Chapter 9: Breakout

While Bastion had made his way to Xavier's cell, the sleds arrived with their occupants in the ultra-containment block the guards jokingly referred to as 'The Hole'. "Sort them out and get them locked down in the specialized cells!" he ordered. "The redhead goes into number three with the psi-shields. The tall one goes in the bunker with ceramic armor and blast-dampers. This one—" he broke off as he saw Logan. "Huh? No use locking this one up, he's a stiff!"

One of the other guards spoke up. "This mutie caught some heavy damage. He saved the redhead by absorbing the impact."

The first guard waved a hand. "Whatever. Take him down to incineration. And strip off the containment gear before you throw him in the furnace! The stuff doesn't grow on trees!" As two of his comrades hauled Logan's body up on the antigrav sled for transport, the one in charges said, "Stand by! I'm unlocking all cells with the master switch!"

The two guards took the sled with its dead occupant down the hall a couple of doors and into another chamber; it was small, and dominated by a huge round incinerator door in one wall. They stripped off the containment gear, hauling Logan onto the sliding platform and pushing him into the incinerator. The door closed with a heavy metallic clang, and they turned their attention to the keypad. "Gas jets are on," one said quietly, checking the gauges.

"Let it build up in there before you hit the ignition."

The quiet but still audible hisss of gas jets broke into Logan's subconscious. He took a deep sniff, identified it as… "...Gas!"

He sat up on the heavy metal slab, groaning as not-yet-fully-healed muscles protested. Last thing I remember is our plane goin' down. Body functions must've shut down while the ol' mutant healin' factor was kickin' in… and outside the metal chamber, he heard a voice say, "That should do it. Fire it up!" He was already reaching for the door when he heard the soft ptink of a button being pushed.

His bone claws were already out as he pushed the door open and attacked the two men standing in front of it, feeling the heat of the incinerator's fire lick across his back as he did so. To the two soldiers he must have looked like a demon from some depthless hell, rising from the inferno to pay them back for what they'd done to him and his kind…but neither one was given much time to dwell on what their Maker might have in store for them before Logan's claws sent them into darkness. He didn't waste any time; he quickly, efficiently, stripped one of them of his distinctive body armor and mask, then shouldered the gun and went hunting for his teammates.

He found them purely by accident, when he passed through a big chamber with a number of smaller doors leading from it and saw three of the guards kicking and punching a figure lying on the floor. "Beg, gene-trash! A little earnest pleading will stop the pain!"

Sam (a quick sniff assured Logan of the battered man's identity) gasped out through gritted teeth, "Never!"

Logan advanced into the room, gun at the ready, mask completely hiding his face. "What's goin' on down here?"

One of the guards, a man with hard, cold eyes, growled out, "We got us a right surly mutant prisoner! Disrespectful to his betters, he is!" He grabbed a fistful of Sam's shirtfront and hauled him upright.

Logan snorted behind his mask. "Better at what? Floatin' on top of a stagnant pond? 'Scuse me while I knock out the cameras." Before the other guards had a chance to react, a quick burst of energy from the gun knocked out the surveillance cameras he'd noticed in passing on his way in. "Now." He took off the helmet and mask and showed them exactly who it was who had just turned the tables on him…and enjoyed their looks of shock as 'the stiff' spoke to them. "All you sterlin' examples o' humanity, drop yer weapons, open them cell doors, and you pick up that surly young mutant and brush him off real nice!"

Jubilee fell to her knees on the floor as Bastion left. It was over. They'd lost. The X-Men were captured. Wolvie was gone. And it was all because of her. She'd failed. She'd given Bastion the location of the Institute. She'd given him the means to defeat her friends. And at that moment, she wished with all her heart that she was back with the guards. They'd be hurting her…but she'd deserve it. She'd betrayed her friends, because she was weak. "I'm sorry," she whispered, tears filling her blue eyes as her shoulders drooped in despair. "I'm so sorry…oh, God, please…I didn't mean to, I really really really didn't mean to…Wolvie…Please, Wolvie, forgive me…I didn't mean to…he hurt me…he made me tell him…I'm sorry!" She broke down into harsh, body-wracking sobs, not caring who might be watching. It was over. It was all over. Xavier's dream was dead…because of her. She'd carry the guilt around for the rest of her life… "I'm so sorry," she whispered again, uselessly, knowing that nothing she said or did would ever ever make it all alright again.

As if from a long distance away, she heard Bastion's voice as he walked into the room. "You had better have a good reason for calling me back here, Daria! I was beginning to pry a wedge into Xavier's vaunted mental armor—" Jubilee's mind refused to process the words; instead, the words I'm sorry, Wolvie, forgive me were repeating endlessly in her mind as her memories of him played out in her mind behind her squeezed-shut eyelids.

Daria spoke softly. Her heart had nearly broken when she saw Jubilee's despair; the images the mindsifter were picking up now were….disquieting. Which was why she had called Bastion. "Jubilee went into a depressed state after you left." Depressed? Saying Jubilee was 'depressed' was like saying the ocean was deep. It was a tremendous understatement. She was glad that Jubilee had the straitjacket on and had no way to kill herself; otherwise she was afraid the girl would actually attempt suicide. "These images started showing up on the memory scanner!" She activated the viewscreen, and showed Bastion what she had seen; Wolverine fighting the assassins belonging to the Hand; Wolverine ripping apart some large piece of machinery; Wolverine tearing some sentinels apart; Wolverine fighting Lady Deathstrike…the images went on. "There's such raw, unrestrained violence…! this Wolverine is like some elemental force of destruction—"

Bastion dismissed it all. "The child is merely acting out. These are less memories than projections of her own frustration. They are of little concern to us. Besides," he said, starting to turn away from the viewscreen, "He is no more than a mound of warm ashes by now—"

A corner of the screen crackled to life. "Sorry to interrupt this memory scan, Sir, but we have a problem. We've lost all visual surveillance on the ultra-containment block…and now the main board shows all the cell doors have been opened and relocked!"

Bastion snapped upright, as if someone had just jammed a bar of steel up his spine. "What? Patch me video feeds from inside the cells!"

The security officer placed a hand to the comm unit in his ear, frowning as he tried to make sense of the garbled communications coming over it. "The main cell cameras are all down, but we still have a feed from the hidden cameras…here we are…" he flipped a switch, and Jubilee's memories were suddenly replaced by images of the cells. Block after block of them, filled with not their regular occupants, but…

"…What the--? That's the guard detail! They've been compromised!"

Bastion yelled at the top of his lungs, as if somehow every soldier on the base could hear him if he just shouted loud enough. "FULL SECURITY ALERT! The X-Men are free inside the base!"

And those words penetrated the haze clouding Jubilee's guilt-fogged mind. She raised her head slowly, listening to the sirens, the alarms, and Bastion's shouting, and a small smile crept across her face.

The sirens blared, and a guard looked up reflexively as they started going off. And then looked down quickly at the shadows in the hall before him. "Halt! Produce identification—"

The figure in the lead of the small knot of people stepped forward out of the shadows, and the man bit his lip as he saw who it was. "'Silence, fool. It is I, Bastion. Your master."

"Atten-hut!" The squad leader ordered the rest of them to attention, which they did.

"At ease, trooper," said Bastion sternly. "We have reason to believe that the mutant escapees have procured body armor and weapons. They may be disguised as security troopers. You have an open clearance to fire on any trooper—weapons set to 'stun'—who cannot supply the proper password, which is 'ninth circle'."

The man in charge fired off a snappy military salute. "Yes sir. Ninth Circle. Understood sir!" and he took his team down the opposite direction from which Bastion had come. Bastion himself got into a nearby lift, accompanied by Daria and three Prime Sentinels, and commanded, "To the surface!"

"Yes sir," said Daria, and hit a button, sending the elevator up the shaft as the door closed. Then, and only then, did their likenesses change, to reveal Jean, Ororo, Sam, Scott, and Logan. Ororo was shaking, and her dusky skin was several shades paler than usual. "I cannot bear it, Logan! My claustrophobia---the very thought of being this deep below the surface—" She couldn't go on, but grabbed for Logan's arm for support.

"Hang in there, Ororo," Logan said grimly. "We'll have ya up in daylight in no time!"

Jean and Scott, meanwhile, were having their own conversation. "Scott…" Jean breathed. "It was a strain before, but now, the effect of keeping the illusion up within their psyches…!"

Scott took his wife's hand in his own. The guards hadn't bothered to remove the ruby quartz glasses he wore instead of his visor on occasion, for which he was immensely grateful. "Take it easy, Jean. It'll be up to me and Cannonball to blast through the final barriers at the surface!"

Jean sighed. "By now they must be alerted to our escape. We're bound to run into the Sentinels—the newer, deadlier version—that took us out before!"

Sam spoke up, his face still a patchwork of bruises from the beating he'd gotten. "Ah expect to give as good as I get!" Then, sensing Jean needed something to lift her spirits, he said gently, "Phoenix, Ma'am, that was some quick thinkin' givin' every group we passed a different password!"

Scott said determinedly, "She did good, Sam. Ororo? Are you going to be all right?"

Ororo took a deep, calming breath. "I am fine, Cyclops."

Logan grabbed Ororo's hand, squeezing it in a gesture of support. "Storm ain't lettin' the team down in the bottom o' the ninth, Cyke."

Up in the control room, Bastion was frantically flipping through the camera frequencies, trying to find one that worked. Finally he found one…

"…Halt! Identify yourselves!" he saw a squad of five troopers face another squad of five.

"Who wants to know?' the leader of the second squad called out.

"Just give the password!" retorted the leader of the first squad.

"Seventh Circle!" said the second squad leader.

"Wrong!" howled the first squad leader. "Open fire!" orange energy bursts started to splatter off the walls.

"They don't acknowledge the proper password! Mow 'em down!" yelled the second squad leader. The energy blasts started flying both ways.

Bastion was almost beside himself with rage. "CEASE FIRE! Those are our own men!"

The first squad leader protested, "But sir, you personally gave us orders to shoot anybody who didn't know the password!"

Bastion clenched his fist in rage. "You IDIOT! Phoenix, the telepath, entered your minds and made you see my form!"

With all the base's power going to the security systems, neither Bastion nor Daria noticed that the illusion of walls had come down around the dais and Jubilee was now watching the whole thing with a light in her eyes and joy in her heart. "Tell 'em to shoot anybody who looks like you, Bastion! Ha!" She wanted to laugh, but she was too busy trying to figure out how to escape and help her friends.

Bastion glowered at her, then turned back to the viewscreen and called up the base's schematics. "Reconfigure the monitors to command post mode…activate interactive control surfaces…" the screen went to touch-sensitive status, and he continued touching areas of the screen, doing God-knew-what. Jubilee watched every button he touched intently; somewhere in there, there had to be a way to defeat him… "...I'm sealing the facility." He touched a last button, and Jubilee could almost imagine she felt the floor vibrate under her feet as the heavy shielded blast doors whirred closed, then locked with a heavy kashunk.

"Surface blast door sealed!" came an affirmative shout from a soldier standing in front of the door. Seconds later, the security coordinator's voice came up over the intercom. "We have contact with the mutants, sir! They're only one level from the surface!" Then, almost as an afterthought, "How did they get that far?"

Bastion glared grimly at the viewscreen. "Who cares? Activate all Sentinel Prime units, and proceed to the blast doors. Your orders are to contain the mutant designates!" On screen, Logan plowed through a mob of soldiers that no other person, human or mutant, would have been able to survive. Scott blasted Sentinels into their component little silvery chips, and Jean telekinetically lifted the various guards and soldiers into Scott's line of fire. Sam, also fighting an aerial battle, smashing his way through a group of Sentinels. Jubilee's spirits lifted. Maybe they had a chance…

The five X-Men got to the corner just in front of the door, and peeked out cautiously for an assessment of the danger before planning their strategy. "Looks like they slammed the exit door on us, folks!" Logan growled.

Sam took in the Sentinels hovering before the heavy door, and sighed. "And they sicced the Sentinels on us, to boot! Ain't no turnin' back, neither!"

"Ain't never no turnin' back, Sam," Logan said, easing out from under Ororo's arm.

"Wolverine's right." Scott assessed the situation quickly. "We take the offense, even if it means--"

Ororo drew herself up to her full height. "Stand aside, Cyclops! It is time for Storm to put her fear behind her and unleash the power that is her namesake!" Her blue eyes whitened out in a face that had regained its color once she realized that this door was all that was keeping her from freedom and her beloved sky. As a child, she'd been buried alive in a pile of rubble, and that had left her with hopeless claustrophobia. While she was confined underground, she had fought the urge to lash out with her power, mindful of the damage, the hurt, it could cause not only to her enemies, but her friends. Now she let loose with a tremendous lightning blast that shorted out every Prime Sentinel in their vicinity, leaving the path to the door clear for Scott. The brief but intense burst of power overtaxed her already strained body, and Logan caught her as her legs sagged. "Ya did it, 'Ro! You just lean on the ol' canucklehead while Cyke does his thing on the blast door lock!"

Scott braced himself and reached for his glasses. "Avert your eyes, people, I'm giving it full power!" It was something he rarely did, lest they harm anyone close to him. But he was desperate now; and on his shoulders rested not only the lives of his wife and friends, but also untold thousands of innocents if Bastion should get his hands on them. Right now, he was firmly convinced—and rightly so—that the X-Men were the only ones who could possibly stop Bastion's mad plans. So he let go with everything he had, in a sustained burst that he was certain would break the lock and open the doors. But when the haze of ionized air cleared…

"Whu--!" Sam stared in disbelief, doing a double-take. "Didn't even dent it!"

"It's shielded!" Scott cried in disbelief and despair. "I failed--!"

Logan let go of Ororo as he turned to deal with the Prime Sentinels coming up behind them. "The fat lady ain't sung yet, Summers." And with that the battle was joined. Again.

In the control room, Daria watched the X-Men onscreen. "It's so—so—" She searched for words.

"Futile?" Bastion said, watching the screen in satisfaction. The X-Men weren't getting out. He would continue to throw every Prime Sentinel he had at them until they tired, then he would have them killed. They were mutants, flesh and blood; they weren't tireless like his Sentinels. Sooner or later he would have them.

"Tragic," Daria finally said.

Bastion watched the screen. "More so than you can imagine, girl. More so that you can imagine. But this is our purpose. This is why we exist. Besides, it will be over in a matter of seconds—"

That was when Jubilee made her move. Eyes fixed on the console, at that one button that would give her friends their freedom, she dodged and ducked, putting all her strength into a fast drive with her legs toward that console. "Not if I can help it, Pinky—" She ducked past Daria, too surprised to move, and gritted her teeth as she aimed one of the bulky, protruding knob on the mindsifter against the button that opened the door. "…not by a long shot!" She squeezed her eyes shut, praying she'd only hit the one button, and not something else…and then Bastion howled in rage and thwarted desire. "She opened the blast doors!"

He lashed out in the excess of his emotion and punched Jubilee, sending the girl flying. "Misguided child! Do you have any idea what you've done?" He was going to break her. He would leave her in her cell without food and water and light and see how long she lasted—

"Sir!" Daria's voice cut into his thoughts, arresting his action. "They're cutting off pursuit by blocking the blast door and collapsing the entranceway around it!"

Jubilee's voice was full of triumph. "Betcha thought you'd broken me, huh, Pinky? You're such a loser." She watched, torn between pride and joy that her friends had gotten out…and desperately wanting them to come back. For her. But they obviously don't even know I'm here, she thought. Wolvie, please,oh God, please come back, don't leave me here alone!…but the X-Men were getting into a hoversled sitting close to the mangled, blown up, blocked door, and they couldn't come back for her anyway without being caught again. She much preferred that they escape. Even if it meant leaving her behind.

Bastion gritted his teeth so hard he was sure they'd shatter. "Soon, Lee, if I do not succeed—all humanity will be the losers." He turned to the screen. "Daria, prepare a transfer module. I must return to the Xavier Institute." He turned and headed to the door, then addressed two of his bodyguards. "Take the child back to her cell. Leave her there alone. No food, no water. No light. Nothing. I will break her." He strode from the room as the guard gripped Jubilee's arm. Daria stared after Jubilee's stumbling back, shaking her head, then returned to her work with a frown.

Outside, Jean, Ororo, Sam, and Scott got into a waiting hoversled. Logan was lagging behind, and Scott turned to him. "Come ON, Wolverine! We have to get out of here…and get some answers!"

Logan looked back over his shoulder at the base, sitting silent behind them. There was an odd tugging, as if he'd forgotten something, left something back there that was very important but he couldn't put his finger on it…and a question nagged at the back of his mind. "Somebody opened that door for us, Slim. Now who woulda done that for us?"

"Never mind that now! If Bastion has declared open war on mutants we may be the only ones who can stop him!" Scott hauled Logan bodily into the seat of the hoversled and took control of the wheel. As they sped away, Logan stared back over his shoulder, still possessed by an odd sense of having left something important behind.

End notes:

Had to play fast and loose with this chapter, too, like I did with the previous one. All my respects to the creative team on Wolverine 115, but scene shifts that can be done easily in the comic books isn't as easily done in prose. I had to juggle some things around, so let me put it all into proper order here:

The sorting scene, which is the first one in this chapter, actually was placed in the comic book between two pages of Bastion's conversation with Xavier, so I moved that to take place after the conversation. I think I mentioned that in the end notes for last chapter. Also, Daria never actually calls Bastion up to the control room; on page 12, it's mentioned but there's no panel specifically describing that. I inserted that myself at the tail end of Bastion's conversation with Charles. Then I took Logan's escape from page 10 and 11 and put that with the results of that escape on page 13. I took the password scene from page 15 and stuck it with the escape on page 17, then took the control room scenes from page16 and tossed it in with the rest of the control room scenes on page 18. The exchange between the squad leaders was integrated into the control room scene, as was the X-Men trying to get out. I did that because I wanted to show what was happening from Jubes's point of view, and so we could get some insight into what she was thinking.

Thanks for everyone's patience in waiting till I had both chapters done! Happy reading!