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Shattered Like Glass: Scene 17The mansion was eerily quiet. Ilehana walked through the corridors alone, pondering how loud the floorboards creaked as she trod them alone. Somewhere on the staff floor a door banged once or twice. Blaze must have left her window open. Ilehana made a mental note that it would need closing, now they had all gone.
Rounding a corner, Vixen saw something in the corner of her eye. She turned silently, almost trying not to make any sound for fear of disturbing the ghostly emptiness about her. She bent down to pick up the abandoned item, stretching out long fingers lift it off the carpet. Straightening her back, she looked at the toy. A tiny brown teddy bear that only had one eye. It was so moth-eaten; one ear completely chewed off and bare patches in its fur, it could only have been someone's favourite memento of early childhood. Ilehana held it to herself in a moment of rarely seen tenderness, before pushing open the nearest dorm door.
The room was a bombsite. The occupants had hastily abandoned packing as Cyclops' call to roll out echoed through the floor. Dirty clothes and unwashed pots vied with neatly folded scarves and stacks of schoolbooks in every corner of the room. Gently Ilehana placed the teddy down on one pillow, making sure he was sat up before leaving the room again. She closed the door sadly behind her, closing the door on an era.
She joined her father on the front of the mansion shortly after the lockdown of the subbasement had been completed. It would take whoever came a very long time to work out how to get down to Cerebro and the other rooms of the X-Men's labyrinth. Not that they would not try and probably eventually succeed. The cavalcade that drove up to the front of the mansion now seemed a bit of overkill to take out two mutants. Then again thanks to Logan and Remy's distraction, the military did not know that only the two Xaviers were still at home. Her heart went out to Logan, and she hoped he would follow her father's advice and lie low for a while. She was helpless to help him.
"Professor Charles Xavier." A man in a general's uniform greeted Ilehana's father, uttering the name like a threat in itself. "We meet at last. I am General Kincaid, I wonder if perhaps you have heard of me?"
"I'm sorry to say that I haven't." Xavier responded in kind as Ilehana placed her hand on the back of his wheelchair. "Can I ask what this is about?"
"You must know." Kincaid replied, "You seem to have been busy preparing for this day. Where the rest of your mutant army are, we will discuss later. For now, I would ask that you cooperate with my men. It would make things easier for all of us."
"Are we under arrest?" Ilehana asked shortly, making Kincaid look at her for the first time.
"House arrest only for now, Vixen." He waved forwards two men in lab coats. The scientists proceeded to approach the Xaviers armed with small metal collars. "It is felt that your incarceration or disposal will turn you into martyrs for your cause. I cannot allow this to happen. If you don't mind…"
The Xaviers did mind, but there was no option. The collars snapped shut and both telepaths immediately felt weak and empty. Their telepathy, their innate link to the world around them, to people's thoughts, feelings and desires was stopped short like the breath in their throats.
"The collars contain a proximity neural inhibitor. Don't try and take them off, they are also packed with explosives that will detonate if tampered with. Also I know all about your animorphing capabilities Vixen. If you feel like taking a stroll outside of the mansion's grounds, think again. You have heard of dog collars with built in sensors? If the dog leaves the garden, it passes through a sensor net, and the dog gets an electric shock. So your collar also works, only on a much more violent level. We will have no wolves wandering the streets of Westchester looking for mutants to recruit."
Vixen went a shade greyer, feeling her freedom that she so loved flying out the window. Xavier looked to his daughter with deep sympathy in his kindly blue eyes. She had not had to stay, she could have gone and disappeared like the rest of them. Still she stood by her father, and for that he would be eternally grateful.
"Get them inside and set up a perimeter." Kincaid ordered his men angrily. "We have other X-Men to take care of today…"
The End