joined their neighbors in a tornado-like spiral. Eyes narrowing in concentration, she drew it in tighter and tilted it so it was running horizontal rather than vertical, then flattened it out, trying to force the pieces together into a bridge that would take them from their isolated piece of flooring to the nearest intact floor space. "There's gotta be more to this place than the one room and the basement," she said aloud. "Northstar, get Cyclops somewhere solid, and let Phoenix know where. Phoenix, can you help me flatten this out? We can maybe reinforce it with the tubes."
Northstar frowned as Pheonix and Wanda went to work on the makeshift bridge, but shifted his hold on Scott and went looking for solid ground.
"We're going to need a lot of stretcher-bearers," he called back. "What are the odds of calling in a quick gettaway?"
"Can't until we find some shadows," Wanda called back. "Hades doesn't teleport, strictly speaking - he shadow walks." She eyed their makeshift bridge critically, decided it probably wouldn't collapse, then looked back to Jean. "Can you float Lance, or help me carry him? I'm afraid I'll drop him, and that looks like a hell of long way down."
Jean nodded and lifted Lance into a gentle TK carry. "Any luck, Northstar?"
"There's a corridor leading off from the lab here," Jean-Paul called back. "Looks like the floor's solid, anyway." He had already set Scott down and was examining Scott's wounds. "Merde. I don't think he's going to bleed out on us, but I don't think we should move him around if we can help it."
Wanda carefully made her way across the makeshift bridge and made a face. Her instincts told her to get everyone the hell out of there, but... "We need to salvage something from this. If he's more or less stable, can you do a loop, see if you can find where Sinister keeps his files?"
Jean lighted beside Jean-Paul, bringing Lance with him. "I can look out for him, Northstar. Wanda's right. This can't all come down to nothing more than rattling Sinister's cage."
"Right." Jean-Paul sighed. "OK. I'll make it quick." And then he vanished into the warped shadows of the complex.
There wasn't far to go before he hit what definitely looked like a useful spot for "salvage" - another lab, this one considerably more grotesque than the last. The lighting here was harsher, brighter. Transparent, floor-to-ceiling tubes, each one containing cloudy white liquid and a half-formed human shape lined the walls. Jean-Paul grimaced in disgust, but couldn't help but draw nearer. Each tube had a white plaque embedded about four feet up from the floor. Written on each one in what seemed to be erasable marker was a name and number, none of which registered to Northstar.
The tube nearest the door, however... that was going to be of interest to certain parties.
Jean. You had better get Wanda in here.
"What's happening?" Wanda asked as she joined Jean, who looked as if she were focused on something other than what was physically happening there. "Did he find something? And how badly is Sc-Cyclops hit?"
On the ground, Cyclops shifted a bit before letting out a soft sound like a severely wounded animal between shallow breaths. It was clear he was bleeding, though due to the amount of blood and it’s distribution where it had soaked into his uniform, it was hard to tell from where. A concussion was certain too, but severity would be hard to judge until a doctor could see him.
"We need to get him to a doctor," was all Jean could bring herself to say. She slipped into Scott's mind, deadening his pain as best she could. "And Jean-Paul... he says he's found your dad. He's going to need help getting him free."
"My Dad?" Wanda pulled her eyes away from Scott and Lance, both of them on the ground, bleeding (which gave her a sick feeling, in and of itself), and stared at Jean. "What the hell - ok, going. Call Hades for an extraction," she advised. There were shadows, and Nico was supposed to be with Warren. Wishing she'd taken the time to figure out how the fuck Billy did the whole teleporting thing, she cast a hex that would hopefully skew things so she found the shortest route, and took off at a run.
Jean-Paul heard Wanda coming long before she arrived, but he supposed he wouldn't be in any mood for stealth were he in her position. He wasted no time with preamble once she arrived, just nodded at the tube he'd been standing guard over. The label read "E. Lensherr" and the face of the man inside was undoubtedly Magneto, whole and unharmed... so far as a casual glance could tell, anyway.
"I've been looking this place over, but I'm not sure how to get him out," Jean-Paul admitted. "Not without drowning him, anyway."
Wanda was staring at the tube, her eyes fixed on her father's unconscious face, when what Northstar was saying sank in. "Drowning him. Fuck, I should fucking drown him, getting himself into this," she muttered. "And damned if I know. This is way over my head. I should really call Eileen. Or Hank. Or...fuck." She pushed her hand back through her hair, wishing Lance was conscious. Or that Pietro was there.
"Told you I could-" Pam began, sounding rather smug as she stepped through the portal she'd created based on tracking Wanda's cell phone GPS. She broke off, though, as she caught sight of a familiar face inside some kind of fucked up, liquid-filled tube. "What the fuck?"
A pale-looking Pyro moved past her as he stepped out of the portal, drawn to the sight of that gaunt face inside whatever the fuck this crazy ass lab had cooked up for mutants. "Shit," he muttered. "And I thought my day was fucked up." He turned to Wanda expectantly.
Hellion was next through the portal, gaze flicking from person to person until it finally landed on the tube. He was stepping toward it, eyes leaking green energy as he raised his hands. "Hold on. I can get him out."
Drifting through the air with the hem of her purple jacket hanging several inches above the ground, Eileen was next through the portal. She took in the scene at a glance, violet-glowing eyes flashing behind her mask as she did so, and then made straight for Wanda. "You and I are going to have a long talk about this later," she said in a low voice, meant for her best friend alone. "This is not the kind of shit you keep from me." The blond then looked to Magneto, unconscious in a fucking tube, and gave Wanda's shoulder a comforting squeeze before suddenly pulling her into a hug.
"You found him, though. Fuck me if that might not be enough to make it worth it." She then floated away again, to watch Hellion work in the event he needed any of the assistance she was uniquely suited to providing. Her former place was almost immediately taken by Tommy, who sped through the portal at a pace almost too quick for the human eye to follow.
Alex, meanwhile, had entered the laboratory, wide-eyed and full of a combination of dread and eagerness. Would he finally get the chance to boil the Pale Man into ashes? Relieved as he was to see Magneto--and no Dr. Essex in sight--he started suddenly as he noticed one absence, in particular. "Where's Scott?" he asked as he moved to stand beside Fatale.
"Hurt, but stable," Jean-Paul said shortly. He'd left Magneto to his own, and was busy getting as much information from Sinister's files as possible. This mostly involved yanking hard drives bodily out of machines; it wasn't as if hacking was his area of expertise. "So is Avalanche. And as soon as we get him-" He jerked his head toward Magneto. "-out from under glass, we're getting them the hell out of here."
"Fuck, you found Lance too?" Pam stared at him for a moment, then turned to Wanda, automatically slipping an arm around Alex in reassurance. "I can evac them and come back."
A small, black-and-white form lighted on Wanda's shoulder, one leathery wing wrapping around her neck, while the other encircled her upper arm. An unnaturally prehensile tail curled tightly around her shoulders. The bizarrely-modified cat met the Maximoff twin's gaze with bright golden eyes and promptly offered a plaintive meow.
Sighing, Wanda reached up to pet the mutant cat that had apparently decided it was adopting them. Just what they needed. "They're back that way with Phoenix," she instructed, gesturing back towards where she'd left them. She met Pietro's eyes, nodded, and watched as he disappeared, presumably to check on Lance. She'd be hearing about this from him later, she was sure - there was no way he was going to let Eileen chew her out and not get a few words in himself - but that could wait. "Take them back to the infirmary at the school. We're going to have to get Xavier to take a look at Lance." She looked around at damn near the entire Brotherhood, all of whom had emerged from Fatale's portal while they'd talked, and then took a breath and turned back to watch Hellion and Eileen do whatever they needed to do.
Maybe it wasn't quite the encounter they'd hoped for. But assuming Scott and Lance were ok? She was counting it as a win.
Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts
The personal laboratories of Dr. Nathaniel Essex were never completely quiet; in a way, Dr. Gordon had come to appreciate that. There was a constant hum and whir of technology, of sophisticated biological apparatus built into the very structure of the building, that never really quieted. It helped muffle the distant screams and shrieks of less-than-willing test subjects, the cold drip-drip-drip of blood and other, less wholesome fluids onto the irregular black tiles. Made it possible to sleep at night, when sleep would come.
Which, if Dr. Gordon were being honest with himself, was not all that often.
Overtired, underfed, and lacking an immediate assignment from Dr. Essex to keep him in motion, the scrawny, balding man toyed with the cellular phone that was kept in his charge when his Master had no need of it. In the past, it was kept offline more often than not--until Essex had taken an interest in that poor Tam boy. Now they left it on, in the event he wanted to get in touch. In the event he had no other choice than to get in touch.
Gordon was mostly inured to the casual cruelty and everyday sadism, by now. It had been a painful adjustment, but the Master was singularly adept at making moral quandaries a secondary concern.. He felt a distant pang of some faraway regret for the position that Simon was now in, but that would not keep him from doing as Essex had told him.
They all did. They had no other choice.
His watery blue eyes took in the familiar black panels of the walls surrounding what passed for a common room in the facility, a faint red glow marking the seams between them. Clear pipes transporting various, multicolored fluids to other parts of the facility broke up the otherwise uniform background, and machines whose function he himself didn't fully understand protruded into the room at incomprehensible intervals. If Hell had been fully industrialized and given over solely to amoral genetic research and manipulation, Gordon mused, it would probably look very much like this.
When they had gotten Shadowcat's intel, the timeline for preparation had been compressed to mere hours. It was impossible to know how aware Sinister and his henchdicks were of their electronic footprint, and whether or not they knew the phone had been tracked.
Knowing Sinister, Cyclops was of a mind to assume the doctor knew something about the intrusion and move swiftly, before the intel grew stale or extensive response preparations could be made. Better to be wrong and overprepared than wrong and underprepared.
So Cyclops had sent out the pre-arranged call: Phoenix, Northstar, Scarlet Witch, her teleporter, and Angel to coordinate and run any necessary interference with the faculty or students. He dressed for any eventuality, his uniform beneath non-descript dark jeans and a hoodie. If they ended up in a city or other populated area, better to blend in. If they didn't, and ended up in Sinister's psycho-asshole-lair, the clothes wouldn't matter. Secured in a holster behind his back rested a handgun that was undoubtedly illegal for him to possess in New York,
"You all ready?" He asked his team, before they could head out. If anyone had cold feet, this was the time to find out.
"We're ready, Summers," Wanda said in a bored tone, making a gesture to move it along. In truth, she was less sanguine about the situation than she appeared. Illyana, who she'd counted on for transport when the time came, was off in Genosha with Pyro, leaving her with Nico as her only teleporter. Unfortunately, she had only Nico's word that he could even transport this many people through the shadows, but hopefully, he wasn't overestimating himself.
She hadn't been sure how to dress for this; it wasn't a Brotherhood mission, and if it went to hell, she didn't want them involved. She'd finally gone with a pair of black jeans, a red t-shirt, and a black leather jacket over the X-Force uniform she'd kept after the Right takedown mission, and pulled her hair back with a black headband. Given what Scott was wearing, she'd apparently guessed more or less right. At least there was that.
But fuck, she really wished her own teammates were here.
"Ready." There was nothing but conviction in Jean's mental voice. Her street clothes mirrored Scott's (unintentionally, she was mostly sure), but she was unarmed.
"Just say the word," Jean-Paul added. "This bastard's had it coming for a long time now."
"Remember to keep each other updated. And me. Stay cool." Warren was aware the latter part was a tall order. Scott liked to look cool, but he wasn't, and how could he be? Jean... well, she was all fire under that sweetness. And Jean-Paul... haha. Yeah.
"It's almost like you don't trust us, War," Scott said dryly. He looked around at the others.
"I think it's fairly unlikely we will be going to Sinister directly; he's too smart to keep the phone on his person. So we will be looking to gather intel on where he is, if we are lucky in the same building, and track him down."
"Angel, you know what to do." He turned to Wanda's teammate. "Were ready when you are."
Nico was pretty sure he was no ones (including his own) first choice for this mission. And to be honest, he was pretty terrified he wouldn’t actually be able to shadow walk all of these people.
But hey, when in Rome, right?
He hadn’t gotten the dress up memo though and he felt a little underwhelming in his black T and jeans.
“Well boys and girls, grab some hands.”
Once he was pretty sure everyone was in the chain, Nico took a step back into the more shadowy portion of the room. He hadn’t thought to warn the new shadow travelers of the ice like dunk they’d feel, or the mild to moderate nausea.
Oops.
He sent a quick prayer down to the big guy below that they’d all even make it in one piece. This many people? To a place he hadn’t actually been before?
Cool, cool cool cool cool.
Closing his eyes and concentrating, he felt the shadows start to envelope them. He focused hard on the place Wanda had showed him, wishing Yana was here so he wouldn’t get stuck with this mess. When he felt them emerge, he peaked one eye open.
“Everyone in one piece? Are we there?”
"We're there." Or at least, given the red-highlighted black walls and the pipes full of odd colored fluids, she couldn't imagine where else they'd be. The man with the cell phone was just added confirmation, but Wanda left him to the others and turned to Hades, who hadn't been doing this long enough to be here. "Out. Wait with the Angel in case we need an exit, okay? And don't say anything to anyone else until you hear from me. Or don't, for at least an hour."
Nico frowned at Wanda giving him orders. Who died and made her queen? Fuck it. No skin off his back if these people didn’t want his help.
Made them idiots, but whatever. Nico have the most mock salute he could and told her, “yes ma’am.”
Jean sensed the other presence in the room before she saw anyone. She'd been braced for this, dragging up memories of the men who'd murdered Nick's parents, of the Right, of the utter evil she'd seen perpetuated against Scott to tamp down her empathy.
Without word or leave, she plunged into the man's brain - Gordon - and locked every limb in place.
"I've got one of Sinister's lackey's." she informed the others via telepathy.
He looked frozen, immobile, and if Cyclops didn't know how aware of what was going on the lackey was, he was, at least for the moment, not an immediate threat.
Does he know where Sinister is? Cyclops asked, even as he began to pat the white-coated asshole down. Key cards, keys, flash drives...anything of any possible value in their search and, if it went to hell, things that might be used to take the fuckers down later. We should shake this place down, look for anything of value, he instructed.
Scarlet Witch, kill the cameras.
Unaccustomed to telepathy, Wanda opened her mouth to protest - then shut it as she realized it beat the hell out of all the shouting they used to communicate on a mission. On it, she replied, without even pointing out that if he'd wanted cameras out, they should've brought Phantazia, who lived for that shit. Instead, she focused on the cameras as a ball of hex energy formed in her hand, and narrowed her eyes and threw it. The camera she'd aimed at fizzled and popped, and a second later, a few others did so as well. No different than hexing the ones on the ATM, after all. Just less reason to be subtle about it.
Gordon had only just overcome his surprise long enough to open his mouth--to tell these children they should not be here, that this was the last place on Earth they wanted to find themselves--when his body locked up, his voluntary muscle control almost completely seized. His eyes flickered between the figures--mutants, obviously, and in all likelihood from the same school Simon Tam had attended--and he gave a faint groan as he saw one of the cameras flicker and fail in his peripheral vision. The cameras weren't for security. Cameras weren't necessary for that. The cameras were there because sometimes the Master liked to watch.
There was no possibility that Sinister was unaware of their presence, unless he happened to be off-site, at that moment. Given the total collapse of the Right and the breach in security at the orphanage in Nebraska, that possibility seemed minimal. Given that probability, unless he were waiting to gauge their intentions, or simply stalling for his own amusement, a response was probably already on the way.
Forehead breaking out in a cold sweat, Gordon dearly hoped he would be unconscious before it arrived.
Jean-Paul shifted restlessly, gaze on the doorways. So far, so good... but he'd expected more resistance. Maybe they were just that good. Or that lucky. But he didn't really trust to luck.
He rose a few inches off the floor, trying to take the edge off this uneasy energy... then the world turned sideways. He swore and took a moment to reorient, kicking off the wall just as the doors slid open.
A wave of vibrating force preceded a figure in black leather, a silver visor covering the top half of his face in an odd mimic of Cyclops'. The force threw tables and lab equipment sideways and back in a cacophony of breaking glass and thunderous crashing of furniture, but the figure moved through the chaos with a calm, determined stride. A familiar one.
Avalanche said nothing, but put out one hand, sending another brutal wave of force at Northstar just as he was attempting to right himself in the air.
"Hey!" Jean threw out a telekinetic shield, even as she struggled to keep her footing. It managed to muffle some of the shockwaves, but not entirely stifle them. She staggered, but at least Jean-Paul didn't wind up flung against the nearest wall like a ragdoll.
Incensed, Jean tried the same trick she had on Sinister's lackey, reaching into his mind to take control -- but it was like plunging her mind into mental quagmire. She pushed the connection, then gasped quietly.
"Wanda! That's Lance!"
"No shit!" It wasn't as if she hadn't lived with him for years, Wanda reflected, though she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Jean confirmed it. Mind control. It had to be fucking mind control, because there was no way Lance would... she pushed that thought aside and instead readied a hex. "Get him off the-" she cut off abruptly as a bullet passed through her coat, and threw the hex at a Native American cyborg who was still aiming a seriously huge gun at her. He flew backwards into the wall, but was already getting back into the game as she readied another hex and finished her sentence with "-ground!"
The shockwaves of Avalanche's attack had destabilized Cyclops for a moment, and as he regained his bearings he did a rapid scan of the room. Trusting Northstar and Phoenix to keep Avalanche occupied for a moment, he fired off an optic blast in the direction of the guy with the massive gun, only just managing to hit the firearm before a massive wave of nausea hit him. "The fuck," he managed to get out, barely avoiding hurling onto the floor.
Jean-Paul gritted his teeth at the wave of disorientation following the literal shaking-up. He could see other figures approaching, but there were also a couple of very big problems right in front of them. The most prominent of them being Avalanche.
Hoping to hell his aim was better than it felt, Jean-Paul launched at him, delivering a hail of super-speed punches.
Still physically locked in stasis, Gordon could only groan as the seismic powers of the Master's newest acquisition sent him toppling painfully onto his side. He could only hope that was the worst he would suffer as Sinister's enforcers dealt with the incursion.
Avalanche slammed back into the doorframe, blood appearing at the edge of his lips under the hail of brutal strikes, but it was almost like he didn't register the pain. Almost immediately, he was raising a hand at Northstar again, using the close distance between them to get another massive shockwave off at the speedster before he could retreat.
Too busy to look and see what Jean had done with her information, Wanda fired off another hex at the cyborg, even as he began lifting his gun to target her. For once, her issues with electronics were going to pay off, and she smirked as the electronic parts of his anatomy began sparking and he fell to the floor.
Jean released Gordon, turning her full concentration to the fight - shielding Northstar and pushing hard into Lance's mind. The queasy sensation of oily, dark motes climbing over her mental skin wasn't any pleasant the second time, but she drilled deeper, less careful than she wished she could be. Her every action felt muted - all she wanted to do was strip this gunk off Lance's mind and bring him back to himself, but that was going to take more time and precision than she could afford at the moment... if she could manage it on her own at all. But she'd settle for knocking him out.
For a moment, Avalanche just stopped in the middle of the room, his face blank. Then, without warning, he dropped to the floor like a puppet with his strings cut.
Once Cyclops had fought past his need to hurl, he spotted her. In the back, partially in shadows, somewhere she'd be easy to miss and could (if his present nausea was any indication) inflict some damage and wreak havoc. He fired an optic blast aiming not for her, but the metal corner piece of the wall. His beam lanced out and ricocheted, catching her in the side.
Status, he asked his team telepathically. No need to give their enemies any unnecessary information.
Bruised. Good otherwise. Jean-Paul was already on his feet, looking for the next target.
One down. Two if you count Avalanche. Wanda moved to where Lance was crumbled on the ground, set her jaw, and threw her arms out to create an energy dome around them. No one was taking him out while he was down, and if he came to still fucked up she had him right there where he hopefully couldn't hurt anyone else. Mind control, Phoenix?"
Definitely the case, Jean "said" faintly. He's just asleep for now. I'm not sure how he'll be affected when he wakes up again.
So keeping an eye out for that, Cyclops noted. He couldn't give it his whole mind, though, because there were at least three more (assuming Sinister wasn't intending to send something more their way, which couldn't be ruled out). Keeping Avalanche in his peripheral vision, he turned slightly to take in the room. A lot of angles that he could work with, and, at least for the moment, between Northstar and Phoenix they had control of the 'sky,' as it were. They'd taken the cameras out, which was to their advantage.
If he couldn't see what was going on on screen, it might niggle at Sinister's grotesque curiosity and enjoyment of suffering enough to draw him into the room to see it for himself.
Cyclops saw the huge asshole with the gun taking aim, and made some rapid-fire calculations as to force, speed, trajectory, and other moving variables (specifically Northstar). Dialing up the power of his visor, he shot a beam up at the metal ceiling, sending a beam of concussive force downward hard and fast directly at the gunman's stomach.
Jean-Paul frowned. This was taking too long. Every moment they took to find their bearings was another in which this place seemed to cough up some new superpowered thug of Sinister's. Time for the kid gloves to come off.
Phoenix. Hold them.
He felt Jean frown in his mind. I'm not sure I can, not for long anyway.
Give me three seconds to build up speed. He'd practiced potential takedowns for super-durable opponants in the Danger Room, and it had gone just fine. Well... not "fine" for his targets, but that was the point. The Danger Room constructs weren't flesh and blood, though.
Worry about that later.
He was in the air as soon as Jean had a telekenitic hold on their last two enemies, building up as much speed as he could in the confines of their makeshift arena, until he was more sensed than seen, until the air screamed and wind whipped in his wake. Then he took that force, all of it, and hurled himself at the earth-shaking woman (and the mutant behind her) as a living missile.
The force of the impact was enough to send the pair hurtling into the nearest wall in a crushing impact, black panels buckling and curling around them as they struck. They remained upright for a moment or two, then slumped bonelessly to the floor, motionless, save for regular--if pained--breathing. A few seconds of stillness fell over the space, before music, tinny and unsettling, began to play over unseen speakers built into the lab's structure.
On the side of the room furthest from the fighting, one of the lab's many invisible doors extruded from its housing in the wall and slid aside, revealing Nathaniel Essex--Mr. Sinister--pale-skinned face ghoulish in the ruddy half-light, and smiling with a particularly disturbing good humor, a smile that revealed a startling excess of too-white teeth. He had shed his lab coat, standing only in the polished, carapace-like armor he customarily wore beneath, like the exoskeleton of some monstrous onyx-colored beetle. Incongruously, Essex held a small, black-and-white cat in the crook of one arm ... at least, it looked like a cat, at first glance. The leathery, bat-like wings tucked up close to the creature's sides, and the way its tail curled unnaturally around Sinister's forearm, however, suggested that it, like everything in this place, had known the mad doctor's tender ministrations at some point.
"Children," he said, with the faintest echo of an English accent. "You certainly make a noisy entrance." Sinister scratched beneath the cat-thing's chin with pointed fingers. "Was there some greater purpose behind this intrusion, or did you simply wish to volunteer yourselves as biological samples in the most obtrusive way possible?"
His presence sent ice water down Scott’s spine, but he shoved his automatic terror at the manifestation of his nightmares into a tightly locked box in his mind. There wasn’t time for that. They had to focus on now. Focusing on now is how they would survive.
Hold, Cyclops told the others, to prevent any rash attacks. Essex, Sinister, was too calm. Too confident. He may well have tricks he was counting on to fend off an immediate offensive.
“Informed volunteers? I didn’t know you were familiar with the concept.”
Hex energy swirled around Wanda's hands as she narrowed her eyes menacingly and glared at the man she could only assume from Scott's reaction was Essex. Hold, he'd said, and she'd hold (or try to, at least) but that didn't mean she was going to keep her mouth shut. "What the fuck did you do to Lance?" she demanded.
Jean-Paul was on his feet already, seemingly unharmed from the impact, and glaring murderously at Sinister. This was the bastard who'd tormented Simon and used Scott as a fucking lab rat. He'd promised Scott he'd keep himself under control, but...
A light telekinetic check and a wordless warning from Jean tugged Northstar away from that line of thought. She knew that this man was more dangerous than he looked, and he looked like a walking nightmare. Their only chance was to wait until they had a real advantage to lash out at him.
Scott's observation drew a chuckle from the corpse-skinned scientist. He spared a glance for Wanda when she spoke, extending the arm cradling the strange winged creature to one side. With a shaky flutter of its wings, it glided over to perch on Gordon's shoulder, where he huddled on the floor with his knees tucked up to his forehead, face hidden. "Advanced psionic behavioral modifications combined with temporary chemical enhancement of his natural mutation," Essex told her clinically, examining the unconscious body of another of his underlings, mouth straightening into a dissatisfied line. "A fairly routine augmentation, really, and far from my best work, but I have yet to make a final determination regarding Avalanche's value. Seemed imprudent to invest too much effort right away."
His vicious jocularity returned as he suddenly met Jean-Paul's enraged stare. "I did warn Simon he should do what he could to discourage the rest of you from looking for me. It appears his efforts were insufficient, more's the pity. I wonder if his heart was actually in it? I suppose I could always pull it out and see for myself.
"Still," he went on, smile fixed beneath his soulless eyes as they turned again to Scott, "it's convenient to know that Xavier's delivers. I've been meaning to renew my acquaintance with Alex for some time now, and it would be much easier if he just came to me, the way the rest of you have."
Cyclops looked nonplussed. “Are those threats supposed to frighten us?” He asked coldly. It would be stupid to threaten to kill Sinister if he do much as looked at Alex or Simon. After all, both Essex and Scott knew why he’d come.
Getting angry himself would be useless. Pissing off Sinister, however...
”How bad are you at your job, that over a year of having me locked in a basement and Alex’s extended lab visit wasn’t enough to get the Summers data you needed?” He glanced over at Lance. “Guess that’s why your bullshit didn’t make him anymore effective too. Lack of talent.”
To Jean, he sent, Can you let Angel know he’s here?
A wordless affirmative, laced with wildfire, brushed across the surface of his mind. Jean's anger was no less present than Jean-Paul's, but much better hidden. And in the time it took to think in Scott's direction, the signal had been sent.
"Not that his long-term projects were so much better." Jean-Paul glanced coldly down at the crumpled bodies of Sinister's guards. "Maybe you should consider a change of careers."
Were they going to talk him to death? Hex energy flared around Wanda's fingers and a few pieces of equipment began sparking. "Maybe we should help him with that," she suggested, her voice low.
"Adorable," Sinister noted. He took a moment to regard the bodies on the floor, then clucked his tongue and gave a brief shake of his head. "Disappointing to be certain. But their failures will assist with the growth of the next batch. Adversity is the greatest assistant to progress, children." There was a flash of crimson around the mad doctor's chalk-white temples, and the black panels comprising the floor began to fall away, one after another, dropping Sinister's unconscious minions into the unlighted depths below. The cat-thing's leathery wings flared, hoisting it into the air as Gordon vanished beneath her, and gave an unhappy yowl, even as the plates beneath the students shifted down and away. Leaving only a seemingly-bottomless drop where once there had been solid floor.
Cyclops glanced around as floor tiles began to drop away. So far, none beneath his own team, but he doubted Sinister would let them rest easy for long. Be ready to keep to the air on your own power, he instructed the others. Northstar and Phoenix he had no doubt could keep themselves aloft. Scarlet Witch was more of a black box there, but her floating was also improbable so he suspected her command of the odds would work in her favor.
That just left him. Phoenix, can you keep me up? She'd levitated him before, but she was coming off a fight and he didn't want to drain her too much. Fuck knew what else Sinister had to throw at them.
Fuck! Wanda watched as the floor around her began dropping, wishing she'd actually gotten around to asking Billy about the whole flying thing Tommy said he could do. She couldn't seem to wrap her head around it, somehow.
On the other hand? It was seriously improbable that the part of the floor that she and Lance were on would be the one that didn't drop, so she focused her attention and a fuckload of hex energy on that.
If I need to, Jean sent back to Scott. It'll take a lot of my concentration, though. If this bastard has anything else up his sleeve...
I can keep Scott from going splat, Jean-Paul assured her. Then, smugly, at Scott, See? Told you I'd be hauling your ass all over the map some day. Get ready to play turret.
Despite Jean-Paul's seeming self-assurance, there was anger prickling across his thoughts like a thousand glass needles. The only thing currentl keeping him in check was the promise he'd made to Scott months ago... and even then, just barely.
The panels beneath Scott, Jean-Paul, and Jean fell away in sequence with the others, but the one supporting Wanda and Lance only juddered beneath them. Sinister's smile now showed a few pointed teeth, and crimson flared around his temples again. Now, the wall panel closest to Scarlet Witch and her unconscious charge swung outward on invisible hinges, attempting to sweep both into the abyss.
Cyclops carefully shifted in Northstar’s grasp to fire off a blast that destroyed the rogue plate. It wouldn’t solve the problem forever, knowing how adaptable Sinister could be, but it would give them a temporary reprieve.
To extend that breather, he fired another shot. This time, his aim was between Sinister’s cold eyes.
Wanda saw the wall panel sweeping towards them, but before she could act a blast she easily recognized as one of Scott's obliterated it. Relieved that the floor was at least staying put beneath Lance's unconscious body, she spun on her heels back towards Sinister, just in time to see Scott fire another blast at their adversary. Narrowing her eyes, Wanda fired off a hex at the same target. Somehow, she doubted Sinister could handle both at once.
Now or never, then. Jean lashed out with the full force of her telekinisis, sparing barely enough concentration to keep herself from plummeting into the dark. This was the monster that had haunted Scott for so long. She hardly let herself dream that they could kill it, but she'd put everything she could into making sure it hurt.
Scott's concussive beam drove right through Sinister's face, though his smile remained in place despite the sudden hole through his head. The flesh and bone had already begun to knit together again when Wanda's hex energy struck, causing the plate beneath him to suddenly buckle. Essex caught himself on a cushion of telekenetic force, just as Jean's telekinetic lash struck home, driving him into the far wall with enough force to buckle the smooth black plate. He gathered himself, brushed a hand carefully across his mouth, and regarded the teenagers assailing him anew. This was more than simply amusing. This was interesting.
"Well done," Sinister said. "Even better than expected. But I think our final confrontation is best saved for a more appropriate time, don't you? And I do have other matters requiring my attention."
Psionic energy flared around his temples again, and Sinister dropped into the abyss with a grin. Almost before he disappeared into the black, the remaining wall panels virtually flew from their settings in the wall, shearing through the air in a barrage of fast-moving black metal.
"Motherfucker," Cyclops muttered. That goddamn egg-sucking son of a bitch! FUCK! There was nothing that could be done to stop him, either, because every blast sent in his last-seen direction was one more blast that couldn't be directed at the shrapnel now hurling around them all like a razorblade cyclone. Even yelling after him would be a waste of energy that they'd need for the far more present threat.
He began firing liking the turret Jean-Paul had joked that he was, trying to hit everything he could before it nailed one of the others - or him, for that matter - because fuck knew what the shit materials Sinister had built his terror dome out of. Left, right, the thing headed towards Jean, a plate aimed straight for Lance...the room was awash with their various powers and flying metal.
It was then that he saw it. A wall of shards flying at him and Northstar.
He couldn't hit them all.
Cyclops took a deep breath, and blasted Jean-Paul a clear path to fly through before he felt his uniform give way in multiple places before the world went black.
Jean-Paul tucked Scott as close to his body as he could and dove through the opening Scott had made for them. At the speed he was moving, even simply holding on to Scott would leave bruises, but it was better than waiting for the certain death hurtling toward them. He felt something catch his side, then tear free, sending a blaze of fire up his side.
Then they were through, and he was left dodging as best he could with Scott a dead weight in his grip.
Hold on! With Sinister beyond her reach, Jean's immediate priority became trying to shield the most vulnerable of their group... and as much as it twisted her heart to do it, that meant lending her shields to Wanda and Lance, not Scott.
I could try lifting us out of there, but there's nowhere to go! she said, her mental voice more angry than desperate. I could hammer a way out, maybe, but if I drop these shields, we're going to catch shrapnel.
Gimme a sec, Wanda requested. With no need to shield herself or Lance, she focused her attention on the shards and made a swirling motion with her hand, and those in the immediate vicinity altered their trajectories and joined their neighbors in a tornado-like spiral. Eyes narrowing in concentration, she drew it in tighter and tilted it so it was running horizontal rather than vertical, then flattened it out, trying to force the pieces together into a bridge that would take them from their isolated piece of flooring to the nearest intact floor space. "There's gotta be more to this place than the one room and the basement," she said aloud. "Northstar, get Cyclops somewhere solid, and let Phoenix know where. Phoenix, can you help me flatten this out? We can maybe reinforce it with the tubes."
Northstar frowned as Pheonix and Wanda went to work on the makeshift bridge, but shifted his hold on Scott and went looking for solid ground.
"We're going to need a lot of stretcher-bearers," he called back. "What are the odds of calling in a quick gettaway?"
"Can't until we find some shadows," Wanda called back. "Hades doesn't teleport, strictly speaking - he shadow walks." She eyed their makeshift bridge critically, decided it probably wouldn't collapse, then looked back to Jean. "Can you float Lance, or help me carry him? I'm afraid I'll drop him, and that looks like a hell of long way down."
Jean nodded and lifted Lance into a gentle TK carry. "Any luck, Northstar?"
"There's a corridor leading off from the lab here," Jean-Paul called back. "Looks like the floor's solid, anyway." He had already set Scott down and was examining Scott's wounds. "Merde. I don't think he's going to bleed out on us, but I don't think we should move him around if we can help it."
Wanda carefully made her way across the makeshift bridge and made a face. Her instincts told her to get everyone the hell out of there, but... "We need to salvage something from this. If he's more or less stable, can you do a loop, see if you can find where Sinister keeps his files?"
Jean lighted beside Jean-Paul, bringing Lance with him. "I can look out for him, Northstar. Wanda's right. This can't all come down to nothing more than rattling Sinister's cage."
"Right." Jean-Paul sighed. "OK. I'll make it quick." And then he vanished into the warped shadows of the complex.
There wasn't far to go before he hit what definitely looked like a useful spot for "salvage" - another lab, this one considerably more grotesque than the last. The lighting here was harsher, brighter. Transparent, floor-to-ceiling tubes, each one containing cloudy white liquid and a half-formed human shape lined the walls. Jean-Paul grimaced in disgust, but couldn't help but draw nearer. Each tube had a white plaque embedded about four feet up from the floor. Written on each one in what seemed to be erasable marker was a name and number, none of which registered to Northstar.
The tube nearest the door, however... that was going to be of interest to certain parties.
Jean. You had better get Wanda in here.
"What's happening?" Wanda asked as she joined Jean, who looked as if she were focused on something other than what was physically happening there. "Did he find something? And how badly is Sc-Cyclops hit?"
On the ground, Cyclops shifted a bit before letting out a soft sound like a severely wounded animal between shallow breaths. It was clear he was bleeding, though due to the amount of blood and it’s distribution where it had soaked into his uniform, it was hard to tell from where. A concussion was certain too, but severity would be hard to judge until a doctor could see him.
"We need to get him to a doctor," was all Jean could bring herself to say. She slipped into Scott's mind, deadening his pain as best she could. "And Jean-Paul... he says he's found your dad. He's going to need help getting him free."
"My Dad?" Wanda pulled her eyes away from Scott and Lance, both of them on the ground, bleeding (which gave her a sick feeling, in and of itself), and stared at Jean. "What the hell - ok, going. Call Hades for an extraction," she advised. There were shadows, and Nico was supposed to be with Warren. Wishing she'd taken the time to figure out how the fuck Billy did the whole teleporting thing, she cast a hex that would hopefully skew things so she found the shortest route, and took off at a run.
Jean-Paul heard Wanda coming long before she arrived, but he supposed he wouldn't be in any mood for stealth were he in her position. He wasted no time with preamble once she arrived, just nodded at the tube he'd been standing guard over. The label read "E. Lensherr" and the face of the man inside was undoubtedly Magneto, whole and unharmed... so far as a casual glance could tell, anyway.
"I've been looking this place over, but I'm not sure how to get him out," Jean-Paul admitted. "Not without drowning him, anyway."
Wanda was staring at the tube, her eyes fixed on her father's unconscious face, when what Northstar was saying sank in. "Drowning him. Fuck, I should fucking drown him, getting himself into this," she muttered. "And damned if I know. This is way over my head. I should really call Eileen. Or Hank. Or...fuck." She pushed her hand back through her hair, wishing Lance was conscious. Or that Pietro was there.
"Told you I could-" Pam began, sounding rather smug as she stepped through the portal she'd created based on tracking Wanda's cell phone GPS. She broke off, though, as she caught sight of a familiar face inside some kind of fucked up, liquid-filled tube. "What the fuck?"
A pale-looking Pyro moved past her as he stepped out of the portal, drawn to the sight of that gaunt face inside whatever the fuck this crazy ass lab had cooked up for mutants. "Shit," he muttered. "And I thought my day was fucked up." He turned to Wanda expectantly.
Hellion was next through the portal, gaze flicking from person to person until it finally landed on the tube. He was stepping toward it, eyes leaking green energy as he raised his hands. "Hold on. I can get him out."
Drifting through the air with the hem of her purple jacket hanging several inches above the ground, Eileen was next through the portal. She took in the scene at a glance, violet-glowing eyes flashing behind her mask as she did so, and then made straight for Wanda. "You and I are going to have a long talk about this later," she said in a low voice, meant for her best friend alone. "This is not the kind of shit you keep from me." The blond then looked to Magneto, unconscious in a fucking tube, and gave Wanda's shoulder a comforting squeeze before suddenly pulling her into a hug.
"You found him, though. Fuck me if that might not be enough to make it worth it." She then floated away again, to watch Hellion work in the event he needed any of the assistance she was uniquely suited to providing. Her former place was almost immediately taken by Tommy, who sped through the portal at a pace almost too quick for the human eye to follow.
Alex, meanwhile, had entered the laboratory, wide-eyed and full of a combination of dread and eagerness. Would he finally get the chance to boil the Pale Man into ashes? Relieved as he was to see Magneto--and no Dr. Essex in sight--he started suddenly as he noticed one absence, in particular. "Where's Scott?" he asked as he moved to stand beside Fatale.
"Hurt, but stable," Jean-Paul said shortly. He'd left Magneto to his own, and was busy getting as much information from Sinister's files as possible. This mostly involved yanking hard drives bodily out of machines; it wasn't as if hacking was his area of expertise. "So is Avalanche. And as soon as we get him-" He jerked his head toward Magneto. "-out from under glass, we're getting them the hell out of here."
"Fuck, you found Lance too?" Pam stared at him for a moment, then turned to Wanda, automatically slipping an arm around Alex in reassurance. "I can evac them and come back."
A small, black-and-white form lighted on Wanda's shoulder, one leathery wing wrapping around her neck, while the other encircled her upper arm. An unnaturally prehensile tail curled tightly around her shoulders. The bizarrely-modified cat met the Maximoff twin's gaze with bright golden eyes and promptly offered a plaintive meow.
Sighing, Wanda reached up to pet the mutant cat that had apparently decided it was adopting them. Just what they needed. "They're back that way with Phoenix," she instructed, gesturing back towards where she'd left them. She met Pietro's eyes, nodded, and watched as he disappeared, presumably to check on Lance. She'd be hearing about this from him later, she was sure - there was no way he was going to let Eileen chew her out and not get a few words in himself - but that could wait. "Take them back to the infirmary at the school. We're going to have to get Xavier to take a look at Lance." She looked around at damn near the entire Brotherhood, all of whom had emerged from Fatale's portal while they'd talked, and then took a breath and turned back to watch Hellion and Eileen do whatever they needed to do.
Maybe it wasn't quite the encounter they'd hoped for. But assuming Scott and Lance were ok? She was counting it as a win.