|
The normally white lights of the Coney Island facility flash an ominous red over and over again, and a constant alarm rolls across the speakers. A voice calls loudly across the loudspeaker.
"CODE 18181 ENACTED! ALL HANDS ARE TO REPORT TO FACILITIES!"
The normally white lights of the facility have taken on a much darker hue, eliminating red with every blink blink blink of the lights.
Military personnel converge on the far Eastern block of the facility, readying weapons of various sorts outside a large cement cell. Whatever is down that hallway is restricted access.
Everyone else is painfully stuck wherever they'd been when the lockdown began.
Kitty Pryde, with Laura in tow phases through the door to the facility, and the pair jumping far too many steps at a time, entered into the dark underwater place.
The long hallway in which they find themselves is relatively empty. Evidently people aren't concerned about the door.
*
ROLL: Natasha +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 1
*
If the sensation of being phased through an armored blast door bothers Laura, she isn't showing it. No surprise there. X-23 doesn't miss a step, either, they're through, the entryway is empty, so whatever has caused the lockdown is major. And elsewhere.
She starts forward, still holding Kitty's hand. It's easier to drag her along and get a quick phase if they need it if she keeps her hand. "This way." The twins first. Then next steps after. "When we are not solid— I let go. What happens."
*
A SHORT TIME AGO
"You mentioned orders, Mr. Akihiro."
Gretchen Steingate's been seated next to Akihiro's cell for maybe thirty minutes, now. Much like last time, she has brought a seemingly endless string of questions and a clipboard along, asking about everything from how the last few days have been. to what he was doing when he was picked up, to what his life before the Program was like. The Wolverine was mentioned at least once, inevitably.
"What kinds of orders have you been asked to carry out? Generally speaking. How do you feel when you've finished carrying one out?" Her pen lowers, tip touching to page—
— and a red veil falls across the world as the speakers blare in alarm.
NOW
"GUARDS!"
Gretchen beat the heel of her hand against the door until it hurt. She did not stop.
"PLEASE, SOMEBODY— I'm TRAPPED in here, and this, this MUTANT— WHAT IS HAPPENING, LET ME OUT!"
Near Akihiro's cell lie her tipped over chair and abandoned clipboard.
If he were to look at the latter, he'd find a hastily scrawled message:
'I AM NOT A DOCTOR. I AM A REPORTER. DESTROY THIS NOTE. LET'S SEE IF WE CAN USE THIS.'
*
Akihiro was about to answer when the alarms started up. His brows furrow as the woman starts screaming and he turns his attention to the abandoned clipboard. As understanding flashes across the teen's face he rises to his feet and collects the message, crumpling it up and slipping it into his pocket as he moves to observe. "This should be interesting."
*
Meanwhile, in his own personal hell, David is seated on his bunk. No clothes of his own anymore — just a shapeless smock and an increasingly shaggy beard. Hands clasped in front of him, he sits quietly, studying a spot on the wall.
And then the alarm goes off. David whips his head up attentively, his eyes narrowing when he hears the code. Oh. Oh, this could be good. His mouth twitches into a smile and he drops one hand to rest on the edge of his mattress, just… so.
And he waits.
*
Two blondes stare at David as their breath rasps in their throats. "Well we know you didn't do this. We are disappointed." Their chins drop and their hands go to their laps. Evidently they're here to torture him, yet their particularly torture in the last day has been light.
Kitty kicks off her black ballet flats — her date clothes, a sad semblance of last night's attire — are highly inappropriate for running through government facilities. The haphazard ponytail is tightened as the now-barefoot Kitty runs to keep up with X-23. Her dress crumples with each pace, wrinkling underneath the impact, and she swears she will repay Jean for the dress later.
"If we're in the wall and you let go, you die," Kitty replies quickly. "You hold on, you stay intangible. You let go? You don't." She clings Laura's hand. "We need to get people out. Whatever is going on — " her eyes turn upwards to the lights overhead.
As the pair run through the facility, the banging on a particular door earns Kitty's attention. And yes, they are on a mission for the blondes, but screaming at the door is enough to grab Kitty's attention. She turns intangible, still holding Laura's hand, only to walk through the door to see Gretchen and Akihiro.
Her eyes widen, "Akihiro! Oh my gosh, am I glad to see you — we need to get you out of here!" She turns to face the woman, her eyebrows drawing together sharply, and she does her best Luke Skywalker impression despite the fact the source material is still twenty years out: "I'm Kitty Pryde. I'm here to rescue you." She looks to the door. "We need to go. Like now."
*
A second code echoes through the facility: "CODE 9897. REPEAT: CODE 9897."
*
"No— if we are not in the wall," X-23 clarifies, and then makes a surprised noise as Kitty demands a sudden detour. The Weapon weighs all of 110 pounds *with* the adamantium— it's not that hard to pull her off her feet under the circumstances, and she ends up phasing through the door into Akihiro's cell with her.
"This is not—" she half-protests, cutting off as the new announcment goes out.
*
"He keeps LOOKING at me, and it's SO LOUD, and— WHY WON'T ONE OF YOU MEN HELP—"
'Akihiro'!
Gretchen whirls towards the new voice and squints at its owner for a bemused beat. Her gaze then flicks between the wall beside Kitty, Kitty herself, and the door before settling on the mutant.
"… yes," she finally murmurs. "We do" she continues, quiet as she briskly moves away from the door "need to go. But I—"
Her eyes flick to the speakers, then to X-23 and Akihiro.
"What is Code 9897?" she lowly, gravely asks.
*
"Why Kitty, I do declare you are ah sight for sore eyes." Akihiro drawls out, flashing the woman a grin, before he settles on X-23. His demeanor changes and he becomes more guarded, "Shit. Not falling for it this time." He crosses his arms, "I like keeping all my insides inside."
*
"I know. I'm sorry," David says to the blondes, and despite the fact that they have been actively torturing him, he sounds like he genuinely means it. His eyes flick up to the ceiling at the second code call, and the smile he develops is not nice.
David drops his gaze back to the twins and, slowly, he rises to his feet. "We can use this," he tells them quietly. "If you are willing… help me. Help me make this up to you. We will go get your sisters back.
"And on our way out of here… we will end him."
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 38
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 82
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 68
*
The blondes grin in a way that suggests their faces were never meant to smile. The pair cant their heads curiously at the man in the cell, and their fingers steeple simultaneously. "He can't just be ended. He needs to suffer. And die a thousand times. For X-23. For our sisters." Pause. "For you. For destroying…" they swallow and their eyebrows knit together. "How?"
Kitty shrugs at the question, hell if she knows what the code means. And then Akihiro is getting angry at Laura. "No," Kitty's eyes widen. "No no no! Laura is — uh — " she cringes slightly and motions towards Laura, "This is Laura. Not X-23." Her throat clears, "And that is Akihiro. Laura is going to help…" her eyes narrow "…us get out of here!" She looks at the bars of the cell and her cheeks puff out with exasperation, "I'm guessing it's tough, huh?" She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before prodding one of the bars with a single finger. "Ow!" she snaps her hand back through the bar. "Alright. I hope to Jehovah that I don't have to do more than one of these — " because the metal is going to be downright awful to pull anything through. "Laura, Gretchen. I'm going to put you through the door. Then I'm going to get Aki out of this cell. It's going to exhaust me — when you're on the other side, I need you to bust the mechanism in the door. We need the lock broken so we can take the normal way out. A bit of a rest means I should be able to phase again after…" she manages a weak, not reassuring smile.
*
"It means it is time to leave," comes a reply. X-23 just gives Akihiro a slight rolling of her eyes and lets Kitty handle him. "If you will need rest, then the remainder will be done the other way," she notes calmly. How she can be so patient with all this going on— oh, of course. Programming. "After this, XIV-2 and 3," she says, firmly this time.
*
"'Bust'…?" Gretchen looks and sounds as if Kitty's just asked her to pledge allegiance to Lenin while setting her bra on fire, but given a moment to swallow her discomfort, she offers a small nod of acquiescence and reaches for Kitty— only to stop and begin tentatively drawing her hands back.
"How do I— I've, um, never…"
The flared tempers between Akihiro and Laura haven't gone unnoticed - she definitely gave him a look once he tensed up - but she doesn't comment on them.
*
Akihiro rolls his shoulders, giving a slight nod. "Alright, let's get out of here." He offers a hand to Kitty, "If you can't phase anymore after this, be sure to stay behind either Laura or myself then. We heal a lot faster than you."
*
"Any way you want. As many times as you want. But I can't do it from inside this cell," David says to the blondes, a note of gratitude in his voice when they include him in their list. That was… so sweet of them. He holds up a finger and turns back towards his bunk, lifting up the corner of the mattress. And slowly, he retrieves the syringe hidden beneath.
David lays it across his palms in a poor grip to actually use it, but an excellent one for presenting it to someone else. He takes a step closer to the twins and extends his hands towards them. Offering it.
"I have no idea what this is. Probably a sedative," David murmurs. "But if you can get me to him through this mess..? We'll feed it all to him. And then he's all yours. Please. Just get me out."
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 80
*
ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d10 for a result of: 6
*
"We don't know how to get you out," they offer quietly. But then they blink owlishly and look at the camera. "We are stuck in this room. If we can leave, we can manipulate the controls." The pair ponder for a moment. "Perhaps we can find someone in control booth…" they reach out to find a mind… only to find the intern. They frown. "Kenneth is incompetent prat," one states to the others.
"Incompetent prat who can push a button," the other counters.
"Perhaps," says the first. The pair localize their efforts.
Kitty levels a look at Gretchen, "Find something heavy on the other side of the door. A fire extinguisher, a book, something. Hit the handle hard — it'll bust the mechanism on the handle, which will then expose the mechanism. From there we can manually operate the lock." It's fortunate that Kitty was always good at mechanics. Physics are her bread and butter.
A nod is given to Laura, "Yes. We'll get the blondes after. I promise."
A grin is cast to Akihiro at his acquiescence, and she nods tightly. "Understood!" Pause. "And thanks. We're getting out of here." Her eyes tick towards Laura, "All of us."
Before anymore chatter can take place, she grabs Laura and Gretchen's hands with each of hers and breaks to a sprint. In seconds, the pair can feel their bodies become nearly weightless under the dispersion of their molecules. In an instant they're on the other side of the door, and Kitty is, once again with Akihiro.
She rubs her hands together nervously and swallows hard. "If," she starts a little leerily, "this kills me, can you tell Piotr I love him? Thanks." She takes a deep breath, lightly closes her eyes, and reaches through the bars, disintegrating as she does so. The ache she feels squeezing through the particles hurts in a way she's never experienced, and the pained yelp that rolls from the back of her throat echoes through this side of the prison.
Her hand doesn't even turn corporeal on the other side as she touches Akihiro's, pulling him through the bars with that same ache through her entire body. In a matter of seconds Akihiro is on the other side. Kitty doubles over breathlessly.
*
Once on the other side, Laura comes to a stop, glancing at Gretchen with a dispassionate expression for approximately three seconds before she raises her hand, index and middle fingers straight. A glittering, lustrous blade erupts from between the digits with a crisp SNKT sound.
Without taking her gaze off of Natasha or making a sound, she reaches over, inserts the claw in the gap between the door and the jams, and nearly without effort carves through the heavy bolts keeping the door shut. Then the claw is gone again.
*
Gretchen sprints right along with Kitty once it turns out that her initial instinct is correct. As soon as everything and everyone is solid again, she does a quick headswivel, then breaks away to snatch the fire extinguisher set next to the door as requested. Her stands widens, her feet set, she reach—
SNIKT!
Gretchen sends a dour look right back at Laura as lowers the extinguisher and murmurs, "Perfect." The unbroken gaze elicits a gradual headtilt, but given that the alarms and the ominous codes don't really leave much time for staring contests, she elects turn her head while quietly saying, "David North— the twins— I know where North's cell is, but that's it. You need to get them out, if you're here on a rescue mission."
*
Akihiro drops down to check on Kitty, "Woah there, you alright?" He slips an arm around the woman to help her to her feet, "Gotta stay safe. I'm good at killing, but kinda shit with emotional things. Don't wanna have me break the news to Piotr." he clearly teases, giving Kitty a reassuring squeeze. "We'll be fine. I've gotten through worse."
*
As the blondes work, David moves to stand nearer to the bars. He holds the syringe loosely in one hand and grasps one of the bars in the other, watching them silently. He doesn't dare make a sound — they might change their minds, or he might distract them from what they're trying to do. He holds his breath and waits, shooting the occasional look towards the door. At least, where he thinks the door is. Blasted cells.
*
Kenneth, up in the control room begins to do some very erratic things by military standards. While he has overstepped multiple boundaries in the course of his work, he has never opened a cell to let someone out. The blondes, however, have the cell open up, releasing David from his first cage. The pair cock their heads at him inquisitively. "We still need out of the room," they say quietly. "But we imagine if you can blast Control you can handle a puny door." There's a pause.
"Unless he needs us to do it for him," one states.
"Why should we have to do all of the heavy lifting?" the second asks.
"We are small and frail and powerless to do anything," the first actually grins at the statement before, in unison, their skin breaks into a crystal texture.
Akihiro earns a flicker of a smile as Kitty can't get back to her feet. She gives a tug to her ridiculous-for-this-situation dress, and leans against the cells while her eyes lid lightly. "You still need me," she murmurs softly. She puffs another ragged breath. "This is hard." Pause. "That hurt. What the hell is that stuff…." she stares at the bars again. "If it'd been solid, I never could've…" she offers Akihiro a hand, "Help me up? There's more. We need… we need to help the blondes. Gotta get David," her throat clears. "And Jean… where is Jean?!"
*
Laura has elected to wait for Akihiro and Kitty to catch up, keeping watch in the hallway patiently. She does not want to have to come back for any of these people. "XIV will either be with David or in their room," she notes evenly, and starts down the hallway. "Come. Much to do, time is critical."
*
ROLL: Vorpal +rolls 1d2 for a result of: 1
*
"Fine," murmurs Gretchen as she and her extinguisher head down the hall. "Thank you for simplifying things," she tosses back to Kitty. "David mentioned a female cellmate who he hadn't seen for a while. I don't know anything more than that. I don't even know if that's your Jean, but…" Her gaze shifts curiously towards Laura towards the end, but she leaves the question unspoken.
*
Keith comes to a dead stop as he rounds his way into the hallway. Dead stop, because right up ahead is That Woman.
The clawsy, bitey, angry kill-me-kill-you clawsy lady of death he had washed out with ocean water at Coney Island. If she was HERE, then it meant she was up to now good. He sees the clawed door, and he is pretty sure that this is the direction Kitty's shout came from… and he fears the worst.
"Time is something you don't have, I'm afraid."
Keith's voice echoes through the hallway as the Cheshire cat seemingly appears by melting out of one of the walls. It is a good bit of illusion- and several feet ahead from the actual invisible Keith.
The smell of brimstone saturates the area with an overpowering stench, probably to add an aesthetic touch and complement the fact that Vorpal's eyes are, apparently, glowing red.
"Where is Kitty?" the cat snarls, "If you've done anything to her, you'll spend the rest of eternity as the Queen's favorite beheading toy."
Hanging back and low to the floor, Keith studies the woman's reaction to the illusion, and that of her companion.
*
"Exactly, we need you." Akihiro helps Kitty up and over to where Laura and the good doctor, or was it reporter, is now. "Kitty's here." The teen doesn't speak to the illusion, instead his nostrils flare and his gaze settles on where the invisible Keith is. "And we don't have time for any bullshit along the way." As he speaks the claws in his hand that isn't around Kitty's shoulder extend, a warning in themselves. Laura isn't the only clawsy, bitey, angry, kill-everyone person down here apparently.
*
When the door to his cell opens, the relief that floods David's face is practically euphoric. He laughs breathlessly and hurries to join the twins outside even as he nods in agreement; yes, they do still need to get through the door to the room his cell is inside.
"I knew I liked you girls," David muses, watching their transformation with a growing smile. He steps over to the wall and, without bothering to hide it from the cameras, begins pounding his empty fist against it as rapidly and as hard as he can.
"Together," he tells the girls as he pounds on the wall, excitement in his voice. Yeah, he's been in here too long. "We will take it together. On three…"
The combined impact from the kick of one smock-clad German mercenary and his attending diamonds sends the door to David's containment cell flying off of its hinges, crashing noisily into the hallway beyond. David adjusts his grip on the syringe to hold it more like a dagger in a reversed grip. He looks to the twins.
"Take me to Control."
*
Together is something the Cuckoos know well. The blond girls push their diamond, nearly unbreakable skin, against the door, and with a hint of delight, they shoot him a collective diamond-studded grin. "Control is down the hall. If he is there." Their minds seek for Stryker through the base, but then their chins lift with a shake of their heads. "Something is wrong. Control is gone."
The sound of gunfire echoes down the hallway, granting pause for those among the crew that aren't currently bulletproof. "I'm really regretting those drinks last night — Jehovah, I will never drink again!" Kitty murmurs as she presses a hand against her forehead. The headache just lingers all the way down her spine.
A nod is given to Gretchen. "Good. Right. We'll find David and learn if it's Jean and then… find Jean…" before everything disappears into the ocean.
Kitty freezes as Akihiro leads her into the hallway and there is Vorpal. She blanches further. "I… I'm right here?" Kitty raises her hands as she steps out to protect the entire crew. Her chin lifts and her bare feet give way on the cold tile floor. She slips to her knees in an odd surrender, and takes another long, painful breath. Finally she murmurs, "I can't do it again. We… we'll need to get David out still."
It's fortunate that David and the twins are askew from the room from which Akihiro and Kitty emerge, allowing them a great sight of fire and brimstone.
*
The illusion gives Laura pause, but… her programming being broken doesn't make her normal. She takes in the images swirling around her emotionlessly, categorizing and forming a plan of attack—
And then He asks where kitty is, and she looks confused, pointing at her in Akihiro's grasp. "She is… right here." Blink.
*
Dr. Steingate freezes when a threat suddenly echoes through the hall, then shrieks when he comes melting into it.
KLANG! goes the extinguisher before rolling across the ground. "Kit— ?" she weakly stammers as Akihiro and Laura speak. They prompt her to turn and rapidly jab a finger towards Kitty as she corroborates, "There! Right there! Oh, Go—"
Gunfire sounds.
The doctor's green eyes grow wide, and with another shriek, she takes off running away from the group to search for a safe place.
Like, say, a file room, or a laboratory.
*
The illusion vanishes and Keith slowly stands up, becoming visible. The wind is clearly no longer in his sails. "Oh, hey, Kitty," he says, feeling rather awkward, what with the new uniform and the whole 'ready for action' attitude. But Murderclaw didn't seem like she was going to attack him, and there was another clawsy guy- probably this 'Aki' guy Piotr mentioned a while back who had gone missing. The world wasn't making any sense at the moment, and he hated it. He usually tended to be the reason the world didn't make sense to other people, and he has the creeping sensation that someone just stole his gig.
"Right, then. Piotr's back that way," he points a thumb, "Sort of going apeshit about you, and Jean is sort of-"
He drops that thought quickly and simply says "What's going on here and what's the plan?"
*
"Gone?" David gives the twins a confused look as the nearly euphoric mania that had begun to settle into his face abruptly drains away. "No, no, no, he can't — he ran!" David roars, turning to swiftly slam his own forehead into the wall, once, very hard, in frustration.
It's when he closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath to calm himself that David catches the scent of brimstone. Slowly, he looks first to the twins, then finally bothers looking ahead of them to where the others are collected. Blood trickles down his face from a gash on his forehead that has already healed.
Well. This is… a lot to take in. Of course, between the beard and dark rings under his eyes, he looks a great deal different than he did the last time Kitty saw him.
"…was that Miss Steingate?" David asks in an odd voice, a twinkle coming to his eyes. Oh, he likes that woman.
*
"Alright, let's get out of here. Well, let's get you out of here. I'm gonna go find that doctor." Akihiro sighs quietly, tugging a rolled cigarette out of his pocket and placing the slightly crumpled thing between his lips. "So, who wants to carry Kitty while I get shot?"
*
The good doctor retreats, and Kitty acknowledges it with a vague nod of her head, "Well… that makes sense… poor lady." She frowns slightly. "Hopefully she goes upwards. Or finds a lift out of here," because things are sounding more grim by the minute.
And the illusion disappears before Kitty is reaching out towards Keith, "Pete's here? How did you guys find — " no it's not worth it right now. "Laura, Vorpal," she motions towards X-23, "Vorpal, Laura." Right. With everyone pseudo-friends-now, Kitty refocuses to see David.
She swallows hard and her breath hitches in her throat, "This place is poison!" She upnods David, "Mister North, we need to get moving. I have friends — " she motions towards the exit " — we need to get them. Everyone gets out."
Her lips twist to the side, "Where are all the people?" She asks Laura and the blondes. Before shrugging slightly, "I pushed my ability to its max. I won't be able to phase for a bit. It'll come back…" faster if she wasn't nursing this hangover.
"He left," the blondes reply to Maverick. "The facility is surely going to sink." They turn their heads int he hall. "X-23!" the Cuckoos say in unison, still clad in diamonds. One of the girls points from whence Vorpal just came. "Rooms of them. We can feel them, but have never seen," a telling description. "The experiment rooms are that way," they point North. "We can feel people's screams…"
*
As if in response to Vorpal's question about what they're doing next, Laura catches his arm and shoves him bodily aside. Onnnne moment, she saw someone she knows. She barely gives David a glance, before the twins get her hands on their shoulders, a small squeeze. Very brief. "Kath—" a pause. "Kitty says she knows where 1, 4, and 5 are. And she will take you to them if you want. We should leave, it is past time."
Priority message delivered, she backtracks straight to Kitty and takes her off Akihiro's hands, slinging the other girl onto her back. Yep, piggyback. It's convenient. "If Control is not here, the Armory will not be either," she notes.
*
Cage is stalking toward the group from the north, casually batting aside anybody who tries to get in his way. He's not interested in killing them — just making sure everybody is in no position to hurt those he came to save. He pauses upon hearing them, starts to follow the sounds of voices down that way. "Think I found 'em!" he shouts back over his shoulder.
*
Keith is shoved bodily aside, and he grunts, eyes narrowed.
"X-23?" he says incredulously, some poison creeping into his voice, "Oh, honey. That's not a codename. That's coordinates in 'Battleship.'" yes, that was wounded pride at the shove.
Kitty is quickly kat-handled by Laura, and Luke appears, most likely as the harbinger for the coming of the rest of the group.
"Right, then," he says while unzipping his collar down to the base of the neck, because goddamnit the thing was stifling, "I'll just mosey on behind you. Whenever you want a portal or something to take people out, just holler."
He vanishes from sight and makes a point of staying many feet behind the group. It's never a good idea to clump together in a corridor.
*
"Alright, it's time for a little payback." Akihiro cracks his knuckles before extending his other two claws. "You guys want me to stay with the group, or draw some fire?" He seems up for either, "I believe there's a janitor around here I need to have some words with."
*
"Everyone? That might not be possible," David calls towards Kitty, offering Laura a nod in… greeting? Acknowledgement? Something. The brusqueness doesn't bother him at all. "We aren't the only ones here. Cont—" He winces. "Stryker was saying that non-powered prisoners are held here, too," he murmurs, the hand not holding the syringe moving to very lightly rest against one of the Cuckoos' backs. "There could be dozens. Maybe hundreds."
When Luke's call comes down the hall, David's mouth splits into a massive smile. "Mister Cage!" he calls, quickly striding forward to join the group properly. Please don't mind the blood on his face or the smock he's wearing. It's fashionable down here. "You are a sight for sore eyes. I don't want to leave this place without as many files as we can carry. Are you game?"
And then, he stops. Slowly, David turns towards where Vorpal is — was — and his brow knits together. "Portals?" he echoes. "Who said portals?" And then, slowly, a manic giggle builds in his chest. "Ohhhh, I just had a really interesting idea…"
*
The two blondes give Laura an approving nod, and… are they smiling? It's a wonder they know how. "We are ready to leave and reunite with our sisters." Because that is what they do. The hive mind needs the hive.
A crisp nod is given to Laura's assessment, "Right! If Control," whoever that is, "is gone, then the way is safer. We need to evacuate this place. And see — " Kitty frowns " — the experiments — " her expression turns sour. She wraps her arms around Laura's neck. "Alright. Let's do this."
While David looks worse for wear in his smock and bearded face, Kitty looks like she's just completed the worst walk of shame anyone could hope for. With her ballet flats long since abandoned, her bare feet covered in layers of dirt, and Jean's dress now suffering from far more than wrinkles (it definitely ripped when phasing through the vibranium), Kitty definitely doesn't fit in this environment, "Mister Cage! We need to get people out of here. All of them!"
The group presses onward, coming up to a door that faces the North of the building. The blondes tilt their heads and point to the door, "The experiments."
On the other side of the door, a heavily armed troop of twenty guards is ready to fire. Behind them? A series of 10 rooms, each with one occupant behind glass, hooked up to machines and IVs feeding them steady streams of LSD.
Enjoy their rescue~
*
ROLL: Akihiro +rolls 5d100 for a result of: 246 [91 85 3 63 4]
*
Akihiro holds up a hand, "Woah," it's a harsh whisper, "hold back." The teen lets his claws retract, and he moves to check the door for traps. And by check the door for traps, he means scurry into a vent above and creak his way into the room.
Once inside the room however, there's a new sound, gunshots. Lots of gunshots. After a moment they subside, and Akihiro bursts through the grate, claws out and his eyes completely white. Bits of his skull are exposed, his right eye is a bloody hole, and he may as well not be wearing a shirt anymore. Regardless the frenzied teen has his sights set on the gunmen in the room, and that never ends well for anybody involved.
*
"I told you people," Luke calls back, "just call me Luke!" Not that this bothers him, really. He just felt obligated to mention. And he pushes on forward, following the voices. "People get priority over files," he notes, "but we'll get everything we can. There's another strong guy back the way I came. Lookin' for you, Kitty."
*
Laura sighs, as the gunshots sound. "Should have sent assassin," she notes under her breath, tilts her head and, judging the timing by the sounds of guns and boots on the other side of the door, coils slightly. Kitty's warning is a slightly firmer grip before Laura's boot scuffs on the floor and she charges forward.
X-23 tilts her shoulder to take the door without jostling Kitty too much and, given the extra burden, strains her musculature to make herself airborne once inside the room with Aki and company. Her feet come up, toeclaws flash out, and she adjusts her aim for the best standing target ahead of her.
Someone with a better sense of humor would make a velociraptor noise right here. Because that's what the overall effect is. Some poor random mook is about to have a very bad final few seconds.
*
ROLL: Akihiro +rolls 2d100 for a result of: 122 [66 56]
*
"Oh, for fuck's sake," the floating voice says, "Let's hurry this up already, there's people to save!"
Vorpal becomes visible as he storms through the open door, one hand raised as an artificial darkness descends upon the entire area, making it pitch black.
And then there is one brilliant point of light, which extends into beams that form a wide cone. Beams that begin to *spin* in one direction while a pattern of swirls and colors appears behind them and spin in the *opposite* direction.
Keith has been to a few haunted houses, and he personally considers the rotating tunnel illusion one of the three signs that the apocalypse is near. He has managed not to fall over and vomit all over himself just once. And that was with an audience-friendly version of the illusion. This version of the illusion is ratcheted up to eleven.
"Just get it over with," the cat calls out into the darkness. The two Murderclaws, if what Piotr said, could do this in their sleep, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their back. If the illusion works, it should be like clawing fish in a barrel of sand.
He also realizes he should have warned the rest of the team about the illusion…
They'll be fiiiiiine, right?
*
David hangs back with the twins as the others storm the room, the syringe still clutched in one hand, and just… slowly tilts his head to one side as he watches chaos erupt beyond the door.
David looks down at the Cuckoos as Vorpal's lightshow begins. "Say. Do you two know where any other facilities are located?" he asks curiously, his tone as conversational as if he were asking someone about the weather. "Perhaps ones with files, rather than prisoners? It might help us locate Control."
*
The diamond clad Cuckoos feel a smile tug all of their features upwards in a nearly feline way. "We've visited Control's mind without him knowing. We know everything. We just need to remember. Our sisters will help us remember."
Akihiro obliterates multiple goons with undiscerning abandon. Claws meet flesh in an unrelenting and, possibly, unforgiving fashion. Harm befalls the skin and like a knife to butter it slices and dices without abandon.
Laura's boot slices the carotid of her target, and catches the femoral of his buddy just askew. Her spin is incredibly effective at taking down the rest of the guards.
The illusion works beautifully. The troops trip over themselves as they try to maintain some semblance of balance. Each in turn falls on his own feet, flopping this way and that like a fishnet of water in a deep bucket of sand. One grasps for the world around, attempting to catch something to find balance again, but it's a hopeless endeavour.
Kitty shoots Luke a nod, "We'll clear out this room, and Laura and I will head back that direction with the wonder twins while Vorpal helps get these people home," because they'll be going to Westchester hospital for the interim. There is no way the school can handle this many people.
Colossus' voice calls down the hallway loudly: "TAKING ON WATER! RABBIT HOLES!
But just as the words come out, the world shifts and shakes, causing a very nauseated Kitty Pryde to toss her cookies. One thought and one thought tugs at her mind: I have regrets.
Of course, there's no time to react beyond the puddle of vomit on the floor. She rubs her mouth and then reacts to the voice. "Vorpal, teleport now! Get to them!" each of them behind the glass. "Get them to safety!" wherever that may be. "We're sinking!" She knows the stairs they descended on to get underneath Coney Island; evidently the whole place had a weird self-destruct mode.
"David, Luke, Akihiro, help Vorpal move these people — he can open a portal and get them out of here! Laura, wonder twins," she turns her head back towards the door, "that way! We'll get whoever is left prepped for transport! And you two — " her eyes turn to the blondes, "You need to listen for if anyone is left!"
"
*
Akihiro is completely listening to Kitty now. She said something about killing, and killing he can do. He jams his thumbs into the eye sockets of one of the last men, before planting a foot on his shoulder and pulling upwards until the head comes free with a sickening tearing sound.
*
Luke is quick to jump in, helping to move people wherever they need to go — and, if there's time, once that's done he'll help Maverick get all the files they can load through as well.
*
Laura is forced to scrunch her eyes closed when the illsuion kicks in. It's… a bit much to see without warning, and she's not mid-rage like Aki is. She manages not to lose the contents of her stomach, but the wet warmth permeating her awareness and the acidic tang in her nose tells her Kitty has. Well, they say once someone has vomited on you, you are officially besties. Not that Laura would know about that.
She feels, more than sees, the direction Kitty's pointing her in, and she hitches the nausated girl a bit more firmly onto her back before she takes off that way, slitting her eyes open to see if she can— oh, good, there's considerably less awful visual stimulus in this direction. She Oscar-Mikes it under Kitty's direction, trusting the girl to know what she's doing.
*
Logan enters the area with his claws out, nostrils flaring as he's trying to track Akihiro's scent in this place. Perhaps the most notable thing about Logan, if anyone can see him, is that he has only about a third of a face. From the nose down, the flesh and skin from his face has been torn right off, leaving only a slowly spreading field of meat and metal-bonded bone. He's shirtless and absolutely soaked with blood up to his wrists and splashed down his chest.
"Good guys, it's time to bounce!" he shouts, giving a low snarl as he catches Laura's scent as well heading in his direction.
*
"On it," Keith says, dismissing the illusion once the damage has been done. The Cheshire cat stands perfectly still for a second, picturing the outside of the hospital in question. There is a sense of buildup and then-
The Rabbit Hole appears, showing their escape location. Keith then takes a deep breath and sits, cross-legged, on the floor.
"Get everybody through, I'll work on maintaining the portal open. I have to be the last one."
And then he closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. Unlike the earlier incident in Coney Island, he could not afford for the Rabbit Hole to fail or to end up in the wrong location. This was life or death.
No pressure. Really.
*
"Good. We'll find him," David promises the twins, and there is definite weight behind the words. "And I will keep my promise to you."
Although he hears a familiar voice coming down the hall, he has more immediate worries — namely, doing what Kitty has told him to do. He rushes into the room to help Luke with the task of moving people through the rabbit hole, his expression rather appreciative for the exit. That's very reassuring to the unusually haggard-looking, bloody-faced man in a smock.
*
The portal opens easily for Vorpal, but the noise of crunching metal buckling beneath the water pressure outside leaves much to be desired. The remaining goons (5 in total), dizzy though they may be, fire blindly into the room, without regard for each other or the experiments housed behind them.
The patients as they are referred, all hooked up to machines flooding their veins with hallucinogens react with nearly deranged expressions to any movement in the room.
The hole itself seems in line with what some appear to be seeing.
*
Meanwhile, Laura, the Cuckoos, and Kitty have retreated down the hallway to seek out any remaining souls on the vessel. Thanks to the Cuckoos' telepathic ability, they can sense the world at large and whether anyone remains.
*
Akihiro howls, leaping onto the next goon closest to him and driving his fist (claws and all) into his throat before bringing the point of his elbow down hard on the bridge of his nose. A bit of froth forms at the corners of his mouth and his attention turns to the next person with a gun, claws retracting as he drives his fist into the man's face over and over again.
*
Logan doesn't need his sense of smell to track Aki now. He can hear the berserk going off and, much as he wants to tear some ass himself, he knows they need to get out of here. Places like this have a tendency to go boom once the brainpans in charge figure out that it's party over.
He runs over and tries to grab his son by the hair, pulling him off, "Aki, run, now, let's get the hell out of here, GO, BOY, GO!" he shouts, turning around and decking another thug who gets too close.
*
"I am one with the universe," Keith says to himself as he tries to keep focus. "Everything is peace. The universe is expanding…" he opens his eyes. Akihiro is going food processor on some dude's neck. "I AM FOCUSING ON MY BREATHING. IN. OUT." the Rabbit Hole wavers for half a second, but then establishes itself again.
So far, so good, he has managed to maintain hole access for a steady amount. Soon, though, it'll be stretching it, and the sinking sensation isn't helping any. "Come on, get them out of here stat… ommmmm…"
*
In a way, it's fortunate that David is one of the people dealing with these people. Someone else might be less apt to simply yank the IVs loose from these prisoners' arms as they ignored the gunfire raging outside and, when necessary, deliver a sharp, very precise punch to the face of a perfectly innocent person. Too rowdy? Take a nap, go through the portal. Move to the next.
Efficient. Effective. What he's paid for. David's expression becomes a tight, neutral mask as he moves from prisoner to prisoner to… secure their release. The corner of his mouth gives a slight twitch.
*
The last of the patients is put through the portal, leaving only the heroes left to make their grand escape. And just as they are about to, the entire ship begins to POP. The force from another room impacts those here — it's very obvious they are now taking on water FAST.
*
Akihiro starts to turn onto Logan as he's yanked by the hair, but a bullet to the shoulder stops him there, and yanks his attention to the last man standing. It seems like he's instantly on him, claws extending and tearing the man to shreds. Then there's a POP, and the fury that has been pushing him gives way to the instinct to survive, and he makes his way to the portal, hopping through as his senses return to him.