CHAPTER 14: The Cat Who Roars
The warehouse had, in its long life, gone by many names. Its history dated back to the early twentieth century and if its old, decaying walls could talk many a historian would be interested in what it had to say. It had held furs, cotton, machinery and other goods in its long career, but even that building must have be suffering considering the belly full of hate it had within it at that moment.
The men who sat around the battered old table in the building's once pristine office were typical of their kind throughout history: opinionated, biased, and convinced of the righteousness of their cause. They wore no uniforms and had no common appearance; only their hate united them.
This specific group called themselves by the harmless sounding name of the 'Friends of Humanity', and their particular brand of hatred was reserved for the now publicly recognized minority known as Mutants. Publicly, the FOH claimed to have over a thousand recognized members in their state alone. Though in truth, membership varied so wildly that they would be lucky if a tenth of that number would come if called.
Historically, for any group to survive, it must be either self-funding or sponsored. The FOH could not go door to door asking for contributions, nor could the membership support the group from their own wealth. So they were forced to seek out wealthy sponsors to support their cause. In recent times, this had gotten harder and harder to do.
On this particular day, the twelve self-appointed leaders of their city's chapter were gathered together to listen and accept orders from their sponsor, Mr. Haimrich. Of late, Mr. Haimrich had been frugal in funding the group ever since President Kelly had thrown his backing behind the Mutant Rights bills. But thankfully, like all things, the clamour over mutant rights had passed and once again, Mr. Haimrich felt that it was time to show their local muties that their 'friends' had not forgotten them. His representative went by the name of Bill, and from his polished patent leather shoes to his immaculately styled hair cut, he oozed wealth and prestige. Bill's presentation that night was both comprehensive and exacting. It specified that their targets had to come from a well-known mutant sanctuary: Xavier's School for Gifted Children, and even included slides of several of the younger generation at the mansion.
None of the twelve could guess exactly why Xavier's pets were being singled out this time. Many of them personally thought that this particular nest of muties was far too public a target given Kelly's recent endorsements, but Bill was adamant that they were his employer's target of choice. Thus, the X-Mansion was staked out by the FOH and when Jubilee made her way down to the local corner store for her thrice-weekly sugar binge, she was followed, grabbed and drugged as she left the store.
The kidnappers were well pleased by the operation. It went off smoothly with not even a cry to alert anyone. If it wasn't for the store's manager seeing her being carried and driven off in a strange, dark car it might have been doubtful anyone would have known what had happened to her. But as things happened, the mansion learned of the kidnapping within minutes of its happening. Logan was tracking less than five minutes after that.
When he finally tracked down the vehicle and the warehouse where Jubilee was being held, Wolverine - showing a rare display of restraint - relayed the location to the other X-Men before storming the place himself.
Within minutes, the Blackbird was dropping down into a construction site a couple of blocks away. Cyclops, Iceman and Beast exited the aircraft and headed toward the warehouse, an unsuspected shadow following closely at their heels.
The first thing they saw when they arrived at the building was the smashed-in front door. Cyclops cursed at Wolverine under his breath before giving instructions to Iceman and Beast. Tyger, by this time, had left them and snuck around to the other side of the building looking for an alternate entrance. She knew she couldn't stay with the others; Wolverine would catch hold of her scent the moment the others caught up with him.
She soon found an open window. Like Hank, Tyger had put her personal desires on hold and was now concerned only about Jubilee. Jubes was her friend, one of the first friends she'd ever had. If the girl was in trouble, she had to help her. That's what friends did. She wasn't a total fool. She just planned to sneak in, grab Jubes while the others distracted the kidnappers and sneak out. Simple.
Not that she would say that she wasn't nervous. The heavy scent of many men made her even more edgey as she entered the darkened room. She also picked up Jubilee's scent, faint but definite. She had been in this room some time ago.
Perhaps it was her nervousness, or maybe it was her single-minded desire to locate Jubes which accounted for her carelessness. Whatever the cause, Tyger never listened at the second door to see if there was anyone inside. She very quickly found herself surrounded by Friends of Humanity thugs.
They were just as surprised to see her as she was to see them, but they recovered more quickly. So even as she tried to retreat, she was grabbed, one man to each arm, and shoved toward the single card table in the middle of the room. Beer cans and playing cards were sent flying as they slammed her body against the table, knocking the wind out of her.
The cigarette smoke seared her nostrils and made her eyes sting. And she was scared; too scared to do much more than weakly struggle as they wrenched her wrists and pinned her down.
"Well, lookie what the cat dragged in, boys! Herself!"
"You tryin' ta make a joke, Mike?"
Mike merely growled in reply.
A hand siezed her by the hair and yanked her head up to face her tormentor. She looked fearfully into his face, unshaven with eyes hidden by dark glasses but she could still feel the hatred in his gaze. She nearly gagging from the smell of alcohol as he spoke.
"We don't like mutie scum pokin' their noses 'round our headquarters, now do we, boys?"
The others laughed loudly, forcibly.
"I think this here little pussy needs to be taught a lesson, eh boys?"
More hearty agreements.
Sharp needles of pain shot up from her chin as her face was shoved back into the table. By now her fear was starting to ebb; anger brought on by indignation had planted itself firmly and was starting to grow.
Her ears twitched as she followed the direction his footsteps took. He was behind her now, his self-confidence radiating off him in waves. Her eyes widened as she caught the scent of his arousal. She heard him unzip his pants. Her head shot up and she bucked wildly, nearly wrenching free of their hold on her.
A hard object slammed into her shoulders, knocking her back down onto the table.
"No! Don't!" she said, punctuating her words with a half yelp, half growl of anger.
"Shut the hell up, mutie bitch!" he shouted, and hit her again.
She winced from the pain, but only briefly. Her anger had spiked dangerously; her mind was dancing on the very edge of her self-control.
Opening her eyes, she stared directly into the eyes of another man standing in front of her.
"Don't do thisss...." she warned, barely able to speak now as her throat was tight with rage.
The man in front of her must have sensed this, for his look of smug confidence was quickly being replaced by one of panic.
Rough hands grabbed at the hem of her shorts, attempting to pull them down.
She felt the red veil as it started to descend, to wrap itself around her mind. "I warned yoouuu..." she said, a deep growl rumbling in her throat.
The man directly in front of her froze, watching her eyes cloud over with rage. Then, summoning all his remaining willpower, he turned and fled as fast as his legs could go. He slammed the door behind him, letting his body slide to the floor as his strength left him.
He had seen that look once before: berserker rage, battle lust. And he had witnessed the aftermath. He covered his ears, trying to block out the blood-curdling roar which was quickly followed by the screams of his dying comrades. Gathering whatever wits he had left, he started to crawl, slithering away from the slaughter and into the shadows.
* * *
They heard the roar, and the screams. Cyclops turned to Beast. "Where did that come from?"
"I believe its source is located in the vicinity of that corridor," Beast replied, pointing down the hallway.
"And you couldn't have just pointed in the first place?"
"Quiet, Iceman. Let's check it out."
"Lead the way, oh fearless one."
The screaming had died down considerably by the time they arrived. Cyclops raised a hand to his visor, about to blast the door open when the wood suddenly shattered as a body flew through it. It landed on the floor with a sickening, wet thud and slid to rest at their feet.
"Dammit, Wolverine!" yelled Cyclops. "What the hell do you think you're....?"
He stopped short when he saw Tyger, not Wolverine, through the doorway. She roared again and slashed through a man's neck with one clawed hand.
"What the hell d'you want, Cyke?" Wolverine demanded, coming up behind them. He was towing a bruised and battered, albeit safe Jubilee with him.
Jubilee paled as she stared at the body, now resting in the corridor in a pool of blood with a portion of the intestines protruding from the gash in the abdomen. She felt her stomach lurch and she dropped to her knees, clutching her sides in grim determination not to throw up.
The first thought in Hank's mind, upon observing the carnage before him, was 'fascinating'. The second was, 'I've got to end this!' And he bounded into the room.
The bodies of five men lay strewn about the room, disfigured by various slash marks and in some cases, disembowelled. Massive amounts of blood had been splattered over every surface within the room, and in the centre of it all stood Tyger.
She turned to face him, muscles bunched, claws extended, fur nearly coated entirely by dripping blood. Her face was a contorted mix of hatred and fury. Her nostrils flared as she raked huge amounts of air into her aching lungs. The tip of her tail twitched back in forth menacingly, and he could no longer see her ears as they were pressed back hard against her head.
She stared right through him, eyes nearly red with fury, and lunged. Hank grabbed her wrists in mid-air and directed the force of her attack away from him. Then he grappled her, pinning her arms to her sides. She roared and struggled violently in his hold.
His scent filtered through the nearly overpowering stench of blood and death, and her struggling slowly ceased. She felt the veil lifting and her common-sense returning. Then she began to feel the fatigue in her muscles; her body was exhausted. Aches and pains brought her completely back to reality. "Hank..." she managed to say before unconsciousness overtook her and she collapsed in his arms.
Cyclops, who had been in a state of shock, finally recovered enough to walk into the room. He saw Hank holding Tyger's limp form.
"Beast," he said, not taking his eyes off her.
Hank made no reply.
"Beast!" he snapped.
Hank jerked his head up and looked at him. "What?!"
"She's YOUR responsibility," Cyclops stated, his voice strained. "Get her under control. Contain her if you must, but I want her back in the Blackbird NOW! We'll deal with this later."
Cyclops turned to Wolverine, who had a sick smirk on his face which told Scott loud and clear that Logan was highly amused about their leader's lack of dominion over the situation. Cyclops gritted his teeth to hold back the words that he wanted to say. Instead, he smiled evilly back at the man and stated, "Since you're enjoying yourself so much, Wolverine, YOU can clean up this mess."
Wolverine's smile disappeared. Logan resented being ordered around, but said nothing. He was having too much fun watching the arteries throb in Cyclops' neck.
Cyclops headed back out of the room, followed by Beast. Iceman had taken charge of Jubilee and was leading her away from the carnage. Wolverine went to work, grumbling, "Ain't half as much fun cleanin' the mess as it is makin' it."
* * *
The warehouse had, in its long life, gone by many names. Its history dated back to the early twentieth century and if its old, decaying walls could talk many a historian would be interested in what it had to say. It had held furs, cotton, machinery and other goods in its long career, but even that building must have be suffering considering the belly full of hate it had within it at that moment.
The men who sat around the battered old table in the building's once pristine office were typical of their kind throughout history: opinionated, biased, and convinced of the righteousness of their cause. They wore no uniforms and had no common appearance; only their hate united them.
This specific group called themselves by the harmless sounding name of the 'Friends of Humanity', and their particular brand of hatred was reserved for the now publicly recognized minority known as Mutants. Publicly, the FOH claimed to have over a thousand recognized members in their state alone. Though in truth, membership varied so wildly that they would be lucky if a tenth of that number would come if called.
Historically, for any group to survive, it must be either self-funding or sponsored. The FOH could not go door to door asking for contributions, nor could the membership support the group from their own wealth. So they were forced to seek out wealthy sponsors to support their cause. In recent times, this had gotten harder and harder to do.
On this particular day, the twelve self-appointed leaders of their city's chapter were gathered together to listen and accept orders from their sponsor, Mr. Haimrich. Of late, Mr. Haimrich had been frugal in funding the group ever since President Kelly had thrown his backing behind the Mutant Rights bills. But thankfully, like all things, the clamour over mutant rights had passed and once again, Mr. Haimrich felt that it was time to show their local muties that their 'friends' had not forgotten them. His representative went by the name of Bill, and from his polished patent leather shoes to his immaculately styled hair cut, he oozed wealth and prestige. Bill's presentation that night was both comprehensive and exacting. It specified that their targets had to come from a well-known mutant sanctuary: Xavier's School for Gifted Children, and even included slides of several of the younger generation at the mansion.
None of the twelve could guess exactly why Xavier's pets were being singled out this time. Many of them personally thought that this particular nest of muties was far too public a target given Kelly's recent endorsements, but Bill was adamant that they were his employer's target of choice. Thus, the X-Mansion was staked out by the FOH and when Jubilee made her way down to the local corner store for her thrice-weekly sugar binge, she was followed, grabbed and drugged as she left the store.
The kidnappers were well pleased by the operation. It went off smoothly with not even a cry to alert anyone. If it wasn't for the store's manager seeing her being carried and driven off in a strange, dark car it might have been doubtful anyone would have known what had happened to her. But as things happened, the mansion learned of the kidnapping within minutes of its happening. Logan was tracking less than five minutes after that.
When he finally tracked down the vehicle and the warehouse where Jubilee was being held, Wolverine - showing a rare display of restraint - relayed the location to the other X-Men before storming the place himself.
Within minutes, the Blackbird was dropping down into a construction site a couple of blocks away. Cyclops, Iceman and Beast exited the aircraft and headed toward the warehouse, an unsuspected shadow following closely at their heels.
The first thing they saw when they arrived at the building was the smashed-in front door. Cyclops cursed at Wolverine under his breath before giving instructions to Iceman and Beast. Tyger, by this time, had left them and snuck around to the other side of the building looking for an alternate entrance. She knew she couldn't stay with the others; Wolverine would catch hold of her scent the moment the others caught up with him.
She soon found an open window. Like Hank, Tyger had put her personal desires on hold and was now concerned only about Jubilee. Jubes was her friend, one of the first friends she'd ever had. If the girl was in trouble, she had to help her. That's what friends did. She wasn't a total fool. She just planned to sneak in, grab Jubes while the others distracted the kidnappers and sneak out. Simple.
Not that she would say that she wasn't nervous. The heavy scent of many men made her even more edgey as she entered the darkened room. She also picked up Jubilee's scent, faint but definite. She had been in this room some time ago.
Perhaps it was her nervousness, or maybe it was her single-minded desire to locate Jubes which accounted for her carelessness. Whatever the cause, Tyger never listened at the second door to see if there was anyone inside. She very quickly found herself surrounded by Friends of Humanity thugs.
They were just as surprised to see her as she was to see them, but they recovered more quickly. So even as she tried to retreat, she was grabbed, one man to each arm, and shoved toward the single card table in the middle of the room. Beer cans and playing cards were sent flying as they slammed her body against the table, knocking the wind out of her.
The cigarette smoke seared her nostrils and made her eyes sting. And she was scared; too scared to do much more than weakly struggle as they wrenched her wrists and pinned her down.
"Well, lookie what the cat dragged in, boys! Herself!"
"You tryin' ta make a joke, Mike?"
Mike merely growled in reply.
A hand siezed her by the hair and yanked her head up to face her tormentor. She looked fearfully into his face, unshaven with eyes hidden by dark glasses but she could still feel the hatred in his gaze. She nearly gagging from the smell of alcohol as he spoke.
"We don't like mutie scum pokin' their noses 'round our headquarters, now do we, boys?"
The others laughed loudly, forcibly.
"I think this here little pussy needs to be taught a lesson, eh boys?"
More hearty agreements.
Sharp needles of pain shot up from her chin as her face was shoved back into the table. By now her fear was starting to ebb; anger brought on by indignation had planted itself firmly and was starting to grow.
Her ears twitched as she followed the direction his footsteps took. He was behind her now, his self-confidence radiating off him in waves. Her eyes widened as she caught the scent of his arousal. She heard him unzip his pants. Her head shot up and she bucked wildly, nearly wrenching free of their hold on her.
A hard object slammed into her shoulders, knocking her back down onto the table.
"No! Don't!" she said, punctuating her words with a half yelp, half growl of anger.
"Shut the hell up, mutie bitch!" he shouted, and hit her again.
She winced from the pain, but only briefly. Her anger had spiked dangerously; her mind was dancing on the very edge of her self-control.
Opening her eyes, she stared directly into the eyes of another man standing in front of her.
"Don't do thisss...." she warned, barely able to speak now as her throat was tight with rage.
The man in front of her must have sensed this, for his look of smug confidence was quickly being replaced by one of panic.
Rough hands grabbed at the hem of her shorts, attempting to pull them down.
She felt the red veil as it started to descend, to wrap itself around her mind. "I warned yoouuu..." she said, a deep growl rumbling in her throat.
The man directly in front of her froze, watching her eyes cloud over with rage. Then, summoning all his remaining willpower, he turned and fled as fast as his legs could go. He slammed the door behind him, letting his body slide to the floor as his strength left him.
He had seen that look once before: berserker rage, battle lust. And he had witnessed the aftermath. He covered his ears, trying to block out the blood-curdling roar which was quickly followed by the screams of his dying comrades. Gathering whatever wits he had left, he started to crawl, slithering away from the slaughter and into the shadows.
* * *
They heard the roar, and the screams. Cyclops turned to Beast. "Where did that come from?"
"I believe its source is located in the vicinity of that corridor," Beast replied, pointing down the hallway.
"And you couldn't have just pointed in the first place?"
"Quiet, Iceman. Let's check it out."
"Lead the way, oh fearless one."
The screaming had died down considerably by the time they arrived. Cyclops raised a hand to his visor, about to blast the door open when the wood suddenly shattered as a body flew through it. It landed on the floor with a sickening, wet thud and slid to rest at their feet.
"Dammit, Wolverine!" yelled Cyclops. "What the hell do you think you're....?"
He stopped short when he saw Tyger, not Wolverine, through the doorway. She roared again and slashed through a man's neck with one clawed hand.
"What the hell d'you want, Cyke?" Wolverine demanded, coming up behind them. He was towing a bruised and battered, albeit safe Jubilee with him.
Jubilee paled as she stared at the body, now resting in the corridor in a pool of blood with a portion of the intestines protruding from the gash in the abdomen. She felt her stomach lurch and she dropped to her knees, clutching her sides in grim determination not to throw up.
The first thought in Hank's mind, upon observing the carnage before him, was 'fascinating'. The second was, 'I've got to end this!' And he bounded into the room.
The bodies of five men lay strewn about the room, disfigured by various slash marks and in some cases, disembowelled. Massive amounts of blood had been splattered over every surface within the room, and in the centre of it all stood Tyger.
She turned to face him, muscles bunched, claws extended, fur nearly coated entirely by dripping blood. Her face was a contorted mix of hatred and fury. Her nostrils flared as she raked huge amounts of air into her aching lungs. The tip of her tail twitched back in forth menacingly, and he could no longer see her ears as they were pressed back hard against her head.
She stared right through him, eyes nearly red with fury, and lunged. Hank grabbed her wrists in mid-air and directed the force of her attack away from him. Then he grappled her, pinning her arms to her sides. She roared and struggled violently in his hold.
His scent filtered through the nearly overpowering stench of blood and death, and her struggling slowly ceased. She felt the veil lifting and her common-sense returning. Then she began to feel the fatigue in her muscles; her body was exhausted. Aches and pains brought her completely back to reality. "Hank..." she managed to say before unconsciousness overtook her and she collapsed in his arms.
Cyclops, who had been in a state of shock, finally recovered enough to walk into the room. He saw Hank holding Tyger's limp form.
"Beast," he said, not taking his eyes off her.
Hank made no reply.
"Beast!" he snapped.
Hank jerked his head up and looked at him. "What?!"
"She's YOUR responsibility," Cyclops stated, his voice strained. "Get her under control. Contain her if you must, but I want her back in the Blackbird NOW! We'll deal with this later."
Cyclops turned to Wolverine, who had a sick smirk on his face which told Scott loud and clear that Logan was highly amused about their leader's lack of dominion over the situation. Cyclops gritted his teeth to hold back the words that he wanted to say. Instead, he smiled evilly back at the man and stated, "Since you're enjoying yourself so much, Wolverine, YOU can clean up this mess."
Wolverine's smile disappeared. Logan resented being ordered around, but said nothing. He was having too much fun watching the arteries throb in Cyclops' neck.
Cyclops headed back out of the room, followed by Beast. Iceman had taken charge of Jubilee and was leading her away from the carnage. Wolverine went to work, grumbling, "Ain't half as much fun cleanin' the mess as it is makin' it."
* * *