Hideaway frowned as he noticed a few cameras were covered with ice. His
eyes scanned a few more of the camera screens and saw nothing suspicious.
The thirty-year-old mutant sighed and rubbed a hand through his shaggy
brown hair. It was the third time the cameras had frozen over like that
and each time it meant sending one of his comrades up to scrape the ice
off.
"What's the problem?"
Hideaway spun his chair around to see a fairly young mutant by the name of Drifter standing in the doorway. "There's ice on some of the cameras again. Be a pal and go scrape it off."
"Where's Crisscross, why don't you send him?" The teleporter asked with a sigh.
"It's your turn."
Drifter rolled his eyes. "Fine."
Drifter closed his eyes a felt himself slip into what he called the travelverse. In it everything was slightly blurry and distorted. In that verse time had no meaning and he could move great distances without any time passing in the 'real world'. In the travelverse he could fly or phase through things while making sure he didn't return to the 'real world' trapped in something solid.
He flew through the solid rock and over to the first of the iced cameras. There he slipped into the real world and moved to de-ice the camera. He heard movement and looked up just in time for something to smack him hard across the face and everything went black.
Back in the security room Hideaway frowned as a long time passed and more cameras were covered by ice. He wondered just what the hell Drifter was doing. It shouldn't have taken the younger mutant that long to scrape ice off a few cameras.
"Hideaway to Drifter, what the hell are you doing up there?" The mutant waited a minute. "Drifter, come in." When there was no response Hideaway frowned.
"Problem?"
Hideaway looked over his shoulder at Dark Hunter. The shapeshifter was leaning against the door in much the same place as Drifter had been.
"Yeah, all the cameras are iced over again and Drifter isn't answering my calls." Hideaway explained.
Dark Hunter nodded. "I'll grab Wind Warden and go see what's happening."
"Good idea. Should I inform the boss?"
"No, not yet." Dark Hunter replied. "He'd skin us if it was nothing. Dumb oaf probably caused an avalanche or something."
With that Dark Hunter turned and went to find his friend. Wind Warden was the only mutant he had known before Desor showed up with his little offer. The two mutant had grown up together and discovered their abilities at the same time. They trusted only each other and no one else.
He spotted his white haired friend preparing to enter the bedroom they shared. "Hey Windy, we've gotta go up top real quick."
"Iced cameras again?" Wind Warden asked, looking over at his approaching friend. "The Prince sure chose a rotten place for a hidden base."
"Tell me about it. Hideaway says Drifter went up to scrape off the cameras but hasn't come back." Dark Hunter replied.
"Let's find Crisscross and have him give us a ride up there."
"Yeah right, you ask Mr. Permanently on PMS."
"Uh...I think we can go up the tunnel. We could use the workout."
"Yeah."
////
"There's two more." Bobby whispered almost giddily. "Don't we get to fight any of them?"
"No." Logan growled. "Just make sure that one's tied up nice and tight and hidden."
Then he and Ian lunged out of their hiding places and surprised the two other mutants. The fight was quick as the ambushed mutants were too surprised to use their powers before they were knocked unconscious. With that task done the hidden New Mutants jumped out and began the task of tying up and hiding the two mutants with the other one.
"They'll be suspicious after those two, mate. They'll send the rest of the dills up." Ian commented.
"Let 'em. Without the cameras to know our positions we can surprise them." Logan replied.
"I'm not so sure mate. What if the boss comes out? Pietro made him sound incredibly powerful."
Logan snarled. "I'll handle that."
////
Quickswitch grunted as an enraged Marauder slammed him against the wall. He ducked a punch aimed at his head and rammed his shoulder against the older mutant's chest. The force of the blow sent Marauder stumbling back and that gave Quickswitch enough time to split into three of his forms to fight against Carnage, Marauder, and Smash.
The rest of the mutants sat back to watch the impromptu fight. The cause of which was lost to everyone, but any reason for entertainment was good for them. Lockdown began taking bets on who would win as everyone began cheering for whomever they wanted to win.
Jordan snarled as he faced off against a unique looking tiger/kangaroo that he was very tempted to call a tigeroo. The beast had the upper half of a tiger complete with teeth and claws while the lower half was a kangaroo complete with the powerful legs and tail. He found out just how powerful the legs were as the beat reared up on its hind legs, balanced on its tail, and kicked him clear across the room.
Mick was faced with an equally unique alligator/horse. The beast was mostly horse with the head and tail of the gator. Mick swung his sledgehammer at the horsegator, but was surprise as in a quick flash the gator jaws snapped closed around the shaft of the hammer and yanked it out of his hands. He was still staring in shock when the beast reared on its hind legs and kicked him square in the chest.
Smash was in full rhino mode when she saw she was facing a wolf/eagle. It was all wolf except for the majestic looking eagle wings that flared out of its back. She blinked at the half blurry sight, shook her head, and reverted back to human form. She threw up her hands in an I give up signal and went back to watch TV with the spectators.
"Looks like Quickswitch wins and no one bet on him. What a shame." Lockdown said.
Quickswitch grinned wolfishly, literally, as his part all recombined into one. He loved being able to split like that. It came in handy. The only difficult thing was having six instincts and personalities. He supposed it was probably something similar to multiple personality, except for all his personalities pretty much got along with each other and there were no new personalities waiting to emerge. At least, he didn't think there were. When his powers first manifested at the age of 12 he'd only gotten two animals, the wolf and tiger, but then he continued to gain new ones until he turn 18 at which time he ended up with six animals.
"It's your turn to go check on the prisoners Quickswitch." Agony added in a bored tone. "Not like there's anything really to check."
Quickswitch shrugged. "Whatever."
As the youngest mutant of the "team" the others often bossed around Quickswitch, but he didn't let it bother him. He had the patience of a wolf, but the temper of a tiger when pushed. He could take the ribbing and bossiness because in the end he knew it didn't really matter. He wasn't really a member of the team. But they didn't need to know that.
He entered the cage room, checked the halls briefly, before shutting the door and looking at the prisoners.
"Reid!"
Quickswitch looked over at Jesse and smiled. "Jesse, long time no see."
"Where have you been all this time?" Luke asked.
"Around. I escaped at the first jailbreak. As you can imagine my looks didn't go over well in the public. I was captured and put into a freak show at a circus until the metal controlling guy named Magneto rescued me."
"Magneto? He's alive?" Scott exclaimed.
Reid shrugged. "That was a while ago. He told me that he would ask for me to return the favor later and left me with some other mutants. Then this guy named Tas shows up and asks me to do him some kind of favor. He told me that his brother would be showing up to give me an offer and that I should accept it and be a spy. He asked me to make sure whatever mission Desor has fails."
"What about Magneto?" Scott prodded.
"Haven't seen him for a few months." Reid replied. He then looked down the aisle at Scott. "I don't know you, quit asking me questions punk."
"Yeah, leave him alone Goggles, we haven't seen this kid in months." Kyran spoke up. "We thought you got executed."
"Nope, when they took me out of the unit they took me to another section where they did a lot of experimenting on me. I think they were trying to figure out if they could trigger more animals or something, but then the jailbreak happened and at first I tried to get back to you guys, but things got so out of hand I ended up just helping a bunch of younger kids get out and to safety." Reid explained.
"More animals huh, like six isn't enough." Chailyn said.
"You're telling me." Reid grumbled. "You try dealing with the conflicting instincts of predator and prey animals. Not to mention always looking different each time I separate and recombine."
"Did you see Adam?" Taylon asked.
Reid nodded. "Yup, but I can't exactly talk about that."
"Oh." Taylon slumped back in disappointment.
Reid stared at the younger boy for a moment. The pup is upset. The wolf part of his brain concluded. He misses his pack brother.
Reid shook his head and shifted his attention to a cage a little ways down the aisle. He smiled as he saw Reece and went over the younger mutant's cage. His smile turned to a small frown as he saw tears in Reece's eyes. It was no secret that the two had something going before Reid was taken away.
"Hey kid, miss me?"
Reece nodded frantically and began signing. Reid was the only one of them that understood Reece's version of sign language.
"Slow down you're going too fast." Reid said with a small laugh. Though no one else knew what the ever-silent mutant was signing, they could tell it was something special as tears formed in Reid's dark green eyes. "I know. A lot of things didn't get said. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere this time."
"All mutants report to the security room." Hideaway boomed over the intercom.
Reid frowned. "Uh oh. He's never used that before. Someone's either in big trouble or we've got company."
"Are you going to help us escape?" Luke asked.
"No, I'm going to leave my friends here to rot." Reid replied sarcastically. He looked right into Reece's big brown eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be back this time."
"Don't bother we'll find you." Dom spoke up.
Reid shot the young mutant a curious look, then grinned when he saw the device in Dom's hands. "You sneaky thief you. And here Minion was going mad trying to find it without letting Desor know it's missing."
"You'd better go before---."
Kyran was cut off as the door snapped open and Adam looked in. "C'mon Reid, Hideaway is freaking out about something and I think it might be time."
"Already?"
"Yup, Toad's grabbing Yale. I think---."
"Intruders!" The shout rang over the intercom.
"Oh yeah, it's time to rumble." Reid exclaimed. "You go help Toad. I'll make sure these guys get away."
"Right. We'll find you guys." Adam agreed and then he disappeared out of the door.
The sound of fighting from the hall seemed to make Reid drool before he disappeared out of the door. Dom shot a questioning look at Kyran, who nodded in response. The young shapeshifter pushed the red button on the device and grinned as the cages all disappeared. Kyran grabbed Pietro and covered him with the shadow armor and then followed the rest of the stampeding mutants toward the door. In the hall they found it clogged with fallen bodies and there was still a brutal fight going on down the way.
It looked like the New Mutants and a few of Hellraisers were getting forced back until Quickswitch attacked his ex-teammates from behind. Marauder, Carnage, and Lockdown were knocked out before anyone figured out what was happening. That's when the enemy realized they were sandwiched between two groups of angry mutants. The fight was over in seconds.
There was a quick reunion between the teams before Scott and Kyran switched to leader mode.
"Kurt, port who you can to the surface." Scott ordered. He looked toward the New Mutants. "You guys lead the way out of here. Let's move quick, we don't want to have a run in with that Desor guy."
"Where's Wolverine?" Kitty asked.
"Don't know, he split off from the group when we charged in here." Ian replied. "Told us to just get you guys out of here."
"I like that idea." Kyran said. "No more talking let's get the hell out of here."
////
Desor frowned as he watched everything that was happening on his view screen. He growled and stood to do something when a snickering from behind him caught his attention. The Prince spun around to glare at his youngest brother as everything suddenly made sense to him.
"Tas you cheating asshole." Desor snarled. "I know you're behind this somehow."
The younger prince smirked. "Please, your arrogance was your downfall. Besides, I only planted one spy among your mutant team."
"Quickswitch." Desor growled.
"Yes, but then you foolishly let that Quicksilver kid call for help and you actually believe Toad and Tartarus would betray their friends." Tas sneered. "I shudder to think you'll take Father's place as emperor some day."
"And where is Kar'ok? Did he sabotage my plan as well?"
"Nope, he's busy on a different planet. Ran into some resistance there." Tas explained. "But I knew this planet would be the key to conquering the rest of the universe. So I decided to undermine your plan wherever I could so that you didn't fuck this world up too much."
"You little upstart!"
Tas grinned. "Oh, be serious. Surely you see the significance of these mutants and their powers. Why have them destroy themselves in a war against the humans? I have much bigger plans for them."
"I hate Earth, in every dimension it exists. There's always some unbeatable force on Earth. If it's not those damn Power Rangers, then it's these mutants, or Transformers." Desor snarled. "You have your fun with these mutants, but don't come crying to me when you get your ass kicked. I'm done with this stupid bet. Better to fight the enemy you know."
"Yes, run back to Grandfather and Father and their hopeless crusade to conquer Earth." Tas sneered and ran a hand through his short black hair. "I'm going to have fun here. I've got my eye on a few of those mutants."
"Do what you want. At the end of the day I'll still be the one who will be Emperor."
Desor disappeared in a brief flash of light. Tas stalked over to the viewscreen and grinned. Things were about to get a whole lot more complicated for the mutants of Earth.
"What's the problem?"
Hideaway spun his chair around to see a fairly young mutant by the name of Drifter standing in the doorway. "There's ice on some of the cameras again. Be a pal and go scrape it off."
"Where's Crisscross, why don't you send him?" The teleporter asked with a sigh.
"It's your turn."
Drifter rolled his eyes. "Fine."
Drifter closed his eyes a felt himself slip into what he called the travelverse. In it everything was slightly blurry and distorted. In that verse time had no meaning and he could move great distances without any time passing in the 'real world'. In the travelverse he could fly or phase through things while making sure he didn't return to the 'real world' trapped in something solid.
He flew through the solid rock and over to the first of the iced cameras. There he slipped into the real world and moved to de-ice the camera. He heard movement and looked up just in time for something to smack him hard across the face and everything went black.
Back in the security room Hideaway frowned as a long time passed and more cameras were covered by ice. He wondered just what the hell Drifter was doing. It shouldn't have taken the younger mutant that long to scrape ice off a few cameras.
"Hideaway to Drifter, what the hell are you doing up there?" The mutant waited a minute. "Drifter, come in." When there was no response Hideaway frowned.
"Problem?"
Hideaway looked over his shoulder at Dark Hunter. The shapeshifter was leaning against the door in much the same place as Drifter had been.
"Yeah, all the cameras are iced over again and Drifter isn't answering my calls." Hideaway explained.
Dark Hunter nodded. "I'll grab Wind Warden and go see what's happening."
"Good idea. Should I inform the boss?"
"No, not yet." Dark Hunter replied. "He'd skin us if it was nothing. Dumb oaf probably caused an avalanche or something."
With that Dark Hunter turned and went to find his friend. Wind Warden was the only mutant he had known before Desor showed up with his little offer. The two mutant had grown up together and discovered their abilities at the same time. They trusted only each other and no one else.
He spotted his white haired friend preparing to enter the bedroom they shared. "Hey Windy, we've gotta go up top real quick."
"Iced cameras again?" Wind Warden asked, looking over at his approaching friend. "The Prince sure chose a rotten place for a hidden base."
"Tell me about it. Hideaway says Drifter went up to scrape off the cameras but hasn't come back." Dark Hunter replied.
"Let's find Crisscross and have him give us a ride up there."
"Yeah right, you ask Mr. Permanently on PMS."
"Uh...I think we can go up the tunnel. We could use the workout."
"Yeah."
////
"There's two more." Bobby whispered almost giddily. "Don't we get to fight any of them?"
"No." Logan growled. "Just make sure that one's tied up nice and tight and hidden."
Then he and Ian lunged out of their hiding places and surprised the two other mutants. The fight was quick as the ambushed mutants were too surprised to use their powers before they were knocked unconscious. With that task done the hidden New Mutants jumped out and began the task of tying up and hiding the two mutants with the other one.
"They'll be suspicious after those two, mate. They'll send the rest of the dills up." Ian commented.
"Let 'em. Without the cameras to know our positions we can surprise them." Logan replied.
"I'm not so sure mate. What if the boss comes out? Pietro made him sound incredibly powerful."
Logan snarled. "I'll handle that."
////
Quickswitch grunted as an enraged Marauder slammed him against the wall. He ducked a punch aimed at his head and rammed his shoulder against the older mutant's chest. The force of the blow sent Marauder stumbling back and that gave Quickswitch enough time to split into three of his forms to fight against Carnage, Marauder, and Smash.
The rest of the mutants sat back to watch the impromptu fight. The cause of which was lost to everyone, but any reason for entertainment was good for them. Lockdown began taking bets on who would win as everyone began cheering for whomever they wanted to win.
Jordan snarled as he faced off against a unique looking tiger/kangaroo that he was very tempted to call a tigeroo. The beast had the upper half of a tiger complete with teeth and claws while the lower half was a kangaroo complete with the powerful legs and tail. He found out just how powerful the legs were as the beat reared up on its hind legs, balanced on its tail, and kicked him clear across the room.
Mick was faced with an equally unique alligator/horse. The beast was mostly horse with the head and tail of the gator. Mick swung his sledgehammer at the horsegator, but was surprise as in a quick flash the gator jaws snapped closed around the shaft of the hammer and yanked it out of his hands. He was still staring in shock when the beast reared on its hind legs and kicked him square in the chest.
Smash was in full rhino mode when she saw she was facing a wolf/eagle. It was all wolf except for the majestic looking eagle wings that flared out of its back. She blinked at the half blurry sight, shook her head, and reverted back to human form. She threw up her hands in an I give up signal and went back to watch TV with the spectators.
"Looks like Quickswitch wins and no one bet on him. What a shame." Lockdown said.
Quickswitch grinned wolfishly, literally, as his part all recombined into one. He loved being able to split like that. It came in handy. The only difficult thing was having six instincts and personalities. He supposed it was probably something similar to multiple personality, except for all his personalities pretty much got along with each other and there were no new personalities waiting to emerge. At least, he didn't think there were. When his powers first manifested at the age of 12 he'd only gotten two animals, the wolf and tiger, but then he continued to gain new ones until he turn 18 at which time he ended up with six animals.
"It's your turn to go check on the prisoners Quickswitch." Agony added in a bored tone. "Not like there's anything really to check."
Quickswitch shrugged. "Whatever."
As the youngest mutant of the "team" the others often bossed around Quickswitch, but he didn't let it bother him. He had the patience of a wolf, but the temper of a tiger when pushed. He could take the ribbing and bossiness because in the end he knew it didn't really matter. He wasn't really a member of the team. But they didn't need to know that.
He entered the cage room, checked the halls briefly, before shutting the door and looking at the prisoners.
"Reid!"
Quickswitch looked over at Jesse and smiled. "Jesse, long time no see."
"Where have you been all this time?" Luke asked.
"Around. I escaped at the first jailbreak. As you can imagine my looks didn't go over well in the public. I was captured and put into a freak show at a circus until the metal controlling guy named Magneto rescued me."
"Magneto? He's alive?" Scott exclaimed.
Reid shrugged. "That was a while ago. He told me that he would ask for me to return the favor later and left me with some other mutants. Then this guy named Tas shows up and asks me to do him some kind of favor. He told me that his brother would be showing up to give me an offer and that I should accept it and be a spy. He asked me to make sure whatever mission Desor has fails."
"What about Magneto?" Scott prodded.
"Haven't seen him for a few months." Reid replied. He then looked down the aisle at Scott. "I don't know you, quit asking me questions punk."
"Yeah, leave him alone Goggles, we haven't seen this kid in months." Kyran spoke up. "We thought you got executed."
"Nope, when they took me out of the unit they took me to another section where they did a lot of experimenting on me. I think they were trying to figure out if they could trigger more animals or something, but then the jailbreak happened and at first I tried to get back to you guys, but things got so out of hand I ended up just helping a bunch of younger kids get out and to safety." Reid explained.
"More animals huh, like six isn't enough." Chailyn said.
"You're telling me." Reid grumbled. "You try dealing with the conflicting instincts of predator and prey animals. Not to mention always looking different each time I separate and recombine."
"Did you see Adam?" Taylon asked.
Reid nodded. "Yup, but I can't exactly talk about that."
"Oh." Taylon slumped back in disappointment.
Reid stared at the younger boy for a moment. The pup is upset. The wolf part of his brain concluded. He misses his pack brother.
Reid shook his head and shifted his attention to a cage a little ways down the aisle. He smiled as he saw Reece and went over the younger mutant's cage. His smile turned to a small frown as he saw tears in Reece's eyes. It was no secret that the two had something going before Reid was taken away.
"Hey kid, miss me?"
Reece nodded frantically and began signing. Reid was the only one of them that understood Reece's version of sign language.
"Slow down you're going too fast." Reid said with a small laugh. Though no one else knew what the ever-silent mutant was signing, they could tell it was something special as tears formed in Reid's dark green eyes. "I know. A lot of things didn't get said. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere this time."
"All mutants report to the security room." Hideaway boomed over the intercom.
Reid frowned. "Uh oh. He's never used that before. Someone's either in big trouble or we've got company."
"Are you going to help us escape?" Luke asked.
"No, I'm going to leave my friends here to rot." Reid replied sarcastically. He looked right into Reece's big brown eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be back this time."
"Don't bother we'll find you." Dom spoke up.
Reid shot the young mutant a curious look, then grinned when he saw the device in Dom's hands. "You sneaky thief you. And here Minion was going mad trying to find it without letting Desor know it's missing."
"You'd better go before---."
Kyran was cut off as the door snapped open and Adam looked in. "C'mon Reid, Hideaway is freaking out about something and I think it might be time."
"Already?"
"Yup, Toad's grabbing Yale. I think---."
"Intruders!" The shout rang over the intercom.
"Oh yeah, it's time to rumble." Reid exclaimed. "You go help Toad. I'll make sure these guys get away."
"Right. We'll find you guys." Adam agreed and then he disappeared out of the door.
The sound of fighting from the hall seemed to make Reid drool before he disappeared out of the door. Dom shot a questioning look at Kyran, who nodded in response. The young shapeshifter pushed the red button on the device and grinned as the cages all disappeared. Kyran grabbed Pietro and covered him with the shadow armor and then followed the rest of the stampeding mutants toward the door. In the hall they found it clogged with fallen bodies and there was still a brutal fight going on down the way.
It looked like the New Mutants and a few of Hellraisers were getting forced back until Quickswitch attacked his ex-teammates from behind. Marauder, Carnage, and Lockdown were knocked out before anyone figured out what was happening. That's when the enemy realized they were sandwiched between two groups of angry mutants. The fight was over in seconds.
There was a quick reunion between the teams before Scott and Kyran switched to leader mode.
"Kurt, port who you can to the surface." Scott ordered. He looked toward the New Mutants. "You guys lead the way out of here. Let's move quick, we don't want to have a run in with that Desor guy."
"Where's Wolverine?" Kitty asked.
"Don't know, he split off from the group when we charged in here." Ian replied. "Told us to just get you guys out of here."
"I like that idea." Kyran said. "No more talking let's get the hell out of here."
////
Desor frowned as he watched everything that was happening on his view screen. He growled and stood to do something when a snickering from behind him caught his attention. The Prince spun around to glare at his youngest brother as everything suddenly made sense to him.
"Tas you cheating asshole." Desor snarled. "I know you're behind this somehow."
The younger prince smirked. "Please, your arrogance was your downfall. Besides, I only planted one spy among your mutant team."
"Quickswitch." Desor growled.
"Yes, but then you foolishly let that Quicksilver kid call for help and you actually believe Toad and Tartarus would betray their friends." Tas sneered. "I shudder to think you'll take Father's place as emperor some day."
"And where is Kar'ok? Did he sabotage my plan as well?"
"Nope, he's busy on a different planet. Ran into some resistance there." Tas explained. "But I knew this planet would be the key to conquering the rest of the universe. So I decided to undermine your plan wherever I could so that you didn't fuck this world up too much."
"You little upstart!"
Tas grinned. "Oh, be serious. Surely you see the significance of these mutants and their powers. Why have them destroy themselves in a war against the humans? I have much bigger plans for them."
"I hate Earth, in every dimension it exists. There's always some unbeatable force on Earth. If it's not those damn Power Rangers, then it's these mutants, or Transformers." Desor snarled. "You have your fun with these mutants, but don't come crying to me when you get your ass kicked. I'm done with this stupid bet. Better to fight the enemy you know."
"Yes, run back to Grandfather and Father and their hopeless crusade to conquer Earth." Tas sneered and ran a hand through his short black hair. "I'm going to have fun here. I've got my eye on a few of those mutants."
"Do what you want. At the end of the day I'll still be the one who will be Emperor."
Desor disappeared in a brief flash of light. Tas stalked over to the viewscreen and grinned. Things were about to get a whole lot more complicated for the mutants of Earth.