~* *stares at ceiling* lalalala....everything copyrighted to Marvel Comics. Plot, Kia, Aurora and Willow copyrighted to me....lalala*~
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Chapter 7-- Free for All Brawl
The base of the Shadow Stalkers was lacking the usual hidden guards that it most always had. Down below, in a room set aside especially for training, Doc was holding a competition to see who was the strongest. The four he would choose would fight in the days bar fights, because why expend his own fortune when his thugs could win the money needed for him? The fights were nearly over, just one more round to go. The three already selected sat off to the side, all of them dressed in chains and black, the uniforms the guards wore. The last fight ended with a low ranking rookie defeating the so far toughest thug. He was dressed in baggy cargo pipe jeans and a white muscle shirt. His short, spiky blonde hair was rimmed by a nike sweatband, as were his wrists. He held his clenched fists at his sides, looking at Doc for his approval. Doc smiled and nodded.
"Well, well, nice to see that the new blood can stand his own."
Doc mused, never letting his beady eyes leave the young mans.
"What's your name?"
Doc snapped at him, dropping the amused act. The young man snickered.
"Maveric."
Doc directed him to the group of the three guards with a grand sweep of his hand.
"You better be ready to fight in a few hours again."
Doc warned in a blood thirsty voice.
"Because if you loose your first match, we'll leave you there to die."
Maveric looked back at him, unafraid.
"I'll be ready, the only dying that will be done is by those who oppose me."
Doc snickered widely, looking at the surrounding group of onlookers before looking back to Maveric.
"I like your way of thinking. Don't let me down...we stick to our word..."
"And I stick to mine."
Maveric stated bluntly before turning to leave. The group parted to make way for him as he walked back to his drab living quarters.
Logan walked through the hallways, down into the underground garage. He passed by Scott's bike, his eyes on another bike. It was jet black with deep blood red flames rippling from the front to a few wisps in the back. Every metal part was the same shade of red as the flames, not silver. Logan beamed, he had finally gotten his own bike. He got on, revving up the engine while the hidden garage door opened before tearing out of the garage and in a flash was out the front gates. Even without the extreme speed button, his bike went much faster than Scott's, something Logan enjoyed rubbing in his face when Scott was being especially irritating. Curling through the winding road that led to the Institute with ease, the small town came rapidly into view. He reduced his speed as he entered into the town limits, winding around alleyways and behind abandoned buildings until finally he came upon a small building. It looked like a quaint little pub from the outside, no vulgarly too be seen. Parking his bike out of sight, then pressing a button that masked it to its surroundings, Logan strode through the door. He was greeted by the kindly face of a middle age bartender, who was beginning to go bald. The man looked at Logan and nodded. Glancing around at the empty bar, Logan smirked as the bartender began to speak.
"What can I do ya for stranger?"
"Here to see the fights."
Logan growled slightly. The bartender snickered and nodded.
"You know where they are then, down the hall and the last door on the left. You wanna beer to go?"
Logan nodded, taking the bottle from the man and making his way down the hallway without another word. Upon opening the door in was pitch black, only a faint light from further down illuminated the black metal stairs. Logan proceeded down them, closing the door behind him. He reached about the fourth step down before the wall ended and became a ceiling. The downstairs room was three times, if not more, bigger than the little pub up above. It was far from quaint down here, dried splatters of blood dotted the walls, knives lined the walls as if to encourage after fight assassination attempts on the champion. Logan noticed a small group of six men already there, as well as a young woman sitting in the corner. In the group of men, one man had two big doberman pincher dogs on either side of him. Another man stood directly behind the one with the dogs, wearing dark glasses even in the dimmer lights. Three had the exact same uniforms on, each one had a snarling look on their faces as they got pumped for the fight. But the last one had regular Joe street cloths one, leave out the three nike sweatbands. Logan sat a good distance away from them, watching them out of the corner of his eye suspiciously. They didn't smell exactly like Kia's attackers...but they did have faint traces of the attackers scent around them. He directed his gaze over to the girl, wondering why she was there. She had black cargo pipe jeans that were flared. Her shirt was a black tank top, the sleeves and writing across her chest that read "Devil's Angel" were bright red. Her hair was also black with ice blue streaks, short crop cut in the back and long front bangs that lined the sides of her face like a veil. She pulled back one section of her bangs to reveal a completely pierced ear, and a lip piercing. She sat back, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. She turned to look up the steps as the door squeaked open again, the light hitting her neck just right to reveal scar after scar on her neck right where the jugular vein's located. Logan was suddenly impressed by her, she had obviously fought here before and become a champion once at least to earn so many typical assassin throat slashes like that.
The young woman watched as a small crowd of drunken onlookers stumbled down the stairs, tripping over their own feet. Her ice blue eyes held a sudden hatred for them, and she looked away, finally noticing that Logan had been watching her. She turned towards him, a snarling look on her face as she snapped.
"What?"
Logan shrugged, holding his hands out to the side.
"Can't a guy admire a female fighter anymore."
"Shut it, unless your lookin for a fight with me."
Logan smiled, chuckling to herself.
"Like your attitude kid. What's your name?"
The girl glared at him, then turned away, unwilling to speak or even look at Logan for the time being.
Maveric glanced over at the girl, both surprise and anger rose in his eyes. Why was she here? He didn't want to have to beat up a girl... He sighed heavily, sitting down on the floor and warily watching the drunks pass by him, getting his hand stepped on once so he quickly placed his hands on his knees, looking at the slightly red boot mark left over his knuckles. He cursed under his breathe, looking back over at the young woman over in the corner. The door to upstairs opened again, and a small mob of tough looking fighters poured down the steps followed by the kindly looking bartender, except the man no longer had the plain shirt on, but the black and white striped shirt of a referee. Seeing the other fighters on his team walk forward, Maveric stood up and walked after them. To his dismay, the girl got up and walked over to the ref as well. The bartender began to speak.
"Ok, you all look like you know the rules, every move goes, no weapons other than your bare fists. A knock out is a win, to surrender you gotta get knocked out. If you get killed...."
He paused, eyes flickering to each fighter.
"...too bad. You probably would've been killed by your buddies later."
He turned his attention to the girl, taking her by the wrist and pulling her out of the shadows.
"Aurora's our current champion. Beat her and your the new champ. But, as her champion duties, she chooses who fights who, so...Aurora?"
He turned things over to her. She ripped her arm from his grasp with a snarl and took a step forward. In growling voice she spoke.
"I don't care what you think of me...but if I even think your taking it easy on me if you get a chance to fight me your as good as dead. If you underestimate me...you'll die quicker."
She glanced at the two teams, and pointed to one of the Shadow Stalker guards and a burly man from the mob.
The fights went quickly, Maveric winning his first two fights and but loosing by a broken arm to the third. Doc had excused his death this time since he clearly would have won. It was now down to the biggest Shadow Stalker and Aurora. They had already been punching madly at each other for at least a half an hour, the guard was black and blue with bruises and Aurora was favoring her right leg, a swollen shut black eye was the only other war prize she had earned. Aurora's ice blue eyes were even more cold and heartless than they had been, the guard was obviously intimidated by her venomous gaze. Aurora had succeeded in finding his weakness...the simple fact that he was much to muscular for his own good and all the muscle mass made him slow. Her strategy was shifting from mostly punches to kicking out at his shins and knocking him over, letting his own weight and gravity do most of the damage. The big guard was too slow even for the limping girl, and he fell to her swift kicks repeatedly, only a few times catching Aurora in the side of the head with a desperate punch. But once he hit her square in the stomach, a stinging blow that knocked Aurora back quite a ways. Finally Aurora had had enough of his hair pulling and being slapped upside the head, jumping and kicking under his chin at the air way and continuing up to his jaw. The big man fell to his knees, grabbing at his throat and gasping to try and breathe, his jaw broken and leaving his mouth hanging wide open. In a final spinning kick, Aurora hit his square in the temple, knocking his over to the side of the cage, gagging and cringing until he finally passed out from lack of oxygen.
Aurora stood in the middle of the cage, knees bent slightly and her hands on her knees, panting. The bartender walked over to her, forcing her fist into the air. The crowd of battered warriors and drunken onlookers booed loudly at the runt-looking woman who had been dubbed champion again, except for Maveric and Logan. They both noticed Aurora beginning to sway on her feet, and as the she let her fist unclench water began to pour from her palms, out of no were like she had stuck a water hose into her arm.
The people gasped, but Doc's eyes gleamed in success. All had gone as planned...now they just needed a distraction so his guards could get a clean shot at killing her...
"It's a mutant!"
He screamed, standing up and pointing at her. Aurora's eyes were swimming dizzily, reaching up to her stomach with her free hand and pulling something small out...a needle that had been drained of whatever had once been in the syringe. The drunks were spurred only by the wild, frightened, and angry voices of the fighters. As the fighters made tried to make their way to the back to grab the knives from the walls, they found not only a barrier of dazed drunks, but now they were dumbfounded and had not sense of what they should be doing. This caused the long drawn out chain reaction that followed, one fighter hitting a drunk out of the way and into another drunk, who in turn struck out at anyone and the process continued until and unruly brawl had started. The few who did make it to the wall found it near impossible to make it back to the cage. The bartender had dropped Aurora's arm, and by loosing his support she practically lay on the bloody cage floor, but had miraculously managed to stay on her hands and knees, though she quivered and trembled terribly. Logan pushed and fought his way through the flock of baffled drunks, making it to the cage door, which the bartender had forgotten to unlock when he ran out, extending his claws, he slashed away the bars like they were butter, just enough for him to reach in and grab her arm. She tried to pull away from him, her eyes glazed over with a hazy white cloud that made her look almost like Storm when she was using her powers. Logan yanked her out of the cage, helping her place her arm around his shoulders and holding her up with one arm, the other hand held out in front of him with three indestructible claws to ward off blood thirsty mutant haters.
Doc, his dogs, and body guard where suddenly no where to be seen, and with the two still standing guards busy trying to fight back the remaining half to the wall, Maveric was free to do as he pleased. He had been watching Logan ever since Aurora's powers had surfaced, somehow knowing that he hadn't been the only undetected mutant in the group. And now that not just one but two had surfaced, Maveric felt better. He ran over to Logan as the man fought off the surge after surge of drunkards attacks, keeping his distance.
Finally he let his own mutant powers show. Suddenly the drunks, fighters, flying bits of broken glass and stray knives stopped...even the clock stopped except Maveric, Logan and Aurora. Maveric motioned for him to get going quickly, then noticed that one of the guards had been watching him run up to Logan. He looked at the man and made him stop.
"They won't remember what goes on while their frozen, but as you run out just slash my side, ok?"
Reaching the clear steps, Logan could no longer just drag Aurora through the crowd, picking her up in his arms and tromping up the steps, quickly followed by a few knifeless fighters. Crashing through and shattering the door that led upstairs, Logan stormed through the quiet upper level and smashed through the second door. Outside, he charged towards his camouflaged bike, pressing the button again and having it change back to normal. He gently placed Aurora in front of him. She was gasping for breathe, her eyes now completely white and her skin clammy. He revved up the bike, tearing out of the alleyways. From behind him there were suddenly rounds of gunshots, and bullets flew by him, catching him in the back and shoulders. A stray one caught Aurora in the arm, but she was struggling with a much worse problem to even notice the hot lead fired into her flesh. Logan growled and looked back.
"Dammit!"
He shouted into the wind, seeing a couple cars following him. He turned back around, trying to think of what to do. He couldn't just lead them back to the Institute, but that was were Aurora desperately needed to be right now. He reached down, pushing a bright red button and was nearly thrown off the back of the bike at the sudden acceleration. Leaving the cars behind him, Logan tried to take the less dusty alley's so as not to give away his co ordinance. The cars didn't stand a chance ,brakes squealed and the air was filled with smoke, fire, and the smell of burning rubber. Logan smirked. Served them right. With that he kept on his way to the Institute. Aurora's head fell back on his chest, her blank eyes looking up at him, pain-stricken and filled with doubt. Her once snarling voice was now a choking one, a good sign that the stuff injected into her was meant to suffocate her by inflaming her throat. Straining to talk, she looked up at Logan.
"Where are we going?"
Was the only sentence that made in past her lips before Logan glared at her.
"Save your energy kid, we're gonna go get you help."
Moments later they were at the front gates, Aurora's eyes were beginning to roll back into her head, her breathing was shallow and came only in faint wisps of breath. Logan left the bike in the middle of the front yard, not having time to park it. He picked Aurora up and ran inside, kicking the heavy doors out of his way.
A shrill scream echoed, small form of Kia suddenly scrambling away from the small window on the opposite door and darting into the shadowy corner were two bright golden eyes became animated once again. Kurt pushed Kia behind him defensively, spiked tail poised and ready to be used as a weapon should the sudden intruder prove unfriendly. He was stopped dead by Logan's concerned glare.
"Make yourself useful and go get Xavier down here!"
He shouted, feeling Aurora's chest slowly starting to decline in the number of times it rose. Kurt paused for only a moment to see who or what Logan had drug in, then was gone, leaving Kia in the corner alone. She gave a low whimper, but quickly ran over to Logan.
"Who's she?"
Logan didn't answer the child, pushing her gently out of his way at the sound of a muffled 'bamf' from down the hallway. Kia was quick to pursue him after looking at the wide open door fearfully, trotting as best she could to keep up with Logan.
Xavier and Kurt were in the rec room, Logan and Kia arrived just in time to see Kurt off again as he made his way to the hospital room, or so Logan guessed. Xavier motioned for Aurora to be brought over to him quickly, and Logan didn't hesitate to comply. Placing his fingertips on Aurora's temples, Xavier leaned close to her forehead and spoke gently to her telepathically.
~Don't be afraid, I'm going to help you. What happened?~
Aurora's glazed over eyes slowly seemed to try to come back into focus. The messages received in reply were broken, a result of her current state.
~Fight...needle...so much pain...~
Was all Xavier got before her eyes again slide out of focus, her mind out of reach. Blue mist exploded behind the wheelchair, to reveal Kurt holding a syringe in his hand. Xavier took it, carefully inserting it into Aurora's jugular vein and injecting the antidote to what ailed her. Logan followed Xavier and Kurt as the teleporter began to wheel the professor downstairs by what was undoubtedly a telepathic command. Logan followed, feeling relieved as he began to hear Aurora's breathing strengthen at a painfully slow rate. Kia trotted after them, growing quickly tired and making a leap of faith, catching Logan's ankle and maneuvering so that she sat on his boot, clinging to his shin and looking ahead to Kurt. It was obvious that she was debating whether or not she could make the leap from Logan to Kurt, so she stayed put and forced the already burdened Logan to adopt an awkward style of walking so that Kia wouldn't be kicked off or knock him off balance.When they got to the stairs, Logan sighed as Kurt teleported himself and Xavier down, wanting to yell 'Elf! Come get your kid!'. But he didn't, instead he temporarily released Aurora's legs and reached down, scooping Kia up with one powerful sweep of his arm and tossing her up on his shoulder while mumbling something. Once he had finally gotten situated again, he trotted quickly down the stair to catch up with Xavier and Kurt. He could hear Kia chuckling, and lightly shook his head.
"Don't fall off kid, cause I'm not going to stop and get you again."
He felt her arms tighten around the top of his head and smirked. One thing he didn't have to tell her twice, finally.
Logan nodded, having no problem with the request. Maveric nodded, bracing himself for pain.
"Run now!"
He whispered a split second before he let time resume. Logan bolted, cutting into Maveric's side as he ran by and pushing easily through the remaining drunks, narrowly avoiding a round of throwing knives being hurled at him. Maveric watched him go, doubled over as blood pooled into his hands and dripped rhythmically onto the floor by his feet. The now unfrozen guard stumbled over to him, making him move so that he could look at the wound.
"Good God...."
He muttered, the slash marks had just barely missed all major organs, but were deeper than Maveric had hoped he would have cut him. But inside Maveric was laughing at his so called 'teammates', all had been so easily deceived by his time freezing abilities that he had successfully saved two of his own kind.
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Chapter 7-- Free for All Brawl
The base of the Shadow Stalkers was lacking the usual hidden guards that it most always had. Down below, in a room set aside especially for training, Doc was holding a competition to see who was the strongest. The four he would choose would fight in the days bar fights, because why expend his own fortune when his thugs could win the money needed for him? The fights were nearly over, just one more round to go. The three already selected sat off to the side, all of them dressed in chains and black, the uniforms the guards wore. The last fight ended with a low ranking rookie defeating the so far toughest thug. He was dressed in baggy cargo pipe jeans and a white muscle shirt. His short, spiky blonde hair was rimmed by a nike sweatband, as were his wrists. He held his clenched fists at his sides, looking at Doc for his approval. Doc smiled and nodded.
"Well, well, nice to see that the new blood can stand his own."
Doc mused, never letting his beady eyes leave the young mans.
"What's your name?"
Doc snapped at him, dropping the amused act. The young man snickered.
"Maveric."
Doc directed him to the group of the three guards with a grand sweep of his hand.
"You better be ready to fight in a few hours again."
Doc warned in a blood thirsty voice.
"Because if you loose your first match, we'll leave you there to die."
Maveric looked back at him, unafraid.
"I'll be ready, the only dying that will be done is by those who oppose me."
Doc snickered widely, looking at the surrounding group of onlookers before looking back to Maveric.
"I like your way of thinking. Don't let me down...we stick to our word..."
"And I stick to mine."
Maveric stated bluntly before turning to leave. The group parted to make way for him as he walked back to his drab living quarters.
Logan walked through the hallways, down into the underground garage. He passed by Scott's bike, his eyes on another bike. It was jet black with deep blood red flames rippling from the front to a few wisps in the back. Every metal part was the same shade of red as the flames, not silver. Logan beamed, he had finally gotten his own bike. He got on, revving up the engine while the hidden garage door opened before tearing out of the garage and in a flash was out the front gates. Even without the extreme speed button, his bike went much faster than Scott's, something Logan enjoyed rubbing in his face when Scott was being especially irritating. Curling through the winding road that led to the Institute with ease, the small town came rapidly into view. He reduced his speed as he entered into the town limits, winding around alleyways and behind abandoned buildings until finally he came upon a small building. It looked like a quaint little pub from the outside, no vulgarly too be seen. Parking his bike out of sight, then pressing a button that masked it to its surroundings, Logan strode through the door. He was greeted by the kindly face of a middle age bartender, who was beginning to go bald. The man looked at Logan and nodded. Glancing around at the empty bar, Logan smirked as the bartender began to speak.
"What can I do ya for stranger?"
"Here to see the fights."
Logan growled slightly. The bartender snickered and nodded.
"You know where they are then, down the hall and the last door on the left. You wanna beer to go?"
Logan nodded, taking the bottle from the man and making his way down the hallway without another word. Upon opening the door in was pitch black, only a faint light from further down illuminated the black metal stairs. Logan proceeded down them, closing the door behind him. He reached about the fourth step down before the wall ended and became a ceiling. The downstairs room was three times, if not more, bigger than the little pub up above. It was far from quaint down here, dried splatters of blood dotted the walls, knives lined the walls as if to encourage after fight assassination attempts on the champion. Logan noticed a small group of six men already there, as well as a young woman sitting in the corner. In the group of men, one man had two big doberman pincher dogs on either side of him. Another man stood directly behind the one with the dogs, wearing dark glasses even in the dimmer lights. Three had the exact same uniforms on, each one had a snarling look on their faces as they got pumped for the fight. But the last one had regular Joe street cloths one, leave out the three nike sweatbands. Logan sat a good distance away from them, watching them out of the corner of his eye suspiciously. They didn't smell exactly like Kia's attackers...but they did have faint traces of the attackers scent around them. He directed his gaze over to the girl, wondering why she was there. She had black cargo pipe jeans that were flared. Her shirt was a black tank top, the sleeves and writing across her chest that read "Devil's Angel" were bright red. Her hair was also black with ice blue streaks, short crop cut in the back and long front bangs that lined the sides of her face like a veil. She pulled back one section of her bangs to reveal a completely pierced ear, and a lip piercing. She sat back, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. She turned to look up the steps as the door squeaked open again, the light hitting her neck just right to reveal scar after scar on her neck right where the jugular vein's located. Logan was suddenly impressed by her, she had obviously fought here before and become a champion once at least to earn so many typical assassin throat slashes like that.
The young woman watched as a small crowd of drunken onlookers stumbled down the stairs, tripping over their own feet. Her ice blue eyes held a sudden hatred for them, and she looked away, finally noticing that Logan had been watching her. She turned towards him, a snarling look on her face as she snapped.
"What?"
Logan shrugged, holding his hands out to the side.
"Can't a guy admire a female fighter anymore."
"Shut it, unless your lookin for a fight with me."
Logan smiled, chuckling to herself.
"Like your attitude kid. What's your name?"
The girl glared at him, then turned away, unwilling to speak or even look at Logan for the time being.
Maveric glanced over at the girl, both surprise and anger rose in his eyes. Why was she here? He didn't want to have to beat up a girl... He sighed heavily, sitting down on the floor and warily watching the drunks pass by him, getting his hand stepped on once so he quickly placed his hands on his knees, looking at the slightly red boot mark left over his knuckles. He cursed under his breathe, looking back over at the young woman over in the corner. The door to upstairs opened again, and a small mob of tough looking fighters poured down the steps followed by the kindly looking bartender, except the man no longer had the plain shirt on, but the black and white striped shirt of a referee. Seeing the other fighters on his team walk forward, Maveric stood up and walked after them. To his dismay, the girl got up and walked over to the ref as well. The bartender began to speak.
"Ok, you all look like you know the rules, every move goes, no weapons other than your bare fists. A knock out is a win, to surrender you gotta get knocked out. If you get killed...."
He paused, eyes flickering to each fighter.
"...too bad. You probably would've been killed by your buddies later."
He turned his attention to the girl, taking her by the wrist and pulling her out of the shadows.
"Aurora's our current champion. Beat her and your the new champ. But, as her champion duties, she chooses who fights who, so...Aurora?"
He turned things over to her. She ripped her arm from his grasp with a snarl and took a step forward. In growling voice she spoke.
"I don't care what you think of me...but if I even think your taking it easy on me if you get a chance to fight me your as good as dead. If you underestimate me...you'll die quicker."
She glanced at the two teams, and pointed to one of the Shadow Stalker guards and a burly man from the mob.
The fights went quickly, Maveric winning his first two fights and but loosing by a broken arm to the third. Doc had excused his death this time since he clearly would have won. It was now down to the biggest Shadow Stalker and Aurora. They had already been punching madly at each other for at least a half an hour, the guard was black and blue with bruises and Aurora was favoring her right leg, a swollen shut black eye was the only other war prize she had earned. Aurora's ice blue eyes were even more cold and heartless than they had been, the guard was obviously intimidated by her venomous gaze. Aurora had succeeded in finding his weakness...the simple fact that he was much to muscular for his own good and all the muscle mass made him slow. Her strategy was shifting from mostly punches to kicking out at his shins and knocking him over, letting his own weight and gravity do most of the damage. The big guard was too slow even for the limping girl, and he fell to her swift kicks repeatedly, only a few times catching Aurora in the side of the head with a desperate punch. But once he hit her square in the stomach, a stinging blow that knocked Aurora back quite a ways. Finally Aurora had had enough of his hair pulling and being slapped upside the head, jumping and kicking under his chin at the air way and continuing up to his jaw. The big man fell to his knees, grabbing at his throat and gasping to try and breathe, his jaw broken and leaving his mouth hanging wide open. In a final spinning kick, Aurora hit his square in the temple, knocking his over to the side of the cage, gagging and cringing until he finally passed out from lack of oxygen.
Aurora stood in the middle of the cage, knees bent slightly and her hands on her knees, panting. The bartender walked over to her, forcing her fist into the air. The crowd of battered warriors and drunken onlookers booed loudly at the runt-looking woman who had been dubbed champion again, except for Maveric and Logan. They both noticed Aurora beginning to sway on her feet, and as the she let her fist unclench water began to pour from her palms, out of no were like she had stuck a water hose into her arm.
The people gasped, but Doc's eyes gleamed in success. All had gone as planned...now they just needed a distraction so his guards could get a clean shot at killing her...
"It's a mutant!"
He screamed, standing up and pointing at her. Aurora's eyes were swimming dizzily, reaching up to her stomach with her free hand and pulling something small out...a needle that had been drained of whatever had once been in the syringe. The drunks were spurred only by the wild, frightened, and angry voices of the fighters. As the fighters made tried to make their way to the back to grab the knives from the walls, they found not only a barrier of dazed drunks, but now they were dumbfounded and had not sense of what they should be doing. This caused the long drawn out chain reaction that followed, one fighter hitting a drunk out of the way and into another drunk, who in turn struck out at anyone and the process continued until and unruly brawl had started. The few who did make it to the wall found it near impossible to make it back to the cage. The bartender had dropped Aurora's arm, and by loosing his support she practically lay on the bloody cage floor, but had miraculously managed to stay on her hands and knees, though she quivered and trembled terribly. Logan pushed and fought his way through the flock of baffled drunks, making it to the cage door, which the bartender had forgotten to unlock when he ran out, extending his claws, he slashed away the bars like they were butter, just enough for him to reach in and grab her arm. She tried to pull away from him, her eyes glazed over with a hazy white cloud that made her look almost like Storm when she was using her powers. Logan yanked her out of the cage, helping her place her arm around his shoulders and holding her up with one arm, the other hand held out in front of him with three indestructible claws to ward off blood thirsty mutant haters.
Doc, his dogs, and body guard where suddenly no where to be seen, and with the two still standing guards busy trying to fight back the remaining half to the wall, Maveric was free to do as he pleased. He had been watching Logan ever since Aurora's powers had surfaced, somehow knowing that he hadn't been the only undetected mutant in the group. And now that not just one but two had surfaced, Maveric felt better. He ran over to Logan as the man fought off the surge after surge of drunkards attacks, keeping his distance.
Finally he let his own mutant powers show. Suddenly the drunks, fighters, flying bits of broken glass and stray knives stopped...even the clock stopped except Maveric, Logan and Aurora. Maveric motioned for him to get going quickly, then noticed that one of the guards had been watching him run up to Logan. He looked at the man and made him stop.
"They won't remember what goes on while their frozen, but as you run out just slash my side, ok?"
Reaching the clear steps, Logan could no longer just drag Aurora through the crowd, picking her up in his arms and tromping up the steps, quickly followed by a few knifeless fighters. Crashing through and shattering the door that led upstairs, Logan stormed through the quiet upper level and smashed through the second door. Outside, he charged towards his camouflaged bike, pressing the button again and having it change back to normal. He gently placed Aurora in front of him. She was gasping for breathe, her eyes now completely white and her skin clammy. He revved up the bike, tearing out of the alleyways. From behind him there were suddenly rounds of gunshots, and bullets flew by him, catching him in the back and shoulders. A stray one caught Aurora in the arm, but she was struggling with a much worse problem to even notice the hot lead fired into her flesh. Logan growled and looked back.
"Dammit!"
He shouted into the wind, seeing a couple cars following him. He turned back around, trying to think of what to do. He couldn't just lead them back to the Institute, but that was were Aurora desperately needed to be right now. He reached down, pushing a bright red button and was nearly thrown off the back of the bike at the sudden acceleration. Leaving the cars behind him, Logan tried to take the less dusty alley's so as not to give away his co ordinance. The cars didn't stand a chance ,brakes squealed and the air was filled with smoke, fire, and the smell of burning rubber. Logan smirked. Served them right. With that he kept on his way to the Institute. Aurora's head fell back on his chest, her blank eyes looking up at him, pain-stricken and filled with doubt. Her once snarling voice was now a choking one, a good sign that the stuff injected into her was meant to suffocate her by inflaming her throat. Straining to talk, she looked up at Logan.
"Where are we going?"
Was the only sentence that made in past her lips before Logan glared at her.
"Save your energy kid, we're gonna go get you help."
Moments later they were at the front gates, Aurora's eyes were beginning to roll back into her head, her breathing was shallow and came only in faint wisps of breath. Logan left the bike in the middle of the front yard, not having time to park it. He picked Aurora up and ran inside, kicking the heavy doors out of his way.
A shrill scream echoed, small form of Kia suddenly scrambling away from the small window on the opposite door and darting into the shadowy corner were two bright golden eyes became animated once again. Kurt pushed Kia behind him defensively, spiked tail poised and ready to be used as a weapon should the sudden intruder prove unfriendly. He was stopped dead by Logan's concerned glare.
"Make yourself useful and go get Xavier down here!"
He shouted, feeling Aurora's chest slowly starting to decline in the number of times it rose. Kurt paused for only a moment to see who or what Logan had drug in, then was gone, leaving Kia in the corner alone. She gave a low whimper, but quickly ran over to Logan.
"Who's she?"
Logan didn't answer the child, pushing her gently out of his way at the sound of a muffled 'bamf' from down the hallway. Kia was quick to pursue him after looking at the wide open door fearfully, trotting as best she could to keep up with Logan.
Xavier and Kurt were in the rec room, Logan and Kia arrived just in time to see Kurt off again as he made his way to the hospital room, or so Logan guessed. Xavier motioned for Aurora to be brought over to him quickly, and Logan didn't hesitate to comply. Placing his fingertips on Aurora's temples, Xavier leaned close to her forehead and spoke gently to her telepathically.
~Don't be afraid, I'm going to help you. What happened?~
Aurora's glazed over eyes slowly seemed to try to come back into focus. The messages received in reply were broken, a result of her current state.
~Fight...needle...so much pain...~
Was all Xavier got before her eyes again slide out of focus, her mind out of reach. Blue mist exploded behind the wheelchair, to reveal Kurt holding a syringe in his hand. Xavier took it, carefully inserting it into Aurora's jugular vein and injecting the antidote to what ailed her. Logan followed Xavier and Kurt as the teleporter began to wheel the professor downstairs by what was undoubtedly a telepathic command. Logan followed, feeling relieved as he began to hear Aurora's breathing strengthen at a painfully slow rate. Kia trotted after them, growing quickly tired and making a leap of faith, catching Logan's ankle and maneuvering so that she sat on his boot, clinging to his shin and looking ahead to Kurt. It was obvious that she was debating whether or not she could make the leap from Logan to Kurt, so she stayed put and forced the already burdened Logan to adopt an awkward style of walking so that Kia wouldn't be kicked off or knock him off balance.When they got to the stairs, Logan sighed as Kurt teleported himself and Xavier down, wanting to yell 'Elf! Come get your kid!'. But he didn't, instead he temporarily released Aurora's legs and reached down, scooping Kia up with one powerful sweep of his arm and tossing her up on his shoulder while mumbling something. Once he had finally gotten situated again, he trotted quickly down the stair to catch up with Xavier and Kurt. He could hear Kia chuckling, and lightly shook his head.
"Don't fall off kid, cause I'm not going to stop and get you again."
He felt her arms tighten around the top of his head and smirked. One thing he didn't have to tell her twice, finally.
Logan nodded, having no problem with the request. Maveric nodded, bracing himself for pain.
"Run now!"
He whispered a split second before he let time resume. Logan bolted, cutting into Maveric's side as he ran by and pushing easily through the remaining drunks, narrowly avoiding a round of throwing knives being hurled at him. Maveric watched him go, doubled over as blood pooled into his hands and dripped rhythmically onto the floor by his feet. The now unfrozen guard stumbled over to him, making him move so that he could look at the wound.
"Good God...."
He muttered, the slash marks had just barely missed all major organs, but were deeper than Maveric had hoped he would have cut him. But inside Maveric was laughing at his so called 'teammates', all had been so easily deceived by his time freezing abilities that he had successfully saved two of his own kind.
