"I Tried"
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)
Chapter 19- Face It
Pietro was hyperventilating, all thoughts of the ubsurdity of ghost ships gone. Scott, Logan and Ororo stood over his shoulder, staring at the computer and trying to figure out if it was a joke. Freddy was calmly crocheting in the background, seemingly unaware of what was going on and chatting absentmindedly about the types of rocks that he had identified in the tunnel. Lance was watching Freddy and wondering when the teacher had even gone over the different types of rocks and vaguely concerned that Todd was headed straight for a ghost ship, complete with animated skeletons. Todd hated bones. He wouldn't even eat chicken if it had bones. And now he was lost in a dark twisted maze of tunnels underneath Bayville and had chosen, of all things, the path that led straight to...
"Moving skeletons..." Lance's eyebrow twitched and Freddy nervously set his sweater down.
"Now Lance, you can't panic. What if you cause another quake? What about Todd?"
"Moving. Skeletons." Lance's voice was steady and the twitch was gone. "Moving." He added.
"Oh dear." The Professor whispered in the kitchen where he and Jaysin had been fielding calls from concerned neighbors.
"What?" Jaysin asked as he begged the pardon of a certain Ms. Williamson (this was her fifth hour-long call and he was looking for an escape) and covered the mouthpiece.
In answer, the ground shook mightily and Jaysin slammed the phone down and made a grab for the Professor's wheelchair to hold it steady as the floor cracked beneath them.
In the basement, things were only slightly better. Because of the nature of the room, no one knew that anything was happening at all. They were so focused on the camera stream that they didn't notice the new program open itself, and since the camera stream took priority, the small window immediately minimized, but blinked insistantly from the taskbar.
Which wasn't neccesarily a good thing.
"Uh, Scott could you come look at Lance for a sec. He's actin' funny." Freddy said as he peered at his friend, who was slowing turning a dark grey.
"Hmm." Scott said as he turned, still trying to comprehend that the skeletons were moving... until he saw Lance, standing still as a statue. "Hey, it's no problem. It's probably just a mutant with the power of illusions, that's all." Scott walked over to Lance and patted his back. The look of confinant reassurance slowly faded and was replaced by his all-too-common 'I have no idea what's going on' face and he coughed gently. "Uh. Pietro. Could you check that Seismic Activity thing again..."
"Muh...muh...oooooooooo...vuh, vuh-"
"Pietro... c'mon now. You're the only one who knows how to use the damn thing." Scott patted Lance's shoulder again and tried to think of something other than how cliche it was that Lance had actually turned to stone at the news... (statues... I'm sensing a connection...) He gritted his teeth and pushed Pietro out of the way and clicked the minimize button on the streamer. A little window popped up.
"Oh dear god..." Scott muttered as he glared at the computer. He then stalked to the door and flung it open.
The door was blocked by hunks of concrete and debris. "Pietro..."
Scott couldn't get himself to turn away from the door, but he heard the sound of slim fingers tapping keys and prayed desperately that what he was thinking was wrong. Logan walked up beside Scott.
"I could cut us out, but it might just make things worse." he said.
"There's... no visual." Pietro said. "The camera in the basement is still working, but it's been blocked by something." His voice was trembling.
"This is bad." Freddy said, frustratingly calm even though they were buried in an adamantium cave with three of the world's biggest eaters and no food, not to mention the fact that Todd was still deeper beneath the earth's surface than they, headed towards... shall we say, the unmentionables...
"Really?" Logan said genially as he lit a cigar. "How can you tell?"
"The quake is still going on. If he shakes this place up anymore we could be looking at a lot of sink holes around here." Jaysin answered for him.
"What do you mean by that?" Logan asked as he eyed the white-haired kid with an increasingly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"A lot of Bayville and the surrounding cities are built on pretty loose sand. If you shake it up enough, it settles and becomes like quicksand. It'll suck half the state underground." Jaysin blinked as he took in Lance's grey tones and gingerly tapped his forehead. Lance muttered something and with a small hmph, Jaysin unceremoniously whacked him over the head with a chair. As Lance's knees gave in, Jaysin nodded to himself. "That should do it. You guys are gonna need a new house, by the way."
"How..." Scott was staring at Jaysin as though he had seen a ghost. (A/N: I couldn't help it.)
"Oh trust me, if it started out as a dump, it's definitely ruined now."
"No... how did you get down here?"
"Huh? Oh. That. I don't know. It just happened." Jaysin shrugged. "The Professor's right there. Whatever it was knocked him out cold." Jaysin shrugged and pointed at the metal table where Professor Xavier was laid out. Scott rushed to his side as everyone else struggled to figure out what was going on.
"Hey, weren't Jaysin and the Professor upstairs? How'd they get down here so fast when the door was blocked?" Kurt said belatedly.
"Dunno. Wasn't there an earthquake somewhere in the whole thing?" Wanda wondered while waiting for whatever would come next. (A/N: I'm sorry. And just for the record, I'm apologizing in advance as well)
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Pietro pointed at a point on the screen, the point, as it was, that made him scream...er...*coughs*
"What's that?"
"Todd?"
"No."
"So what is it?"
"I don't know but it's moving too fast!"
"God, Pietro! You're an... whoa... it does move fast."
"Lemme see, lemme see. I wanna see, too. Oh look it's a skeleton."
"WHAT?!?!"
"It's okay guys. It's friends with Todd, see. They're playing hide-and-seek. Todd's not good at this game is he... What are you doing?"
Logan was slashing at the pile of rocks and Scott was pacing and muttering to himself.
Lance had turned a deeper shade of grey and was crouched in a corner, whimpering to himself. Kaysin, Kurt and Wanda had retreated to a different corner and were trying to sort out what was going on while Jaysin and Ororo were checking on the Professor and quietly whispering back and forth. Freddy stood in the middle of it all, taking in the pictures that the camera was sending them.
"So we're trapped here with a three story mansion caved in above us. We have no food, nothing except one of the most powerful computers in Bayville and our powers. Hmm." Freddy pulled on his ear. "It could be worse."
"Yes. It could be much worse." Scott said as he stopped pacing to stare at the behemoth. Freddy was honestly confused at the look on Scott's face- relief.
"Pietro, maintain your sanity. I need you to find the most direct path from here to the tunnel that leads to Todd. I'll blast a hole so we can go down there. You'll stay here with the Professor and you'll guide us through him. We leave as soon as the Professor wakes up and we fill him in. Until then," Scott nodded at the computer, "I do believe this isn't the only powerful computer. We can still try to contact the X-Men and organize help for the people above ground." Scott looked around, measuring his comrades. Now was when the Brotherhood's talents outshone the X-Men, nevermind that it was the Brotherhood who caused the whole mess in the first place. "Someone, get Lance to change back. You three," he singled Wanda, Kurt and Kaysin out. "What are you doing?"
The plan was easier said than done. The Professor woke up after about an hour, but was so disoriented that he couldn't use his powers yet. It was just as well, since Lance still hadn't calmed down and the three dingbats, as Jaysin called them, still hadn't figured out what was going on, even though Scott was in the middle of his third explanation. Pietro was the only one having any success. He had gotten in contact with the Xavier Mansion's computer and hacked into it's server. He was building a picture of where each X-Man was and what condition they were in. He had found a meeting place for those who were in one piece and was tapping into their communicators to direct them to those who couldn't make it to the new HQ. His first priority was to get the mutants together because they could do much more than the average human as far as rescues went. He had long since found the way to the tunnels and they had it marked on the wall, so now he was devoting every bit of his attention to gathering the mutants. The problem was that only seven were able to go find the others and they had only one computer. With the X-Men's computer and the Brotherhood's networked, Pietro could gather information as fast as he could type in a query and single out what he wanted. Needless to say, his end of the search was going fast. He had identified all of the mutants with comunicators and compiled a list of their conditions and locations. The problem was that that was the easy part. The other mutants still had to dig through the debris, carry the wounded- and tend them in extreme cases. It took three of them to work one area, so the most that could be accomplished there was barely anything at all.
"I give up." Scott muttered as he slid into a chair beside Logan and Pietro. "How's it going?"
"I found all the mutants. The problem lies in getting to them. We've got seven mutants who split into two groups to get people out. Group one is working on getting as many out as possible, I think Jean's in that group since she's got telekinesis and group two is working on getting the most drastically injured out. I think they mentioned a stray mutant they picked up who can heal people." Pietro traced the 'floating' strand of his hair with his finger as he tapped buttons half-heartedly. The computer screen switched views between the map of trapped mutants and the map of the two groups, to a map that showed both of them and then it went on to show several video feeds from choppers that Fort Braddock and several newstations had sent. The screen changed again to a map of Bayville as it was now that Pietro was making. It had several blank areas and several that were highlighted.
Pietro noticed Scott's look and explained. "I'm using the cameras to make a general guess at hows things look up there. The blank spots are the ones I don't know about or don't trust my information on. The yellow highlights are places I'm sure are acurate and safe and the red ones are the ones I'm sure of and aren't safe. It won't be long before the reporters notice that the only people above ground are mutants and start spreading rumors."
"Hm. Then make another list, this one of humans and send it to Fort Braddock."
"Great idea, Slim. How's he gonna find 'em?" Logan drawled, throughly pissed that he couldn't be out there helping and looking for someone to take it out on.
"Cell phones. There are enough people here with them to get a decent list. You figure out the details." Scott said as he stood and left to check on the Professor.
"Cell phones, duh. Wanna try calling someone when the tower's out, Scott?" Pietro called to Scott's back. "Of course it might work if I hack into a satellite and bounce the transmissions around... Or I could steal BellSouth's tower... Why not both?" Pietro smirked and began furiously typing. "Hey, anybody's who's bored can help me call these people up..." Wanda sighed heavily.
"I suppose, as long as I get to say what I want to."
"Er... almost. Just let them know that we're making a list to send to the rescue teams. Find out if they're hurt and how many people are with them. Here." Pietro started a computer for each of them. "Just go into WordPad and type it as you go. And pull up another one in case they know any people who're definately dead so we can start a list for that too."
"Dead. As in gone forever?" Kaysin's tragic eyes made it clear that for him, the word death was equivalent to the f-word to a nun. Strictly taboo.
"Yeah. Just in case."
"It will be alright, Kaysin." Wanda said as she arranged her phone, keyboard and devastating comments in front of her and reviewed her arsenal.
"Ja. It can't be as bad as you think it is." Kurt nodded and Kaysin brightened, though neither saw the look Logan and Pietro exchanged.
"Hey. I'll help." Jaysin said as he started his own computer. Soon Ororo and Logan broke down and started computers too. That left Scott and the Professor who were trying to convince Lance that he could turn back to flesh and bone again. The Professor's powers were coming back slowly but surely and he was using his feeble powers to keep Lance from tipping over the edge and starting another quake.
"Oh no." Pietro moaned. Everyone kept going as if they were afraid of what he would say next. "It's gone. It's ~gone.~"
"What's gone?" Scott asked.
"The boat. It's not there anymore..."
A little window popped up on Pietro's computer...
Furor Paxx (VulgateOfEarth@hotmail.com)
Chapter 19- Face It
Pietro was hyperventilating, all thoughts of the ubsurdity of ghost ships gone. Scott, Logan and Ororo stood over his shoulder, staring at the computer and trying to figure out if it was a joke. Freddy was calmly crocheting in the background, seemingly unaware of what was going on and chatting absentmindedly about the types of rocks that he had identified in the tunnel. Lance was watching Freddy and wondering when the teacher had even gone over the different types of rocks and vaguely concerned that Todd was headed straight for a ghost ship, complete with animated skeletons. Todd hated bones. He wouldn't even eat chicken if it had bones. And now he was lost in a dark twisted maze of tunnels underneath Bayville and had chosen, of all things, the path that led straight to...
"Moving skeletons..." Lance's eyebrow twitched and Freddy nervously set his sweater down.
"Now Lance, you can't panic. What if you cause another quake? What about Todd?"
"Moving. Skeletons." Lance's voice was steady and the twitch was gone. "Moving." He added.
"Oh dear." The Professor whispered in the kitchen where he and Jaysin had been fielding calls from concerned neighbors.
"What?" Jaysin asked as he begged the pardon of a certain Ms. Williamson (this was her fifth hour-long call and he was looking for an escape) and covered the mouthpiece.
In answer, the ground shook mightily and Jaysin slammed the phone down and made a grab for the Professor's wheelchair to hold it steady as the floor cracked beneath them.
In the basement, things were only slightly better. Because of the nature of the room, no one knew that anything was happening at all. They were so focused on the camera stream that they didn't notice the new program open itself, and since the camera stream took priority, the small window immediately minimized, but blinked insistantly from the taskbar.
Which wasn't neccesarily a good thing.
"Uh, Scott could you come look at Lance for a sec. He's actin' funny." Freddy said as he peered at his friend, who was slowing turning a dark grey.
"Hmm." Scott said as he turned, still trying to comprehend that the skeletons were moving... until he saw Lance, standing still as a statue. "Hey, it's no problem. It's probably just a mutant with the power of illusions, that's all." Scott walked over to Lance and patted his back. The look of confinant reassurance slowly faded and was replaced by his all-too-common 'I have no idea what's going on' face and he coughed gently. "Uh. Pietro. Could you check that Seismic Activity thing again..."
"Muh...muh...oooooooooo...vuh, vuh-"
"Pietro... c'mon now. You're the only one who knows how to use the damn thing." Scott patted Lance's shoulder again and tried to think of something other than how cliche it was that Lance had actually turned to stone at the news... (statues... I'm sensing a connection...) He gritted his teeth and pushed Pietro out of the way and clicked the minimize button on the streamer. A little window popped up.
"Oh dear god..." Scott muttered as he glared at the computer. He then stalked to the door and flung it open.
The door was blocked by hunks of concrete and debris. "Pietro..."
Scott couldn't get himself to turn away from the door, but he heard the sound of slim fingers tapping keys and prayed desperately that what he was thinking was wrong. Logan walked up beside Scott.
"I could cut us out, but it might just make things worse." he said.
"There's... no visual." Pietro said. "The camera in the basement is still working, but it's been blocked by something." His voice was trembling.
"This is bad." Freddy said, frustratingly calm even though they were buried in an adamantium cave with three of the world's biggest eaters and no food, not to mention the fact that Todd was still deeper beneath the earth's surface than they, headed towards... shall we say, the unmentionables...
"Really?" Logan said genially as he lit a cigar. "How can you tell?"
"The quake is still going on. If he shakes this place up anymore we could be looking at a lot of sink holes around here." Jaysin answered for him.
"What do you mean by that?" Logan asked as he eyed the white-haired kid with an increasingly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"A lot of Bayville and the surrounding cities are built on pretty loose sand. If you shake it up enough, it settles and becomes like quicksand. It'll suck half the state underground." Jaysin blinked as he took in Lance's grey tones and gingerly tapped his forehead. Lance muttered something and with a small hmph, Jaysin unceremoniously whacked him over the head with a chair. As Lance's knees gave in, Jaysin nodded to himself. "That should do it. You guys are gonna need a new house, by the way."
"How..." Scott was staring at Jaysin as though he had seen a ghost. (A/N: I couldn't help it.)
"Oh trust me, if it started out as a dump, it's definitely ruined now."
"No... how did you get down here?"
"Huh? Oh. That. I don't know. It just happened." Jaysin shrugged. "The Professor's right there. Whatever it was knocked him out cold." Jaysin shrugged and pointed at the metal table where Professor Xavier was laid out. Scott rushed to his side as everyone else struggled to figure out what was going on.
"Hey, weren't Jaysin and the Professor upstairs? How'd they get down here so fast when the door was blocked?" Kurt said belatedly.
"Dunno. Wasn't there an earthquake somewhere in the whole thing?" Wanda wondered while waiting for whatever would come next. (A/N: I'm sorry. And just for the record, I'm apologizing in advance as well)
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Pietro pointed at a point on the screen, the point, as it was, that made him scream...er...*coughs*
"What's that?"
"Todd?"
"No."
"So what is it?"
"I don't know but it's moving too fast!"
"God, Pietro! You're an... whoa... it does move fast."
"Lemme see, lemme see. I wanna see, too. Oh look it's a skeleton."
"WHAT?!?!"
"It's okay guys. It's friends with Todd, see. They're playing hide-and-seek. Todd's not good at this game is he... What are you doing?"
Logan was slashing at the pile of rocks and Scott was pacing and muttering to himself.
Lance had turned a deeper shade of grey and was crouched in a corner, whimpering to himself. Kaysin, Kurt and Wanda had retreated to a different corner and were trying to sort out what was going on while Jaysin and Ororo were checking on the Professor and quietly whispering back and forth. Freddy stood in the middle of it all, taking in the pictures that the camera was sending them.
"So we're trapped here with a three story mansion caved in above us. We have no food, nothing except one of the most powerful computers in Bayville and our powers. Hmm." Freddy pulled on his ear. "It could be worse."
"Yes. It could be much worse." Scott said as he stopped pacing to stare at the behemoth. Freddy was honestly confused at the look on Scott's face- relief.
"Pietro, maintain your sanity. I need you to find the most direct path from here to the tunnel that leads to Todd. I'll blast a hole so we can go down there. You'll stay here with the Professor and you'll guide us through him. We leave as soon as the Professor wakes up and we fill him in. Until then," Scott nodded at the computer, "I do believe this isn't the only powerful computer. We can still try to contact the X-Men and organize help for the people above ground." Scott looked around, measuring his comrades. Now was when the Brotherhood's talents outshone the X-Men, nevermind that it was the Brotherhood who caused the whole mess in the first place. "Someone, get Lance to change back. You three," he singled Wanda, Kurt and Kaysin out. "What are you doing?"
The plan was easier said than done. The Professor woke up after about an hour, but was so disoriented that he couldn't use his powers yet. It was just as well, since Lance still hadn't calmed down and the three dingbats, as Jaysin called them, still hadn't figured out what was going on, even though Scott was in the middle of his third explanation. Pietro was the only one having any success. He had gotten in contact with the Xavier Mansion's computer and hacked into it's server. He was building a picture of where each X-Man was and what condition they were in. He had found a meeting place for those who were in one piece and was tapping into their communicators to direct them to those who couldn't make it to the new HQ. His first priority was to get the mutants together because they could do much more than the average human as far as rescues went. He had long since found the way to the tunnels and they had it marked on the wall, so now he was devoting every bit of his attention to gathering the mutants. The problem was that only seven were able to go find the others and they had only one computer. With the X-Men's computer and the Brotherhood's networked, Pietro could gather information as fast as he could type in a query and single out what he wanted. Needless to say, his end of the search was going fast. He had identified all of the mutants with comunicators and compiled a list of their conditions and locations. The problem was that that was the easy part. The other mutants still had to dig through the debris, carry the wounded- and tend them in extreme cases. It took three of them to work one area, so the most that could be accomplished there was barely anything at all.
"I give up." Scott muttered as he slid into a chair beside Logan and Pietro. "How's it going?"
"I found all the mutants. The problem lies in getting to them. We've got seven mutants who split into two groups to get people out. Group one is working on getting as many out as possible, I think Jean's in that group since she's got telekinesis and group two is working on getting the most drastically injured out. I think they mentioned a stray mutant they picked up who can heal people." Pietro traced the 'floating' strand of his hair with his finger as he tapped buttons half-heartedly. The computer screen switched views between the map of trapped mutants and the map of the two groups, to a map that showed both of them and then it went on to show several video feeds from choppers that Fort Braddock and several newstations had sent. The screen changed again to a map of Bayville as it was now that Pietro was making. It had several blank areas and several that were highlighted.
Pietro noticed Scott's look and explained. "I'm using the cameras to make a general guess at hows things look up there. The blank spots are the ones I don't know about or don't trust my information on. The yellow highlights are places I'm sure are acurate and safe and the red ones are the ones I'm sure of and aren't safe. It won't be long before the reporters notice that the only people above ground are mutants and start spreading rumors."
"Hm. Then make another list, this one of humans and send it to Fort Braddock."
"Great idea, Slim. How's he gonna find 'em?" Logan drawled, throughly pissed that he couldn't be out there helping and looking for someone to take it out on.
"Cell phones. There are enough people here with them to get a decent list. You figure out the details." Scott said as he stood and left to check on the Professor.
"Cell phones, duh. Wanna try calling someone when the tower's out, Scott?" Pietro called to Scott's back. "Of course it might work if I hack into a satellite and bounce the transmissions around... Or I could steal BellSouth's tower... Why not both?" Pietro smirked and began furiously typing. "Hey, anybody's who's bored can help me call these people up..." Wanda sighed heavily.
"I suppose, as long as I get to say what I want to."
"Er... almost. Just let them know that we're making a list to send to the rescue teams. Find out if they're hurt and how many people are with them. Here." Pietro started a computer for each of them. "Just go into WordPad and type it as you go. And pull up another one in case they know any people who're definately dead so we can start a list for that too."
"Dead. As in gone forever?" Kaysin's tragic eyes made it clear that for him, the word death was equivalent to the f-word to a nun. Strictly taboo.
"Yeah. Just in case."
"It will be alright, Kaysin." Wanda said as she arranged her phone, keyboard and devastating comments in front of her and reviewed her arsenal.
"Ja. It can't be as bad as you think it is." Kurt nodded and Kaysin brightened, though neither saw the look Logan and Pietro exchanged.
"Hey. I'll help." Jaysin said as he started his own computer. Soon Ororo and Logan broke down and started computers too. That left Scott and the Professor who were trying to convince Lance that he could turn back to flesh and bone again. The Professor's powers were coming back slowly but surely and he was using his feeble powers to keep Lance from tipping over the edge and starting another quake.
"Oh no." Pietro moaned. Everyone kept going as if they were afraid of what he would say next. "It's gone. It's ~gone.~"
"What's gone?" Scott asked.
"The boat. It's not there anymore..."
A little window popped up on Pietro's computer...