Disclaimer: Not making any money from this. Crystal is borrowed from Rasa Rainboweye with thanks
Slaves to the Cause: Scene 9"Leave us alone!" Iona screamed hysterically, ducking under the outstretched arm of one of the GRSO troopers. Her frizzy strawberry blonde hair stood statically away from her skull, her clothes were muddy and dishevelled as she held her palms out in front of her body to warn the attackers off. "I mean it! Don't make me hurt you!"
"Iona c'mon!" Vertigo grabbed the younger mutant by the arm, and tugged her away from the encroaching bad guys. The white-haired teen was not in any tidier a state than her small friend. Frantically, Vertigo turned her free hand on the GRSO soldier and blasted him with her power. She saw him stagger as her vertigo-inducing blast hit him square in the jaw. She didn't wait to see him fall, but carried on dragging the terrified Iona into the woods.
The teenagers had scattered as soon as they had heard the GRSO troops approaching the log cabin hideaway. They didn't know where they were going or what they were going to do. The steep slopes of the wooded mountainside had thrown up tree roots or hidden rocks, causing more than one of them to stumble and fall. It seemed as though nature itself was out to get them. The stampeding soldiers crushed through the undergrowth loudly, trying to flush their prey out as though the children were frightened rabbits. It wasn't too far from the truth.
"Over here!" Matthew Cooper, Senator Hawley's assistant who'd been in charge of the kids, grabbed Iona round the waist and dragged her into a dark hidey-hole. It was an old woodshed, still partially full of lumber. Iona squeaked her protest, falling into Shockwave's arms by default, as the teen was right in front of her. Vertigo followed them into the shed, making out that Wolfsbane, a younger girl called Crystal and the boys Berserker, Cannonball and his brother Jay. Where the rest had got to, Vertigo had no idea.
"Right kids!" Shockwave took charge as always, brushing her red and blonde dyed bangs of hair out of her face. Of all of them, the fashion conscious Samantha looked the least dishevelled. Most of them looked like they'd rolled down a wooded hillside, not far from the truth. Sam only looked like she'd crawled through a hedge backwards once or twice. "We are not going down without a fight! This is what our years of playing pranks on the X-Men have been training us for! Cannonball, Jay, Berserker; I want a Cyclops 101 on the ridge to the left. Make it spectacular. Crystal, you're with Wolfie and Iona. We are talking Wet Dog, and don't go easy 'cause they don't have claws…"
"What's a wet dog?" Matthew asked Vertigo in a subdued voice.
"It's the ceremonial hosing down Wolverine usually gets when he comes back to the mansion after a solo mission. We don't let him in until he's been drenched coz he always stinks to high heaven. Honestly, you'd think with super-smell he'd know to use deodorant."
"Ver and Matt, you're with me. It's a Wild Card all the way. If that doesn't stop 'em nothing will. Team, roll out!"
"And a wild card would be?" Matthew asked again, as the kids sneaked their way out of the shed a group at a time like miniature SAS commandos.
"Picture the scene, Gambit's come home drunk as a skunk and stinking of ladies' perfume. Ver and I unleashed can make him vomit so much he has to spend two days in the infirmary recovering." Sam grinned manically. "Its time to rock and roll!" She rubbed her hands together and headed outside.
"But the soldiers aren't drunk." Matthew pointed out. Vertigo shook her head. "Won't make any difference, Sam can make any guy vomit without much effort."
"Hey!" Sam hissed over her shoulder. "That's not true! Now get you're backsides over here!" Matthew and Vertigo grinned with the rising adrenaline, and followed their leader into the undergrowth.
"Cyclops 101." Berserker slapped hands in a secret handshake with the two brothers. "You're up Jay, good luck!"
Jay nodded solemnly and crawled out from behind the rock they had been hiding behind. He crept up to the ridge and looked over the edge. He could see the troops crashing down hill below him, but they still hadn't seen him. Typical. Jay rolled his eyes, put his fingers in his mouth and unleashed an ear splitting whistle.
"Up here bozos!" He yelled, and then gaped as the soldiers turned to look at him. The commander twitched his hands and three of the men peeled off to come and investigate the lone mutant. Jay tested the ground, ready to make his break. Just a bit closer, just a bit closer… His nerve gave and he could bear it no longer. He flung out his brown-feathered wings and launched himself off the ridge. At the same moment the three soldiers reached the top, only to be blasted from behind by Berserker and rammed by Cannonball. They fell over the edge, screaming, and crashed to the ground. Cannonball whistled past Jay, dragging the winged boy in his airflow. They crashed to the ground in a heap not far ahead of the GRSOs, got to their feet and started to run.
Cannonball and Jay crashed through where the next group was hiding, and dropped into a hollow masked by mountain ferns. The troops who hadn't fallen off the ridge chased after them, weapons charged. Suddenly they were stopped in their tracks by a savagely snarling red-brown wolf, hackles raised, teeth glinting white against a red lolling tongue. They stopped, confused, when suddenly a yell of "Now!" came from their left. Crystal cupped her hands over Iona's. Water rushed from the littler girl's grasp, hit Iona's hands and flew in the faces of the GRSO troops.
"What's good's a drenching gonna do?" Jay gasped to his brother, dreading that he was about to see the girls get massacred.
"Its not water!" Cannonball hissed, "Iona's ionising the water Crystal is producing so that it becomes acidic! See, their goggles are melting!"
It was true, the forerunners of the military attackers dropped to their knees, screaming in agony as their faces started to melt along with their masks. The girls dived into the small trench with the brothers and started crawling away through the ferns. Further down the slope, as the commander and his five remaining men left those that had fallen to 'Cyclops 101' turned to see what was going on, Sam nudged Matthew hard in the ribs.
"Your turn Matt, make me proud!" And she kissed him full on the lips. Totally bemused, Matthew lurched to his feet and lifted his hands up above his head in surrender.
"Help!" He yelled, "These damn mutants are holding me captive! Help!"
"Lame." Someone hissed from by his leg, but Matthew wouldn't glance down to see if it were Vertigo or Shockwave. The troops didn't seem to think it was lame, they charged down the hill with their faces set sternly. Suddenly Matthew felt a rumbling in the ground under his feet. Someone tugged his trousers and pulled him to the ground. It was Vertigo; she used him as a lever to haul herself up at the same time. Shockwave had gone ghostly white, her palms flat against the earth as her finger bones started to vibrate so rapidly they became a blur. Vertigo's hair caught in the breeze created as the trees started to shake along with the ground they were rooted in. White halo swirling around her, she held up her hands and concentrated.
A wave of nausea, dizziness and fear made the remaining GRSO troops sweat in their uniforms. They couldn't tell if the ground and trees really were shaking, or if it was just their imagination as they felt the full force of Vertigo's attack. One by one, they succumbed to the Wild Card, falling to the trembling ground and retching violently. Vertigo and Shockwave ceased their attack. Sam lurched upright with a whoop of success and hugged her friend. Then, dreadfully, they heard the crack.
Up above them on the ridge, the vibrations had been amplified by the natural undulations of the earth. Berserker raced as far forward as he dared to warn his friends. "Its gonna landslide!"
No sooner had he called out did the land indeed begin to slide. In a terrible rush of mud and rock, the ridge gave way bringing foliage and GRSO soldiers crashing down the hillside. Wolfsbane let loose a terrible whelp of horror, darting in to grab hold of Crystal by the scruff of her neck and leaping out of the way of the onslaught just before the younger girl was carried off. Matthew stood up beside Vertigo and Sam, all three gaping in horror but unable to make their limbs respond to get them out of the way of the landslide.
Right then, a blast of some unnameable power careered in over their heads. It ploughed into the unruly earth, splitting the mudslide and diverting it with a continuation of force. With the torrent of death passing either side of the three 'Wild Carders', they turned to see who had saved them. Kneeling on the roof of the woodshed was the strangest figure they had ever seen. Forge's eyes were closed as he beseeched higher powers, but his gun-arm kept up a steady pulse of power that did not abate until the landslide had passed and the mountainside become calm again.
"Looks like I got here just in time." Forge rose carefully, smiling. "My name is Forge. Come with me, there is somewhere I can take you that will be as safe as anywhere in these troubled times."