Teva's nerves were jangling, her body buzzing with fear and adrenaline and she thought she was going to lose everything she'd eaten that day. She shut off the link with the others but felt Logan still hanging on to it.

~Ya gonna be okay?~ he asked. He buzzed, too, with anticipation and barely restrained predatory joy. He was looking forward to a fight.

~I'll be fine. I'll distract those two, you go ... do your thing.~

He gave her a look but let it go, nodding sharply.

Teva concentrated on the two guards, transfered her own unease to them and she could feel it when they reacted, see it in the way they started looking around as if something was stalking them in the dark. They just didn't realize that something was stalking them until it was too late.

Quicker than she could really see clearly Logan had taken them both out with deadly efficiency. She came closer and he stood up, claws flashing silver where they weren't coated in blood. Her eyes went a little wide in reaction.

"Sometimes I wish you'd figure out another way to do your job."

She nearly jumped out of her skin at Scott's voice behind her, full of disgust.

"When are ya gonna learn, Boy Scout, that this is what I do best?" Logan sneered at him. "Ya said the same thing the last time and the answer'll always be the same, so unwedge that pole up yer ass and let's do our damn job."

"I wish we had our uniforms," Kitty said. "No time, I know, but I'd feel better with some Kevlar right about now."

Teva couldn't disagree with her. Something, anything, would be better than street clothes.

"We done chattin'?" Logan asked. When the other three just looked at him, he retracted all claws but one on his right hand, slicing clean through the heavy lock on the door.

Things happened fast from there, quickly enough Teva almost didn't have time to be scared. As soon as they were inside an alarm started going off, high and piercing, and guards came running. She was rather in awe of how the three X-Men handled the situation, working together as they had been for years, though Logan took a much more hands-on, separate approach from the other two. He was a one-man killing machine and none could stand before him without dying in a rather painful and horrifying way. It was one thing to know what he was capable of and quite another to see it up close and personal, to actually see the blood and viscera he left on the floor.

Bullets hitting the wall behind her made her jerk and duck, looking around wildly to see who it was, where they were. She lashed out with her telepathy, her hand physically thrown forward as if she were actually tossing something. The guard twitched, hands going to his head, his gun still hanging from his armored vest where it was attached. She made a fist, visualized knocking him out, and he crumpled like a ragdoll, unconscious.

Hands grabbed her, one with a knife coming from behind her. Teva reacted on pure instinct, drove her elbow back up high, somehow knowing to avoid the body armor that would dampen the blow while going for something more painful. She felt the crunch of bone and cartilage, heard a grunt of pain as she whipped around when the hand on her loosened. This guard held one hand to his nose, blood dripping from between his fingers, but he still had the knife and his discomfort didn't appear to slow him down. He flipped the blade in his hand so that he held it underhanded and slashed at her.

Teva rocked back on her heels, ducking and weaving like a boxer, calling on her experience from bar brawls. She'd never been involved in one that wasn't just a simple fisticuff without weapons but the moves appeared to be the same. He punched out at her and struck a glancing blow to her shoulder, the blow slightly weighted with the hilt in his hand, and she felt her fingers tingle momentarily.

When the guard's momentum from the punch took him a little off-balance she grabbed him by the shoulders and brought her knee up into his groin and, when he was distracted by that excruciating pain, she more or less thumped him with her telepathy and knocked him out.

A gun from another guard skidded across the floor to rest against her foot and she bent, picking it up. She'd never handled one before, never had cause or need to. It was a bit bulky for her hands, some kind of machine gun but she assumed it was pretty much just point-and-shoot.

There was more gunfire and Logan roaring in pain. She spun to see him riding a guard to the ground, claws buried in the man's chest, another guard coming up behind him with a knife in his hand.

Before she had time to react, to shout a warning, Logan was up and on him, reaching for the man's head. He got it between his hands and gave it a vicious jerk. The guard fell bonelessly and Logan met her eyes, feral bloodlust apparent in them, the dark brown bled into something more bestial. His lips were drawn back in a snarl that bared his sharp incisors.

He shook himself before he crouched and started stripping the guard he'd just killed, getting the body armor off of his torso. He tossed it to Teva.

"It's Kevlar, put it on."

Teva was almost too stunned to do anything but comply, setting the gun down a moment to slip the armor over her head. Logan came closer and picked up the gun, checking it quickly. He handed it back to her. "Safety's here, it's a submachine gun." He pointed to another switch. "This'll take it between automatic and semi-automatic. Ya know the difference?"

"Yeah."

"It'll kick like a mule so make sure ya keep yer hands on it. Let's go."

She was starting to feel a little dizzy from the adrenaline rush but at least the guards seemed to have stopped coming. The foursome made it down the stairs to the second level without much incident but now there was shouting.

"Keep the subjects secure!" a man in a suit and lab coat was shouting. "Do not let them get past!"

Logan launched himself into the fray. The controlled bursts of Scott's optic beams joined in and Teva watched Kitty's graceful attacks as she phased and became solid depending on what was needed at the moment. She looked like a dancer moving from foe to foe.

Teva flattened herself against the wall with the gun in her hands, looking for a way through. She felt a brush against her mental shields and the little girl spoke again. ~We can hear you. We're in the room just across the way.~

Her eyes rose and she saw the doorway made out of some shiny metal, a small barred window set high up. There was a clear path to it, the X-Men grappling with the guards on either side. Teva took a deep breath to steel herself and pushed away from the wall, running straight for the door.

A guard stepped out in front of her and she pulled the trigger on her gun at the same time he shot at her, a burst of bullets spraying between them and she found herself on her ass. Logan hadn't been kidding when he'd said it kicked hard. She'd been aiming for his chest but ended up getting his face because the gun kicked up more than anything else. Pain was screaming in her right arm as she stared in horror at what she'd done, too surprised to see what damage he'd done to her.

Hands touched her and she was almost too shocked to jerk back in fear but it was Logan crouching down beside her. "It's okay, Tev," he said. His voice sounded as if it was coming from very far away, her ears still ringing from gunfire in a closed room. "Yer hearin's gonna be messed up for a bit. Can ya stand?"

She nodded and let him help her up. He took the gun from her and she glanced around, saw the guards were all down. "The girls," she said a little dumbly. "Get the door, Logan."

There were three brunette girls in the room all huddled together, an older one protecting two younger ones. Three identical sets of blue eyes gazed at her in a mixture of fear and relief. "Thank God," the older one said, tears tracking down her face. "Thank God."

Teva knelt in front of them. "You're safe, a leannan. We'll take ye home." Taking care of others was much easier than dealing with her own problems at the moment. "Can ye walk?"

The girl nodded, gathering the little ones up. They all wore the same gray jumpsuits with numbers on the right breast. The two smaller ones had some kind of collar around their necks.

"Inhibitors," Kitty said, coming into the room. She touched each of the collars and they sparked before falling onto the floor, useless. "Keeps them from using their powers."

"They forgot to put mine back on when you showed up, they just shoved me back in the room," the older one said.

There was a tug on Teva's sleeve and she looked over to find one of the younger girls, obviously twins, staring at her with outstretched arms. She gathered her in and picked her up, her right arm protesting severely but still she ignored it as the brunette head buried itself in her shoulder.

"Someone engaged a self-destruct program," Scott said, his voice hurried. The room shook as if in affirmation of this, a low rumbling coming from deeper in the complex.

"Shit!" Logan started herding them out. "We gotta go!"

They were on the stairs up when the building shook again, harder, almost knocking them off. Teva ran with the girl in her arms, knew Kitty had the other. She slipped and almost fell in blood on the ground, Scott catching her as he led them out. Her heart was pounding, her lungs burning and now the dizziness of adrenaline was mixing with that of hyperventilation.

She heard the older girl cry out and turned to see what was wrong. What she saw was Logan helping her and a wave of fire coming up the stairwell. Logan picked the girl up and ran with her, yelling, "Goddammit, Tev, move!" He pushed her out the exit forcefully, flattening his body over them when another explosion rocked the building and knocked them down just feet from the door. Teva felt heat from the fire but the flames didn't touch her. She heard Logan groan in pain above her.

They all got back to the 'Bird somehow, everything a blur to Teva now as she came down off the adrenaline high and the fear and pain started creeping in again. It felt like someone had replaced the bone in her arm with molten lead and it was all she could do to help get the girls strapped in before they were taking off. She fell back into one of the seats with the force of the jet reaching cruising speed, her hands gripping the armrests, unable to do more than hold on.

She blinked and found Logan crouched in front of her, his fingers ripping the sleeve off of her shirt. He looked fine from the front but she could see that a good portion of his clothing was burned and gone in the back, pink new skin forming where the old had sloughed off. Blood dripped down her arm and she had a sudden memory of the guard firing on her, the wound on her arm giving testament to the fact he'd hit more than just the body armor.

"Is it ...?

Logan dumped water from a bottle onto the scrap of fabric from her shirt and used it to clean off some of the blood. "Through-and-through, it might've hit the bone. Gonna have to get it cleaned up, it's gonna hurt."

Teva nodded. "Do it."

He cracked open a first aid kit and dug inside, coming up with a bottle of antiseptic which he poured onto some sterile gauze. He gripped her arm just above the elbow, below the wound, his fingers digging in to keep her from moving. The antiseptic burned almost as badly as the wound. She bit her lip to keep from crying out though tears appeared in her eyes, sliding down her cheeks in reaction. She could feel his hands shaking, could feel the fear in him that she'd gotten hurt.

He took out more gauze, these coated with some kind of protective ointment, placing them over both wounds before he taped over them.

"I'm okay," she said softly when he remained crouched in front of her, his hand still holding her arm. His eyes flicked to hers and she saw the fear mixed with anger. She knew it was because she'd gotten hurt and he hadn't been able to prevent it. "I'm fine. Are you?"

He nodded. "Healed already," he said abruptly, waving away his own injuries. "Shouldn't have let ya go in there."

"Was'nae your choice, Logan, it was mine." She leaned her head back against the seat. "I can deal with a wound but ... I killed that guard. And I did'nae even hesitate."

"He'd have killed you if he'd had the chance." He reached up and touched her face. "I'm sorry ya had to do that, Teva. I regret that ya had to make that choice."

She leaned into his touch, lifted her hand to keep his where it was. "I could'nae leave the girls there, I could'nae just sit here while the three of ye went in." She laughed, more an exhaling of breath than in humor. "And God help me I'd do it again if it meant I was doing something good, if it meant helping others like us."

"S'what bein' a superhero's all about. I don't want ya doin' it again but ya wouldn't be the woman I'm fallin' for if ya backed away from it." His thumb stroked along her cheekbone. "I scared ya back there, didn't I?"

Teva nodded, chewing on the inside of her lip. When his eyes dropped from hers she touched his chin, made him look back up. "I dinnae completely understand what part of yourself ye gave up to be able to do what ye do, but part of me does get it, a little." She leaned forward, placing her hands on either side of his neck as she kissed his forehead. "I did'nae quite realize how deep the animal runs in ye, and I dinnae care. I will'nae back away, I dinnae want to back away." She touched his chin again and tipped his face up towards hers so that she could kiss him.

She felt the tension of fear leave him in a shudder, felt the need in his mouth on hers and suddenly she wished they were safe at home.

"Me too, baby," he said, chuckling softly. She realized she'd spoken to him telepathically. "Ya gotta get checked out first." He let her go and took the seat beside her. "Then we'll talk."