WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. SUICIDE WARNING

Chapter 4- Like Father, Like Son

The day after the Brotherhood was slaughtered, the guards returned to the cells where the X-Men were held. Again, they picked out Kurt and K and hauled them off without a word spoken to the others on the way. The persuasion was the same as it was before, though this time, K was more than a little confused when she was told to change into something clearly less … uniformed. In fact, it looked like one of the newest off the line sundresses that Jean had been considering before this fiasco started up.

Kurt had no special outfit to wear - just his uniform, as always. And it was pretty clear that he had his own set of orders by the extremely unhappy expression he was wearing.

"This will be a two-part mission for you, Nightcrawler," Graydon said with a smug sort of look on his face. "You need to drop your partner off at the first location then move on to the second where I expect you to kill or capture our dear mother." he turned toward K. "Don't worry, I'm not leaving you out of the fun." He slid a device toward K and waited for her to pick it up. The moment her fingers touched the box, the guard directly behind her stepped forward and hit her with an autoinjector in the side of her neck. "The device is how you'll capture Sabretooth. The tracker in your neck is my insurance that you'll be returning. Just incase you think you have a clever way around the device with the children." K was rubbing the side of her neck as Graydon continued.

"Nightcrawler … you'll have one hour to deal with Mystique, then you'll need to go back to get K and my father," Graydon said. He turned toward K. "I expect that should be more than enough time for you to capture and sedate him using any means necessary to do so." Graydon paused at the door. "Your time starts when you teleport out of here. Do not go outside of those parameters." He made sure to give K one last, hard glare before he stepped out.

As the door closed heavily, K glanced down at the dress in front of her. "Do you know where we're headed?" she asked before she simply started to change. "I guess I have to blend in with the crowd and just … play bait."

"Yes," Kurt said, though he was obviously still upset as he considered his own mission. "I know enough to get us there. Not much more."

"Then I guess we better get it over with." K finished pulling on her shoes then gave Kurt a tight sort of smile, though there was a slight tremor to her voice when she spoke. "You'll take care of Logan and James for me if this goes south, right?"

Kurt knew better than to argue, considering who they were going after. "Of course," he said automatically. "And you will do the same for Mia should my mother prove… as difficult as usual."

K nodded at that. "You've got some honest rage on your side," she said. "You'll get her."

"I know. That does not make me feel much better."

"You're too dashing to die from her treachery," K replied as she took Kurt's arm and frowned at the little device in her hand.

"Do you know what it is?" Kurt asked.

"It's one of Stark's designs," K told him. "I don't know how he got it. Tony shelved it because it was too hard to make work unless you were far too close." She met his gaze. "I do not like this little thing. It will knock him out, but I'll have to hold down the buttons while pressing it to the skin to make it work."

Kurt winced in sympathy. "Then I will be fast," he promised. "Lest he wake up first and you find yourself in an even worse position."

"Work smart, not hard," K agreed. "For both of us, right?"

Kurt nodded his quick agreement before he took her covered her hand with his and teleported them both to Grayson's coordinates. He made sure to kiss K's cheek before he took a step back. "Good luck," he said before he disappeared.

"Same to you," K muttered to herself before she started looking around the little plaza. This was definitely Victor's kind of place, but with no sign of him immediately visible, she'd have to do a little looking around. She started to walk through the sparse crowd. There wasn't anything that screamed out 'this is the spot' though, and considering that she knew she had Kurt's brimstone clinging to her, she thought it might just be best to be the good little bait she was supposed to be. Which is why she headed to the nearest bar and took a seat in a booth where she could watch the door.

Kurt, meanwhile, had gone to the villa where Mystique had been staying after an assassination run, unwinding and spending all of a freshly dead duchess' money.

She saw him coming, of course, but she didn't get up from her balcony seat. "I'm busy, darling."

"You look it," Kurt said, stalking steadily toward her. He was thinking of Mia and the others in that little room as he played with the sword in his hand with a flourish that was more habit than anything else.

Raven let out a long sigh and got to her feet, setting down her drink to face him. "What's wrong? You wouldn't come here with your swords drawn just to get in a little mother-son time…"

"Unlike some, there is nothing I wouldn't do for my children," Kurt said in almost a growl. He didn't explain more than that before he burst forward, not at all surprised when his steel met her daggers.

But as K had said, Kurt had the advantage of rage and desperation. Not to mention Raven had never fought him when he was trying to do anything but stop her. Every thought of Mia or little Rachel with that thing on her arm only gave him more power behind his blows until he had disarmed her with a complicated move that used both hands and run her through with the dagger he caught with his tail.

She let out a horrible squelching gasp and stared at him in shock. "Kurt…"

"Believe me," Kurt said as he tore the dagger free and then stabbed her again, "this is more merciful than your other son would be."

Raven blinked at him as she sank to her knees. "This isn't like you," she breathed out.

"No," he agreed. "But needs must." He took a step back, watching his mother, knowing he couldn't simply leave until he knew for sure that she was dead.

And even if she had never truly been a mother to him, Kurt couldn't stop himself from sitting with her until she was gone - or from arranging her hands to rest on her stomach. Though that was also a means to check her pulse.

He stayed as long as he dared, balancing his need to be there and his worry for K, before he finally teleported off.

K had waited at the bar and gone through several martinis before she finally paid her tab and got moving. She was sure Victor would be where there was alcohol, but for the first time on one of these missions, she was wrong. It was almost a relief as she stepped out of the bar, if not for the fact that it only left the rest of the world wide open, and she wasn't sure if he'd been watching her anyhow.

With a sigh that she'd hoped would loosen her shoulders, K started down the street, her head turned and her sunglasses pushed up her nose as she did her best to look like she was window shopping. She almost swore when she caught a whiff of him when the wind shifted slightly. Of course he'd been following her. The using bait thing was much easier when you weren't the center of the bait.

She paused and turned toward the scent on the wind. If she tried to act too clueless, he'd know something was up, after all. That was the real problem with hunting someone like Victor - he wasn't simple prey. For a long moment K looked out over the crowd, openly looking for Victor and even allowing herself to slip up onto her tip toes and tip her chin up to catch his scent better, but naturally, the wind wasn't in her favor after the tiny momentary shift. K bit her lip and gave the square one last long look before she readjusted the fabric over her stomach and started walking again.

K made it almost to the parking area before Victor spoke up. "Kinda far away to be all alone, aren'tcha?"

"What do you want, Victor?" K asked in her usual almost bored tone that came into play when he crossed her path, even if they both knew it was a bluff.

Victor smiled crookedly. "Where's the blue rat?"

"If you want to talk to him, you should probably wait to talk to him," K said before she made to step around him and was, of course, blocked. "I'm sure he'll be along any time."

Victor took a step forward and K took one back, though she didn't have to fake the nerves at him being in her space like that. "Guess I'll just keep you company until then. Though … it'd be a shame if you weren't here when he came back for you."

K did her best to look off guard, even if this was exactly what she knew he needed to do for her to catch him. "How about no?" As she started to walk backward, Victor reached out and grabbed a hold of her wrist.

"Don't make a scene now," he growled out low, a smile painted on as he watched a little group of preschoolers walk by in a single file line. "Don't want anything to get out of control, do you?"

"Why are you even here?" K asked, pulling steadily to get her arm back from him. It wasn't the one with the device, but there was no reason to jump the gun when she knew she could get in closer. And she'd need to.

"Lil' mini-vacation," Victor replied in a purr. "What about you? I don't catch a whiff of the Runt or your little brat …" But that was just a step over the line for K, and before she could school it, she was growling. "Easy now, girlie. Lots of tiny witnesses might could get in the way. You wanna try an' throw down, we can take it somewhere more private."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," K hissed.

"Yeah? How ya plannin' ta stop me from makin' ya? Where's your sweetheart, eh? Ain't like him to let the girl that owns his lil' battered heart run around without back up. Not knowin' full well that there's a price to be paid for carryin on in the open like you two have been … an' it's long past time you paid up."

"Not here," K replied between her teeth, though she didn't drop his gaze one bit. Half of it was the challenge he as looking for - and the other half was honest fear.

"Then you better start walkin' nice and easy," Victor countered with a growl of his own, looming over her before he pulled her closer to his side - nearly knocking her off her feet as he kept an iron grip on her arm. The two of them walked down several blocks from where he'd first approached without a word between them, though Victor kept yanking on her now and again just as a show of dominance. When they got far enough away from the little square, he dragged her into an alley, and a moment later, he'd pinned her against one of the brick walls. Which … worked to her advantage.

He still had a hold of her wrist and he took his free hand to wrap around her throat in warning. "Stab me and I'll tear your throat out," he growled out, which had her growling in response and narrowing her eyes as he started roughly searching her for bugs. She began to push on his shoulder with her loose hand, and when he let her slip down the wall to barely let her toes touch the ground, she was quick to reach up with the device - pressing it to the back of his neck before she managed the buttons.

With a little sound of irritation, Victor had his hand wrapped around her throat as promised and pulled her away from the wall only to slam her back into it a few times. She was seeing double as he growled low a few inches from her face and K held up her hand with the now-spent device - showing it to him before she let it fall to the ground. Which was when he started to visibly slow down. "What the hell is this?" he asked thickly as his grip started to slip on her, but that had him pulling her tighter to himself.

"Pretty sure it's karma," K replied, but she couldn't get out of his grasp as he went to the ground, collapsing almost entirely on top of her as the drugs kicked in. He was too big to push away when he had her pinned so awkwardly, and it wasn't until the first onlooker passed them by that she realized how it probably looked to someone from the street. Of course, when she got a look at his watch, she couldn't help but let out a sound of pure frustration. Fifteen minutes to be stuck under Victor Creed.

Eventually, she heard the sound of a teleport before Kurt put his shoulder to Creed to move him. "Well. This is a predicament."

"He drooled on me," K said in a flat tone that surprisingly didn't hide how relieved she was to be rid of him.

"That is certainly offensive." He held out a hand to help her to her feet. "Mystique is dead."

"Oh, what a shame. If I'd had better leverage …" she let the statement fall and started to restrain Victor. "And that strict warning not to kill him."

"I didn't have that warning."

"No, you did not," she said. "Lucky boy." She made quick work of being sure Victor was secured before she looked up at Kurt. "I guess … ready when you are."

Kurt nodded and then teleported all three of them back to where Graydon was waiting. "Just the one?"

"Mystique is dead," Kurt said flatly.

"I'd be happy to finish this one off right now," K said, doing a fine job of keeping her smirk under control, even if she would have loved to do just that.

"Not just now," Graydon said, waving her off. "I'll tell you when I need you next."

As soon as the two of them were out of the room, K stopped and gave Kurt a significant look. "You catch that?"

"What? That he has our mother's sense of sadism?"

"That he needs us," K replied. "It's not pure sadism."

Kurt couldn't help but smirk. "Well. He isn't as stupid as he looks."

"I wouldn't go that far," K said dryly as they met up with the soldiers that would take them back to their cells. "I'm getting tired, sweet fuzzy blueberry."

Kurt took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Then you can sit the next one out," he said. "I'm sure my best friend and I can handle matters from here."

K gave him a tight smile as the two of them were led down to the cells to join the others.

Logan relaxed visibly when the two of them showed up, though he was frowning at the scents he was catching. But as usual, they were put in their separate cells, leaving the two ferals across the little hall from each other. And again, after a moment of what was clear longing the two of them retreated to their usual spots to curl up and watch each other while the rest of their team discussed what they could.

"Nothing good can come out of Graydon Creed asking for Sabretooth alive," Scott muttered. "We're lucky he still wants K alive or I doubt there would have been an equalizer."

"Which one wants her alive?" Kurt said. "It sounded like Victor had plans too. There was no blood shed today with them."

"What kind of- I don't want to know," Scott said.

"I can tell you first hand it's best not to try to figure him out," Jean said in a dark tone.

Scott nodded and leaned into her. "Either of them," he whispered.

"One thing we do know; neither Creed is going to give the other an inch," Jean whispered to him.

Scott let out a breath. "So long as we don't get caught in the middle…"

Jean kissed his forehead. "Something is due to go right."

"We'll see."

"So this is where the boy has you X-geeks stashed." Victor Creed's voice echoed off the walls as he stepped into the little cell block where most of the X-Men were being kept. It had been a little over a week since Sabretooth had been captured and the torture on the two ferals had ramped up as well, but now … . They were trapped and Creed was free. He was already splattered with blood and the emergency lights down the hall were flashing if the red pulsating light coming through the small window on the main door was any indicator. And yet … here was Victor Creed looking perfectly livid as he slowly walked through the cell block.

"Boy took his homework to heart, didn't he?" Victor said, though he certainly wasn't looking happy at all. He stopped in front of Storm's cell and stretched his hands out - letting his claws out when he flexed his fingers. He turned her way and let his sneer turn into a snarl. "I'll get back to you. I got business first."

He kept walking until he got to the end of the cell block where Logan and K were - on opposite sides of the hall, still and for a moment, Victor simply looked between the two of them with a growing smile. "Where to start, where to start …"

Logan began to growl low, more than ready to dive in after him, but that only had Victor turning his whole body slowly, showing Logan his back as he took the handful of steps toward K's cell while she got to her feet. "No drugs for you to cheat with this time, frail," Victor said, looking entirely livid with her as he unlocked the door. He let it swing wide open and left it that way, though he stood in the doorway - daring her to try to get by him. Not that it would have done her much good when he was blocking her path so clearly and itching to get a hold of her. For a moment she forgot that she was barefoot and in a dress after another little mission Graydon had sent her on. She had nothing to her advantage in this fight.

But still … K was more than willing to bring the fight to him. She was back to a fractured means of thinking with all the torture that had been handed down to her with no time to rest or to heal unless it was to go on an errand. Before anyone could say anything to her, she dove in, all snarls and claws. To start with, it was bloody and every bit the fight that K knew she had to put forth to keep her head above water against him. Victor was getting hits in, of course he was. The man's arms could reach from one side of the cell to the other if he only held them out - and K was fighting to keep a little distance, slashing at him when he'd get too close.

They were halfway into the fight when Logan realized he was on his feet as he watched them and almost holding his breath. Victor had been spewing all sorts of vitriol her way from the moment she'd rushed him. Not only calling her every filthy name under the sun, but outlining in vivid detail all the things he wanted to do to her. Only … the monologue was different from his usual torture diatribe in that he wasn't speaking as if that was what his plan was now. Only what it had been. K managed to ignore most of what Victor said … until he had bashed her backward then looked over his shoulder at Logan with a crooked smile stretching across his lips.

"You know that boy of yours was askin' for you just before they killed him," Creed said casually, and like he'd hoped, Logan froze. But more importantly, K did too.

Creed didn't snarl as he turned to snatch her up, lightning quick. Instead, he saved the growl for after he had a solid grip on her. His growl mixed with Logan's snarl and Kurt's as he quickly restrained K by knocking her strong arm out of socket, only to readjust how he had a grip on her. As he liked to do, one hand was curled tightly around her entire neck - the claw on his thumb digging into the hollow where her jaw met her ear as his index finger did the same on the other side of her skull. He had her pulled in tightly to him so both of them were facing Logan and on seeing the look of pure venom and outrage from Logan, Creed smiled slowly. He leaned in close over K's shoulder, moving her hair out of his way with his nose so his lips were brushing her ear when he spoke.

K was trembling - though not from Creed. Not at first. Not when she had just been told that her son was dead. The tears streaming down her cheeks had nothing to do with her current predicament. Not yet.

"This isn't how I wanted this to go, frail." He let the fingers in his free hand sink into her stomach - right below her ribs, though shocking those closest to her, K didn't let out a sound. "We were gonna have a good time, girly, but you went and got yourself caught up with little Graydon - and now I don't have the luxury of doin' this the way you deserve."

Victor shifted so that he was speaking over her opposite shoulder, though he was clearly watching Logan. "You're lucky I'm feelin' generous. For old times sake. So how about you give me a good scream. Just one ...and I'll make it go quicker." To accentuate his point, he dug his fingers into her belly more, articulating the lion's claws to make the cuts deeper and nastier.

K's face twisted in agony as she tried to squirm away from him - really only succeeding in pressing into him deeper and earning a dark chuckle from him.

"Come on now, be nice for your Uncle Victor," he half purred, shifting his cuts and moving the hand around her neck so he could at least threaten to bite her throat out - though his close proximity and his breath on her neck as he leaned closer paired with how badly he was hurting her was enough to get K to let out the tiniest, strangled little sound that wasn't quite identifiable as she tried to keep her composure in check.

It was all made that much worse when Victor grinned on hearing it and actually started shushing her gently as he ran a hand over her hair and retracted his claws. "I wish I could say this was for Logan," Victor said softly, though even Kurt and Scott could hear it over Logan's growl. K had closed her eyes and was steadfastly refusing to look toward Logan even if it was painfully clear to everyone where it was going as Victor continued to quietly whisper things to her that K only answered by minutely shaking her head, not trusting herself to allow a noise to slip by her lips.

Victor glanced at the door when he heard soldiers boots well down the hall then leaned forward enough to gently kiss her cheek. His fingers wrapped around her neck again, squeezing hard this time as his other hand removed something from his back pocket. She was choking for how tightly Victor was squeezing - and when K tried to wriggle out of his grasp, his other arm went up toward the back of her head, lighting fast. There was an odd metallic scraping sound and two almost hollow snaps before Victor dropped first the broken dagger handle - and then K's lifeless body.

There was a full second of silence before every one of the X-Men was spewing invectives and threats, well beyond furious, though Logan was too shocked to join them.

"Thought you people knew not to get attached by now," Victor almost purred out at the outrage around him.

"Something you taught your son perfectly," Scott snapped at him.

"Never had a thing to do with him," Victor said easily as he started back down the cell block.

"Exactly."

But Victor smirked quietly to himself as he passed them. Which only had the rest of the group that much more furious.

But, surprising the X-Men anyhow, when the group of soldiers came into the cell block armed to the teeth with Graydon along with them, the younger Creed positively blew up when he saw that K was dead. "What did you do, you imbecile!" Graydon shouted - as close to a snarl as any of them had heard. "She wasn't supposed to die."

"Hell of a way to keep her alive," Scott shouted back.

"Stay out of this," Graydon snapped.

With a roar, Victor bounded forward and most of the X-Men found themselves hitting the deck as he tore through the soldiers between himself and Graydon. They were trying to fire off rounds, but of course, Victor was making the shots go wild as he ripped into them, not bothering to stop until he got a hold of Graydon, too. And shocking every single one of them, for once, Victor didn't try to talk until after he'd broken Graydon's neck. "Made me waste a perfectly good weekend for a quick kill instead," he muttered to himself before he turned back around to look through the cells. Every one of them was beyond angry, but when he got to Logan - Logan was shaking in rage and hoping like hell Victor would open the damn door.

"Look at you," Victor said, tipping his chin up as he looked down his nose at Logan. "Still want to pretend like you're the same as these little heroes?" He leaned closer, his sneer twisting up his features. "Even your friends know that's a load of crap. And it's high freakin' time you just admitted it." Logan hadn't moved a muscle, even as Victor got closer still to the bars, smugly talking down to him.

The two of them stared at each other for far too long. "You're right," Logan said quietly, which was just enough to get a broad grin out of Victor and horrified looks from his teammates - just before Logan darted forward and reached through the bars to grab a hold of Victor around his neck. When he yanked him closer, he pulled to spin him so he could face the mess he'd made of K. Though that only seemed to fuel Logan's rage more.

Logan's arm was over Victor's windpipe and he was pulling back with everything he had - to the point that his feet were on the bars too as Logan threw his weight back, pushing with his legs to get every ounce of leverage he could as Victor tried to pry his arm off.

Victor pulled hard enough to dislocate Logan's shoulder, but it didn't slow Logan down from reefing that much harder on his own arm to finish the job, choking him out - and pulling back harder every time Victor tried to loosen up his hold. And as Victor was turning shades of purple people were never meant to turn, he made a last ditch effort to slice through Logan's arm - and Logan readjusted his grip slightly, popped his claws and simply took Victor's head clean off.

When Victor hit the floor, Logan did too, and after a moment to catch his breath, all Logan could do was stare across the hall at where K was still and lifeless with Victor's last taunts still ricocheting around in his head. The crash was a hard one, and the stunned silence from his teammates only fed the ringing in his ears as Logan started to come apart on himself. He'd tried so hard. Again. And again, he had nothing.

"Logan," Kurt said in an almost-whisper. "Logan, listen to me. We need to get out of here."

It took a few tries before Kurt seemed to cut through the haze, at least a little, and after Logan caught his breath, he reached through the bars to find the keys that Victor had used to open K's cell. When he found them, he got his door opened then headed for Kurt to free him - and then simply handed him the keys as he made a beeline for where K was still laid out. He didn't make a show out of it at all as he slid to the ground, gathered her up, and clutched her to his chest, wrapping himself around her as much as he was able.

Kurt unlocked Ororo's cell and had given her the keys before he went right to Logan, one hand on his shoulder as he crouched beside him. "I'm so sorry, mein Freund," he whispered, his own voice shaking, though he couldn't think of anything else to say as he sat beside Logan - while Ororo worked as quickly as she could to get the collars off the rest of them.

As the group was trying to lay out a plan - with Scott doing his best to come up with a strategy based on what Kurt could tell him about the layout beyond the basics that Scott had seen, Logan very quietly picked up one of the discarded collars that had slid close to him and held it for a long moment as he stared at K's unseeing eyes. Victor hadn't lied about his son. That much was clear. Logan would have caught a blatant lie like that. And on seeing that the little dagger he'd broken off in K was carbonadium, he knew that Victor had thought it through before he went after K. He still took a moment to try and revive her. But Victor had done a good job of making it stick, and Logan had no way to get the dagger out. Which meant even if there had been a window … he had no way of using it to bring her back.

Ideas were flying back and forth with the team as they came up with a game plan, and the group was sure they had a few solid options, though all of their forward progress came to a screeching halt when a sharp, echoing snikt superseded all other sounds in the room.

All at once, it was a different kind of chaos as Kurt teleported to Logan before he'd fully crumpled over, swearing at him in every language he knew plus a few that he only knew how to swear in from traveling with Logan and K. The blood was more than Kurt could stop, and the injury was instantly fatal anyhow. Especially since everyone had missed the fact that Logan had put a discarded collar on before he'd sent his claws up into his own head from under his chin.

Kurt panicked, trying to get the collar off of his best friend, hampered not only by the blood, but by the fact that the collar had locked again and Kurt couldn't hold back the sheer despair that his brother wasn't going to heal from this because of something this barbaric and simple.