12.
Bobby woke, surrounded by warmth and fur. He sighed happily. Hank still slept, with Bobby laying on his broad chest. His body rose and fell with each breath Hank took. It was a wonderful feeling. The soft muscle surrounding him like a blanket. Bobby thought that if he turned into Iceman, he would literally melt. He took in the smell of him, of them together.
Suddenly both of them jumped to a low bass sound coming from above them. Immediately an alarm sounded. "This is Cyclops. The mansion is under attack. Suit up."
Hank was already up and getting back into his shorts when he saw Bobby trying to get back into his own clothing. He was still weak despite their activities last night. He was in no condition to fight. It was obvious to anyone, but the determination on his face said he would do it anyway.
"Bobby... You're in no condition to..." Hank began slowly
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." Bobby said, his voice less definitive than he'd intended. He changed to Iceman, and abruptly fell to his knees.
"Bobby!" Hank cried catching him. Just turning to ice was too much for him right now.
"Damn." Bobby said, allowing Hank to pick him up and returning to his normal form. The look of sheer worry in Hank's eyes forced him to agree to stay below.
Hank had a bad feeling though. He knew that Bobby was happier now. He knew he wouldn't try anything. But the doubt was there. Hank didn't want to take any chances. He bolted out into the hallway with Bobby pressed to his chest. Immediately he saw Raien and Chimera. Raien was in a beautiful yet masculine black leather uniform bearing an X on the left breast. Hank smiled.
Chimera did not look like he wanted to be there. Hank saw fear in his eyes and immediately his problem was solved. "Chimera. How are you with computers?" He asked.
Chimera grinned "They were my only link to the outside world. I know enough."
"Good. I need you and Bobby to take the cameras. Give us hostile positions. Can you do that?" Hank said sounding hurried.
"Yes. I think I can."
Hank nodded and beckoned the two to follow him down one of the side hallways. He stepped through one of the doors and into a room full of monitors, keyboards, and glowing panels. Chimera gasped. The technology in this room was unlike anything he'd ever seen. It must have cost a fortune for this room alone.
Hank looked into Bobby's eyes, and kissed him quickly, but passionately, nipping his lip, then grinning and pulling away.
"Don't go anywhere. We'll take care of this." Hank said to both Chimera and Bobby. Raien shared a quick smile with Chimera, a hug, then both Hank and Raien were off.
The elevator doors opened and the whole Mansion shook. The rest of the team was already there. They looked angry.
"What's going on?" Raien asked.
"The Friends of Humanity apparently. They're shelling us." said Wolverine looking... Hungry. The kind of hunger that only would be satisfied by sticking his claws into several of the men outside.
The windows were all covered with thick plated steel, but they could hear the sounds outside. Yelling. Gunfire. Explosions. Hank's lips curled back in disgust. He hated all of these things. They dragged him from the only place in the world he wanted to be at the moment. In bed. With Bobby. And as soon as this was over, that was where he was going. He felt new things though, a certain eagerness, and confidence. Like some great warrior heading into battle. He was going to crack some heads.
Raien looked around, feeling a little bit awkward. Since talking to the professor late last night, he'd been officially part of the team. He'd expressed the interest, and the professor had fully supported him. A few hours later, he had his own uniform, and had talked, though grudgingly to Scott. He had to keep himself from smiling at the bruising Hank had given him. Cyclops had kept it totally professional though, which Raien was grateful for.
Chimera hadn't wanted him to do it, but promised to support him either way. Raien knew Chimera wasn't a fighter. It just wasn't a part of him. Raien on the other hand... He flexed his gloved hands, and reached behind his back, retrieving two tonfas. Raien had always liked this weapon. It was more or less a foot and a half long stick with a protruding handle toward one end. And they were as black as midnight. Raien felt ready for anything the world could throw at him.
The professor spoke. "Our defenses have been wiped out. If they continue the way they are going, they will get inside. If that happens, I do not want to ponder the consequences. You must stop them. For the sake of the students. Stop them."
Cyclops nodded and Nightcrawler had everyone gather close. He laid his hands on their shoulders. "Van. Two. Sree."
And suddenly they were outside. The smoke cleared and they moved without words. FoH was all around them. There must be hundreds of soldiers all stunned at the sudden appearance. The X-men knew it would last only a few seconds.
Rogue flew high into the air, Gambit in her arms bearing a decidedly evil look. And strapped all over his body were... Playing cards. Raien suddenly smiled too. He knew what Gambit's powers were. Rogue swooped low near the street, where their mortars were set up. They tried to shoot her down, but turned to run when they saw hundreds of glowing orange Cards screaming their way to the ground below.
Under cover of night, Raien crept, using the skills he'd honed running from these people in the first place. No one could hear him. With his new uniform no one could see him either. The sky suddenly lit up as something exploded and the nearest FoH spotted him, leveling his weapon. Raien smiled as he threw himself toward the soldier. He brought his tonfas around, whipping one to deflect the rifle and the other crashing into the soldier's neck. He didn't even have the chance to scream. Raien fell into a dark looking dance as he moved from soldier to soldier. Suddenly three surrounded him all bearing knives. Raien's eyes glowed like the sun for an instant as the flame surrounded him. He inverted and the three soldiers fell to the ground as feet and cold wood assailed them from impossible angles. Raien righted himself, but where 3 had fallen 5 took their place. He started backing up.
Looking around, everyone was doing the same. Hank had a soldier in each hand throwing them at their comrades like boulders. Gambit had been shot. Rogue was trying to care for him and fend off FoH at the same time. Storm seemed to be surrounded by bodies. The professor said into their minds one word. Retreat. Raien knew that Bobby and Chimera must be doing their jobs, reporting to the professor all they saw, letting him provide information as he saw the need. Raien backed up, the blue fire crackling around him in a menacing light.
Suddenly one of the FoH rose into the air. It must be Jean's doing. The soldier looked different though. He wore a sleek black suit with a mask covering his face, and several hoses leading from a tank on his back to it. Raien suddenly had a very bad feeling. The bottoms of the soldier's feet glowed as if he were standing on a pair of white discs. Raien dodged a blow from one of the FoH around him and rammed his elbow into the man's chest, while continuing to wonder what was going on. His hair stood on end. But it wasn't part of the bad feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. Hank was spinning on the balls of his feet as he launched a soldier at the one floating in the sky. The soldier held out a hand toward his flying comrade and a hole appeared in front of him. It burned with white hot crackling energy, and the soldier's comrade disappeared as it closed behind him.
Hank stood dumbfounded. Without warning the ground around him fell away into the same white void as he had just witnessed. Raien saw him clawing for the edges and cried out trying to run for him. He knew he would be too late. Just before the energy winked out, he heard Hank scream Bobby's name.
Raien took a step back. His chest constricted with rage and hate. Hank was one of his friends. He had saved his life. Now he was... Gone. His eyes flashed with pure unbridled malice. He crouched down, his whole body shaking, staring at his hands. Something inside him broke free and the fire around him burned white-hot. He rolled all the rage, hate, and anger he had into one feeling and threw it at the man flying above. The ground around him shook softly as bits of it and scattered weapons and shell casings lifted off the ground. A burning ball of white... White pain flew at the soldier, trailing behind it anything not tied down.
Raien suddenly collapsed. The last thing he could see was the soldier in the air crumple like paper. The sickening sound of bones snapping and gurgled screams and hissing air hoses hung in his mind as he lost consciousness.
*******
Raien woke slowly. His whole body ached. He heard beeping. Infirmary. He was in the Infirmary. He was a little confused, then he remembered what had happened.
"Hank!" he yelled sitting bolt upright.
"Shhh." Jean hissed at him nodding toward Bobby laying in the next bed down. He was in his Iceman form and unconscious. Raien looked back to Jean and her expression knocked the breath from his lungs. If Bobby is here, then where is Chimera? he thought to himself. He had a very, very bad feeling.
"Jean, what happened?" He asked, tears already in his eyes. He didn't want to hear the answer. He didn't want to hear what it could mean.
"The Friends of Humanity attacked. And they had something else with them. I couldn't sense him, no mental attack worked on him. All I know is that he was not a mutant. When you..." Jean paused a moment and shivered. "When you took him out, the soldiers ran." She looked hard at him. "I wanted to run too."
Raien gulped. He knew the X-Men didn't kill. He looked at the floor. She hadn't fully answered his question, and he knew why even before he asked. "Chimera?"
Jean's expression turned from mild horror to compassion. "I... I'm sorry Raien. He was taken through whatever took Hank. We're trying to find them as we speak." She rubbed her temples. "All I know is that they're west of here somewhere."
Raien had been holding his breath. He let it out slowly, his mouth open and a tear threatened to roll down his face. He felt as though half of him had been ripped away. It was a part of himself he was going to regain.
Raien threw his legs over the side of the bed. He was going to get Chimera. And he was going to make FoH pay. His feet hit the ground. His knees buckled and the floor broke his fall. Jean jumped up scowling.
"You're going to need at least a day or two of bed rest. Whatever you did knocked you out." She looked at him a little strangely, as if seeing something new. She shook her head and used her telekinesis to place him back on the bed. "Rest. I'll go get you something to eat."
The air carried a kind of hostility to Raien's eyes. They burned, and he wanted to cry. He wanted to just break down. But he wanted more than anything to be wrapped in Chimera's arms. He lay down, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, then looked at Bobby. His Iceman form really was stunningly beautiful. The way the dim light was filtered and refracted a thousand different times in his body gave it a kind of shimmer that was more than a little pleasing to the eye. Raien looked back at the ceiling. He really was tired, despite how badly he wanted to go after Chimera.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing in the way his Morlock Sensei had taught him. He emptied his mind and listened to the beating of his heart. The soothing rhythm eased his body.
"CHIMERA!!" Bobby suddenly yelled, ripping Raien out of his trance. Jean came through the door a moment later bearing a tray of food. She nearly dropped it when she saw Bobby sitting up, a look of confusion and shock on his face. His eyes searched hers and glittered as they watered. He seemed to look around while never taking his eyes from Jean's. "Where's..."
Jean looked at him and her heart broke when she saw his face. "I'm sorry, Bobby. He was taken with Chimera." A small gasp, then another. The temperature of the room dropped several degrees, the air taking on an icy feel. Bobby shuddered, silvery tears of ice flowing down his crystalline face. The room grew colder. And colder.
"Bobby..." Jean whispered looking like a mother who wanted to comfort her child. Bobby shook. His body seemed to grow, his shoulders forming into plates of black ice. Small crystals grew all around him. Raien shivered as the room dropped well below freezing. "Bobby!" Jean exclaimed.
Fear in Bobby's eyes now. The air spun around him and pillars of ice rose from the floor. "I... I can't..." Bobby gasped through the shaking. "Control..." Suddenly huge spines of ice jutted from the pillars. Raien barely got off the bed before the small mattress was impaled by them. Jean tried to knock him out with a blast from her mind, but as with the light around him, it seemed to refract and become harmless. The spines around him intertwined. Hundreds of them, coming from nowhere until you could only vaguely see his form through them. Then they stopped.
Jean looked at Raien, her eyes wide, and the sudden silence of the room seemed more biting than the severe cold. Raien looked hard into the mass of dark ice crystals, Bobby was there, unmoving, but breathing.
"Is he alright?" Raien asked Jean. It took her a moment to respond, she was staring at the ice as if by the power of her mind, she could melt it.
"He is. I think." She had such a confused look to her. "Something is changing. Slowly, but something is definitely happening in there."
Raien realized he was on his feet. The burst of adrenaline had given him the strength to stand. That strength was fading. His power sprang to life around him to keep him standing, but it wasn't as it was normally. The fire burned white. Raien could feel something else too. He concentrated in front of him and seemed to fall toward it, stopping when he got there. Jean was looking from Bobby inside his cocoon of ice to Raien in his private inferno and back again. She looked as though her head hurt.
*******
Hank woke suddenly to darkness and the sobs and wails of several people around him. He was in a large cell. His head hurt as though he'd been hit by a truck. A familiar voice next to him. It was Chimera. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he cradled his left arm. He looked scared and heartbroken. Hank put an arm around his friend. They sat in the corner of the cell, Hank doing his best to comfort Chimera.
His mind worked also on a plan to escape. At the moment there were several unknowns. The first of which being how they got there. FoH was not averse to using mutants if it benefited their greater good, but what he'd seen the night before seemed eerily similar to something he'd read about on the mutant forums. Transpeciesism. That's what they called it. A man named John Sublime had written a book charting the course of human evolution, and stated that humans could become something like mutants through surgical grafts. Hank had not thought too much about the subject, and had been intrigued enough to read into it. However, several pages into the man's book, Hank knew he was clearly insane. He called mutants the 'Lesser Race', but rumor had it, this Sublime wanted to be a mutant himself secretly.
Hank shook his head. That must have been what they'd witnessed the night before. He looked up. He assumed it had been the night before, but he couldn't see the outside at all. It was a disconcerting feeling not knowing if it was night or day.
Hank thought some more on the subject. The fundamental problem Hank had found with this Transpeciesism was that to graft the organs of a mutant would require... Suddenly it made a horrifying kind of sense. They weren't here as prisoners.
The door opened to admit two men in the same sleek looking space suit that the man had been wearing the night before. The taller of the two pointed to a mutant toward the front.
"This one's a Pyrokenetic. Take him." Came the cold emotionless voice from behind the mask. Hank looked at Chimera, and for the first time in years, he was very, very afraid.
Bobby woke, surrounded by warmth and fur. He sighed happily. Hank still slept, with Bobby laying on his broad chest. His body rose and fell with each breath Hank took. It was a wonderful feeling. The soft muscle surrounding him like a blanket. Bobby thought that if he turned into Iceman, he would literally melt. He took in the smell of him, of them together.
Suddenly both of them jumped to a low bass sound coming from above them. Immediately an alarm sounded. "This is Cyclops. The mansion is under attack. Suit up."
Hank was already up and getting back into his shorts when he saw Bobby trying to get back into his own clothing. He was still weak despite their activities last night. He was in no condition to fight. It was obvious to anyone, but the determination on his face said he would do it anyway.
"Bobby... You're in no condition to..." Hank began slowly
"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." Bobby said, his voice less definitive than he'd intended. He changed to Iceman, and abruptly fell to his knees.
"Bobby!" Hank cried catching him. Just turning to ice was too much for him right now.
"Damn." Bobby said, allowing Hank to pick him up and returning to his normal form. The look of sheer worry in Hank's eyes forced him to agree to stay below.
Hank had a bad feeling though. He knew that Bobby was happier now. He knew he wouldn't try anything. But the doubt was there. Hank didn't want to take any chances. He bolted out into the hallway with Bobby pressed to his chest. Immediately he saw Raien and Chimera. Raien was in a beautiful yet masculine black leather uniform bearing an X on the left breast. Hank smiled.
Chimera did not look like he wanted to be there. Hank saw fear in his eyes and immediately his problem was solved. "Chimera. How are you with computers?" He asked.
Chimera grinned "They were my only link to the outside world. I know enough."
"Good. I need you and Bobby to take the cameras. Give us hostile positions. Can you do that?" Hank said sounding hurried.
"Yes. I think I can."
Hank nodded and beckoned the two to follow him down one of the side hallways. He stepped through one of the doors and into a room full of monitors, keyboards, and glowing panels. Chimera gasped. The technology in this room was unlike anything he'd ever seen. It must have cost a fortune for this room alone.
Hank looked into Bobby's eyes, and kissed him quickly, but passionately, nipping his lip, then grinning and pulling away.
"Don't go anywhere. We'll take care of this." Hank said to both Chimera and Bobby. Raien shared a quick smile with Chimera, a hug, then both Hank and Raien were off.
The elevator doors opened and the whole Mansion shook. The rest of the team was already there. They looked angry.
"What's going on?" Raien asked.
"The Friends of Humanity apparently. They're shelling us." said Wolverine looking... Hungry. The kind of hunger that only would be satisfied by sticking his claws into several of the men outside.
The windows were all covered with thick plated steel, but they could hear the sounds outside. Yelling. Gunfire. Explosions. Hank's lips curled back in disgust. He hated all of these things. They dragged him from the only place in the world he wanted to be at the moment. In bed. With Bobby. And as soon as this was over, that was where he was going. He felt new things though, a certain eagerness, and confidence. Like some great warrior heading into battle. He was going to crack some heads.
Raien looked around, feeling a little bit awkward. Since talking to the professor late last night, he'd been officially part of the team. He'd expressed the interest, and the professor had fully supported him. A few hours later, he had his own uniform, and had talked, though grudgingly to Scott. He had to keep himself from smiling at the bruising Hank had given him. Cyclops had kept it totally professional though, which Raien was grateful for.
Chimera hadn't wanted him to do it, but promised to support him either way. Raien knew Chimera wasn't a fighter. It just wasn't a part of him. Raien on the other hand... He flexed his gloved hands, and reached behind his back, retrieving two tonfas. Raien had always liked this weapon. It was more or less a foot and a half long stick with a protruding handle toward one end. And they were as black as midnight. Raien felt ready for anything the world could throw at him.
The professor spoke. "Our defenses have been wiped out. If they continue the way they are going, they will get inside. If that happens, I do not want to ponder the consequences. You must stop them. For the sake of the students. Stop them."
Cyclops nodded and Nightcrawler had everyone gather close. He laid his hands on their shoulders. "Van. Two. Sree."
And suddenly they were outside. The smoke cleared and they moved without words. FoH was all around them. There must be hundreds of soldiers all stunned at the sudden appearance. The X-men knew it would last only a few seconds.
Rogue flew high into the air, Gambit in her arms bearing a decidedly evil look. And strapped all over his body were... Playing cards. Raien suddenly smiled too. He knew what Gambit's powers were. Rogue swooped low near the street, where their mortars were set up. They tried to shoot her down, but turned to run when they saw hundreds of glowing orange Cards screaming their way to the ground below.
Under cover of night, Raien crept, using the skills he'd honed running from these people in the first place. No one could hear him. With his new uniform no one could see him either. The sky suddenly lit up as something exploded and the nearest FoH spotted him, leveling his weapon. Raien smiled as he threw himself toward the soldier. He brought his tonfas around, whipping one to deflect the rifle and the other crashing into the soldier's neck. He didn't even have the chance to scream. Raien fell into a dark looking dance as he moved from soldier to soldier. Suddenly three surrounded him all bearing knives. Raien's eyes glowed like the sun for an instant as the flame surrounded him. He inverted and the three soldiers fell to the ground as feet and cold wood assailed them from impossible angles. Raien righted himself, but where 3 had fallen 5 took their place. He started backing up.
Looking around, everyone was doing the same. Hank had a soldier in each hand throwing them at their comrades like boulders. Gambit had been shot. Rogue was trying to care for him and fend off FoH at the same time. Storm seemed to be surrounded by bodies. The professor said into their minds one word. Retreat. Raien knew that Bobby and Chimera must be doing their jobs, reporting to the professor all they saw, letting him provide information as he saw the need. Raien backed up, the blue fire crackling around him in a menacing light.
Suddenly one of the FoH rose into the air. It must be Jean's doing. The soldier looked different though. He wore a sleek black suit with a mask covering his face, and several hoses leading from a tank on his back to it. Raien suddenly had a very bad feeling. The bottoms of the soldier's feet glowed as if he were standing on a pair of white discs. Raien dodged a blow from one of the FoH around him and rammed his elbow into the man's chest, while continuing to wonder what was going on. His hair stood on end. But it wasn't part of the bad feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. Hank was spinning on the balls of his feet as he launched a soldier at the one floating in the sky. The soldier held out a hand toward his flying comrade and a hole appeared in front of him. It burned with white hot crackling energy, and the soldier's comrade disappeared as it closed behind him.
Hank stood dumbfounded. Without warning the ground around him fell away into the same white void as he had just witnessed. Raien saw him clawing for the edges and cried out trying to run for him. He knew he would be too late. Just before the energy winked out, he heard Hank scream Bobby's name.
Raien took a step back. His chest constricted with rage and hate. Hank was one of his friends. He had saved his life. Now he was... Gone. His eyes flashed with pure unbridled malice. He crouched down, his whole body shaking, staring at his hands. Something inside him broke free and the fire around him burned white-hot. He rolled all the rage, hate, and anger he had into one feeling and threw it at the man flying above. The ground around him shook softly as bits of it and scattered weapons and shell casings lifted off the ground. A burning ball of white... White pain flew at the soldier, trailing behind it anything not tied down.
Raien suddenly collapsed. The last thing he could see was the soldier in the air crumple like paper. The sickening sound of bones snapping and gurgled screams and hissing air hoses hung in his mind as he lost consciousness.
*******
Raien woke slowly. His whole body ached. He heard beeping. Infirmary. He was in the Infirmary. He was a little confused, then he remembered what had happened.
"Hank!" he yelled sitting bolt upright.
"Shhh." Jean hissed at him nodding toward Bobby laying in the next bed down. He was in his Iceman form and unconscious. Raien looked back to Jean and her expression knocked the breath from his lungs. If Bobby is here, then where is Chimera? he thought to himself. He had a very, very bad feeling.
"Jean, what happened?" He asked, tears already in his eyes. He didn't want to hear the answer. He didn't want to hear what it could mean.
"The Friends of Humanity attacked. And they had something else with them. I couldn't sense him, no mental attack worked on him. All I know is that he was not a mutant. When you..." Jean paused a moment and shivered. "When you took him out, the soldiers ran." She looked hard at him. "I wanted to run too."
Raien gulped. He knew the X-Men didn't kill. He looked at the floor. She hadn't fully answered his question, and he knew why even before he asked. "Chimera?"
Jean's expression turned from mild horror to compassion. "I... I'm sorry Raien. He was taken through whatever took Hank. We're trying to find them as we speak." She rubbed her temples. "All I know is that they're west of here somewhere."
Raien had been holding his breath. He let it out slowly, his mouth open and a tear threatened to roll down his face. He felt as though half of him had been ripped away. It was a part of himself he was going to regain.
Raien threw his legs over the side of the bed. He was going to get Chimera. And he was going to make FoH pay. His feet hit the ground. His knees buckled and the floor broke his fall. Jean jumped up scowling.
"You're going to need at least a day or two of bed rest. Whatever you did knocked you out." She looked at him a little strangely, as if seeing something new. She shook her head and used her telekinesis to place him back on the bed. "Rest. I'll go get you something to eat."
The air carried a kind of hostility to Raien's eyes. They burned, and he wanted to cry. He wanted to just break down. But he wanted more than anything to be wrapped in Chimera's arms. He lay down, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, then looked at Bobby. His Iceman form really was stunningly beautiful. The way the dim light was filtered and refracted a thousand different times in his body gave it a kind of shimmer that was more than a little pleasing to the eye. Raien looked back at the ceiling. He really was tired, despite how badly he wanted to go after Chimera.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing in the way his Morlock Sensei had taught him. He emptied his mind and listened to the beating of his heart. The soothing rhythm eased his body.
"CHIMERA!!" Bobby suddenly yelled, ripping Raien out of his trance. Jean came through the door a moment later bearing a tray of food. She nearly dropped it when she saw Bobby sitting up, a look of confusion and shock on his face. His eyes searched hers and glittered as they watered. He seemed to look around while never taking his eyes from Jean's. "Where's..."
Jean looked at him and her heart broke when she saw his face. "I'm sorry, Bobby. He was taken with Chimera." A small gasp, then another. The temperature of the room dropped several degrees, the air taking on an icy feel. Bobby shuddered, silvery tears of ice flowing down his crystalline face. The room grew colder. And colder.
"Bobby..." Jean whispered looking like a mother who wanted to comfort her child. Bobby shook. His body seemed to grow, his shoulders forming into plates of black ice. Small crystals grew all around him. Raien shivered as the room dropped well below freezing. "Bobby!" Jean exclaimed.
Fear in Bobby's eyes now. The air spun around him and pillars of ice rose from the floor. "I... I can't..." Bobby gasped through the shaking. "Control..." Suddenly huge spines of ice jutted from the pillars. Raien barely got off the bed before the small mattress was impaled by them. Jean tried to knock him out with a blast from her mind, but as with the light around him, it seemed to refract and become harmless. The spines around him intertwined. Hundreds of them, coming from nowhere until you could only vaguely see his form through them. Then they stopped.
Jean looked at Raien, her eyes wide, and the sudden silence of the room seemed more biting than the severe cold. Raien looked hard into the mass of dark ice crystals, Bobby was there, unmoving, but breathing.
"Is he alright?" Raien asked Jean. It took her a moment to respond, she was staring at the ice as if by the power of her mind, she could melt it.
"He is. I think." She had such a confused look to her. "Something is changing. Slowly, but something is definitely happening in there."
Raien realized he was on his feet. The burst of adrenaline had given him the strength to stand. That strength was fading. His power sprang to life around him to keep him standing, but it wasn't as it was normally. The fire burned white. Raien could feel something else too. He concentrated in front of him and seemed to fall toward it, stopping when he got there. Jean was looking from Bobby inside his cocoon of ice to Raien in his private inferno and back again. She looked as though her head hurt.
*******
Hank woke suddenly to darkness and the sobs and wails of several people around him. He was in a large cell. His head hurt as though he'd been hit by a truck. A familiar voice next to him. It was Chimera. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he cradled his left arm. He looked scared and heartbroken. Hank put an arm around his friend. They sat in the corner of the cell, Hank doing his best to comfort Chimera.
His mind worked also on a plan to escape. At the moment there were several unknowns. The first of which being how they got there. FoH was not averse to using mutants if it benefited their greater good, but what he'd seen the night before seemed eerily similar to something he'd read about on the mutant forums. Transpeciesism. That's what they called it. A man named John Sublime had written a book charting the course of human evolution, and stated that humans could become something like mutants through surgical grafts. Hank had not thought too much about the subject, and had been intrigued enough to read into it. However, several pages into the man's book, Hank knew he was clearly insane. He called mutants the 'Lesser Race', but rumor had it, this Sublime wanted to be a mutant himself secretly.
Hank shook his head. That must have been what they'd witnessed the night before. He looked up. He assumed it had been the night before, but he couldn't see the outside at all. It was a disconcerting feeling not knowing if it was night or day.
Hank thought some more on the subject. The fundamental problem Hank had found with this Transpeciesism was that to graft the organs of a mutant would require... Suddenly it made a horrifying kind of sense. They weren't here as prisoners.
The door opened to admit two men in the same sleek looking space suit that the man had been wearing the night before. The taller of the two pointed to a mutant toward the front.
"This one's a Pyrokenetic. Take him." Came the cold emotionless voice from behind the mask. Hank looked at Chimera, and for the first time in years, he was very, very afraid.