September 4, 1974
Sean could hear his head throbbing, feel the pain pulsing through his body. After the dust had settled they hadn't been able to find Charles. He hadn't heard a peep from him telepathically. That could mean several things, but none of them were good.
He hadn't been able to find him. Sean knew that, at least in some capacity, he could take care of himself. Still, it was a limited capacity. The average soldier certainly wouldn't be able to take him down. He didn't know what other tricks Sinister had up his sleeve though.
Sean pushed a piece of rubble out of his way and continued on. He wasn't one hundred percent sure where they were going. Charles had been their compass, and now he only had Charles's vague instructions to follow. It wasn't enough.
Behind him he could make out the rest of his team, as well as the members of the Brotherhood. He felt uncomfortable without the advantage of numbers, as well as their growing restlessness. When they found Scott, Warren, and Moira then, even with the addition of the Brotherhood girl, they would outnumber them again. Once they found Alex and Charles the odds would be even better. He just wasn't comfortable with how they were at the moment.
Another group of soldiers came around the corner. Sean swore. Just how many soldiers did Sinister have? He remembered Black Tom's small army. Perhaps it had all been lent to him by Sinister, but that still didn't answer how he had gotten that army in the first place.
Sean screamed, directing the sonic waves away from the group. Ororo and Clarice, the two closest to him, winced, but to them it was just a slight discomfort. It had the first few soldiers on their knees.
Clarice threw two of her crystals, hitting the soldiers in the chest. They teleported in front of her, disoriented. She punched the first one and took the other one down in a high kick. The first one brought his gun around and Ororo threw him into the wall.
Toad leapt in front of them and began moving from soldier to soldier, his limbs a flurry as he clawed and scratched. Senyaka had taken his whips out and Sean moved to avoid them as he directly entered the fray.
It was over in a few minutes, leaving Sean angry and sweating. He looked around the soldiers for any signs of conciousness. One of them groaned and he grabbed him by the front of his lapels, lifting him up and slamming him into the wall.
"I've been having a pretty bad day," Sean said.
The soldier looked at him warily. Sean knew that the opening line was pretty good. Alex had coached him in intimidation. He always had to read off a script. His skills had served him well in Interpol, and he hoped that they would work for the X-men again.
"I have a few questions," Sean said, "And I want you to answer them."
The soldier snorted. The sound was enough like laughter for Sean to jerk his head towards the rest of his team and the Brotherhood.
"Now, I'm a very calm man," Sean said, "I pride myself on being peaceful. But I want you to look at everyone around me. They're missing their friends, and they're pissed. I can only control them so much when they're like this."
He tilted his head towards the Brotherhood members. He could see that they were glaring at the soldier.
"The three in the back there don't even come from my school of teaching, the one that counsels patience and defensive skills," he said, "They lost two of their members. I highly recommend that you don't mess with them. I really think that they would kill you as soon as look at you."
Sean knew that he was only a halfway decent liar. It was why he had made an effort to mix as much truth into the threat as possible. He really didn't know how much longer he could lead the Brotherhood members. They weren't the older operatives, the ones who kept their cards close to their chest and were willing to compromise. Sean knew that he was only holding onto their cooperation by a thread.
For once in his life, he missed Magneto.
"So, where did Sinister take all of our teammates?" he said.
The soldier swallowed.
"There's...there's a lab that he had us set up," he said.
"Good," Sean said, "Any details?"
"Yeah," the soldier said, still staring at the Brotherhood members, "It's um, it's, uh, it's-"
"That's it, he doesn't know," Lance said, stepping forward.
"It's down the hall!" the soldier shrieked, "Down the hall and to the right!"
Sean nodded, feeling satisfied despite himself.
"Thank you for your cooperation," he said.
He hit the soldier's head against the wall, knocking him unconcious. Sean flung him to the floor. He was about to move on when he saw Lance step forward.
"What are you doing?" Sean asked.
"Taking out some trash," he said.
Sean grabbed his arm.
"No, you're not," he said.
"Excuse me?" Lance asked.
Sean saw Senyaka and Toad tense. Ororo and Clarice stood behind him.
"We're not killing them," Sean said.
"They're just going to come after us again!" Lance snapped.
"Not for a long time," Sean said.
Lance snorted.
"I don't have to play by your rules, X-man," he said.
"Hey, Lance," Toad said, "You might wanna calm down just a little bit-"
"You said that if we worked with them we'd be able to find Magnetrix and Boom-Boom," Lance snapped, "And we haven't! I'm running out of patience here!"
"So are we," Sean said.
He jerked Lance's arm so he could look at him.
"We're missing people too," he said, "We don't have time to waste on this."
Lance snarled before jerking his arm away. He stepped back.
"Then lead the way," he hissed.
Sean nodded and returned to point, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He really didn't know how much longer he could control them.
Moira worked at the keypad for the Brotherhood girl. She could hear Scott and Warren shifting uncomfortably behind her. It was obvious that they were both embarrassed, and Scott at least looked a little ashamed.
Good. Moira had assumed that, if anything, the two would be working out a way to get out of their prison when she found them. Instead they were bickering about their positions on the team. Moira had snapped at them but, really, she felt more like slapping them both.
Now was not the time to have their personal feelings rule them. Moira couldn't claim that she was completely detached from what was going on. Her husband and students were fighting a man that she considered to be even more dangerous than Magneto. People were dying of some strange virus upstairs. She was scared for them all, scared for herself, and she knew that it was already affecting her judgement.
However, it hadn't affected her judgement to the point that she was yelling and screaming at people that she was supposed to be working with. Her thoughts went to her husband, to a relationship that, until recently, had been crumbling. It had only been a few hours ago that she realized that Charles did want to make things right between them.
She'd felt it when he touched her mind, the sensation like a tender caress. They had a long road ahead of them, but just knowing that he wanted to make things right went a long way. She had felt like crying when she felt how much care he poured into his thoughts. Moira wouldn't have to leave.
Though she had felt all of those things for hours, she had still stayed focused. She'd have to live before she could see Charles again. That was the immediate problem, and she had focused on that. Living.
Warren and Scott hadn't done that. Moira had always known that Scott had a temper bubbling beneath his calm exterior: he was Alex's brother after all. He'd done his best to repress it, and she had thought that he would continue to fight it. She shook her head once as she finished with the code on the keypad. Grabbing the door handle Moira yanked the door open.
The Brotherhood girl immediately shrank away from her, her eyes wide. Moira hadn't been able to get a good look at her earlier, but she supposed that she was about eighteen. She looked younger in that instant though, like one of her own students instead of a member of Magneto's cadre.
It was one of the reasons that Moira hated the Brotherhood so much: its members could easily be the people that she taught and mentored. It was only a few tweaked circumstances that had resulted in them traveling a path towards destruction.
"Hey, it's okay," Moira said, reaching out a hand to help her up, "I'm not going to hurt you."
The girl's face switched from scared to guarded, although Moira could see her nerves fighting for dominance. She got up, ignoring Moira's hand and brushing past her.
"You're the Professor's wife, right?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.
Her words were abrupt, but Moira shouldn't be surprised. The only worth that the Brotherhood had ever really assigned her was as the wife of one mutant and, later, the mother of another.
"Yes," Moira said.
"kay then," the girl said.
She shoved her hands in her pockets, looking up defiantly.
"I'm Boom-Boom," she said.
Moira resisted the urge to rub her temples.
"I'm guessing that the name is a good indicator of what you can do?" Moira asked.
"Yep," she said, "I don't go in for delicate work unless I'm up close though. It's why I couldn't get out."
Her words seemed halting. Moira wondered if the real reason that she hadn't been able to get out was because she had frozen. There was no real shame in that, especially because Moira assumed that she was new, but she could understand why she didn't want anyone to know.
"Alright, and you've already met Cyclops and Archangel," Moira said.
"Yeah," Boom-Boom said, "You've got some weird powers there Angel-boy."
Moira frowned as Warren winced.
"Yeah, I'm getting that," he said.
Moira looked questioningly at Scott, who shrugged.
"We'll talk about it some more later," he said, "Right now we need out of here."
At least he was finally keeping his focus on what was important.
"I think Sinister left through that door," Moira said, pointing to the western exit, "I think that that's the fastest way out of here, but it also means that we're going to run into a lot of soldiers if we go that way."
"I'd like the other door," Boom-Boom said.
"We don't know what's behind it," Scott said.
"Well, at least we know it's not Sinister," she said.
"He'll be after us when he finds out we're missing though," Scott said, "We're going to run into him again. The only question is whether or not we run into him with the rest of our teammates."
"Either way, we have to figure things out fast," Moira said.
Scott nodded, looking over the different exits.
"Okay, western exit," Scott said.
"Wow, who died and made you king?" Boom-Boom snapped.
Moira saw Warren smirk. She glared at him and the smirk disappeared.
"It's the only door that we know leads somewhere," Scott said, "The other door could lead to the incinerator for all we know. He could have booby-trapped every inch of it. We don't know."
Boom-Boom stuffed her hands in her pockets.
"Fine," she said, "But I am not dying with a bunch of X-men sissies."
Scott shook his head and headed for the western exit.
"We don't have any plans on dying either," Scott said.
"I don't think anyone does," Moira said.