Alex's hands were clenched around the leather wheel of the car, his fingers taping on it. The black vehicle was parked distantly from the facility, impossible to be seen from the security. A thick blanket of silence covered everything and for long the only sound in the car was the heavy breathing of his teammates. The atmosphere felt tense as they were waiting for the sound of battle. That was supposed to be their cue to sneak in.
Stealth attack wasn't on his list of top 10 best skills, but he wasn't terrible at it either. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that his powers were rather loud and destructive. When he was a teen it had been even harder to keep them in check during a stealth operation. Now he was more experienced and didn't need Hank's 'energy diaper'.
The adrenaline was pumping under his skin in rhythm with his beating heart. He slid a quick glance to the review mirror and caught the other's expressions. Psylocke was concentrated and looked ready to jump out of the car any second, Lorna's eyes were full of cold determination and Clarice seemed impatient and for a second, a shade of worry passed over face her features tense in the moonlight.
"Do you think something went wrong?" She asked suddenly, "We have been waiting for long."
"If something went wrong we would have been informed," Betsy said, tapping the side of her head.
"They just need the perfect time to strike," Alex said and looked out of the windshield again. Surprisingly, he felt good. It was like he had been in this car, going trough this operation's routine millions of times.
That was what he counted on. When the time came, he had known what he had to do and his body was acting subconsciously even if he had been nervous beforehand. It had known when to move, when to strike or hold back, all thanks to the training in the Danger Room.
He had feared he had gotten rusty, but Alex still felt the familiar calm wave, washing over him, leaving his instincts sharp and his mind prepared for everything.
Marks from the panic attack were still there, but fading. The feeling of being spaced out started to disappear, just a small portion left. The ride to the facility definitely helped. Lorna had offered a couple of times to replace him as the driver, but he refused. Doing something distracted him and helped him brush off the effects.
The building wasn't completely covered in darkness. However the muted light spread by the lamps wasn't enough for all the details to be seen. Only a few guards on the left, but he was sure this wasn't all of them. It was fortunate that he didn't need to see the backdoor to know where it is. Alex had made sure to learn its position from Warren's blueprints, just to be prepared.
Suddenly, the loud noise of fighting and shooting tore him from his thoughts. 'Time for action.' He turned to his teammates, "You know what to do," They nodded and the group all got out of the car. Team Alpha crept towards the facility as fast and quiet as they could.
The battle from the other side was covering their entrance and the darkness was sheltering them. Every guard on their way was quickly put to sleep by Psylocke.
Everything was executed smoothly. Halfway, they stopped and Alex turned to Lorna.
'Do your thing,' He thought, the words reaching Polaris trough the psychic rapport that Betsy had established way back during the ride.
Lorna nodded and stepped ahead, green glow radiating from her hands. An electrical wave was emitted destroying all cameras with the ability to detect them, as well as the lamps.
The team continued ahead without letting anything stop them. The sounds of battle on the other side became faint by the time they reached the entrance.
"Delta, Gamma and Beta are in, it's our turn," Psylocke informed them.
Havok stepped away to grant Polaris the space she needed to open the metal doors. The others prepared to attack whoever may be on the other side. Most of the guards were supposed to be either outside, on the other half of the first floor, from where they couldn't spot them, or holding their positions on the upper floors. Of course, the option some of them to have stayed behind wasn't completely crossed out of the list.
The coast was clear and one by one they made their way inside with Lorna being last. No guards could be seen in either direction and Havok motioned to them to move ahead. The staircase, that would lead them to the underground floor, was on the second left turn in the hallway.
Carefully and pressed to the left side of the white wall, Havok and the team continued. When they reached the first turn, Alex peaked out of the corner as Clarice did the same in the other direction.
She quickly pulled back and motioned to Psylocke to do the same with Alex before they could see him. 'There are two coming from the right corner,' Clarice thought.
'I will take care of them,' Psylocke thought back and a purple butterfly appeared over her face. In an instant a hard 'tump' came from the right. Clarice peeked again, her lips curving into an impressed half-smile, when she saw the guards on the ground, loudly snoring.
"Let's go. We are almost there," Betsy urged and they moved ahead.
In a minute they turned left again and faced a big door with an electronic lock. Lorna streched out her hand to rip the door open, but didn't get the chance.
"Get on the ground muties!" A disembodied voice came from behind them.
"I told you there will be more here," Another voice said.
Havok nodded at his teammates and they slowly turned around. The guards had pointed their guns towards their chests.
"Hands behind your heads!" The soldier ordered and Alex lifted them in front of chest. "Of course," He said and sent two blasts at the soldiers, sending them flying to the wall. "Not!"
Polaris stretched out her hand again, this time unlocking the door without anyone disturbing her.
Inside there were more guards than Havok had expected. As the door opened, they all lifted their guns and aimed at them.
"This will get interesting," Clarice commented.
"Damn right it will," Lorna agreed.
Standing on the rooftop and looking at the night sky was usually something Warren would appreciate. However, not tonight. His friends were inside the building on a shooting party and he was stuck to wait outside with one of Emma Frost's telepathic daughters. His team was supposed to get in last filling the role of the silent back-up if anything goes wrong with the others.
A lot of stuff could go wrong, but he liked to believe he was ready for all of them. Even if he liked to think that, it didn't make it true.
Warren was sure Betsy, Alex, Sean and Kitty would be alright. The same couldn't be said for the others. He had never seen any of them out on the field. These people had never trained in a specific environment to teach them to adapt to situations like the one in hand, which could turn them into liabilities.
He really didn't get why Emma would want most of them on the mission anyway.
'kill them all.' A voice in his head whispered.
'Shut up.' Warren pushed it in the back of his head as hard as he could and pretended he couldn't hear it.
As always, the Archangel choose a bad time to mess with his mind. When in his blue form, this voice was whispering to him, urging him to kill, so it could feed its own bloodthirsty desires.
How he got stuck with these two forms was a long story. It had started with an accident, which got his wings amputated. Warren couldn't live that way and had taken an offer proposed by Misted Sinister, a mad scientist and genetics expert, to restore his wings. He had done it, but also brainwashed him into serving Apocalypse, an ancient mutant who had wanted to rule the Earth.
With the help of the X-men, he had broken away from the brainwashing. With time his metal wings 'molted' and his skin returned back to normal.
Of course, in an X-man's life normal couldn't stay for long. Warren had been attacked by a brainwashed Wolfsbane, who had ripped his wings off. On their place the metal ones had regrown and he gained the ability to revert between the two personas.
'Your turn,' Psylocke's thought echoed in his head.
'On it,' Warren thought back.
'Are you managing?'
'Of course, Bets. Have a little faith in me,' He could feel her eye-rolling and smirked.
'Good luck,Warren.'
'Good luck to you too.'
"Time to go," he said and stretched out his metal wings. They were the tools, which would get them in. "Step away, this might get messy," Archangel ordered and Esme nodded once before backing away.
Taking a breath, Warren flew up, his wings clapping upwards, carrying him. The sky was black, only a few stars distinguishing it from a dark, empty void. The night wind lashed against the skin on his face, its coldness stinging.
Archangel stopped in mid-air and looked down. He was high enough to pierce through the roof now. With a quick manoeuvre Warren dived downhill, pressing his wings closer to his back to gain speed.
With lighting speed he reached his target, breaking trough the reinforced concrete in seconds.
The dust in the air made him cough and screwed up his eyes. He looked up and spotted Esme leaning over the hole, which Warren had created. An alarm turned on and red light illuminated the hallway. Its annoying ringing made him wince.
"Jump," He urged the blond, sending a glance towards the empty space in front of him every now and then to make sure no one could surprise him.
Esme sat on the edge of the hole and pushed herself down. She beat the dust out of her clothes as she landed and looked ahead only to see a few agents running towards them with raised guns, pointing at both.
Archangel launched himself ahead, hovering above the floor just a few meters. Using his wings, he sliced through the guards's weapons leaving them vulnerable.
Esme's blue eyes glowed and the soldiers collapsed on the floor one by one. Both mutants continued walking ahead, until they reached the end of the hallway. The door leading towards the first lab, from which they would extract information, was locked with some kind of electronic lock. Warren stretched his wing, ready to cut it open, but the close sound of gunshots distracted him.
Acting on pure instinct he covered himself and Esme with the metal wing. The bullets bounced off it and hit the floor. The agents kept shooting at them without luck.
'This weak creatures think they can hurt us. I will show the-'
'No!'
The bullets kept bouncing off and Warren decided that that was enough. He flew at the guards ready to pierce trough them as if they were nothing. In the last second he pulled himself back.
'I told you to stop.' A bullet managed to hit his shoulder and he hissed in pain.
Before the Archangel could start another attack towards the guards, Esme broke into their minds.
Warren watched as they turned their guns towards themselves and shot, collapsing dead on the ground. Blood spilled on the ground and he had to look away.
"What the hell!" He turned towards Esme, his voice a shout.
"I stopped them," She calmly replied, a smirk playing on her lips.
He wanted to say more, but controlling his own blood thirst was hard enough, without screaming at Esme. Warren forced himself to calm down. Rachel's and every mutant's in this facility's life, depended on this mission. Going on a rampage against the soldiers would do more harm then good. There was a big chance he would slip his control and end up hurting Esme.
Warren swept towards the door and sliced trough the lock, ignoring the smell of blood in the hallway. The door opened without a problem and he hurried inside, followed by Esme.
The lab's walls were white, as well as the floor and most of the equipment. There were lamps attached to the ceiling, their bright light forcing Warren to look away. A few scientists were staring at them helplessly, fear swimming in their eyes. 'They should damn right be afraid.' God knew how many innocent mutants they had tortured, turned them into a science experiment.
Quick steps echoed outside, coming with the clanking of guns and growled orders.
"Don't let them get out."
Warren's head jerked to the source of the sound and he took a step forward. Esme put a hand on his shoulder, the sudden motion forcing him to meet her eyes. She gave him a short nod. "I have a plan."
"Does it involve murder," Warren asked and she shook her head. "Then go for it."
A blue glow enveloped her eyes and she smirked. "Go to the door, stand in a row and stop the soldiers."
One by one the scientists did as she said. By the time the soldiers have arrived, they met a blockade formed by bodies, who wouldn't let them shoot, using themselves as shields.
"Let's finish this and get out. I can't hold them for long," Esme said, trough gritted teeth.
Warren didn't waste any time and ran to the nearest computer, plugging the device Sage had given him before they started. After two long minutes, the little flash drive cracked the security of the data base. Sage had all the access to the data that she needed. Good thing that everything these days was in digital form.
"Hurry up!" Esme shouted and Warren destroyed the computer device, slashing it with his wing. A feeling of accomplishment raised in his gut, but he felt that that wasn't enough.
Concentrating, Archangel shot metal feathers out of his wings. They pierced through the machines with ease, destroying them in the progress. He wanted to make sure that nothing could be saved. No DNA samples, no data on anyone.
He was about to turn to Esme, when a gun was fired. Archangel launched himself forward and tried to protect Esme from the bullet, but it was too late. The deadly object had made contact with her skin and the Frost had bend her body to the ground from the impact.
Then she stood up, her skin shining from the reflecting light of the lamps. The bullet was on the ground with a shabby head.
Warren smirked from the surprise. It looked like the sisters had inherited more than just their mother's telepathy. The surprise was quickly replaced by insight. Emma couldn't use telepathy while in diamond form. He turned his gaze and met a a gun's muzzle in front of his face.
Before the soldier could react he stabbed his wing in his left thigh and the man's face twisted in pain, dropping the gun on the ground. Warren kicked it and continued to the next soldier.
Every once and then he slipped a glance towards Esme, to check how she was keeping up. The noise from cracking bones pointed him to think that all was okay. Soon enough, all of the soldiers were on the ground, some unconscious and some not so lucky.
Some of the cowardly scientists had managed to run out of the now useless lab. Archangel turned to the rest, eyeing them up and down. 'What a pathetic group of people.'
"The building will be destroyed in less than an hour. You better run," He warned them through gritted teeth, the voice in his head making the words come out harder.
'Just kill them now. They are weak.'
The low hiss filled his head as terrible as always. For a moment Warren was about to cover his ears in a pathetic attempt to make it stop, but he knew it wouldn't work.
'No!'
Esme was standing a few meters behind him, her arms crossed over her chest in a clear sign of her impatience and annoyance.
Archangel ignored the protesting voice in his mind and followed her out of the room. Another group of soldiers was waiting for them outside and started shooting as soon as they had spotted them.
Esme continued to walk towards them, not bothered by the glancing off of her skin bullets. Warren was warding of the objects with the help of his wings.
When he was close enough he fired at them, the covered in chemical projectiles paralyzing the soldiers, unfortunate enough to be hit.
The second wave of soldiers was defeated at last. Warren and Esme finally could catch their breaths.
"We need to get to the fifth floor," Archangel reminded of their next target. Unlike the sixth floor, where only one lab was stationed, on the fifth one was the DNA sample storage and the place where they experimented with the new drugs.
After all, the late hour was in their advantage. Most of the facilities were closed already and the lack of scientists was making it easier. Well there was enough security that was for sure.
"I wasn't aware you can turn to diamond," Warred pointed out and Esme gave him a quick smirk, "It is our secret weapon," She said and continued ahead, her heels clicking on the floor. Warren just hoped the others were doing okay.
"Goddammit!" Sean muttered under his breath as he and Lauren sped down the hallway and made a spontaneous right turn. He quickly glanced back to check if she was still behind him.
"We will need back-up," Banshee said, his words coming in snatches, because of the running. He didn't expect this floor be as full of security as it was. He and Lauren couldn't overpower all of them. 'What a dammed luck we have.'
"They are coming!" Lauren exclaimed and Sean heard the loud steps coming closer.
"Push them back," He ordered, surprised of the authority in his own voice. Sean wasn't the type someone would describe as a leader. Even as a teenager he was the goofy easy-going guy that cracked jokes with his friends all of the time. As they grew he got opportunities to try out his leadership skills in different situations, but it didn't come quite naturally and he himself wasn't a fan of it.
He watched, panting as Lauren created a shield pushing it back towards the guards with great speed. The sound of bouncing off bullets filled the hallways like music in a concert hall.
Some of the guards were thrown to the wall, falling on their backs with a loud 'tump', while others had managed to scatter, hiding behind the corners, where the hallway split in two.
"Get behind me!" He commanded and Lauren did so without wasting a second. As the first soldier showed from behind the corner Sean screamed, directing the sonic waves toward him.
"Behind us!" Lauren exclaimed and another sound of a ricocheted bullet filled the small space, this time coming from behind him. Without looking back, Banshee kept screaming, everyone who fell under the influence of the powerful sound, dropping to their knees, clinging hands to their ears in an attempt to stop the piercing pain.
He turned around to see Lauren knocking some guards into the wall, which cleared the path in front of them. The duo ran to the end of the hall and took a sharp left turn.
In front of them another group of guards was standing, waiting.
Some of the others have asked for back-up. How could there be so many? Sean was starting to get irritated and the throbbing pain in his muscles and throat wasn't helping. They were fighting off the guards for over what seemed to be an eternity, but they kept coming at them in waves.
He was exhausted and so was Lauren. Sean didn't know how long they could continue like that, but they kept fighting. The most important part was to keep the guards as far away as possible from the underground level. Alex and the others got enough hounds and security to deal with as it was. Entertaining the other units and collecting information was their mission. Banshee could just pray the plan would work out and they would save Rachel and the others. His head was getting dizzy just of the thought of the torture they were going through. That helped him keep fighting, focusing his concentration. A new wave of energy filled him and Sean screamed, ignoring the pain in his throat, ignoring the painful screams of the guards, he just kept screaming, letting every bit of frustration and anger out. He couldn't let them hurt Lauren or anyone else. It was Hus job to protect had always been. Sean wanted to make sure they would stay on the ground once they fell.
'You will kill them!' The realization rushed through his mind and he broke out of it. In front of him were all the bodies of the soldiers laying on the ground, stunned from the super sonic scream. They were more than they were before. He assumed a back-up unit had tried to approach, but were caught by the scream. With his peripheral vision he noticed Lauren watching him. Her expression reminded him of that of a kid, seeing its hero in a different light. Sean had found out that Lauren thought of the X-men as heroes. Now, she watched him as he almost killed a bunch of people. A feeling of shame poured in his body.
"We gotta move, there will be more coming," Sean said, in an attempt to take her eyes off of himself. Staring made him even more uncomfortable.
Lauren blinked a few times and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but decided against it and nodded at last, quickly moving past the guards on the ground. Sean followed, but stopped near one of the bodies, kneeling beside it to check for a pulse. Luckily he was alive. Banshee left out a relieved sign and continued pacing behind Lauren.
For a couple of minutes, everything was quiet, even if a fly passed by, it could have been heard. No more shouts, or sounds of footsteps. Sean knew better than to think it had passed. Without letting his guard down he notified Lauren with a motion to be quiet and crept to the corner of the hallway. He peaked over and saw a couple of soldiers guarding a door just a few feet away.
Sean pulled himself behind the corner again and looked at Lauren. He lifted five fingers for five guards and she firmly nodded. Both jumped from behind the corner at the same time. Banshee directed his scream at the two closest guys, while Lauren pushed the others towards the wall with her shield, instantly knocking them unconscious.
This was the second room on the floor that they had to clean up. Their activity in the first one was actually the reason they were chased through the whole floor. One of the damn scientists had pressed the panic button without them noticing.
Lauren pushed the door open with a big shield and they both entered. This was the place where they actually turned the hounds. The room's walls and ceiling were white as in every other room and there were bright lamps attached to the ceiling. Basically, it was the same place they had been just a few hours ago. Sean could see Lauren's expression twisting with anger with his peripheral vision.
However something else quickly attracted their attention. A couple of people were gathered in front of a big metal table, everyone fussing over whoever was on there. 'Another mutant they are torturing.' Sean thought and his hands clenched into fists. He didn't even had to say anything to Lauren for her to knock the scientists away. One of them moved out of the way the last second, diving down towards the floor.
The middle-aged man pressed a button on his belt and the automatic metal restraints clicked open, releasing the mutant.
"Kill them!" He hissed.
The mutant quickly stood up, facing both Sean and Lauren. The familiar red hair and green eyes bore into his mind as an image of a young girl appeared before his vision. A distant memory resurfaced. A memory of the same girl, but younger, watching movies with him and the others, laughing and smiling. He hadn't noticed who was strapped to that table. Only the thought about one more mutant being turned into a monster made him see red and nothing else mattered. Sean blinked a few times as yell of surprise escaped his lips.
"Rachel!?"
I am finally here with a new chapter and some very important news.
Important:
I have decided that this story isn't written or going the way I want to. My writing style has changed quite a lot since I have started and I am not satisfied with most of the chapters or the characters. For the new year I have decided to rework and edit major parts of the story. I will add more conversations, character moments and flesh out the story. I will post all of the reworked chapters at once when I finish them as well as a new chapter. Thanks for the attention!