Shadowcat and Iceman reached the bottom of the complex without any major trouble. A few guards had been frozen in place before they reached the lowest level.
They dropped into a pitch-dark hallway. She and Iceman both pulled their tiny little pen-lights out of their uniform and flashed them over the room.
Doorways lined the walls on both sides of the hall. All of the doors were identical, except for the small name plaques that were situated under a small window.
Shadowcat concentrated her light on the closest door. It said: "BISHOP, Lucas." For a minute, Shadowcat considered going to open the door, so that she could set the poor guy that was inside that room out, when she remembered that that was why they were here. To make sure that these mutants didn't ever escape, or to see if it were possible to return them to their original state.
She looked at Iceman, who was trying to see through the little window on the door opposite 'Lucas Bishop's'. His head pressed against the plexi-glass, with the small pen-light directed through it.
"See anything?" She asked softly. He turned to look at her, and then gestured for her to look through. She did, while he held the penlight in place, and she saw someone she hadn't seen in years. Pietro Maximoff. He was sitting on a makeshift army style camp bed, eyes wide open, staring back at them.
She gasped faintly, but she remembered what Magneto has said about his son. That he was barely himself anymore. Only a soldier.
Iceman looked sadly at the ground, and then directed his light back down the hallway.
"How many do you think are down here?" He asked quietly.
"Looks like there are about 50 cells, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a communal holding area. To keep the newest members in." Shadowcat answered. "The negator is turned off remember,"
"We'll stick together. To make sure nothing happens."
"Let's start with this one here." Shadowcat nodded towards 'Lucas Bishops' Cell. "If he attacks, freeze him instantly."
Iceman nodded, and watched as Shadowcat phased them through the door. Lucas was crouched in the foetal position on his cot, hugging his pillow and rocking ever so slightly. With his dark complexion, he was hardly visible in the dark, and when Shadowcat shined her pen light on him, he glanced up fearfully at her. Looking remarkable like a deer in the headlights.
"Wh… wh… who... are you?" He stuttered, looking at her, then his eyes darted away to look at Bobby.
"My name is Kitty Pryde. And this is my friend Bobby." She said in a calming voice. "What's your name?"
His eyes shot towards the door and then back to her. He then said, barely audibly: "I'm not supposed to say it."
"Well you can tell us. We won't hurt you." Iceman said kindly
His eyes darted from them to the door. "How did you get in?"
"I'm a mutant. I can walk through walls." Kitty explained calmly. She moved over to the door and pressed her arm through it. "See?"
"What can you do?" He asked Bobby. Kitty smiled at the fact that wasn't as jittery after learning that she was a mutant.
"I can make ice." Bobby explained.
"My name is Bishop."
"That's a lovely name Bishop," Kitty said calmly. "Do you have any family?"
He nodded, "I have a sister."
"Do you want to get out of this place? Because we can get you out and we can help you find your sister." Bobby offered.
Bishop's eyes darted to the door. He then said in an extremely quite voice: "Please… Don't let them come back."
"Ok," Bobby held his hand out to him, and he eventually accepted it. Kitty then placed her hand on Bishop's shoulder and walked through the door with him.
~~~
Jean reacted surprisingly quickly, blocking the red blasts with ease. Soon Malice landed beside her and had instantly sent a huge lightening bolt at the brown-haired girl standing next to Scott.
She was blasted backwards and through the wall, and lay unmoving in the rubble. Scott didn't hesitate, and shot another blast at the two, this time, almost hitting Malice, before Jean deflected it quickly.
"Scott!" Jean said pleadingly, "It's me! Jean!"
He didn't answer her with words, but another blast. So Jean lifted Cyclops up into the air, and held his arms out into the air, with enough force that he was held still, and immobile.
"Listen to me," She commanded to him. He didn't say a word, just stared back at her, through the visor.
While she held him there she heard Malice take a few steps closer to her, and it wasn't until she felt a firm hand around her throat that she realised that Malice was right next to her.
"Let him down Mutant." She heard Storm's calm emotionless voice echo in her ear.
She turned around to look at her. "Malice? What are you doing?"
"Let. Him. Down. Mutant." She repeated, calmly, her grip on his neck tightening, beginning to cut off her air supply.
Jean concentrated on Malice's mutant signal, expecting it to be straight before her, but she couldn't sense her anywhere. It was as though she had disappeared.
Psylocke?! Gambit?! Kitty?! Someone get down here! I need help! She shouted out telepathically as the hand on her neck tightened to a point where she began to feel light-headed and spots began to appear in her vision.
She saw the pile of rubble where the brown-haired girl had been slammed into start to move, as she stood up and shook the dust out of her hair. She then walked past the still hovering Cyclops to stand about a foot away from Jean. She raised hand and pointed a finger between Jean's eyes.
"I have the ability to eject organic metal from any part of my body. Right now I'm aiming at your head. Let him down." She said quietly in the same emotionless voice that Storm had been using.
With the pressure mounting in her chest from the lack of air, and the finger that was pressing on the gap between her eyes, she felt like she was about to snap, when a small explosion hit the floor that Storm was standing on, causing her to lose her balance, and let go of Jean's neck.
Jean stumbled backwards, clutching at her neck, when she saw the brown-haired girl's finger twitch and a small bullet emerge from the fingertip, but a soft purple light stopped it in mid air and it fell to the ground.
She turned around, and as her vision cleared she saw Psylocke and Gambit standing there. Gambit leaning casually on his Bo staff and Psylocke with one of her hands held out.
"Don't let Scott go Jean." Psylocke warned her.
She turned around to look at Scott, who had managed to move his hand so that it was a few inches from the button on his visor. In a second, she had snapped his arms back into their spread-eagle position, and he was immobile again.
But Emily and Malice – no Storm – were still fully able to continue the attack. As Jean was still in a semi-state of shock and had now fallen to the ground, but had still managed to hold Scott immobile, hanging in the air, and Psylocke went on the defensive against the two hostile Mutants.
Emily and Storm attacked in perfect unison, Storm providing a thick hazy fog, while Emily shot continuous silent bullets from all of her extremities.
Though to counter that, both Psylocke and Gambit were extremely talented fighters, and both adapted well to fighting with each other. Gambit was an excellent offensive fighter; Psylocke was a brilliant defensive fighter; and both were extremely skilled at hand to hand combat, though their styles varied
Psylocke was a very disciplined fighter. She was trained in several forms of martial arts, and combined them all effortlessly, to become extremely deadly. That and her telepathic abilities made her a much more formidable force that she looked.
While Gambit was much more into the street fighting side of things. He wasn't afraid to fight dirty. He was also extremely flexible, and his gymnastics skills were Olympic level. He could do amazing things with his Bo staff, and his speed and accuracy were astonishing.
Together as a team they were almost perfect.
They attacked in unison. Psylocke blocking them from any lightening bolts or bullets that happened in their direction, and Gambit, with his ultra sensitive eyes began to attack the closest person – Storm.
Another blast, this time carefully aimed to blow at the side of her head, shook the floor, and Storm was knocked to the side. However she stood straight back up, and shot a fast and particularly strong gust of wind in Gambit's direction. He began to lose his footing, before Psylocke slammed up her psychic shield to protect him.
Jean was still on her knees while this fight was going on. It seemed as though both the brown-haired girl and Storm had forgotten she was there, so, being as quite as she possible could, she crawled towards the brown-haired one, who was continually shooting bullets from her fingers, which were being blocked by Psylocke.
Once she was within a few meters of the girl, she sent out a telepathic probe towards the girl. She was completely blank, except for a few set directions that were drilled into her brain. She was an emotionless shell. Jean closed her eyes, and trusted that Psylocke and Gambit wouldn't let her be harmed so that she could drift further than the surface of the girl – Emily's mind. The name had drifted through the blank dark space she now stood in. Normally whenever she managed to venture this far into the subconscious, memories, feelings and random thoughts would be swarming her. But there was just a void. There wasn't even any colour.
She took a few steps towards the set directions. In a mind everything is connected to something, memories and thoughts and mannerisms are all connected in some way or another, so it wasn't surprising to be bombarded with horrific images of torture and abuse as she got closer to the directions.
She found herself being pulled into one particularly strong memory. She was standing in a perfectly white room. She watched Emily, who was sitting, curled up in the corner, rocking backwards and forwards next to the sharp metal framed bed that was the only piece of furniture in the room. The girl was muttering something, so Jean took a step towards the cowering girl, so that she could hear what was being said.
"Our father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name; thy Kingdome come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen" She was praying. Before she could take another step towards the poor girl, the door behind her opened to reveal a man in his 50s. He took several long strides across the room until he was right next to Emily.
"Silly wench." He kicked her in the side, causing her to crouch up more "What are you praying for?! Mutant-scum like you have no right to pray. Stop it" His words were accented with kicks and punches at the small girl, who didn't even attempt to retaliate. However she did stop reciting her prayer.
The memory started to fade out, but Jean happened to see a small tear streak down her face before everything became too fuzzy to interpret.
She continued walking through the memories before she reached the core of this memory block. She scanned the area quickly, seeing if she could block this mantra that was floating around the girls head.
Once she felt confident she began to delete the memories with her mind. On by one, the disturbing images were deleted from the area. And it wasn't long before the area was fully blank.
She was about to search for the memories she had had before the treatment. Ones of her family, and friends. But it was as though they didn't exist. She was about to send out a large probe when she felt someone trying to wake her body. She started to leave slowly, when Psylocke's purple aura shot into the mindspace and wrenched her hard out of there.
All of a sudden she felt herself thrown against the floor, and she skidded back from where she was sitting. Miraciously Scott was still immobile, and Storm seemed to have been knocked unconscious. However Emily, she looked the worst. She was suffocating. She was choking on her own tongue. Gambit was trying to get her to breathe, by performing the Heimlich. But it didn't seem to be working.
"What's wrong?!" She asked Psylocke, who looked quite pissed off, and also somewhat confused.
"What did you do to her?" Psylocke asked her softly. Despite Psylocke's soft tones Jean was taken aback. She had done this?
"I blocked some of her memories. I thought that if I blocked her torture that she would go back to normal again." She explained feebly.
Psylocke nodded. "I think when you did that, you deleted her unconscious actions. Like breathing. She's forgotten how to do it."
Jean felt like she had the wind knocked out of her. She started to frantically scramble towards the girl Remy held in his arms. She was now fully unconscious. But Psylocke stopped her. "You can't go back into her mind now. If she dies while you are in there. You'll be trapped forever."
"I can't just leave her like that! It's my fault!" Jean yelled at her. Trying in vain to get past the purple-haired ninja.
"You have to. Otherwise you'll be no more use to us than a manikin." Psylocke kept a hard grip on the girl's arms. "Why do you think I pulled you out? You were about to die."
Jean struggled some more, before the aura of Emily flickered out in her head. She watched Remy check the girl's pulse before he gently laid her down on the ground.
Scott, who had previously been ignored by the three in the room made himself known. "You'll pay for killing her." He said loudly and threateningly to Jean.
Jean's heart lurched at hearing such cold words come from such a familiar and comforting face.
"It was an accident." She whispered.
"You still killed her. I'll get you for that." Scott said evenly before Psylocke sharply hit him on the back of the neck, causing his head to flop forward as he was knocked unconscious.
Psylocke lifted Storm off the ground, so she hovered a few centimetres from the floor. Then she turned to the other two "I'll take them back to the Blackbird and lock them up. Gambit, I think that Rogue may need your help with the security."
Hey guys, Bobby and I are going to need some serious backup down here. Kitty's slightly troubled voice came through the mental link.
"Jean go down to help." Psylocke instructed. Jean looked like she wanted to do differently, but Psylocke gave her a harsh look, and she forgot her quarrel, and nodded. She then stood up and floated down the hole that Cyclops had made in the floor.
***
Kitty and Bobby weren't having such an easy time with every prisoner, as they had had with Lucas Bishop. So far they had managed to save three prisoners apart from Bishop.
Jean-Paul Baubier and his sister Jeannie-Marie had only recently been placed in the program, and apart from being a little physically worn out, and Jean-Paul had a broken arm, but they were not mentally affected very much. They both proved useful in recovering other prisoners as both were gifted with super speed, super strength, invulnerability and the ability to fly.
The other prisoner was a girl of only about 16 named Dani Moonstar. She was visibly shaken, like Lucas Bishop, but understood that they weren't there to hurt her.
It was some of the other prisoners that were the troublemakers. A mutant by the name of Robert Delgado, seemed to be a long way through the treatment, because as soon as Kitty phased herself and Bobby through his door, they were rewarded with a huge fiery spit ball aimed at their faces. Luckily Bobby's reaction rate was quick, and he managed to freeze the ball in midair before Kitty backed out of the room.
He wasn't the only one who rebelled though. And it didn't take those mutants long to figure out that they could use their powers whenever they felt like it.
The result was serious chaos in the hallway. It was then that Kitty sent out her distress message. Almost instantly, Kurt and Logan were at her side. The immediately realised her problem, so Kurt set out teleporting the safe mutants to one of the transport vehicles, and Logan set about making sure that the truly dangerous mutants would stay docile, in a way that only he could.
Jeanne-Marie and Dani were taken with Kurt along with a girl with the ability to control metal called Lorna Dane to the blackbird. Kitty tried to convince Jean-Paul to go with them, but he refused. Insisting that he would help them in their fight, despite the fact that his arm was causing him serious pain.
So, once they made sure that those mutants were out of harms way, Kitty and Bobby began to go back on the offensive. Iceman began by freezing Pietro, who had somehow escaped from his cell, in place. While Shadowcat set about trying to get some of the other mutants out of the area.
A girl was lying on the ground, in the middle of a fight between Logan and another, much larger male, who looked like he could stop a six car train in its tracks. She was close to being trampled, and if Shadowcat had taken any longer to reach the girl, she probably would have been.
She heard the familiar 'BAMF' noise and begun to smell the acrid smell of sulphur and she knew instantly that Kurt was back from dropping off those other mutants.
She pulled the girl out of the way – with some difficulty because the girl seemed to be intent on staying in one place. She yelled at the girl that she had to move, or else she would get squished by the huge mutant who almost stepped on the girl's leg. Kurt teleported next to her, and with his help, they wrenched her out of harms way just in time. She was shaking horribly, and looked as if she was going into shock, when the whole building began to shake eerily. Doors popped out of their frames, releasing many more mutants and the girl's eyes went from a normal brown to a creepy green colour as the building shook even more. Kitty realised that the girl was the one causing all of the shocks. She tried to calm the girl down, but she seemed to be having an epileptic fit. Her body was twitching at such a rate that Kitty felt an urge to take a few steps back, but she didn't.
Suddenly, when Kitty heard a huge crashing noise come from above them, and when she thought the building was about to fall in on them, the girl went limp in her arms. She was unconscious. She turned around to see (a slightly distraught) Jean removing her hand from her head.
"What was wrong with her?" Kitty asked
"She was in shock; she's fine to be taken up to the Blackbird." Jean explained, while telekinetically blocking a blast of water from one of the mutants who was out of control. Jean didn't look very well, but Kurt nodded grabbed the girl and teleported out.
***
Gambit made his way swiftly to the part of the building that was designated to Rogue, Jamie and Lance who were to deal with any security problems, and see if they could find any information that would further their cause more.
Gambit didn't think that Psylocke was right when she had told him that they needed help, but then she was psychic and he wasn't. And she was the one with the constant mental link with everybody in the group.
Gambit pushed those thoughts to the back of his head, and swiftly ran through the corridors when the building started to shake. He stopped as the floor underneath him was shaking too hard for him to run safely. He balanced barely on the wobbly ground, and even used the wall (which didn't look as through it could stand too much pressure from the shaking.) as a brace so that he didn't fall.
It was then that he noticed the plaster cracking. Starting from the floor, cracks appeared in the wall that he was leaning on, and he immediately stopped putting extra pressure on it.
Hey Lance homme, lighten up on de shakes. He thought nervously directly to Lance.
He replied shortly that it wasn't him,
and he was trying to control it as best he could, as the building wasn't
holding up very well under the strain.
Gambit stopped observing the cracking wall when he noticed a huge creaking sound coming from the floor underneath him. He instinctively ran as quickly as he could down the corridor. Just as he made it to the end where there was a door, the floor collapsed underneath him.
***
Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I sure give them a beating sometimes!! :P
A/N: Ich!! People are REALLY gonna hate me for that. *is scared* but it all leads to stuff that will be important!!
*hides* please don't kill me…
but anyway, before people start running with torch an pitch-forks, I'll do my little shoutouts.
Rogue151 – I know you requested a Rogue one, and I had planned the last scene (of this chapter) to have her in it, but when I was writing it, *point upwards* that happened. But trust me on this one: I PROMISE she will be in the next chapter.
ishandahalf – Hmm… well… the unbrainwashing didn't come this chapter… well not for Scott anyway, and it didn't look like Emily fared too well with Jean's little attempt. Well we'll have to see what happens.
UnknownSource – Sorry about killing your favourite character. In fact, I didn't like killing Pyro. He is one of my favourite characters. I actually cried when I wrote the scene where he died. It was sad. It made me wanna rethink my whole story. But still, Emily was my own character and she was only made to die in the first place – That sounds sorta sadistic doesn't it.
FaDiNgSiLvErStAr – Yeah, sometimes I update fast, sometimes I update slow. Depends on my workload.
RandomReader – Yeah, Piotr didn't really get to do much, and he still died. I seem to like killing acolytes… or at least hurt them… *cries* I didn't want to I swear! *goes off to cry in corner about unfairness of muses*
GS335 – So, Jean didn't really do much kicking of ass in this chapter as you wanted her too, but she did get air-time. And I suppose she did get to immobilise Scott so he couldn't do anything, does that satisfy you? Hmm. But she an Scott WILL get some boning time… one of my promises.
Suzaka – The poem at the top of last chapter was called Tyger Tyger by William Blake. He is a very famous poet. I first found the poem when my friend borrowed 'Origin' from the local library. That's the comic that tells the story of Logan's Past. Its very good. But basically there is a girl in it, who reads the poem and says it reminds her of Logan. It was a very touching moment. actually
ZenZen – Did you like the cameo I gave you? And the little Kurt bits? Cos you asked form them, you got em. And I dunno when the next chapter will be out, but have fun in China girl! I wanna see pressies when you get back :P
bloody_lady – Yeah, I will finish it eventually. I don't have many more chapters to go.
Well.. That's it. Go review!!