Xander looked up at the shocked gasp from the entrance to the tent and sighed at the sight of the young mutant looking at him in terror, not that he actually blamed the kid, he was currently a bloody mess with his arms elbow deep inside one of the professors, looking at the kid for a second Xander finally shrugged and went back to work on getting all the pieces of shrapnel out of the other feral mutant.
He didn't doubt that the older man's healing ability would flush the metal out, the problem he had quickly decided was the bodies chosen manner in 'Flushing' foreign objects, and while the old adage of chewing nails and pissing barbed wire was humorous in context Xander didn't want to be around the mutant when he actually started passing the metal shards through his urine tract.
He doubted it would put the short man in anything resembling a good mood.
"You're going to miss some," a quiet voice said as Xander finally looked up at his audience the young girl was staring into the gaping wound of Logan's guts with an intense gaze, after a moment's pause Xander took motioned for her closer. "Can you help him? Can you get all of the metal out?" he asked carefully as she stepped closer.
After gazing into the slowly healing wound she shook her head "Not all of it, he wouldn't like it if I took all of it out, but I can get the new stuff out…" She trailed off as she took a step back "But momma told me to never make the metal dance, she said it was wrong to make it dance" the girl whispered softly as she hugged herself tightly at a memory.
Stepping forward Xander knelt in front of her and caught her gaze "What's your name?" he asked and barely managed to catch the whisper before smiling "Well Casey, Mister Logan is going to hurt a lot if you can't help, I won't make you do anything you don't want, but I'm trying to help mister Logan here and I think you could help him more than me, so do you wanna help?" he asked and sighed at the young girl nod. "Thank you Casey, I'm sure Logan will be very thankful for your help as well." He said seriously before turning back to help the young girl remove the metal shards from the professor.
--
Buffy stared at the young man she had been crushing on the last week as he lay on the ground, the strange uniform and pistol a stark contrast from the easygoing sales assistant she had dated the day before, her reverie was broken as Riley shouted and raised the deadly looking pistol towards her, spinning away from the attack Buffy was surprised by the demon that took two of the five rounds before disappearing onto the rooftop, staring at the empty roof Buffy was startled when Riley grabbed her hand and started running.
"Riley Wha?" She asked before trailing off, she really didn't know what she was going to ask.
"No time Buffy, that's not the first time I've hit that thing and I doubt it's down for the count." He said breathlessly as he pulled her towards the safe house, he really shouldn't get her involved, it was a massive breach in protocol to bring a civilian to a SHIELD base but the only other option was to leave her alone in the Sunnydale night with the Porcupine Man.
And that would seriously cut down on his odds of getting a second date.
--
John Plath entered his home with a sigh, the wards were still active, nothing had entered or exited his home since he left earlier, it had cost a small fortune but not even the senior partners could get to him here, it would give him time to think up a way out of this mess.
For a moment he considered spending the resources to send Glees' soul to a particularly viscous hell dimension before shrugging it off, the Senior partners would probably be more than capable of far more poetic punishment then that, and the last thing he wanted was to draw any more attention to himself then he already had.
Ignoring the need for a light Glees slumped into a chair and groaned as he landed on something hard, looking down he swallowed at the slightly concave shape that had been artistically colored to match his recliner.
"Soooo, your mister Plate… Plast… umm… So your John, I bet with a last name like that you got picked on a lot in school," the cold mocking voice said as a red and black form stepped out from behind the door with a detonator in his hand and a gun in his other. "In case you're wondering that is a M18A1 antipersonnel mine, now they say the recommended distance about fifty meters but you know I never got into the whole metric system, Damn French, so I decided to just see if I could get you as close as I could before detonating it." The masked form said with a mocking voice "Do you think your close enough?"
"H-How did you know I'd sit here," Plath said hesitantly as he tried to think his way out of the situation.
"Ooh I didn't, so I just put one under each seat in the house… and the bed… and the toilet… and inside a couple of the cabinets… ooh and I think there's one in the mailbox, not entirely sure about that one… Funny thing though I seem to have miss-calculated the number of detonators needed and only brought… umm… one…" the figure said as he held up the clacker to prove his point.
"Wait, I'll pay whatever your being paid I'll double it." Plath said desperately.
"Ooh I'm getting paid, The senior partners are paying me, Walfram and Hart is paying me, a couple of your subordinates are paying me, that feisty secretary of yours is paying me and LL&L is paying me, so I'm getting paid, and the only thing they have in common is the fact that you can't show up for work tomorrow or you know ever, and of course since I emptied your home safe and bank account I doubt you can outbid all of them sooo… consider this your severance package."
"B-but you'll get hit to, with that many explosives you won't get out of her either." Plath said as the form shrugged and held out the detonator.
"Yeah, that's gonna sting, but hey it's not like it's the first time, after all I'm…"
The house exploded.
--
Bobby Drake sat with his girlfriend as they stared at the tent the fallen professor had been taken too by the newest student of the X-Mansion for his part Bobby could hardly imagine having to carve one of his professors open while he was still alive, it didn't really matter that Professor Logan would survive being cut on, it was the principle of the matter.
"He used to be a lot like you," Rogue's soft words shocked the young man out of his mental terrors as he stared at the gorgeous mutant he had fallen for, after a moment silence Rogue shivered despite the blanket and clutched herself defensively "He would always try to make people laugh, even in the most dangerous times, or when they didn't even know they needed to laugh, but he saw it and… now he can't laugh anymore." The southern mutant said sadly as she fought to find the right words to describe Xander's plight. "When he discovered he was a mutant he told his best friend about it, swore her to secrecy and everything. That night he was attacked, when he woke up Sheila… his best friend's mom was cutting him open to put metal on his bones, they kept him down there for month's cutting him open and adding things to him, never letting him die." The young mutant said as she fought back tears "That little whore betrayed him, and if I ever lay eyes on her I'll kill her." Rogue swore before she burst into tears.
For his part Bobby Drake held his girlfriend as she cried and tried to imagine what it would take to turn him into a monster like Harris.
--