*************Gone***************
They had gotten into the building without a hitch. Simply followed Chuck's plans and were now in the Old Victorian's main hallway. All of the lights were out, and with portraits hanging on the walls, it added to the whole creepy haunted mansion effect the place pulled off.
Logan could hear the protestors. All camped outside there on the front lawn, scattered like trash. He was surprised they hadn't just broken down the front door by now.
'Civilization does stuff to people.' He thought to himself, motioning for Kurt to follow him left, towards a large Mahogany door. Logan could sense the three of them inside. The family, dad, mom, kid. Dad smelled like ivory soap and lilacs, lilacs- that came off the mother, she was covered with it. The little girl's smell reminded him of something he couldn't quite place, but often got off of little kids, he figured it was innocence, or something Hallmark-y like that... He also sensed a lot of fear.
~Poor kid...~
Logan felt the instinctual pull of hesitation, causing him to drop back against the wall, into the shadows, when he sensed the male presence in the room move and linger at the door (was he gonna open it?). Kurt went on ahead; unaware of how close they were to the family.
If Vargas did open the door now, Nightcrawler would be the first thing he would see. With all that this family had been through lately, the man was more likely to freak, attack, and feel really bad about it later. Logan was about it suggest to Kurt that maybe the guy without a tail should be the first to talk to the stressed family, Xavier's warnings or not.
That was when the door opened.
***********************
Vargas Montique had been expecting to see a lot of things behind that door. He had fully expected to see a lynch mob, a crash of camera clicks, a SWAT team or two, maybe even a few uniformed bodies of that "team" Xavier had sent. He hadn't been expecting to see the devil though...
Thick indigo skin, pointy teeth (was it smiling at him?), and oh GOD was that a tail?!
It moved to speak, and suddenly Vargas remembered the gun in his hand.
Do tranquilizers work on evil incarnate?
'Well, we're about to find out!' he thought frantically, aiming the gun low- towards the devils' heart.
*********************
Logan saw the man.
'Must be Vargas.'
Logan saw the man freak.
'Kinda expected that.' He smirked.
Logan saw the gun.
'And suddenly it's not so funny anymore.' He thought moving from the shadows. Logan looked at Kurt who didn't look scared. It was just a tranquilizer and he could always BAMF out of the way right?
Logan heard the trigger being pulled. All of a sudden, Kurt got a shocked expression on his face, as if he had gone someplace very far away, or had recalled a very bad memory. Whatever he WAS doing, he was so NOT teleporting to safety. It was just a tranq dart, but we couldn't very well have our escape route unconscious.
"What the hell? Kurt move!" Logan growled pushing the startled mutant out of the way, taking the shot in his neck.
**********************
Callie was on the other side of the Old Victorian. She had by-passed the non-existent security system without a problem, and had been leisurely strolling the corridors for the past ten minutes. Her boss had told her what he wanted was in some kind of safe behind a painting out here somewhere. He might have said exactly where, but Callie hadn't really been paying attention so...
~Treasure hunt!~
Callie felt all of the emotions coming from the people outside.
'It's like one o'clock in the morning! What? Are they gonna SLEEP here?'
Oh well. They WERE proving to make this job a little more entertaining then she had originally anticipated.
All of the hatred and fear. She could understand why people like that did everything in large groups. They were just scared and weak. They needed each other to actually go through the things they normally wouldn't even think about doing. Very predictable...
"Jerks" Callie chided, checking behind another portrait. Nothing.
She moved onto the next. "Ohh found it!" She whispered to herself, bringing out a gadget to crack the numbers to the safe.
The little lights on the machine had just begun blinking her the code when Callie felt an emotion she hadn't been expecting at all...
Confidence.
It was coming from over where she had felt the Montiques located with all of their fear and desperation.
Yep, she had felt a twinge of fear, then pity, and finally the confidence that it would be ok... from WHAT Callie wasn't sure, but it didn't matter. Brimming with the hate and anger she was absorbing from the crowd outside, Callie was determined to take that self-assurance right out of the new presence. Why did it deserve an emotion like that one, huh?
So she took it.
Looking into his mind (defiantly a guy) she quickly replaced that confidence with fear. What made him afraid? What was all his fear in life rooted to?
Callie found it in a horrible memory of mangled bodies, losing faith, and his friends dying all around him ...
Callie smiled as she felt the newcomer freeze with the resurfaced fear.
She started typing in the code to the safe, when all of a sudden she felt...
*****************
A slow unreasonable rage burned deep down in Logan's body. He felt his healing factor work overtime as he plucked the dart form his neck.
Logan suppressed the feelings inside of him. Plus the sudden urge to rip the rich guy's throat out. Instead, he sighed and dragged Kurt, who had suddenly snapped out of wherever it was HE had been, inside the room before growling a sort of greeting.
"Xavier said you'd be expectin' us. Glad ya got his e-mail..." Logan grumbled humorlessly, trying to shake his head clear.
"Uhhh..." was Vargas' only response.
"Let's try this again ok?" Logan said sitting in a plushy chair, as a wave of dizziness, took effect. "My name's Logan. He's Kurt."
"Umm, Kurt Vogner." Nightcrawler offered, walking closer to the man and extending a three-digit hand.
"Uhhh..." Vargas continued staring at Kurt and then over at Logan- who from his point of view should have been very much unconscious if not dead three times over with a shot to the neck.
"Yes," Kurt continued, putting his hand back down. "Professor Charles Xavier sent us here. Very much professionally, to umm, protect your daughter- Leila, is it not?"
"Umm..."
"Yes!" said another voice from behind the mumbling mountain. "You're here to help my daughter!?" Laura spoke for the first time, standing up from the couch to join her husband. As she came to him, she gently lowered her husband's arm, which now held the empty gun at Nightcrawler's head.
Her husband then snapped awake and put his arm around his wife. Though Nightcrawler couldn't tell who was really comforting whom.
Kurt nodded in agreement, walking over to stand by Logan, who was still sitting- eyes closed. "Are you alright mein freund?" Kurt whispered. Logan only grunted.
~'It was just a tranq, and he was just scared, didn't mean it... why can't I calm down?'~ Logan thought.
"Thank God!" The woman continued, completely oblivious, the husband only nodded. "She's right under there!" Laura turned, pointing under Vargas' desk.
Kurt looked.
Logan stood, also looking.
No one was there.
The girl was gone.
Logan growled.
************************************************************************
They had gotten into the building without a hitch. Simply followed Chuck's plans and were now in the Old Victorian's main hallway. All of the lights were out, and with portraits hanging on the walls, it added to the whole creepy haunted mansion effect the place pulled off.
Logan could hear the protestors. All camped outside there on the front lawn, scattered like trash. He was surprised they hadn't just broken down the front door by now.
'Civilization does stuff to people.' He thought to himself, motioning for Kurt to follow him left, towards a large Mahogany door. Logan could sense the three of them inside. The family, dad, mom, kid. Dad smelled like ivory soap and lilacs, lilacs- that came off the mother, she was covered with it. The little girl's smell reminded him of something he couldn't quite place, but often got off of little kids, he figured it was innocence, or something Hallmark-y like that... He also sensed a lot of fear.
~Poor kid...~
Logan felt the instinctual pull of hesitation, causing him to drop back against the wall, into the shadows, when he sensed the male presence in the room move and linger at the door (was he gonna open it?). Kurt went on ahead; unaware of how close they were to the family.
If Vargas did open the door now, Nightcrawler would be the first thing he would see. With all that this family had been through lately, the man was more likely to freak, attack, and feel really bad about it later. Logan was about it suggest to Kurt that maybe the guy without a tail should be the first to talk to the stressed family, Xavier's warnings or not.
That was when the door opened.
***********************
Vargas Montique had been expecting to see a lot of things behind that door. He had fully expected to see a lynch mob, a crash of camera clicks, a SWAT team or two, maybe even a few uniformed bodies of that "team" Xavier had sent. He hadn't been expecting to see the devil though...
Thick indigo skin, pointy teeth (was it smiling at him?), and oh GOD was that a tail?!
It moved to speak, and suddenly Vargas remembered the gun in his hand.
Do tranquilizers work on evil incarnate?
'Well, we're about to find out!' he thought frantically, aiming the gun low- towards the devils' heart.
*********************
Logan saw the man.
'Must be Vargas.'
Logan saw the man freak.
'Kinda expected that.' He smirked.
Logan saw the gun.
'And suddenly it's not so funny anymore.' He thought moving from the shadows. Logan looked at Kurt who didn't look scared. It was just a tranquilizer and he could always BAMF out of the way right?
Logan heard the trigger being pulled. All of a sudden, Kurt got a shocked expression on his face, as if he had gone someplace very far away, or had recalled a very bad memory. Whatever he WAS doing, he was so NOT teleporting to safety. It was just a tranq dart, but we couldn't very well have our escape route unconscious.
"What the hell? Kurt move!" Logan growled pushing the startled mutant out of the way, taking the shot in his neck.
**********************
Callie was on the other side of the Old Victorian. She had by-passed the non-existent security system without a problem, and had been leisurely strolling the corridors for the past ten minutes. Her boss had told her what he wanted was in some kind of safe behind a painting out here somewhere. He might have said exactly where, but Callie hadn't really been paying attention so...
~Treasure hunt!~
Callie felt all of the emotions coming from the people outside.
'It's like one o'clock in the morning! What? Are they gonna SLEEP here?'
Oh well. They WERE proving to make this job a little more entertaining then she had originally anticipated.
All of the hatred and fear. She could understand why people like that did everything in large groups. They were just scared and weak. They needed each other to actually go through the things they normally wouldn't even think about doing. Very predictable...
"Jerks" Callie chided, checking behind another portrait. Nothing.
She moved onto the next. "Ohh found it!" She whispered to herself, bringing out a gadget to crack the numbers to the safe.
The little lights on the machine had just begun blinking her the code when Callie felt an emotion she hadn't been expecting at all...
Confidence.
It was coming from over where she had felt the Montiques located with all of their fear and desperation.
Yep, she had felt a twinge of fear, then pity, and finally the confidence that it would be ok... from WHAT Callie wasn't sure, but it didn't matter. Brimming with the hate and anger she was absorbing from the crowd outside, Callie was determined to take that self-assurance right out of the new presence. Why did it deserve an emotion like that one, huh?
So she took it.
Looking into his mind (defiantly a guy) she quickly replaced that confidence with fear. What made him afraid? What was all his fear in life rooted to?
Callie found it in a horrible memory of mangled bodies, losing faith, and his friends dying all around him ...
Callie smiled as she felt the newcomer freeze with the resurfaced fear.
She started typing in the code to the safe, when all of a sudden she felt...
*****************
A slow unreasonable rage burned deep down in Logan's body. He felt his healing factor work overtime as he plucked the dart form his neck.
Logan suppressed the feelings inside of him. Plus the sudden urge to rip the rich guy's throat out. Instead, he sighed and dragged Kurt, who had suddenly snapped out of wherever it was HE had been, inside the room before growling a sort of greeting.
"Xavier said you'd be expectin' us. Glad ya got his e-mail..." Logan grumbled humorlessly, trying to shake his head clear.
"Uhhh..." was Vargas' only response.
"Let's try this again ok?" Logan said sitting in a plushy chair, as a wave of dizziness, took effect. "My name's Logan. He's Kurt."
"Umm, Kurt Vogner." Nightcrawler offered, walking closer to the man and extending a three-digit hand.
"Uhhh..." Vargas continued staring at Kurt and then over at Logan- who from his point of view should have been very much unconscious if not dead three times over with a shot to the neck.
"Yes," Kurt continued, putting his hand back down. "Professor Charles Xavier sent us here. Very much professionally, to umm, protect your daughter- Leila, is it not?"
"Umm..."
"Yes!" said another voice from behind the mumbling mountain. "You're here to help my daughter!?" Laura spoke for the first time, standing up from the couch to join her husband. As she came to him, she gently lowered her husband's arm, which now held the empty gun at Nightcrawler's head.
Her husband then snapped awake and put his arm around his wife. Though Nightcrawler couldn't tell who was really comforting whom.
Kurt nodded in agreement, walking over to stand by Logan, who was still sitting- eyes closed. "Are you alright mein freund?" Kurt whispered. Logan only grunted.
~'It was just a tranq, and he was just scared, didn't mean it... why can't I calm down?'~ Logan thought.
"Thank God!" The woman continued, completely oblivious, the husband only nodded. "She's right under there!" Laura turned, pointing under Vargas' desk.
Kurt looked.
Logan stood, also looking.
No one was there.
The girl was gone.
Logan growled.
************************************************************************