I don't own anything

"Oh God, I'm not getting paid enough for this."

Rogue's depressed statement was primarily ignored, she'd had been muttering similar things under her breath for the last ten minutes, ever since she'd touched the guard. He'd looked like a slimy bastard and according to Rogue appearances weren't deceiving. When she had first started complaining about him, Wolverine had told her to be quiet and focus on her mission, and the other X-Men had agreed. Of course she hadn't listened and had continued complaining about the jerk in her head, and eventually the X-men realised that she knew what she was doing and she wasn't going to get distracted.

So far everything had gone fairly smoothly, the base was slap bang in the centre of a large, thick creepy forest, (aren't the always) and the Blackbird had been able to set down only a few metres away from the outer fencing. The area had already been misty so Storm's covering fog hadn't attracted too much attention, a magnetic field, courtesy of Magneto had hidden the jest from any scanners located within the forest, and Rogue had displayed a very useful and previously unforeseen talent and camouflaged the jet so that it blended in perfectly with the surrounding woodland. Of course someone would know it was there if they walked into it, but that was highly unlikely (knock on wood). A guard had been found and assimilated with relative ease, and for the last fifteen minutes they had been heading towards the cells, after they had found a computer terminal and Mystique had looped the camera feed. The two separate groups had been decided the way Pietro thought they would, brute strength and offensive powers were breaking the cells open and disposing of any opposition, the other group combined smarts and mainly defensive powers to destroy any records of this place.

All the corridors looked the same, built of the same matt grey, occasionally relieves by the odd splash of a lighter matt grey, the hallways were curved, so you were walking through a tunnel. Unless you were paying minute attention to the floor or the walls it looked as though you weren't moving. Magneto had explained that the trick was just to look straight ahead, and pay no attention to your surroundings. Of course the Brotherhood had already known, Magneto's bases were always based on that design, but it was quite funny to watch Mags and a purposely obtuse Wolverine arguing about the functionality of ordinary square corridors, and how there was no need for circular ones, at least until they had realised they were starting to make a bit too much noise.

Five minutes later they reached a bland grey junction with five other pathways leading off it. Deadened to a dull aching whisper Rogue's voice was hardly distinguishable from the white noise of air purifiers.

"This is where we split. Team B down the…third to the left from this tunnel. My Team A down…the tunnel two to the right."

"Hey! We're Team A, you're Team B."

"No, we're Team A, you're Team B."

It could have gone on for a while, but a growl from Sabretooth interrupted their fun and they had swiftly moved on. Rogue, Pietro and their followers had less distance to travel, but the central computer core, which is what they were going to annihilate was in the middle of the base, and consequently surrounded by soldiers and scientists. So they had to wait in a small side room (after incapacitating the occupant) for Team B! to create the distraction.

It wasn't the most comfortable of environments, besides being the same monotone grey, with darker grey furniture; Storm and Mystique were filling the small space with a solid body of tension. The uncomfortableness was almost a living breathing entity that pulsed between them, after trying to defuse Storm; Kurt had retreated to a corner and was telling Pietro stories of his days in the circus. After roughly ten minutes the distraction arrived, and not a second too late.

The heady silence was breached by a wailing klaxon that sounded the same monotonous, ear-splitting note over, and over and over again, the cacophony accompanied by flashing red lights that nearly blinded Nightcrawler and Mystique, not that she would ever admit it. The sound of the alarm was almost, but not quite, blocked out by the sound of dozens of feet rushing towards the alarm's origin.

Looking through the small opening between the door and the wall Rogue could see platoons of soldiers in camouflage uniforms sprinting past, guns gripped between steady hands. People in civilians followed them, a couple with handguns of their own, then came the scientists, white coats flapping, glasses flying off their noses they were squawking about how the 'dangerous specimens' would damage some of their more delicate experiments in that area. A few headed into the central computer core, but there were only a few, added to the number already in there that were monitoring everything there would only be about 10, not enough to give them a problem. 30 seconds passed while they waited for the hubbub to slow, then they pounced.

Pietro first, speeding into the core room, immediately knocking over the scientists close to the door, Rogue had followed him at the same speed and taken care of the others. By the time the others had made it across the hall they were already seated, fingers flicking across keyboards, huge block of text appearing and then disappearing, only to be replaced with yet more text. Mystique joined them immediately, sitting down at another terminal, and pulling a stack of CDs out of a bag she'd bee hauling along. After locking the door Storm and Kurt went through the cavernous space with a fine tooth comb, looking for any physical records and stockpiling what they found in the middle of the room, a large meal container was found and deposited next to the files, Kurt pulled out a box of matches and started burning the files, only to have more thrown in on top of the ashes, ready to be burnt.


"FUCK!"

An animalistic growl erupted from Wolverine's throat when the klaxons sounded, the harsh sound ripping through his delicate hearing, his eyes had the same problem with the lights, and Sabretooth wasn't doing much better. The two mutants were practically helpless for until Cyclops found the klaxons control and blasted it while Mags took out the other lights. Obviously those weren't the only control panels for the alarms, but the noise and light decreased dramatically, allowing Wolverine and Sabretooth to function again. Angry at the incapacitation the two stormed past their team and flung themselves through the final door between themselves and their quarry. The white door crumpled under their weight and they went straight through to land on and maul three of the scientists who had been checking on the specimens. The others swiftly followed them, a red beam taking out one more, a hunk of door flying through the air knocked another one out cold, and a sixth was lifted up into the air by a green tongue and hurled into the far wall. Meanwhile Magneto was constructing a solid wall in the ruined space. John was melting the control panels for the cells, laughing manically as the metal dripped down the wall and sparks flew. After incapacitating the boys in white coats and building a door the others joined in and gradually they made their way down the long room. As the clear plastic doors slid back, slowly, and then with more confidence, the occupants came pouring out.

They reminded Magneto of his days in Auschwitz. Skeletally thin, some unable to stand up straight without support from others, who didn't look in any better shape. Those furthest from the door were in slightly better condition, obviously the base's most recent acquisitions. All of their hair was long, limp and straggly, bags large enough for a round the world tour hung under every single eye, skin was stretched tight over unnaturally large bones and was an unhealthy, sallow complexion, and each one was terrified out of their minds. Some of the younger ones looked as though they were trying to be angry, just in case these people were going to take them someplace else, it was an obvious front though. One girl could only have been about thirteen, she was in one of the rooms furthest from the door so her body wasn't in such bad shape as it could have been, and she was obviously trying to look tough, but her eyes were hollow. Whereas others had had their eyes aged by the experience, hers were blank, running on a teenager's defiant instinct, nothing more.

It only took twenty minutes to release all the mutants, but Magneto's improvised was being battered the whole time. He had stopped opening doors after a few minutes, instead concentrating on incorporating every shell and bullet into the wall they were fired at.

"Cyclops, the Blackbird isn't going to be nearly big enough to fit all these people in, there's got to be about 70."

Toad's voice was quite timid; the sheer awfulness (there was no word to describe ho bad it was in the green boy's vocabulary) was an oppressive weight that pressed down on them all, no one wanted to speak too loudly, respect for the tragedy Todd supposed. He just wanted to get out of there, it was too spooky, Rogue would have hated it, she'd always been sensitive to these things, too sensitive if you asked her brothers but did she ever listen to them and stop getting so involved? Noooo!

"I know Toad, I think we're going to have to go to plan B."

"Steal a cargo plane."

"Two."

Their conversation was broken off by a large crash and a dent appearing in Magneto's door, followed by an anguished cry coming from the silver haired mutant himself. Sabretooth grabbed his boss as he was about to fall to the floor, the Brotherhood members in the room jerked, as though they wanted to go to the two Acolytes, but thought better of it and stayed where they were. That might have been the first time any X-Man but Charles had ever seen emotion of any kind on Eric's face, and it didn't last long. It was quickly covered and his voice came out as strong as it could be considering he was slumped in Sabretooth's arms.

"We have to leave now!"

"They're throwing some sort of acid against the door, I can't hold it for much longer!"

"You're not much use then are you."

Logan growled and turned away looking for away out, he wasn't expecting to walk straight into Fred, who spoke quietly, so that only the X-Men contingent who was gathered close together could hear him.

"When he's manipulating the metal it's like it's an extension of him. Bullet's slamming into is like being poked really hard, but the acid will feel like it's being poured on him."

He didn't wait for a response, not really expecting one, the X-Men, Logan in particular would never accept Magneto as a human being. To them he was a man who'd betrayed their mentor, even though they didn't necessarily know the whole story.

Meanwhile Lance had been talking to Magneto and Sabretooth and was now gently ushering the frightened mutants out of the way, ignoring the feebly brave insults tossed in his direction by the few with enough spark left to fight. Once he had a clear space he rolled his eyes back into his head as the ground began to shake. Shouts were easily heard through the rapidly thinning metal as the quake spread, but the general skating diminished after a few seconds as Lance focused his power. A crack appeared at the base of the far wall, two more grew the wall, and then split to join into one running across the top of the wall. Creating a square that disintegrated into a pile of rubble as the shaking continued.

"Shall we go?"

The flippant remark was accompanied by a cheeky grin; the Brotherhood and the X-men started ushering the shell-shocked mutants out, following the smell of fuel in an effort to find the planes.

Hey everyone, sorry it's been a while, hope you enjoyed it

Ears: hope you liked this

Theblondeone07: glad you like it so far, hope you liked this chap too

DreamSprite: sorry it's been a while

RoganLuvr: sorry it's been a while, hope you liked it

Mm4eva2gether: hope you liked it

Please review everyone, I love them.