"In my case, they took my watch, and I wasn't exactly counting the minutes. But best I can figure I was held a couple hours before they tried to brainwash me," Greg was saying. "Of course, I don't think they took me seriously as a threat. They've got to know we've grabbed these schmucks." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the bound and snoozing Magistrates.
The mutants had packed up several of their opponents and fled the scene of the battle, not wanting to waste time fighting whoever came to investigate. They were circling the island at a moderate distance, trying to figure out what to do next.
"If they've got telepaths, they're unlikely to start with physical torture. Storm is tough, and she's been trained to resist psychic attacks. We should have a little time to prepare," Kurt said. "Phoenix, we need information about that Citadel. Floorplans, defenses, where prisoners are kept and processed." She moved to the captured soldiers, beginning the distasteful process of sifting their memories.
"So, what are we gonna do after we rescue her?" Rogue asked. "We ain't just headin' home to forget about 'em."
Logan was regaining his strength fast. "One way or another, this country is goin' down."
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure," Greg quoted darkly.
"We will not be doing that. I'm sure not everyone here supports this regime," Kurt said firmly.
"Besides, can you imagine anything that would inflame anti-mutant passions worldwide more than a slaughter like that, or even just forcibly overthrowing the government of a sovereign nation?" Kitty noted, looking up from her examination of the collars they'd found in one of the Magistrates packs, twins of the one that had been on Logan. She'd discovered and immediately unhooked a tracking beacon long ago.
"If people had known what Hitler was doing, seen what he was planning, they would have stopped him," Peter said firmly. "We have to tell the world what is going on here."
"Why?" Greg asked cynically. "So they can copy it? Once they know it's possible, governments all over the world will start a mutant arms race."
"Our whole existence is based on the idea that mutants and humans can exist together peacefully," Kurt replied. "I think we have to give people the benefit of the doubt."
Phoenix looked up. "I think I got everything. This isn't going to be easy." She began broadcasting the information she'd gleaned to the rest of the team.
The Citadel didn't look quite as modern as it normally appeared; the dark, ominous clouds blocked the sunlight that gave it the metallic sheen the architects had envisioned. There was less bustle and traffic in the area, since they were on high alert.
Trouble appeared very quickly. An enormous, drawn-out sonic boom set a dozen city blocks to rattling as Fortress whirled for a few high-speed laps around the headquarters. As this was going on, Rogue flashed in, only a little slower, carrying Colossus. They smashed through a hangar door over thirty stories up, and began an all-out assault on the troops milling there.
Greg took a position over the top of Citadel as the Blackbird swooped in out of the clouds. He knocked a few gunships out of the sky as Rachel telekinetically carried the others to the hole Rogue and Colossus had made. As the Blackbird shot away on automatic pilot, Fortress followed them in.
The Magistrates were fighting valiantly but just didn't have the numbers to handle that many X-Men. It didn't take long before the mutants had made something of a beachhead in the hangar. They continued with the plan they'd agreed upon. With the information Rachel had gathered, they knew the Citadel as well as the troops they'd captured had known it. It was most likely that Storm would be in the holding and interrogation center on the 40th floor. But there was a chance she'd be moved to the Genegineer's lab on 23.
Phoenix and Colossus took point, with Wolverine and Nightcrawler behind. Fortress and Rogue were the rearguard. The hangar was on the 34th floor, and had seemed the best place to break in. The main group started working their way up the floors to the cells. But Shadowcat headed in the opposite direction, down towards the lab.
They hoped that she would go largely unnoticed with all the commotion from the main force. But she could move through the building faster than anyone, and could quite probably destroy most of the laboratory by herself. (She caused violent short-circuits in any electronics she phased through.) Speed and stealth were her best allies. The building was damped against psychic contact, but their Shi'ar communications devices were able to work through almost any Earthly interference.
The first few floors went quickly. Greg's shields seemed adequate to block any of the weapons the Magistrates were using; Phoenix's TK easily tore holes so they could move up. Kurt and Logan grabbed guns from a few hapless troops and were providing covering fire.
Floor 37 was a trap, however. As they emerged from the floor into a hall, a swift series of light-flashes created Magistrate squads in all four directions, who immediately began opening fire. Phoenix got a telekinetic shield up in two directions, and Colossus pulled up the metal floor into a shield. Nightcrawler was slightly clipped by an energy bolt before a surprised Fortress could cover his side.
"Damn, this is Hardishane's style!" Logan called out. "We don't want to stay here and let them bring up more reinforcements." He fired his weapon with quick accuracy, but more Magistrates were appearing in rapid flashes.
Kurt saw that Rachel was busy in two directions. "Rogue, Colossus, another wall there. Fortress, make us an exit up there!" he ordered as he kept firing at troops to the north. The two powerhouses quickly bent up the floor in Fortress' direction so he would be free to act.
Greg sliced a chunk out of the ceiling and flipped it up into the hallway above. He floated up into the hole, carefully, looking for trouble. Below, all they saw was a flash of orange, all they heard was a thunderous WHOOM. Greg was gone. Rogue cried out, but all of them had to duck as the surrounding Magistrates redoubled their attacks. Colossus was getting ready to leap up to the next floor when a tall woman with reddish hair looked down. She raised her hands and, with another WHOOM, a blast of orange energy punched Colossus down three floors.
The rate of fire slowed a bit, as Magistrates stopped to reload. Phoenix whirled, drew a bead, and lashed out at the woman with a telepathic shock-bolt.
Then she screamed; a spastic blast of telekinesis scattered the X-Men. Two Magistrates grinned; the weapon they carried absorbed, amplified, and retransmitted telepathic frequencies, creating crippling feedback to any psychic within range. Rachel was stunned unconscious.
Nightcrawler rolled over from where he'd landed. "Rogue, groundshaker above! Wolverine, go after Colossus!" Logan jumped down the hole the giant Russian had made going down, as Kurt teleported over to Rachel.
Radian was happy. She was so glad to be helping protect her country. Once, long ago, she had tried to run from her duty, but they had brought her back and showed her the error of her ways. Now she was a valued member of the Press Gang, helping to punish others who might try to stray. She raised her hands again; the demon and the psychic weren't tough like the other two, they'd be easy to kill.
Then Rogue slammed into the floor right beneath her feet. Radian went flying, pitching into the hole Fortress had cut. Nightcrawler punched her unconscious as she fell, then quickly 'ported himself and the stunned Phoenix upstairs. Rogue burst through the floor on her second hit, and began frantically looking for Greg.
There was a hole in the west wall, and another beyond that. Greg had been knocked a good distance by the blast, assuming he was at the end of that new-formed tunnel. "Rogue, get us through that wall!" Kurt pointed out a solid-looking bulkhead to the east as he got off some shots at a flying mutate coming down the hall. Magistrates were drawing a bead on them from the other side.
It took a couple hits, but Rogue had an entrance made quickly, and carried Phoenix in while Kurt covered them, then jumped in himself. "Seal that door!" he told Rogue as he knelt, sending quick sniping shots out the hole she'd made, keeping their opponents at bay. Rogue worked quickly, folding metal with her hands, both of them sparing quick glances at Rachel, trying to determine how badly, or at least how, she'd been hurt.
Greg hadn't quite been knocked out, but he was stunned for a few moments. He took stock, realizing he was half-embedded in a metal wall. He pried himself out and knelt on the floor, holding his chest and wheezing. He'd had the wind knocked out of him; he hurt, and he could count on one hand the number of times that had happened since his powers manifested at puberty.
{Cripes,} he scolded himself; {better get used to pain again if I'm gonna hang out with the X-Men. At least I think I'm okay.}. Greg looked up in time to see Magistrates and a large, muscular black woman coming up.
"Hold it right there, genejoke!" an officer called, but two of the troopers opened fire as Greg stood up. He was knocked back a bit, but he wasn't too bothered by the energy rifles. He turned to fly back down the path he'd made, but the woman was faster than he'd expected and smashed into his back with a two-fisted blow, knocking him through another wall.
{This is getting old,} Greg thought. He rolled over, and 'flew' low to the ground, putting some distance between him and the advancing mutate.
"Got some payback for you, kid. You hurt my buddy Brick pretty bad when you were here. Now he's just working the docks!" At the last word she swung again, but Fortress shot up over her head back toward the hole he'd come through.
She jumped and grabbed onto his leg. "Can't run from Punchout like that!" she cried, twisting herself up into a kick at a normally sensitive part of a man's anatomy. Greg wasn't naturally fast, but a couple months of sparring with Wolverine tended to make everyone else look like they were fighting in slow motion. Her kick missed, and Fortress raked his knuckles across her face, dislodging her. In an instant Greg was gone down the trail of destruction Radian had sent him along.
"Skybreaker, I don't care how fast they are, engage!" Hardishane momentarily regretted that flying mutants were so rare in Genosha. They were called, without any apparent irony, a 'flight risk'. Only two mutates in all of Genosha could fly. (There had been three, but after the forcefield mutant had escaped one made a break for the mainland and had been shot down.)
He looked at the officers nearby. "At least we know what their powers are. As I predicted," and he shot a glance at the Chief, "we didn't have time to get any more information. But so far, aside from the time of their assault we haven't seen any surprises." He looked at his status board.
"Damn it, get those troops moving!" he bellowed. "And find the girl, the one who can pass through walls. She's got to be headed toward the lab." Techs leaned closer to their consoles, trying not to draw any attention.
"You got that damn plane yet?" he braced an unfortunate operator.
"It passed overhead and dropped them off. I think it's circling the city, but it's so hard to track." Forgetting who he was talking to, he got lost in the technical problem. "If it didn't show up visually I'd swear it didn't exist. But with this overcast we can't..."
"Shut up. Just find it," the mercenary interrupted. "I want it shot down before they try to retreat." He turned to the other bank of consoles. "Where's the girl?"
"Got her, sir. Moving south and down, between 29 and 28. Shorting out stuff all the way. Orders?"
He thought a moment. "Have Pipeline get the second group and at least a squad to floor 25 now. Give 'em updates as to position, I want them waiting for her. Get her alive, if it's not too hard, but stop her."
He stalked over to the other command area. "I think it's time to hit them where it hurts. Get 4705 over to the main group. That oughta surprise 'em." The colonel next to him was glad that smile wasn't directed her way.
Kitty emerged from a wall into a storage room. An armed party of Magistrates was waiting, along with two men. Both had mustaches, but one was older and dressed conventionally; the other was younger, with a wary look and many weapons arrayed on his person. The older man raised his hand; a flash of light, and Kitty felt herself go solid against her will. And all her will could not make her phase again. {So this is Wipeout,} she thought.
The younger man approached her confidently. "Okay, little lady, come along quietly and I won't have to hurt you." He reached for her arm.
She dropped low, her leg sweeping him off his feet; as he fell she plucked the knife from his belt and smoothly launched it at the squad leader by the door; he ducked frantically, his squadmates shuffling in confusion.
Hawkshaw rolled and came up swinging. {Oh no, some teenybopper did not just do that to me!} he thought furiously. He was naturally quick and balanced, he had trained for years with the best, and the enhanced senses that gave him his nom de guerre usually let him intuit, animallike, what an enemy was about to do. He was embarrassed, but he knew this little scuffle would be over quickly.
Nor was he wrong. His roundhouse missed; a dainty hand chopped across his windpipe, gagging him; she dipped gracefully under his guard and an elbow jammed into his gut with the force of a crowbar. {Crap, I can't breathe, I have to...} Hawkshaw thought. He didn't get any further; a sweeping kick to his head hurled him, already unconscious, into a wall.
Fortress popped out into the central hall, and was met with a barrage of gunfire. He couldn't see into the side room the X-Men were holed up in, but it was pretty clear that was where they were. Anyone who wasn't shooting at him was shooting at the gap in the wall. He lashed out with some knives of force, and nearly a full company of Magistrates dropped down a level as the floor was cut out from under them. Greg zipped over their heads and into the makeshift bunker, slapping a forcefield across the opening.
Rogue gave him a relieved smile, which he returned. She was using the rifle, now almost empty. Kurt, not being invulnerable, had given her the weapon and moved himself and Rachel to a protected position. She was moaning in pain, holding her head, but was slowly coming to.
"You guys okay?" he asked. "Where's Wolv..." The door Rogue had sealed exploded in a flash of light and a CRACK of thunder.
Once upon a time, in ancient Japan, there had been a samurai ninja named Ogun. He had been an exceptional warrior by any standard. But he twisted the psychic and mystical disciplines he had learned in a demented bid for immortality. He found a way to impress a copy of his psyche, his mind, onto another. Versions of him had survived down the centuries, gaining experience with each lifetime.
At one time he'd considered Wolverine as his next vessel, but had settled on Shadowcat instead. Why choose someone who could heal damage when a body was available that could not be damaged at all? With Logan's help, Kitty had won an epic battle for her own soul. She was herself, but the memories and experience of a master warrior could not truly be excised.
It was dangerous to draw upon those skills; Ogun's personality was wrapped up in them, and sometimes threatened to reemerge. In a situation like this, however, they sure came in handy. Shadowcat charged the squad by the door. The last one was knocked out before the first had stopped rolling bonelessly across the floor.
{Just like Kyoto,} Ogun thought with satisfaction. {No! I'm Kate Pryde! Kate!} Kitty willed, damping the alien reminicences before they could gain purchase. She stood for a moment, panting, turning to glance at Wipeout.
He was staring at her, gaping, almost superstitious dread washing over him. Even though it was fading, the strange, ageless look in the girl's eyes frightened him badly. {Drat,} Shadowcat thought, taking in his tall frame and middle-aged spread. {No way I can carry him out of here.}
"Okay, chum, what say you fix my powers before I get testy?" she said lightly. Wipeout nodded mutely, and a flash of light freed her mutant ability. She walked up to him, smiled, said "Thank you," and squeezed the back of his neck.
Shadowcat guided the stunned man's body to a safe landing. The nerve pinch she'd given him would keep him out for at least a day, probably two or three. She looked around with satisfaction at all the sleeping opponents.
A rumble of thunder echoed from above and down the corridors. {That sounds like Storm!} she thought, shocked. Shadowcat quickly phased through the ceiling, headed back toward the chaos she could hear even this many floors away.
Greg put up a second field across where the door had been a few moments before. A mutate was hovering outside (Fortress had cut out a lot of floor). An African woman, bald and clad in a skinsuit, eyes of pure white, no pupils at all. Greg finally realized why the other mutants were just staring in shock; it was Storm.
Tornado-force winds slammed into his fields; lightning shot from her hands, bursting against the curtains of energy with terrible force. The noise was deafening. {Holy... I never imagined she had been this strong!} A full hurricane raged just outside the room, rain and all.
Shadowcat emerged from the floor into a raging firefight. Colossus was tossing Magistrates and chunks of debris around, but he was also getting hammered from multiple directions by all sorts of weapons. Wolverine was a blur of movement, cutting down troops left and right, but there were so many opponents even he had been clipped a few times. More troops appeared at the end of a hall with a sadly familiar flash of light.
"Hey, guys, grab on! Let's get out of here!" she called. Colossus shook off a few pursuers and put himself between her and the oncoming Magistrates. A few whirls and a prodigious leap and Wolverine joined her, too. Shielded by Colossus' massive armored form, she became solid, grabbed both teammates, and phased the whole group, pulling them up into the ceiling.
She was very near tears. Still hoping, but rainwater was dripping through the holes in the ceiling. {Maybe they've got some kind of water mutant...} she prayed.
Of course Pipeline didn't literally convert people to data and transmit them. No data line on Earth could transmit that kind of information, even compressed, in less than several weeks. But the story was a simple way to explain to people why the computer link was necessary.
In reality, he needed to synchronize time between source and destination within a few milliseconds. His power could interface with computers to that extent, following a timed series of pulses along wires, fiber optics, even over a satellite link. All he required was that sequence of pings going back and forth, then he could bridge space and teleport dozens of people at once. Of course nearly every hall in the Citadel had been hooked up with the minimal circuitry that allowed him to get troops right where they were needed.
But he couldn't teleport himself, and even if he could have, most of the terminals had been wrecked on the floors the mutants had been. So here he was, humping himself up a dozen flights of stairs, flanked by a squad of Magistrate protectors. {I hope Hardishane knows what he's doing!}
Shadowcat and the others came up into level 37, and instantly plunged into a maelstrom. Fortress and Rogue were circling, trying to approach the cruelly transformed Storm, but they couldn't get close. A micro-tornado slammed Rogue through a wall, and a blast of lightning exploded against Greg's shield, hurling him, stunned, down into the trench he'd cut.
No one could speak over the roaring of the storm, but Logan used hand signals to indicate that Colossus should try to hurl him toward her as Kitty worked to distract their former teammate. Shadowcat moved quickly, far less bothered by the winds and rain in her incorporeal state. Storm saw her coming and dodged. But as Wolverine rocketed toward her, propelled by Peter's powerful muscles, she flipped in the air and a blast of wind sent Wolverine, helpless, sliding down a hall.
As he worked to get up, the temperature suddenly plunged. He had been in almost tropical heat, and now it was approaching the cold of an Arctic winter. He could see frost spreading fast across the floor and walls, almost like a cartoon of freezing. {Gotta get out of here, fast, while I still can... if I still can.} His muscles were cramping up from the sudden change; he was pretty sure he was already starting to get frostbite.
Phoenix was awake. Her head ached like it had been split open, and her mental senses were raw and unfocused, but her telekinesis seemed to work. She was using it to shield herself and Nightcrawler, who unfortunately was now unconscious himself. Storm had focused on him as soon as she'd broken into their room, knowing he was the leader. Rachel was still too unsure of her control to manage a counterattack; the bellowing thunder and flashes of lightning sent pulses of agony across her forehead.
Shadowcat was feeling less confident now about how much phasing could protect her from Storm. She did have some interface with the world, even when phasing; she had to breathe, after all. But Storm had dropped the air pressure around her dramatically, and what air remained was bitterly cold. {It's like I'm on top of Mount Everest,} she thought, while gasping, shivering, and retreating.
At the same time she was hurling lightning at Colossus, repeated blasts that forced him back and kept him from any counterattack. Most of the electricity stayed on the outside of his metal skin, but it still acted to disrupt the matrices of energy that formed Peter's nervous system in his armored form. Fortress pulled back up from where he had crashed, but another squad of Magistrates burst out of a stairwell at the end of the last surviving hallway and opened fire. He got a shield up, trying to keep an eye both on them and on Storm. He noticed it had gotten downright hot.
Rogue flew out of the hole she'd made, straight at Storm's back. {If Ah absorb her, we can get her out and try to fix her up later.} Her face was twisted in rage at what Genosha had done; Storm had been a very good friend to her. {Besides, Ah'd like to use those powers on these Magistrates...}
Her 'seventh-sense' flashed a warning, but she hesitated a split-second, not wanting to hurt her friend. Storm didn't pause for a moment as she whirled and blasted Rogue with a close-range, full-force bolt of lightning. The roar of thunder was brutal in the confined space, hitting even the Magistrates with almost physical force.
Rogue was knocked unconcious and tossed like a rag-doll down the hall toward the Magistrates. Greg cried out and tried to reach her, but this time the sickeningly familiar flash of light caused Rogue to disappear, instead of heralding the arrival of more troops.
Fortress, Storm forgotten, smashed into the squad of Magistrates, scattering them like toys. He grabbed onto Pipeline, whose eyes had flashed as Rogue vanished. Greg's skin had turned silvery; he looked to the mutate like a menacing fluid-metal statue. Pipeline had no way of knowing what the X-Men had learned - that usually meant that Greg was extremely pissed off - but he could hardly have been more intimidated.
"Bring her back NOW!" Greg yelled, holding Pipeline close to his face.
"Can't... Security... Link... goes... down..." He could barely breathe; his hands clawed at the silvery arm with no effect.
Kurt was waking up, which filled Rachel with relief. She wasn't sure how much longer she could hold up against Storm's assault. Phoenix didn't dare try more than a passive scan, but she thought she could sense troops approaching even through the telepathic dampers - and that meant a lot of troops.
Kitty phased into the bubble Phoenix maintaned, gasping for air. "This isn't... working... we have to... get out!" she called between breaths. Colossus had grabbed some discarded weapons and was trying to stun Ororo, but she was too quick and he was drawing fire from more squads that seemed to be pouring in a wave from the stairwells. Then a flash flood swept him off his feet.
Nightcrawler had come to and was rapidly appraising the situation. {With these winds, even if I teleport to her I'd be swept away before I could do anything,} he thought. {Kitty's right. We have to retreat.} It pained him to do it, but he triggered the 'abort' signal on their comlinks.
Kitty went on a quick sortie to retrieve Wolverine, who was fighting too many approching Magistrates. Colossus clawed his way up to the others. When the signal came to Greg, he was dumbfounded, and whirled to glare toward Nightcrawler down the hall. {We can't just leave Rogue!} he thought furiously. His grip involuntarily tightened slightly on Pipeline; the poor mutate's eyes bugged as his larynx came close to collapse.
The Magistrates had been clubbing at Fortress with no effect, not daring to try anything stronger with Pipeline so close. But with Greg distracted, one enterprising trooper jammed his rifle into the back of his head and pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded from the feedback, almost killing the Magistrate and several of his companions. But the burst shoved Fortress down the hall and dislodged Pipeline from his grasp. Storm, giving up for the moment on the others, took the opportunity to hammer Greg a few times with wind and lightning.
"Phoenix, get the others out of here!" Kurt called, then he squinted at Fortress. Storm paused for just a moment; she'd been running on all cylinders for a while now, and was getting a bit tired. That was what Nightcrawler had been waiting for. BAMF he was next to Greg, and BAMF they were both gone. When Storm whirled to look at the others, all she saw were Colossus's boots disappearing out a hole in the outside wall; Phoenix was carrying them away.