The Song of Eternity

Canto 8

The Mutant Underground

Verse 5

The Gathering

By the power of ancient magic,

The free gather.

Talk continues with all involved,

Revealing several secrets.

            Vincent awoke around nine and continued looking through the documents and machines left by Starmore in the safe house.  By three he finally found what he was looking for.  He brought up a video link to Elena in New York and hurriedly began to explain.  "I found something interesting, go to the computer and pull up a file called bodyslide," Vincent explained.

            Elena followed his instructions and rapidly read over the file.  "Very interesting, he must have had a lot of free time on his hands to make this machine," Elena commented.  "Only a few people on the planet could use it correctly, he probably made it for you," she added.

            "Most likely, now gather your people and get up here," Vincent ordered before ending the communication.

            "Whatever you say boss," Elena grumbled as she looked around the safe house and spotted Creed and Murphy watching TV.  "Murph, gather Remy, Lance, and the others," she shouted across the room.  "Creed, get over here and help me," she continued as she ordered a disgruntled Sabertooth around.

            "I'm getting awful tired of being bossed around by you lady," he growled as he followed her into the kitchen.  "You should learn to be more careful around me, I'm a killer," he added.

            "Good for you, now move the refrigerator, it should swing out this way," she said as she pointed along the floor.

            Creed growled in response and pulled the refrigerator back from the wall, revealing a control panel.  "Why aren't you or the kid afraid of me?" he asked as Elena walked to the screen.

            "Why should we fear you?" she asked as she began to press several buttons on the panel.

            "I told you, I'm a killer.  All the others kids fear me, even Xavier and his teachers do," Creed explained.

            "Just because you have killed?  Not a very good reason to fear someone," Elena pointed out.  "Anyone can kill.  I have killed, Murphy has killed, Vincent has killed, all of we Turks have killed.  But now we are trying to make up for our past actions by protecting your sorry lives," she finished as she pressed a red button and a hole opened in the wall.

            "What's going on Elena?" Murphy asked as he entered the kitchen with Lance, Remy, Todd, and Pietro close behind him.

            "See the circle on the floor," she asked as everyone else looked down.

            "That wasn't there yesterday," Murphy said as he scratched his head.

            "We are all going to get inside it, then you and I are going to pump mana into that hole in the wall," Elena explained to Murphy.  "And if all goes well, we will end up in Boston," she finished.

            "A teleportation device?" Lance said in disbelief.

            "More or less, Starmore made it for Valentine.  It's powered by mana, so only a few people could ever hope to use it, now let's get going," Elena said as she waited for the others to gather in the circle.  "Okay Murphy, here goes nothing," she said once she joined the others.  She and Murphy then began to cast spells, but at the last second the magic was sucked into the hole in the wall.  Elena closed her eyes tight as her vision was filled with a bright white light, temporarily blinding her.

            "Good to see you all are well," she heard Vincent's voice as she blinked away her temporary blindness.  "Come on into the main room and we'll figure out just what it is we are going to do," he said as Elena and the others stumbled around for a few seconds.  After a minute Elena, Murphy, Lance, Pietro, Todd, Remy, Creed, Vincent, Scott, Jamie, and Kurt assembled in the main room and exchanged hurried greetings.  Vincent coughed, causing the others to grow silent.  "Here is the situation as good as I can guess it," he began.  "Three days ago the military raided out various houses in a strategic fashion, incapacitating and capturing many of our various groups.  From what Scott tells me, they had knowledge of everyone's powers at Xavier's school and had an advanced psychic shielding, rendering Xavier useless in the battle.  How does this match up to what you people experienced?"

            "They had no metal weapons when they attacked us," Creed growled.  "They took Erik out quickly, and were prepared for the rest of us, they even knew our names," he finished.

            "Same thing at our place, Mystique couldn't even sneak past them," Pietro confirmed.

            "What we need to know is how they knew everything about us.  Any suggestions?" he asked the group before him.

            After a bit of silence Creed erupted.  "Who cares, we should just go and free Erik and the others in Washington then find the others," he growled.  "We have all the advanced technology that Starmore left you, just break out the weapons and let's take them by force Valentine," he snarled at Vincent.

            "The thought has crossed my mind, but your secret is out, nothing will change that.  It's best to just ride this out as peacefully as possible," Vincent replied.

            "Speaking of Starmore, he knew all about us before the fight with Galactus, maybe he had some files and they got stolen from another safe house," Todd suggested.

            The group sat in stunned silence for a bit before Kurt spoke in his heavy accent.  "How in ze hell did he just say something intelligent?"

            Vincent whirled around to the computer and began typing.  "Here are the files on all of you," he said as images of nearly a hundred mutants flashed across the screen.  "But the safe houses..," he muttered as he continued to type. 

            "Move it Valentine," Elena said roughly as she pushed him from his seat and took his place.  "This is my specialty," she mused as her fingers flew over the keys until a world map popped up.  "Here we have over a hundred safe houses across the globe, all with intact security systems over the past twenty years," she explained as she took in the information.  "Up until the day after Galactus and Starmore died.  The day after they died, two safe houses went offline from the others, one in China and one in Egypt," she finished.  "Whoever raided them probably has the same files and technology we have."

            "But we have no idea who, so our first priority should be to watch out for each other and locate where they took the others," Scott added.

            "Speaking of others, where are Cole and Rogue?" Murphy asked.

            "Cole has been drunk since arriving and went to a bar earlier today." Vincent replied.  "Rogue was worried, so I sent her to find him so he can locate the others," Vincent explained.

            "Great, just great…  I'm gonna go find them, assuming there isn't a police siren to lead me," Murphy said before he stormed angrily from the room.

            Rogue walked into her third bar, looking for the familiar shape of Cole and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted him in a booth watching the television above the bar.  She walked over and took a seat across from him in the booth.  "What the hell do you want?" he swore as he took a drink from a bottle of vodka.  "I thought I told you kids not to bother me."

            "I was worried and Vincent needs your help," Rogue replied as she glanced at the television to see the senate debates going on.  "How is it going in Washington?"

            "A stalemate, they'll never get anything done," Cole replied.  "What does he want?  To know where the others are?"

            "Yeah," Rogue replied.

            "I told him I'd help him when I was needed, he could have called me to ask.  He sent you here to try to get through to me," Cole laughed. 

            "What's so funny?" Rogue asked as Cole continued to drink.

            "You don't even know me…  None of you do," he whispered. 

            "We would like to, but you've never given us a chance.  Come on, we need to get back, it isn't safe here," she whispered as the television flashed several pictures of her and the others who were on the loose.  "They'll call the police," she whispered as the bartender and several old men at the bar looked their way.

            "No they won't," Cole replied as he got up and walked to the bar and took a seat between a pair of old men.  "I don't need you people Rogue, I can handle myself.  Not all humans are afraid of our kind," Cole continued.  "Take these men here, all veterans of World War 2, loyal to the United States.  Why aren't they calling the police or running away?" he asked.

            "Because our battalion was saved by a mutant when we stormed the beaches at Normandy.  He was one of our own.  You are okay by us, he's explained what happened," one of the men explained.  "We have the warehouse district covered too, no one is going to mess with you if we have a say about it."

            "See Rogue, the world isn't so crappy after all," Cole continued as he walked back to his booth.  "Xavier and Magneto are even making some good points, equating what is happening to the Holocaust.  They might get all of you out of this legally," he explained.  "But I doubt it, human nature is violent.  This will not end peacefully," he said as he gazed off into space.

            "Okay then why are you here drinking instead of helping the situation?  Don't give me any of that spit personality crap either, tell me what happened when you flew off that night," Rogue demanded as she took the bottle from him.

            "You tell me what the meaning of life is first," he demanded as he grabbed the bottle back from her.  "Tell me, why am I here?"

            Rogue looked into his angry eyes as he stared back at her before looking back at his bottle as he drank it.  "To touch the lives of those you meet and to live a good life," she stated a matter of factly.

            Cole chuckled a bit.  "Oh, I've touched lives," he muttered. 

            "What happened that night Cole?" she asked as she grabbed a hold of his hand.

            "I hoped for something that was not meant to be and tried to kill myself," he said coldly.  "I drank a bottle, such as this, and overdosed on sleeping pills.  I would be dead now if not for Alvers alerting Murph and Valentine to my situation," he finished as Rogue withdrew her hand and just stared at him.  "Speak of the devil," Cole muttered as the door opened and Murph walked in.

            "Hey, how's it going here?" he asked seriously as he sat down by Rogue.

            "How did you get here?" Rogue asked.

            "Starmore left us some technology that can let us teleport from safe house to safe house," Murphy explained.  "We figured out that two of his safe houses were captured following his death, which explains how the military knew about all of you, but we still do not know who told them," Murphy added. 

            "So everything is Starmore's fault," Cole muttered.

            "In a way, yes.  But we need to go track down the others.  C'mon, time to get you out of here," Murphy ordered as he tried to get Cole up. 

            "Go away, I already found them.  Well, mostly," Cole said as he refused to get up.  "The three of them are in Washington and the others are all in a secret facility in upstate New York, it is listed as a water treatment facility.  There are a few problems though, I cannot locate Wanda, John, or Logan and Damon for that matter," he added with a frown.

            "What's that mean?  If you cannot find them?" Rogue asked.

            "They're either dead or being hidden by something powerful," Murphy explained.  "Are you coming or not?" he asked Cole who refused to get up.       

            "No, I will come back later," Cole replied coldly. 

            "I'll call Vincent and let him know what is going on, but I'm not gonna leave you here," Murphy said as he pulled out a cell phone. 

            "Me either, unless you tell me why you tried to kill yourself," Rogue added.

            "Then make yourselves comfortable."