Disclaimer: Tempo is property of Marvel, Van Gogh and Mina/Huntress are mine. All recognizable characters (that are not my own creations) belong to Marvel, Hasbro, Red Witch, or Aaron Whittaker.
Learning to Breathe
65. En Memoriam
Two weeks. She had to admit, that was a personal record for this group. Two weeks of nothing but filming, training, and sleep did wonders for group morale. She jealously hoped it would last, but knew better than to believe it could. Mayhem had a way of following Dreadnoks around, after all.
"That nasty, spineless son of a bitch!"
Of course, the kids caused their fair share of it too.
With a tired sigh, Zarana stood up from her chair and walked into the common room. What was wrong this time?
"Now to be perfectly fair, he was unaware of the circumstances…"
"I don't give a rat's ass! The little bastard's gone too far!"
"Aura wasn't happy about it either."
"Yeah, but she knew why we had to do it! If I ever get my hands on that worthless piece of…"
"Would any of you care to enlighten me as to why you're swearing loud enough to raise the dead?" Zarana glared at the five teenagers gathered in the common room. Most of them immediately looked down at their shoes, but Andi glared right at her.
"The punk is going to die." The blue-scaled girl snarled. Zarana raised an eyebrow.
"Which punk are you talking about? Mimic or Virus?" One of the two was usually receiving death threats around here.
"Oh, neither." Regan shook her head. "One of our old lab-mates is pissed that we killed Locust."
"It's not like we had a choice in the matter." Corona frowned. "He was going to kill us if we didn't put a stop to him."
"Tell that to Bolt." Thunderbird scoffed. "He wants Andi's head on a platter now."
Zarana sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She didn't like the sound of this. "Anything we can do about it?"
"We kill the loser, end of discussion." Andi snorted.
"How about we avoid that for now?" Kristen asked. "Look, why don't we hold a memorial again? It's been a few years since any of us visited the graveyard anyway."
"How is that gonna help?" Corona frowned. "You know it won't matter to him. He'd fry her in front of everyone to prove a point."
"Yeah, but he'd also have to fry Huntress for pointing her in that direction and we both know she scares the crap out of him." Kristen pointed out. "If the idiot gets too out of hand, we can always just let you trap him in a bubble and have Regan put his brain on hold. Not like it hasn't come to that before."
"And how are we going to get all the way back to Montana?" Regan frowned. "It's not like any of us can legally drive…"
"Would someone please explain to me what's in Montana, and why you all feel the need to go there?" Zarana asked, sensing a headache in her near future.
Andi frowned. "She's not coming with us."
"Why not? We need her permission to leave anyway." Kristen pointed out.
"They're not going." Andi repeated her earlier statement. "This has nothing to do with any of them."
"I beg to disagree." Zarana interjected, looking the younger girl in the eyes. "Like it or not, you can't just run off across the country without a damn good reason or some supervision. Now, what is so damned important that you have to go to Montana to see it?"
Sharra cracked first. She knew he would. He was scared of her. "The graveyard. The graveyard is in Montana."
She piqued an eyebrow. "And what is the graveyard?"
"It's a graveyard, what else is there to know?" Andi replied flatly, earning a disapproving glare from the elder female.
"It's where the kids that didn't make it out of the labs alive are buried… or memorialized. Some of them are buried with other family members in other countries." Corona explained. "But all their names are written on a memorial wall in the cemetery. We wanted to add Locust to the list, since apparently the kid we remember died in the labs. Bolt disagrees on that and thinks we were out of line for killing Locust to begin with. Do you see the problem?"
"So let me get this straight." Zarana closed her eyes to attempt to quell her mounting frustration. "You kids wanted to steal one of the vehicles, illegally drive all the way to Montana, and confront an angry mutant set on trying to kill your squad leader? And you didn't think we needed to know about it?" How the hell did they think they could get away with that? Even without Zartan present on base, that plan would not have worked. Burn-Out had surveillance cameras mounted in the garage. No way were they escaping unnoticed.
"Well no, we would have stolen somebody else's car and illegally driven up there." Kristen put in. "But I guess it was still a stupid plan."
"It's so stupid, it's Torch-worthy!" The pink-haired assassin bellowed. "If you thought for one second that I'd let you little idiots run cross-country unsupervised, you've got another thing coming!"
"Does that mean we can run across the country with supervision, or are we grounded?" Corona asked, frowning in confusion. "Cause if we can have supervision, we'll still go. Maybe between that and Huntress we can keep Bolt from electrocuting Andi."
"Don't worry about him." Regan snorted. "I'll have him so disoriented he won't know which way is up."
"Which one of you guys is going with us?" Neal inquired, much to Andi's annoyance. She still wasn't sold on the idea of bringing an adult with them.
"I'll talk it over with the rest of the group." The woman replied. "Until then, stay put." She shot a sidelong glare at Andi. If any of the group were going to defy orders, she'd be the one to do it. "No going anywhere until we discuss this, are we clear?"
A chorus of "Yes, Ma'am" sounded from the teens. Zarana ran a hand through her hair as she turned to leave the room. How the hell did she keep getting herself dragged into this crap?
"I swear to god, if any of you start asking if we're there yet, I'm going to ground you for eternity." Zandar grumbled. Rather than just a few of the kids and a couple of adults making the trip, the whole group had been dragged along with the exception of Burn-Out and Heart-Wrencher. They stayed to operate the shop. Currently, he was crammed into a cargo van with his sister and most of the kids. All of them were dressed in black, as if they were going to a funeral. By the description he got for the day's planned events, that assessment wasn't far from the truth.
"Why would we need to?" Kristen frowned, smoothing the skirt of her dress. With her pale complexion and small frame, she looked like a gothic porcelain doll in her black lace dress. "We're almost there anyway."
"Was 'here' supposed to be a creepy cemetery?" Mimic gulped, glancing out the window of the large van. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans.
"Where else would you bury dead people?" Regan inquired. Like Kristen, she wore a dress, although hers was noticeably tighter and shorter than her companion's. "And it's not creepy! Just look at it! The groundskeeper's left it in good shape."
"We are not the first ones here." Neal—the only boy in an actual suit—spoke up, looking out at the graveyard. Three figures could be seen loitering around a large granite monument.
"Looks like Mina and Van Gogh made it." Corona observed. She wore a black polo shirt and a matching skirt. "Can't make out the third from here, though."
"I think its Tempo." Kristen squinted. "Aura never was one for bright colors."
"At least we beat Bolt here." Andi grumbled, arms folded in a decidedly unladylike fashion across her chest. She wore a black blouse and black jeans. "I'm convinced that boy has no respect for the dead."
"Wonder why your friend Shatter didn't want to ride up here with us." Bryan scratched his head. He donned a black button-up shirt and jeans. In a rare moment of wisdom, Virus kept his mouth shut throughout the whole trip. He was clad in a black Iron Maiden shirt and jeans. He looked out at the cemetery and sneered. He didn't understand why anyone cared about a bunch of lab rats. Steve himself was wearing a black sweater and jeans. Like Virus, he kept quiet, but his silence was more about respect for the dead, and because he felt he had no right to say anything.
"He's not very sociable." Corona explained. "And he hates conflicts. I doubt he would have come anyway, given how crazy Bolt's been acting."
"Yeah, but it's not like Sparky can hurt him." Andi snorted. "Every molecule in Shatter's body turned into crystal after he got his powers. Tasers back in the labs didn't even tickle him."
"Sounds like a waste to me." Calvin commented. "To have that kind of awesome ability and not use it just seems wrong."
"Let's just say he has his reasons and leave it at that." Regan replied as Zarana parked the van. Gnawgahyde, with the rest of the kids riding along, pulled his jeep into the space beside them.
"Oh look, they brought friends." A man in his early twenties spoke, a strong French accent affecting his speech patterns. He had shaggy brown hair and brown eyes and wore a black polo shirt and slacks. Most striking of all, however, was the fact that his left ear appeared to have been burned off.
"More like a pack." Mina observed, golden eyes sparkling with amusement. Her orange and black striped hair was restrained in a ponytail this time, and her baggy cargo pants and tank top were both black. "Not taking any chances today, are you Atlantis?"
"It wasn't my idea to bring them."
"Yeah, but your idea was illegal, and I can't have you getting arrested, now can I?" Zarana frowned.
"She's spunky." Mina smirked approvingly. "I like her."
"That's 'Rana, one of our handlers." Regan stated by way of introduction. "The other two are Gnawgahyde and Zandar."
"Found yourself a real nice group of masters, didn't you?" An African-American girl sneered. She wore a bold yellow and black plaid shirt and black jeans.
"Rather have them for masters than starve to death on my own any day." Corona placed her hands on her hips. "You don't know what you're missing out on, Tempo. We get good food, our own rooms, and work that doesn't involve street walking."
"No, but I bet you turn all kinds of tricks for them." Tempo teased. "You play fetch, roll over…"
"Star in our own syndicated television series, learn bad-ass combat moves, and play with some really expensive equipment." Kristen replied. "You're just too proud to ask for help, or you'd be with us."
"I refuse to be a slave to any human master." Tempo held her head high.
Zandar snorted, trying to keep from laughing out loud. The other kids all bore similar 'I know something you don't know' grins.
"Uh, Tempy?" Mina snickered. "Their head boss is a mutant. A rather infamous one at that."
"My name isn't Tempy." The dark-skinned girl growled.
"Of course it isn't. It's Harriet the Spy." Andi quipped. "Now quit being an ass about my employment choices when you don't even have a job. We came here to remember the past, not &%$# up the future and—oh, come on!" The blond groaned as Zarana rather pointedly held out a jar of loose change.
The handlers had all noticed the young girl's rather foul language (even by their loose standards), but thus far yelling at her and consigning her to extra training sessions wasn't fixing the problem. In fact, it only seemed to make her swear more. So, the adults put their heads together and came up with a solution: the swear jar. So far Andi alone had contributed enough change to pay for a twelve-pack of soda. "You don't get around the rules just because we're on a road trip, kiddo." Zarana smirked. "Pay up."
Grumbling in annoyance, Andi reached into her back pants pocket and dumped some of her loose change into the jar. "There. Ya happy now?"
"No, but I suppose this is as good as it will get." The pink-haired woman pointed out. "Now, are you going to show us where the graves are, or are we just going to leave those flowers in the van to wilt?"
The young man with the missing ear perked up. "Flowers?" He inquired. "You brought flowers for the graves?"
"Don't be so shocked, Van Gogh. They deserve to be remembered." Regan waved off the older mutant. "Now, is this everyone who's going to show up?"
"Should be." Mina shrugged. "Aura's stuck with her folks in England. Shatter wouldn't hitch a ride, and we all know Bolt couldn't be on time for anything to save his life, so let's start without him."
"Uh… if you don't want us there, we can stay by the car…" Bryan rubbed the back of his head nervously. He didn't know these people at all. Heck, half the team didn't know what was going on right now, but they still tagged along for moral support… and to keep their friend and team leader from being electrocuted.
"Oh, nonsense, you can come with us!" Kristen chirped. "We need someone to help carry all those roses anyway."
"Did you rob some old lady's garden on your way here?" Tempo blinked in awe as the boys and Gnawgahyde started unloading several dozen white roses.
"Just the local florist." Corona waved the dark-skinned mutant off with one hand while motioning to her teammates with the other. "Come on, boys, I'll show you where to put 'em."
The graveyard itself was a well-kept place. The grass was mowed and fresh flowers and other plants sat in front of a few of the headstones. But rather than stop in the main part of the cemetery, Corona lead them over to a small section, divided from the rest of the grounds by a rough square of landscaping timbers laid across the grass. Inside the section were a few headstones, but its most striking feature was a rather large rock slab with words chiseled into it. Upon closer inspection, the boys discovered that those words were names and codenames. Some were identical to the names on the few tombstones in the small little plot, but the majority of them had no marker save the giant slab.
"That's a lot of names." Mitch commented, nervously sticking his hands into his pants pockets. There were three columns of names, and each of those was about ten people deep. "Were there that many who didn't make it out with you guys?"
"Actually, that's probably not all of them. Those are just the ones we remembered or that matched missing persons' reports." Neal pointed out. "There were many who died early on that we didn't know the names of."
"They didn't care how many of us died because they always knew how to find replacements." Corona commented, touching her hand to the stone monument. "Regan and I were two of the 'replacements'."
"That's still an awful lot of kids for some random lab." Zarana frowned. Mindbender preferred to keep his number of test subjects fairly low. Twenty seemed to be the line of demarcation; any more subjects, and he had to hire new (usually incompetent) lab assistants to help run the project. If twelve made it out, plus the thirty some-odd souls that didn't… Shit, that was almost fifty kids! What kind of project would need that many lab rats? She shook her head, making a mental note to ask Zartan about it when she returned home.
"Wouldn't know. Never been in another one." Tempo regarded the pink-haired woman skeptically. She still didn't trust the woman; then again, she didn't trust anyone over the age of twenty-five.
"Did anyone bring a candle?" Regan asked. "The one on that stand needs to be replaced." She indicated a small stone stand at the base of the monument. What had once been a red pillar candle was now an unrecognizable lump of wax with virtually no wick left.
"I'll run and get us one." Kristen sighed. "Another red one this time, or are we going with white to match the flowers?"
"Just grab a candle, Kris." Andi commented, running her hands through her hair. Somehow, the other girls had convinced her not to pull it back in its usual ponytail. Now free of its rubber restraint, a soft cascade of blond waves fell to her shoulders. Of course, it also allowed her slightly-shorter black bangs to fall right down into her field of vision, and that wasn't making her the least bit happy. "Color doesn't matter. Ain't like it'll clash with the flowers." Because white was a neutral color; it went with everything, or so her mother always told her.
"Will do!" The petite girl chirped before disappearing into a gust of wind. Van Gogh and Tempo blinked.
"Since when can she do that?" A puzzled Van Gogh asked.
"She's always been able to do that." Regan stated. "That's why they kept her collared all the time."
"Yeah, man, don't you remember her zipping right passed the guards on our way outta there?"
"I doubt it, Harriet, he was more preoccupied by his newly-removed ear at the time." Andi frowned at Tempo. The mocha-skinned teen growled, but said no more. Soon, Kristen was back amongst the others, a shopping bag in her dainty hands.
"Red seemed to be the most fitting and least feminine color at the dollar store, so it's what we get this time." The dhampire explained, taking a red candle in a glass jar out of the shopping bag. "It smells like apples!"
"I'm sure they'll appreciate it." Neal nodded to her, squatting down in front of the candle and stretching his hand out toward it. Heat from the air around him focused into a thin coat of super-hot plasma surrounding his hand. It took a minute, but eventually the wick on the new candle became heated enough to light. Once a small flame was burning, the black-haired boy stood up once more. "Anyone have anything to say?"
"Lucky bastards have it easy?' Tempo offered, earning an elbow in the ribs from Mina. "Ow!"
"How about, 'We miss you and wish some of you were still here with us. Hope you're having fun up there.'?" The stripe-haired girl suggested sarcastically.
"May they all find the peace in their new lives that never came in this one." Van Gogh eulogized softly. "May they know we remember them. That we will never forget them or their sacrifice."
"Now that is what I meant!" Neal exclaimed.
"How very eloquent of you." Andi looked over at the mutant with a missing ear. "Catching up on your reading?"
"A little." The older boy grinned sheepishly.
"Good. Glad to hear it." She nodded as the sound of lightning striking a metal pole sounded. The air around them tingled with electricity as a minor shockwave caused them to stumble. All eyes looked to the entrance of the cemetery.
"You homicidal, cowardly bitch!" A boy of about sixteen roared. He had blond hair and eyes that glowed yellow with electricity. Sparks danced off of his skin as he walked toward them. "I'm going to fry your scaly little ass!"
"The hell you will!" Corona shouted back, throwing a bubble shield around the gathered group. "Calm down, Bolt!"
"You can't tell me what to do!" He shouted back at her. "None of you can! Especially not you outsiders! Aaaauughh!" Suddenly, the electrokinetic screamed in pain, hands clutching his head in agony.
"Do not ever tell me what I can and cannot do with my own powers, you over-emotional thug!" Regan hissed, sending yet another psychic bolt at the boy. "Now calm down and stop trying to kill us all or I will knock you out."
"Don't tempt her, dude." Mitch, skin now completely changed into rock, shook his head sagely. "She'll do it in a heartbeat."
"Stay out of this, outsider!" Bolt roared. "Ow!" He clutched his head again.
"The 'outsider' is showing more sympathy for our loss than you are right now." Mina growled. "Get a handle on yourself or get out of here."
"She killed him!" Bolt shouted, glaring at Andi. "She killed one of us!"
"He wasn't the boy you remembered." Regan responded coolly. "Locust murdered twelve mutants in cold blood during his trek from California to Illinois. Those are just the ones that made the news! He probably had other victims we didn't know about!"
"And that makes her any better?" Bolt roared, pointing at Andi. "She spits on the rules, and suddenly that's okay?"
"He kidnapped Mason Bradley's kid brother and tried to kill him." Corona glared. "Wanna know the punch-line? In his twisted, deranged little brain, Locust thought he was saving all those people he killed. Something had to be done."
"That didn't mean you had to kill him! Or is that just what your new masters made you believe?" the blond boy taunted. "They convinced you the rules didn't matter huh? Why does that not surprise me?"
"And what else were we supposed to do? Let the government take him? He'd have either been a pawn or used for spare parts!" Andi challenged. "He needed to be put down! And Locust himself violated all three of the rules!"
"Lies!" Bolt shouted. "Being their pet has made you weak! You had no respect for the rules all along! You're nothing more than a sociopathic heartless monster!" He gritted his teeth, and electricity arced up and down his fists. "You're a rabid animal, and I'm gonna put you down, like you should've been a long time ago!"
"She ain't the weak one, boy-o. And she's definitely not an animal." Before the young mutant had time to react, a sharp blow to the back of the head rendered him unconscious. Zandar stood over the boy's prone form, having slipped out of the force field and behind the angry young man undetected.
"He never saw that coming." Mina shook her head.
"Nobody ever sees Zandar coming." Kristen giggled. "He just appears out of nowhere! Kinda like the Spanish Inquisition!"
"Well, that went better than I expected it would." Corona shrugged.
"But we have another problem." Regan sighed. "It seems 'Sparky' has been tapped as a potential recruit."
"Recruit? By who?" Tempo scoffed. "None of the rest of us got a call!"
"Someone calling himself 'Magneto', whatever that is." Regan sighed. "Powers over magnetism. Level four, by Bolt's impression of him." She noticed the dark shadow that seemed to have fallen over Andi's face. "You already know who that is, don't you?"
"He's the backer of one of the mutant groups in New York." The blue-eyed hydrokinetic answered in an unusually detached manner. "Cold and ruthless; believes the only way to get along with humans is to make them subservient to mutants." Virus snickered quietly.
Fool. The mad Brit chuckled to himself. Everyone knows technology rules all. And I am the master of technology.
"Sounds like a real nice guy." Bryan scoffed.
"It gets better. Rumor has it, he's not above conducting genetic experiments on his followers, with or without their consent." Andi continued. Truth be told, it wasn't 'rumor' at all, but she couldn't let them know how she knew about all of this yet. The entire team could be at risk if that kind of information got out now. "Fortunately, he has no idea I exist, or we might have wound up under his thumb."
"For what it's worth, I'd rather work for you guys than that creep any day." The resident telepath replied, looking thankfully over at Zarana. "At least with you guys we knew what we were getting ourselves into. I don't know what it is about this guy, but I don't trust him."
"Maybe we'll get lucky and never have to meet him?" Mitch offered hopefully. Andi shook her head.
"Us as a team? We don't have any luck but bad luck." She snorted before turning her eyes to Van Gogh. "You or Aura might stay under his radar. Hell, Shatter could if he keeps to the sewers." The older man sighed.
"I do not want to fight in a war." He stated simply. "I just want to get back to my studies and my artwork."
"Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck do you do anyway?" Mimic inquired. He'd been trying to get a handle on the new people's powers, but for some reason, Van Gogh's were confusing the heck out of him.
"I can make illustrated artwork appear in real life as a semi-solid illusion." Van Gogh grinned wryly. "Appropriate ability for an artist, non?"
"...that's actually kinda neat." Steve admitted quietly.
"Semi-solid? That's a new one." Regan blinked. "You learn that on your own or did it just show up one day?"
"I can't make anything completely solid…more like a liquid or heavy gas." The older mutant admitted. "One day I woke up, and the illusions were almost tangible. No idea where it came from."
"I hate to be the one to break up the reunion, but we're on a schedule." Zarana sighed, looking around at the group of kids who'd dragged her out here. "Now, are there things left to do here, or can we go home?"
"I don't know about leaving him here like this." Neal frowned at Bolt's unconscious form.
"I've got it covered." Mina smirked. "You guys have a fun trip back to Chicago."
"We will." Regan nodded. "And Andi has generously offered to pay for drinks and food."
"Huh?" The girl in question blinked as Zarana shot her a knowing glare.
"May as well put that swear money to good use." The woman smirked triumphantly, holding up the swear jar. "With what I'm getting off you, I could start my own retirement fund." Andi lowered her gaze and muttered something indistinguishable under her breath. "Come on, kids, back in the car!"
"But we just got here!" Mimic whined. "Can't we walk around a bit?"
"Oi! I got me legs squished riding in that jeep!" Virus protested.
"Too bad, so sad. Get in the car." The female assassin glared. "I want to make it back home by tomorrow morning."
"Yes, 'Rana." The kids chorused.