AN: Had to up the rating to PG for some violence, but just a little more than would go into a G, believe me. Partly a continuation of the previous chapter, partly a completely different chapter. Research taken from the Marvel Encyclopedia volume 2: the X-Men. Morlocks taken from original "Mutant Massacre" storyline and from the more recent "Morlocks" miniseries. I'm trying to explain why there are so few Morlocks in the Evolution episodes dealing with them.
Massacre
Ray:
"Come on!" whispered someone to my left. "Get it open!"
In the darkness, I could barely see the manhole cover I was trying to lift. I finally got under it with my fingers, and pried it up. Immediately, the dank smell of the sewers hit me. I should have been used to it, living down there for almost a year now, but we had been topside for several hours, and I was enjoying the good air.
"Caliban, gimme a check," said the same voice to the side. I felt him brush past me. He jumped into the sewer. A few seconds later, Caliban's hoarse, snakelike voice echoed up: "All clear."
One by one, the Morlocks returned to their home, new member in tow. His name was... I don't even remember his name; we just called him Beak. The kid was pretty short, about 5-foot, flat, and he had a nose like a bird's. Literally. He looked half-vulture, with ragged wings that gave him very limited flight.
But it didn't matter that he was so weird-looking. Most of the Morlocks were ugly, even more so than he. That's why we lived in the sewers. The world wasn't a kind place to people that looked like us. Only a few were normal-looking, like me, but we weren't wanted anywhere else, so the Morlocks took us in.
At least, I guess I'm normal-looking. I'm really tall and lanky, and my red hair is shaved pretty close, except for my bangs, which are spiked up in front. When my power, electricity channeling, first developed, I blew up a water fountain and ran from school to avoid arrest. Underground was the only place where I was cared about.
Callisto, our leader, used to be normal looking, but a strange accident ravaged her once-beautiful face, leaving it scarred and disfigured, also costing her an eye. Her life was over, but she decided to start anew, giving other mutants the same chance. It also had given her a roughness, an edge that she never had before. During an insurrection, she fought off half the other Morlocks using her power, superhuman senses and insane fighting skills. I both feared and respected the woman.
She and Beak were standing with a group of other high-ranking members of our community, as it were. Among these was Marrow, who would probably be considered second-in-command. Another rough one, she had purplish skin and red hair. She was scratching her back with a bone. That was her power: she could lengthen her bones to protrude from her skin, and then break them off as weapons. I thought it was kinda disturbing, and tried to avoid her as much as possible.
Caliban stood there also, his long arms gesturing. I could tell he was arguing with Marrow by the insistent look of his black, empty eyes. His skin was pale and almost reptilian, and he was completely bald.
"Listen," he was saying, "I detected the same group of mutants that was following us when we talked to Shade last. They know where we are, and I'm not sure they're friendly."
"I don't care," replied Marrow angrily. "We're going to meet up with Shade and take out the gang that killed Tran."
"Careful, Marrow," Callisto stepped in. "We may need to make contact with this group that is tracing us. Caliban, where are they now?"
The dark eyes closed for a moment. He was using his power, detection of mutants. As he reopened them, he said, "They are coming."
Callisto turned to me. "Berserker, take Tarbaby, Ape, and Trader. Go meet them and find out what they want. They won't be able to attack if you've got Leech."
I nodded, and then gathered the three together.
Tarbaby was a strange one. Named after the "Brer Rabbit" story, he created a sticky substance that made stuff cling to him. He was around my age, and always had little scraps of paper or other trash stuck to his clothes. It got really interesting when we had to go through large crowds. On these rare occasions, people would lose jackets, purses, even entire shirts, since the "tar" seeped through his clothes.
Ape matched his name. His face was long and monkey-like, and his arms and legs were slightly longer than they should've been. But his power was even weirder. He could change his shape into any solid object imaginable. You never knew what he would be next.
Trader was a really cool guy. He could blend into shadows and walls and make himself near invisible. He was the only guy I knew that I could really talk to. I guess you could call him my best friend, if you're allowed to have friends in the Morlocks.
I took the three to the tunnel nearest the approaching strangers. It led to a manhole in an alley near Shade's report of Tran's murder. It had been about a month since that, and it made most of the Morlocks hungry for vengeance. Tran had been a friend, a contact with the outside world. But he messed with Vanisher's gang, and got himself killed. We tried to stay away from Vanisher; he was bad news, but this time, we couldn't help it. He had to be taken down.
But, most of the Morlocks would not get their hungers fed.
* * *
As Berserker led his small team to investigate them, another squad of mutants waited for them. They were led by a tall man with red eyes, holding a Bo staff, and wearing a long trench coat. He, too, was arguing with others of his band.
"What is it dat he wants us to do, anyway?"
Another one, a familiar one to the X-men living a short distance away, replied in a low growl. "He wants us t' go down there an' kill 'em all, Cajun," said Sabretooth, the feral madman with a strange connection to Wolverine.
"I din' sign up to kill nobody," said Gambit. "All de guy wanted was fo' me to get all you together, but he said nothin' 'bout killin'."
"Boo, hoo. Go cry to your momma," said another, who resembled a glass sculpture.
"Listen, Prism, if he wants to go, he can go. We can get all these undergrounders by ourselves," said a girl with green hair.
"Den I'm outta..." began Gambit, but Sabretooth's hand muffled the rest.
He sniffed twice, and then said, "Shh! Someone's coming!"
They backed off into the shadows and watched as an adolescent girl walked past and into the tunnels.
"I think we found 'em," said Prism.
* * *
"Trader, go scout it out," I said. He vanished, and I thought I heard footsteps, their echoes fading away.
We waited for a few minutes, listening to car horns and the whistling of the wind through the alley. Suddenly, we heard running, and Trader emerged, gasping. He spoke one word: "Run."
Out of nowhere, a whirling cyclone of wind and dust flew towards us, a cackling head at the top. We turned to run, but it was too fast. We were caught in a mass of noise, confusion, and high-velocity air currents. Something hard hit me in the side of the head, and everything went dark.
* * *
I awoke some time later, dried blood on the side of my face. I saw Tarbaby lying on the ground nearby, dirt and blood stuck all over him. He was barely breathing.
A trash can to my left moved and turned back into Ape. "Is it gone?" he asked.
"Where is Trader?"
"No idea. He may have disguised himself as I did to escape."
"Where'd that thing go?"
He pointed towards the tunnel entrance.
"Oh, no..."
* * *
A telepath was the first to speak of Gambit's group. "Riptide's in. Let's go."
They followed the girl they had seen several minutes earlier. Sabretooth sniffed her down and grabbed her from behind. "Where are the others?" he asked her.
She pointed farther down the tunnel, where they could see lights and hear voices. Sabretooth picked her up in one hand, clawed fingers wrapped around her neck.
"No, don't do dis," said Gambit. "She just a kid."
"I wasn't hired to spare women and children, Cajun."
"I ain't a part of dis. I'm outta here." He turned and walked back into daylight, hearing a slight scream as Sabretooth snapped the girl's neck. Remy shuddered at the sound. He couldn't let them just kill all those innocent mutants without a reason.
He turned and ran to where they had dropped off Riptide. Maybe he could get in through there.
* * *
Ape and I ran as fast as we could. We could hear screaming.
Finally, we reached the main room where we had left from. The cyclone guy was spiraling around the area, flinging strange star-shaped objects every way possible.
Another guy was grabbing harpoons from a quiver on his back and hurling them straight into people. Beak, the new guy, was impaled on one, stuck in the wall. Feathers drifted lazily to the dirt-covered floor as he slowly waved his wings, trying to escape.
"Oh, man." I thought I was going to throw up.
A wild man with long hair and deadly fingernails jumped out from another of the numerous entrances, howling. I threw out my hands and shot electricity at him. I held the charge to him until he was on the ground, writhing.
Then I almost fainted. I had used a bunch of juice on him, and I hadn't used my power in a while. It took a lot out of me.
I looked and saw several other Morlocks lying dead on the ground, either by the throwing stars or the harpoons. Then I saw Trader. He was over near where Beak had finally stopped moving. He was slashed up badly, probably from the guy I had just fried. He wasn't breathing and his blood was pooled all around him.
"No..."
I raced to the two that were throwing projectiles at Erg, another one-eyed Morlock with an eye patch. He was shooting energy out of his good eye, but he couldn't defend himself from a harpoon directly to his chest. He fell, and the attackers just laughed. Someone was going to pay for all this death.
I came up behind the one with the quiver and I pulled out one of his weapons. I hit him over the head with it, and he fell, a small trickle of red coming from his brown hair.
But I wasn't quick enough for the whirlwind. He hit me, and I was again engulfed in a purple fury.
This time, however, I was able to get a clear shot at the guy who was spinning himself to make the twister. I flung it as hard as I could, straight into his leg. He screamed in anguish and fury, and then he stopped spinning. He fell to the concrete ground, landing directly on his injured limb. He howled again, cursing me loudly.
I wrenched it from him, then stood over him. "That was for Beak. This is for Erg." I drove it into his other leg.
He tried to speak, but the pain wouldn't let him.
"This is for Trader." He lost an arm.
"This one is for all the other Morlocks you killed. This is for all of us." I plunged the harpoon directly into his heart.
He spluttered a bit, coughing up red. Then he died.
"Hurk!" I bent over and vomited all over. I'd never killed anyone before. Now I'd just killed two, maybe three. I glanced over and saw that the clawed man had disappeared. I didn't think I'd done more than knock him out.
I fell to my knees, wiping blood from my face.
Finally, Callisto and Caliban came in, followed by several others, all battered and wounded. One was carrying an unconscious boy with green skin. The leader asked where the rest of my team was.
"Tarbaby's out cold in the alley; Ape turned into a big... something and chased after a girl with green hair; Trader..." I couldn't finish, only look at the body against the wall.
Callisto understood and nodded. "There are many more in the rest of the tunnels that shared that fate. Someone go get Tarbaby and take him and Leech to the Healer." We had a Morlock with healing powers; apparently he had survived. Then she spotted the two marauders that I had killed. "Nice work. That is only the beginning of the vengeance that must account for this innocent blood."
We spread out to find the rest of the living, which numbered very few. Only a couple had minor injuries from which they could recover. The rest wouldn't make the trip to the Healer and we were forced to leave them.
The air was even fouler-smelling from the carnage. Bodies were everywhere, down every tube, in every room. There were more speared into the walls, more with slash marks, more with throwing stars stuck in them. Nausea came over me again, but I fought it back.
"How many were there?" I asked.
"From what I've seen, there were maybe ten," replied Callisto.
"There were eleven," said Caliban hoarsely. "I sensed the last one leave the others before they killed Tommy. He came back later, but I'm not sure what he did."
We came upon Marrow, who was behind a wall of fallen rocks.
"They backed me into a corner, and they were about to finish me off," she said, "when a guy in a trenchcoat came and scared them off with a metal pole."
He had charged up the walls near that particular tunnel with some kind of energy power, and they exploded and sealed it off. Then he had apparently gone off to save a few others, who shared a similar story.
"Number eleven," I said.
"Maybe. Whatever he changed his mind for, be thankful for it," replied Callisto.
Now the Morlocks were even thirstier for blood. This revenge was even more important than Tran's. Now someone had struck us deep. We wanted someone to pay. Someone was going to pay.
AN: I am currently rewriting the first few chapters, and this may not match facts from the original lead-in. The title will also be changing from "First Missions" to "Newbies", and will be a much different storyline from the original.
