Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They belong to their respective creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever. I write because it is fun and because there are those who enjoy my work.
The Front Doors of the X-Mansion, Same Time, Buffy's P.O.V
"Is it really necessary for me to wear this?" Buffy asked as she looked down at what she'd been told was a spare of Surge's battle outfit.
The top was a white and gold number with the X-men insignia on the chest while leaving her skin exposed from the waist to about half a foot below her chest. There were no sleeves on it and, when combined with the baggy gray cargo pants, it could almost pass for something she might be willing to wear out in public. However it looked a little too much something straight from a comic book that Xander would read and that made her uncomfortable.
"Don't knock it. It might look like something you'd buy from a department store but it's actually something Beast made in his lab." Nori said as they began walking towards the front gates of Institute. "It's strong enough to stop most small caliber bullets and bladed weapons. It's not much but it's better than nothing."
"If this is suppose to protect me then why am I flashing so much skin?" she asked, wondering what the point of the uniform was if it left such prime target areas exposed.
"Because if we designed it to be tactically sound then we'd look like storm trooper rejects. This way we get some protection and look hot at the same time," Surge replied as they got closer to the front gate and the monster-sized robot the others called a Sentinel. "Now get ready. With the entire Institute in lock down thanks to Xander's exit, I doubt the toy soldier in the Sentinel is just going to let us walk by. Are you sure you want to come with us?"
It was a question that Dust and Rockslide had asked her each once before and, while she was starting to get a bit annoyed with it, she could understand how things must look to them. While she wasn't an ordinary human anymore, she was just starting to get an understanding of what her powers were and what she could do with them. Even if, to the best of her knowledge, she still possessed her Slayer powers for the most part, that didn't necessarily mean she'd be of any help if things turned into a mutant battle of some kind. Still, she was determined to help Xander get out of whatever mess he'd gotten into with Laura and Cessily. If she couldn't help with the fighting, the least she could do was act as a distraction so that the others could get their shots in. She refused to simply sit in the mansion waiting for them to get back. She was action girl, not wait-nervously-at-home-hoping-for-the-best-girl.
"If you don't take me with you, I'll find a way to follow. My friend's in danger and I'm going to help," she replied, showing her resolve on her face. "It's that simple."
"Yeah… I guess it is." Surge replied as the Sentinel took notice of their approach and moved to obstruct their path.
"SORRY KIDS. THE INSTITUTE IS IN LOCKDOWN UNTIL THE SITUATION HAS BEEN DETERMINED." the man inside the Sentinel said. "PLEASE RETURN TO THE MANSION."
"Not going to happen, Tin Can." Surge said, letting a little of her power show on the surface of her skin in the form of electrical arcs, "We've got friends in trouble and we're going to help them. Move."
"I CAN'T DO THAT. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR ROOMS."
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear," Surge stated, letting even more electricity dance across her body. "You've got about one second to get out of my way."
"LOOK, KID… DON'T DO THIS. SOMETHING'S GOING DOWN, AND WE HAVE TO KEEP YOU ON THE CAMPUS GROUNDS." stated the O.N.E agent, sounding like he didn't like where this was going. "WE'RE HERE TO HELP YOU, NORI. LET'S JUST FIND OUT WHAT'S HAPPENING, AND THEN—"
"Rockslide… sic him." Surge said to the powerhouse member of their little rescue squad.
"Awww, yeah. I like you more and more every day, Ashida," declared the rocky mutant as he prepared to send some hurt the Sentinel's way.
However, before the violence could begin, a sharp whistle grabbed everyone's attention, causing all to look behind them to see one of the senior X-Men standing there, looking none too impressed by what she was seeing.
"HEY! X-BABIES!" the brunette named Shadow-something yelled before turning down the volume a bit. "Knock it off and come inside. We've got some info on Cess, Xander and Laura. You're going to want to hear it."
For a moment it looked like Surge might get defiant but apparently this Shadow-girl had learned her 'resolve face' from Willow somehow because the blue haired girl caved. Seeing the person who'd decided to lead this little rescue mission give in, she supposed the best she could do was play along and hope that the brunette was telling the truth about the info. Through the halls of the mansion and down into the sub-basement they went until they began to approach a circular door, outside of which stood the headmaster with the stick up his butt and some military Colonel. Nothing was said when the group arrived but the circular door was opened and the two older men led them into a perfectly spherical room with a walkway extending towards the center where a control console was located. Sitting in the only chair was the blonde Queen C, Emma Frost, and standing beside her was a guy she'd seen hanging around Surge sometimes.
"Do you have them?" Cyclops asked as he strode towards the woman who helped run the school with him.
"I'm piecing it together now. X-23 and Mercury left the school to go into Salem Center after… an incident," Emma replied, sounding a little strange when she used the word 'incident'. "Onyxx saw X-23 re-enter an hour later from the entrance to the Morlock Tunnels. She was covered in blood."
"Why didn't he report it?" asked the Colonel in the typical military fashion.
"Onyxx has… issues, Colonel Reyes." Emma replied, dancing around the details of the matter. "I'm activating Cerebra now. You all might want to hold onto something."
With quite a bit of disorientation a holographic image of the United States of America appeared with one area, the border between the states of Vermont and New York, highlighted in particular. With the others she waited she got the distinct impression looking at Frost that the woman was getting increasingly frustrated, implying that she was having significant trouble locating the missing students.
"Cessily isn't show up. Dammit!" Frost bit out as she sounded like she was about to redouble her efforts.
"What about Xander and X-23? Maybe if you find them, they'll—" Mr. Glasses suggested before being cut off by Emma Frost.
"Unless you have any other obvious advice, Mr. Alleyne, I'd like to concentrate now." Frost said in tones colder than her name, making it clear the young man should shut up.
It didn't take the blonde long to act on the young man's suggestion though.
"I have them. Xander, Chieko and X-23 are at the northern border of New York. They've been joined by Miss Marvel of the Fifty State Initiative," Emma said, sounding like she didn't like that last part. "They think they know where Cessily is. She's been captured… by the people who created X-23. The children and Miss Marvel are going after Cessily. I'm going to try and stop them."
There was a period of silence but there was no mistaking the gasp of fear that came from Emma Frost a few moments later.
"They're gone. They're both gone. I've lost them." Emma said, sounding genuinely concerned for the fate of the four wayward students.
"David, prep the Blackbird. We're going after them." Cyclops ordered immediately, sounding like a stick-up-his-ass leader.
"Let the O.N.E help, Cyclops." Colonel Reyes said sounding, like he genuinely wanted to help rather than like a stiff as a board soldier. "We know a thing or two about tracking mutants. Between the two of us we'll find them much quicker than separately."
There was a stand-off for awhile there and, though she could sort of understand where the friction was coming from, this was neither the time nor the place for a testosterone pissing match.
"Well, I've heard enough. You guys can finish measuring your dicks and the rest of us sane people can get on the plane so we can pull Xander's butt out of the fire and kick some bad guy as in the process." she said, throwing her hands up in disgust as she turned and began to leave the room. "I'll be in the hanger waiting for you idiots to grow some sanity."
While she couldn't equate these people as being as bad as Travers and the Council, they did seem to have some of the same problems, namely being more concerned with their reputations than the lives of their people.
Remote Location, Southern Area of the State of Vermont, Twenty Minutes Later, Laura's P.O.V
The quality of the Facility security troopers had not improved.
This is something that she had been able to determine after engaging and neutralizing the first four. She would have killed them to make sure that they could not rise to cause trouble later but both Ms. Marvel and Xander had made it clear that lethal force was only to be used when there was no non-lethal way available. Strategically this was unwise since they were in the middle of enemy territory with only the resources they'd brought with them and on-site procurement to use in this rescue attempt. Pulling their punches could turn out to be a fatal error since rendering a foe unconscious took more time than simply killing them. The more time they gave the employees of the Facility to bring their defenses to bear, the more likely it was that an item would be found capable of defeating them all. Weapons were the number one product of this organization so it would not be beyond the realm of possibility for them to possess one capable of defeating all four of them.
Xander was keeping close to her and guarding her flank to make sure that she was not assaulted from that direction. With his superior physical capabilities he was experiencing little in the way of difficulties in defeating the foes that stood before him. The only real trouble he appeared to have was measuring the amount of strength he put behind each blow so that it only defeated the soldier rather than seriously harm or kill. While she had seen him progress efficiently in his training sessions with Chieko, she could also tell that it would be a while yet before it could be said that he had mastered his daiyoukai abilities. Her friend had an easier time with the more energy-based elements of his powers, though, as evidenced by his successful teleports thus far, but considering his experience with the supernatural it is likely he is applying what he'd learned from Rupert Giles during training. While not what one would call studying, one can only conduct research so many times before some of the information contained in the ancient tomes is imprinted upon the mind. This unintentionally absorbed knowledge of magic, demonology and the supernatural most likely provided him with the clues he needed to absorb Chieko's lessons more quickly. Unfortunately those abilities that utilize energy or poison were almost completely lethal in the way they could be employed with only a few controlled ways that those on the receiving end could be hit without instant death. Xander did not possess that control just yet.
Chieko, on the other hand, was wading into the enemy soldiers with rare skill, although it could be said that her blows were a tad on the heavy side as, even with the sound of automatic gunfire, she could hear bones breaking. Not that she particularly cared but it would likely mean a lecture from either Ms. Marvel or Xander afterwards once they'd rescued Cessily and left the area. Nevertheless, she was impressed at the skill being shown and judged the hanyou as being a possible future sparring partner should she ever need one for the danger room.
Ms. Marvel… was doing adequately from the air, using a combination of dives and energy attacks from an elevated position to break up the larger concentrations of enemy agents. Still, she could not shake the irritation she'd felt when the woman had wrapped her arms around Xander's neck prior to their leaving New York City. The blonde woman had played it off as a joke once they'd arrived above the Facility complex but she suspected that there was more to it than that. She would not take action until something more overt was done but she would be watchful for any more… improper actions. Should the leader of the New York branch of the Fifty State Initiative further violate what could be considered acceptable behavior for a public superhero, she would swiftly deliver punishment upon the woman.
"If these are the best that the Facility can throw at us, we'll have Mercury rescued and be gone inside of fifteen minutes," Xander said as he finished using one of the armed guards as a melee weapon on the others.
SKREEEEEEEEEEE!
The sound was both deafening and painful as her enhanced senses were hit with such high frequency sound waves that she was brought to her knees while her hands reflexively went to her ears in an effort to block the sound. She could see out of the corner of her eyes, when they weren't scrunched shut in pain, that the others were experiencing similar difficulties with the sonic attack. However the ones that seemed especially in pain though were Chieko and Xander. Xander was able to stay on his feet but she thought she could see a small trickle of blood going down the right side of his neck. Chieko was already on the floor biting her lip in pain with one of her fangs actually drawing blood.
"I love you cocky hero types. You're so overconfident," came the familiar voice of her former Handler, Kimura. "Sure, enhanced senses can be helpful but they can also be turned against you. As for the Blonde Bimbo, flying is a little hard when you can't think straight."
She could sense that the bitch was getting closer but, with her enhanced sense of hearing under assault, it was all she could do to remain both sitting as well as conscious. She wanted to destroy the sonic device so that they could turn the tide of battle back in their favor but the noise was messing with her sense of balance.
"Feels like your brain is turning to mush, doesn't it? Well, trust me that's nothing compared to what's in your future." Kimura said before pulling her off the ground by her hair. "So X, it looks like you've got yourself a boyfriend. I'm impressed… he's not a bad catch but you've got a lot to learn about first dates. Keep watching, handsome! You won't want to miss this. Welcome hom—"
That was as far as Kimura got before the sonic device stopped its assault and the blade in the handler's grip was stopped an inch before it would have pierced her chest. As her healing factor worked to rapidly heal up the damage done by the attack, she could see that somehow Xander had managed to block out the effects of the device and now had an iron grip on Kimura's right wrist.
"You made two mistakes, ningen." Xander said in an icy tone she had only heard from him when something truly angered him. "The first was thinking that your sonic device had rendered me completely helpless. The second was believing that you could harm Laura in my presence and get away with it."
"So what're you going to do about it, lover boy?" Kimura asked, looking confident but so far not having much luck in freeing her right hand.
"This." He replied before doing something that had never been done to the handler before; Xander broke Kimura's right wrist with a resounding crack.
"AAAHHHH! You bastard! You're going to pay for—AAHHH!" Kimura yelled before her words were broken off with yet another snap of bone between her wrist and elbow.
"Silence." He said without any emotional change in the tone of his voice.
While she did gain some satisfaction in the pain that was being dealt to her abusive ex-handler, she knew it was an ineffective way of dealing with her. Kimura possessed significant invulnerability thanks to her ability to control her density and reconstruct her body flawlessly if she was ever injured. The only way to kill her was to do lethal damage to a vital organ in one blow. If Kimura died before she could consciously use her powers to restore herself, then and only then would the fight truly be over. She was about to inform Xander of this when he released his hold on her ex-handler's wrist one second and then clamped down on the woman's throat the next. Slamming her into a wall, it was clear that he had noticed that his approach was not working and had decided on another.
"I am aware that you have some special abilities that you were given to make it impossible for Laura to harm you," Xander said while putting more pressure on the throat. "Let's see if I can do better."
With those words the hand that Xander had around Kimura's throat began to glow neon green and a familiar smell reached her nose. It was the smell from his poisonous acid and, while she knew it was not like normal acid, she didn't know if it'd be enough to overcome the hateful woman's powers. Green smoke rose from beneath his hand as the woman's clothes were burned away by the acid but it was only a minute later that signs began to show that the substance might actually be succeeding in harming Kimura. There were growing signs of discomfort on the evil woman's face but there was no pain to indicate that serious damage was being done to her body. While it might be possible for him to burn through her neck given time, this was something they did not have if they wanted to rescue Cessily.
"Is that the best you can do, lover boy?" Kimura asked with the discomfort showing in her voice. "If all you can do is give me a nasty rash then I think you need more training."
"You are right. This method will take too long." Xander said before throwing Kimura HARD across the room into a stone wall. "It's time for something a little more drastic. Let us see if this works."
With those words he reached down with both hands and withdrew both the Tessaiga and Bakusaiga from their sheathes before going into a ready stance.
"Sesshomaru! NO! I might not know what sort of control you have over those weapons but I know that they're overkill." Miss Marvel exclaimed, finally recovered fully from the sonic attack. "Heroes don't do kill. You know that."
"There is one flaw in your words, Ms. Marvel. I have never once claimed to be a hero." Xander said without taking his eyes off of a slowly recovering Kimura. "A hero is someone who is a role model of goodness, who always does the right thing but doesn't stray far from the public's image of what a hero should be. That is not me at all. I am merely a man who obeys his heart and does his best to do the right thing, no matter what. There is a difference between the right thing as seen by the public and what is truly the right thing. Returning this… woman's evil upon her is what I judge to be the right thing."
"Then you need to be re-educated in what is right and wrong because I won't let—" Ms Marvel said as she moved to place herself in between Xander and Kimura.
"Chieko." Xander said without diverting his attention one bit.
In a move of surprising skill and agility, the hanyou young woman tackled the superheroine to the ground before placing the blonde in a hold that would render her strength useless. It wouldn't last for long, though. If it was merely super strength alone then it might have been possible but Carol Danvers also possessed the power of unaided flight and so could use that to free herself from the hold. Thankfully Xander didn't waste the opportunity he'd been given.
"KAZE NO KIZU! BAKUSAIGA!" Xander cried as he swung both swords towards Kimura, unleashing their power.
However, unlike how he described using these weapons against Nimrod, the two torrents of energy didn't merge but rather stayed separate on their own individual paths. Nevertheless they both struck their target head on and whether or not they did significant damage to Kimura or not didn't matter since the attacks were powerful enough to propel the bitch far away. Hopefully this would delay her former handler's return until long after they'd managed to get away with Cessily.
"Now that that is dealt with, lets go find Cessily and get out of this cesspool." Xander said smoothly, returning to his usual emotional self as he sheathed his blades with the sound of grinding steel.
Nodding, she fell into step behind him with Chieko and Ms. Marvel picking up the rear. She didn't know whether the blonde woman would report this to her superiors but she promised that if the Fifty State Initiative tried to arrest Xander, they'd have to get through her first.
She couldn't promise that there'd be no fatalities.
A Laboratory Inside the Facility Complex, Ten Minutes Later, Xander's P.O.V
"Cessily!" Xander cried as he bust down the doors that led to the room where he believed Mercury to be in.
He cast his eyes about the room, looking for some sign of where the redheaded cousin of the T-1000 could be and, on his first pass of the room, he found what he was looking for. Swirling around with a life of its own inside of a glass tube was a mass of liquid metal but not once did any part of it take on a coherent shape. He didn't need Dr. McCoy to tell him that that was a bad sign. It was a given amongst people with the ability to manipulate their forms like Mercury could that they conditioned themselves to hold the same form they had prior to their powers manifesting. If they didn't do this then their powers would be chaotic or they'd lose their shape to become a pile of something on the floor. For Cessily to be unable to maintain her usual appearance could only mean that something had been done to her to break the conditioning completely. Perhaps not only break it but also make it so that the young woman couldn't bring her willpower to bear to restore herself. It caused the anger that had been simmering within him to start bubbling once more as his mind was producing various possible torture scenarios.
Crossing over to the tube, he slashed at the tube with one of his finger claws four times to create an opening so as to remove his friend from her place of pain.
"Cessily… can you hear me? I'm here, we're here, so don't worry," he said as he tried to induce some sign of consciousness. "Please pull yourself together. I know it's hard to do but we need to get out of here."
"Xander… something is wrong. Cessily's scent… it's everywhere." Laura said but he was only partially aware of this as he continued to try and provoke some sign that Cessily was still alive and not…and not…dead.
"She's right. Mercury's scent is coming from someplace other than the tube but I can't figure out where it's coming from." Chieko said placing her hands on the hilts of her kodachi, "We need to get out of here now."
"Fine. We'll do this the more direct way," he said as he rose to his feet and unsheathed the Tenseiga. "Come back to us, Cessily."
Raising the blade up for a slash in the hopes that it would be enough to restore Mercury completely, it was only at the last second that he sensed something coming at him from behind. Not wanting his friend to receive an attack meant for him, he chose to do something that was ambitious even for him. With one move he completed the slashing of the sword that had the ability to restore Cessily to full health and then, flowing from that move, he executed a spinning reverse kick that slammed into whatever had been intending to attack him while evading its assault at the same time. He put all the strength he could muster on such short notice into the kick and, luckily for both him and Mercury, it was enough to turn aside the attacker while not being harmed in the least. When the kick was complete, though, and both feet were back on the ground that he was treated to a sight that made him more certain than before that the Facility and all personnel should be wiped out. It looked like a dog that had been pumped up on steroids, growth hormones and whatever ooze turned those turtles into ninjas. However the skin that was so similar to Cessily was what told him why they'd needed Mercury so bad they'd kidnap her. The creature was covered in a liquid mercury-like substance. It was also apparently quite resilient because, even though he hit it with the same amount of strength that had once put Chieko two football fields away during training, it was looking done the worse for wear.
At the moment though he didn't care what it was or what it could do. All that mattered was that Cessily was healed from her ordeal. Physically, at least that is.
"You feeling better, Cess?" he asked while making sure to maintain a position between her and the creature.
"Y-yes…just feeling so…tired." Mercury replied, looking more like her usual everyday self, albeit making all the motions of someone that had pulled an all-night cram session. "Be careful. There's more than one of those things."
While he was gratified to find out that Cessily was more or less healed, he didn't like the sound of there being more than one of those mega bow-wows. While he'd like to think more than one meant that there'd only be one or two more, he figured that with the way his luck went it'd be more like ten to twenty more. He didn't have much more time than that to think on matters since the creature chose to go on the offensive. Scooping up Cessily immediately, he used his superior speed to put some distance between them and the beast. Thankfully the others hadn't been idle during all this time and Miss Marvel managed to keep the freak dog from continuing their way.
"We're getting out of her people!" Ms. Marvel yelled as she fired off an energy blast to send her sparring partner hard into a wall, "X-23! You take the lead! Sesshomaru, you're next! Then Chieko while I'll take up a rear position to guard against pursuit!"
While he didn't like the idea of the blonde lady taking command, he had to admit that she probably had more experience with this sort of thing. Turning to Laura, who was delivering a final cut to her sparring partner, he nodded to indicate that he agreed with the plan. She got a weird look on her face for a moment but it was gone almost as soon as he finished taking in all its characteristics so he brushed it off as nothing. Falling into a brisk run behind Laura, they made their way through the hallways, dispatching any security soldiers they came across in their effort to return to the place they'd broken in at. Once there he could use his teleportation ability to get them back to the Institute so Hank could give Mercury a more thorough once over to make sure there wasn't anything the Tenseiga missed. He knew he had hit her with a fairly decent dose of energy but he couldn't be certain that it had been a complete restoration since, aside from 'magic', he didn't know just how the sword healed people.
They were just about to reach the room where they'd fought most of the security soldiers when his nose picked up a familiar scent on the wind. It was Mercury's but it wasn't coming from the redhead in his arms but rather someplace above and behind them. It could only be those creatures giving pursuit.
"We've got incoming!" he yelled ahead to Laura while keeping his eyes on the area around him, "Two or three of those dumb monster mutts area coming up from behind!"
"Then we have to pick up the pace!" Chieko said with her two kodachi unsheathed and ready for use, "While killing those things might be fun, I'm presuming that Mercury's health comes first."
"Yes, it does. Time to see how fast those mutts can really run," he said as he picked up the pace and with speed that few could match, placing Mercury on his back with her arms wrapped around his neck.
When he caught up to Laura, he immediately scooped her up in his arms then poured on the speed to get them to the extraction point sooner rather than later. He knew that Ms. Marvel wouldn't have any trouble keeping pace and, while Chieko might be hanyou, she should possess sufficient speed to not be left behind. Sniffing every few seconds, he could sense that they were putting some distance between the monster dogs and them but there was still the possibility of the creatures engaging them one more time before the rescue group departed.
When he arrived at the spot where he'd made the dramatic entrance of crashing through the ceiling, he set both ladies down and turned to wait for the blonde heroine and his past life's granddaughter.
"Defensive positions, Laura. Miss Marvel and Chieko should arrive any minute and then we're out of here," he said as he waited in a battle stance, ready to defend Cessily's life. "Nothing gets by us until then understand?"
"Acknowledged." Was all the clone of Wolverine said as the sounds of metal claws being popped reached his ears.
It was two minutes later that both Ms. Marvel and Chieko appeared running (or in the blonde's case, flying) down the hallway rapidly towards them. It really looked as though they were going to make it out of there without having to deal with those artificial weapons but then Murphy decided to butt in and prove him wrong. Displaying unusual intelligence the two side entrances to the room exploded inwards to reveal one silver mutt each. Considering that he didn't think them to be much smarter than your average wild animal, it shouldn't have been possible for them to pull off such a pincer movement. They should have stayed in a single hunting pack and chased them down the same route through the hallways to get to this room.
The entire place then shook, shocking him. The place was _solid_ and it was shaking like a leaf.
Before either he or Laura could take action against the two monster dogs, the ceiling above was ripped away to reveal a sight that he had to admit brought a big smile to his face. Descending from a hovering Blackbird was Cyclops, Surge, Miss Frost, Shadowcat, Elixir, Colossus, Dust, Buffy and Rockslide. One of the O.N.E Sentinels had apparently been behind the sudden removal of the roof and while he wasn't exactly happy to see the tin can he'd let it slide this once. Hearing footfalls coming from the hallway that Chieko and blondie had just come down, he found he had further reason to be glad for the arrival of reinforcements. More soldier security guards had shown up and despite the presence of two of their organization's creations they were opening fire like they could handle things themselves.
"X-Men! Take them down!" Cyclops called out to his teammates as he unleashed a powerful optic blast on one of the monster dogs.
"Santo! Sooraya! Buffy! Get to Cessily and the others!" Surge ordered as she used her electrical powers to do further damage to the beast that the headmaster of the Institute had targeted.
With that the battle began in earnest with things definitely favoring the good guys. The soldiers proved to be little challenge to the X-Men and their younger counterparts while the beasts only managed to last longer because of their animal instincts. That or they were smarter than your average mutt and could anticipate attacks well enough to evade them. It was as he was taking stock of the battle that a thought occurred to him that immediately had him scanning the surrounding area for the variable he'd just noticed was missing. There had been three monster mutts but as far as he could tell only two were on the battlefield at the moment with one being targeted by the O.N.E Sentinel. Not trusting his eyes to pick out the missing monster, he closed them and instead used his ears and his nose to try and sense anything lurking about. It wasn't easy for him since he had not had a whole lot of practice even with all the time that had passed since being transformed physically into his past self. In the end it proved to be a futile effort because wherever the third monster mutt was, it wasn't anywhere within range of his senses. Through training with Chieko they had determined that his effective range with his senses was about a fifth of a mile with the absolute limit being closer to a mile, but without any real clarity once outside of the fifth of a mile range. Had the beast somehow realized that its life was in danger if it continued its pursuit? Or had its masters somehow commanded it to abandon its current prey for some reason?
I don't know where that thing is but I doubt I've seen the last of it. He thought as the battle finally came to an end and the various groups of good guys began to gather together.
Two Days Later, Xavier Institute, Sunset, Mercury's P.O.V
It'd been two days since she'd returned to the Institute. Two days since Dr. McCoy had given her a clean bill of health but still advised she stay in the infirmary for at least twenty-four hours for observation.
She'd retreated to her room as soon as she was free to do so and had pretty much been staying there since. She didn't feel like being around people at the moment, didn't want to see their pitying looks, and so only left her room when she had to. She'd considered just going about the Institute like everything was normal but, whenever she tried to leave her room, memories of what she'd gone through while in the Facility's complex leapt to the forefront of her mind. This always sent her back to her bed where she waited for the foul memories to fade back into the background, where she could successfully repress them for the most part. It had taken her about six hours to figure out that the reason why she hadn't left her room was because there was no one out there who could sympathize with what she'd been through. Sure, Wolverine had apparently had an experience with a human organization that experimented on mutants but he and she weren't really all that close. In fact she figured it'd be safe to say that the physical education teacher wasn't really close to anyone in the first place.
That was why she'd asked Sooraya to send Laura to her room.
The clone/sister of Wolverine had been through a similar torture with the Facility and for much longer than she. Before she'd been kidnapped, she'd thought she'd been able to imagine what it must have been like for her friend but now that she'd gotten a taste of it herself, she knew she'd been a fool. Nothing could prepare you for the truth of the experience. Now she could totally understand how some war veterans could get into such a foul mood sometimes whenever someone got too sympathetic with them. She had to admit that if someone other than Laura tried to approach her with phrases like 'I understand how you feel' or 'I can imagine how horrible it must have been' she would be pretty angry with them as well.
Turning her head towards the door that was being tapped on, she saw Laura peek her head in and she felt a little better now that there was someone she could talk to about her experience.
"Sooraya said you wanted to talk to me." Laura said as she entered the room.
"I just wanted to thank you. For saving me." She said waving the dark haired young woman closer, "Again."
She took a deep breath as she tried to share her horrible experience with the one person who could perhaps understand what she had been put through.
"Those people…The Facility. What they did to me…" she said at a volume barely above a whisper since it was so hard to say the words, "Did you really spend your whole life there?"
"Yes." Laura replied promptly but with a touch of sympathy in her voice that was a bit of a surprise.
With that one word her mind tried to imagine what it must have been like and stretched the time she'd been experimented on by The Facility until it reached fifteen years. Her mind almost shut down at the images brought forth and almost on instinct she threw her arms around Laura both for her own comfort as well as to show her friend how sorry she was.
"Oh God, Laura…they hurt me so bad!" she exclaimed with tears running down her face, "It hurts so much! It hurts…"
"I know." Laura said before somewhat awkwardly returning the hug.
Nothing more was really said after that.
They just held onto each other for comfort, even though she wasn't sure whether Laura benefited from it as much as she was as time passed. However her friend didn't leave the entire time, even though she later found out that it had been a full five hours that they'd been together. For that she was grateful. Some, even though they were friends, might have tried to extricate themselves from the embrace after the first hour or two. Yet Laura Kinney never moved or tried to leave even once.
Later when she tried to get some sleep she found herself still feeling haunted by what she'd been through. However there was one other thought that brought her some measure of comfort when the shadows of pain began to gain some ground against her. It was the memory of how safe she felt when Xander had held her in his arms and carried her away from the horrible room that Harkins had caused her such pain in. She'd been a little self-conscious, essentially being nude in his arms, but at the same time there'd been this feeling of… safety that had caused her to feel such comforting warmth throughout her body. Even now she could still embrace the memory enough that she could almost fool herself into believing she was still there if only to push back the darkness. Eventually, as the soothing feeling of that memory dispelled the ghosts keeping her from falling asleep, a peaceful darkness enveloped her letting her descend into unconsciousness at long last.
It would be the first peaceful sleep she'd had in two days.