The guards burst through the door.
Mac didn't think, didn't pause, didn't consider the consequences. He tossed the beaker he'd brought with him in their general direction and when it shattered a fireball engulfed the encroaching guards.
Unfortunately, being crisped like Sunday brunch bacon didn't seem to stop these guys.
He hoped Oversight was doing his part, because in the fire and smoke, it looked like he was up against about seven or eight guys, and if the way they were flooding into the room, despite blackening, peeling skin from the chemical fire was any indication, they must've taken Walsh's KX7. He had one hope in the moment. That formula burnt out it's victims fast. If he could hold on long enough, they'd probably just drop from cardiac arrest.
He lept forward and started throwing punches, determined to keep them off Jack for as long as he could.
Jack had seemed to almost … boil … when he'd given him the injection of the supposedly perfected KX formula. His skin had gone bright red, almost instantly. All his muscles, tendons, and ligaments, were visible under the scarlet skin slicked with sweat as everything about him strained. And he'd screamed. Mac had never heard anything like it. An animal sound of anguish, and … something else Mac couldn't name. Jack strained against some invisible force, struggled to free himself from whatever was causing his agony. He'd also clobbered Mac pretty solidly in the process.
Then he'd simply stopped, cold and sort of pale.
Still and silent.
Mac wasn't sure his partner was even still alive. But that didn't matter as much to Mac in the whirlwind of fists and feet he was currently involved in as making sure none of Walsh's or Murdoc's people ever laid another hand on his partner.
Of course, even as he got slammed up against a wall by a dude Mac was now positive was juiced to the nines on the old version of KX7, part of his brain was already processing the guilt that these guys had grabbed Jack to pull Mac and in.
And it had worked.
Mac snapped a solid kick, and it backed up the guy in front of him enough for him to try to get himself some room. Unfortunately, all it did was give a couple of other goons the opening they needed to jump him again.
Feverish, exhausted, stressed, and already giving in to grief in the back of his mind, Mac felt like his thoughts were a half-step behind where they usually were. That still put him mentally about three steps ahead of even the smartest bad guy. But his brain wasn't really the problem right now. It was his run-down, recently-lost-a-knife-fight-on-purpose body that was currently getting its ass absolutely kicked.
And smarts counted for a lot in a fight. But physically, especially with something like recent surgery, a disadvantage was a disadvantage.
The next thing Mac knew, he was on the ground, under a hail of blows. He did his best to fight them off. And anyone who'd ever tangled with him, including Jack, knew that he could hold his own with people much larger than he was, even multiple someones who were much larger. Applied Physics, years of hand-to-hand combat training, and what Jack always referred to as a stubborn streak a million miles wide, were good for that kind of thing. But none of those things could compensate for him having been sick off and on for months, sleeping poorly, or having undergone surgery less than twenty-four hours earlier. So, when Mac stopped being able to fend off the multiple attacks, he was disappointed.
But he wasn't surprised.
He found himself hauled up off the floor and slammed into the wall by the door, pinned by a thick forearm across his neck. He continued to struggle for a minute, then thought better of it. Swallowing past the pressure was like gulping down a hot coal right off the grill.
Mac's vision started to grey around the edges and his head felt like a balloon full of blood that was about to pop in the most gruesome way possible. He was vaguely aware of noises behind the guy who he was pretty sure was about to squeeze his brains right out of his ears, when suddenly the pressure released and he crumpled to the floor. Right before he went all the way out, he saw what he was pretty sure was the Hulk … no … Captain America … nope, not that … the Hulk and Captain America, throwing the bad guy most of the way across the filthy little cell.
0-0-0
Jack had never felt anything like it. Very much counter to his preference, he'd been shot up with all kinds of shit over the last day or so, and none of it was fun. But when Mac had jabbed him with whatever the Hell he and his old man had been cooking up, he'd been totally unprepared for what happened after the initial pinch of the needle. At first, it just stung, sort of like lidocaine before stitches. It sucked, sure, but Jack had been sewn up a lot of times in his life, starting with his earliest days in PeeWee Football.
But then, it was like someone had doused his body in gasoline and struck a match.
And a screeching like a thousand hands dragging their fingernails down a chalkboard made from people biting on tinfoil filled his ears.
As if that weren't bad enough, he could feel his heart ripping itself to shreds.
Jack had the half-coherent thought that he was definitely dying. Or maybe he already had, and this was Hell.
Because if this was what happened to Oversight, there was no way Mac would have given him that drug. No way in the Hell Jack was increasingly sure he was occupying. He'd said it would suck, but he'd looked confident, pleased even. So, maybe Mac just hadn't gotten to him in time and this was what the horrible death by some nutcase's half-assed chemistry experiment was.
After an eternity of being consumed by the fire coursing through his blood, things got eerily quiet. Then, Jack realized it was just that his ears were full.
Maybe the whole thing had been a nightmare. Because right now he felt awesome. Like really awesome. Like he was a freaking teenager again, headed for States and ready to whoop some ass on the gridiron.
He gave a jaw-cracking yawn and he moved the stretch. The cuffs and shackles stopped his movement and his ears popped. Things happened very fast after that.
The sound of a very large fight rushed in on him and he opened his eyes, horrified at the fire, smoke, and large goons who looked like something out of the Walking Dead headed his way, not to mention the ones beating the shit out of his partner over near the door in the filthy cell that had unfortunately not been a nightmare.
Under normal circumstances, he might have freaked out that he was in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, but right now, all he felt was a sort of warm, pleasant anticipation. Jack took a look at the chains binding him to the dirty cot he was on and felt a strange smile on his face. He took hold of the metal and pulled the chains apart like they were made of balsa wood instead of iron.
He maneuvered in something like a kip-up and launched himself at the guys coming for him.
The two closest seething Hulks got their heads smashed together with a thud and a wet sound that let Jack know they wouldn't be getting up again.
With that threat eliminated, Jack slammed another of them against the nearest wall. The guy crumpled, but Jack wasn't sure he was actually down for good, so he pistoned a couple of side kicks on his way by, pretty sure that did the trick.
Did I think I felt like I did when I was in high school a minute ago? This is way better than that!
Another blister-faced horror show grabbed Jack by the shirt with meaty fists and Jack landed a very satisfying headbutt before shoving the motionless body aside.
At this point in the fight, Jack might normally have noticed his age, might have regretted hitting quite so hard, or pretending the enemy was a soccer ball. But not now. Now all he felt was that same pleasant almost buzz that said these guys were just fleas to flick.
He hauled two of the guys whaling on his partner back by their shirt collars and tossed them. He was vaguely aware that they hit the far wall and had a split second to think that was sort of cool, before grabbing the last guy who was trying to choke out his partner by the head and twisting, a maneuver he had used before, certainly, but never with such ease. He tossed the man's body aside and realized Mac had slid down the wall and seemed to be out cold.
Some of the warmth of the drug faded as he took in Mac's pale, motionless appearance, and Jack crouched down next to him quickly, feeling under Mac's jaw with two fingers. His pulse was rapid but plenty strong. Jack used the pads of his fingers to tap Mac on the cheek. "Hey, hey, kid. You with me?"
Mac's eye fluttered open, a little bloodshot, probably from the pressure that had been put on his airway. "You're alive," he rasped.
Jack grinned. "Course I'm alive, Genius. You made sure a that, didn'tcha?"
Mac managed a half smile in return. Then he realized he could hear the distant sounds of an awful lot of action. He started to push off the floor with both hands and realized he was too shaky to get all the way there just yet. He swallowed and tasted blood. Great. "Help me up?" he said as softly as he could.
Jack rose and extended a hand to him. Mac groaned as he was hauled to his feet. He hesitated for a second, thinking maybe he should spit and see if that fight did as much damage to his recently sliced-up throat as it felt like but then decided Jack would probably freak out, so he just swallowed again and said, "Oversight said if I could get you loose, he'd meet us out by the generators."
"Mac, I didn't see anything comin' in here," Jack said.
"I know where to head if we can get by whatever the Hell is going on out there." Another swallow became necessary. He needed to sit. Maybe forever. But now wasn't the time for it.
"Hang on," Jack said and started going through the bodies littering the room for weapons, and quickly came up with several firearms. He stuck a couple in the waistband of his pants and held up two pistols, one in each hand. "Let's John Wayne out way out of this hellhole, huh, kid?"
Mac felt the urge to grin but was sort of afraid his whole mouth was bloody right now, so he just dipped his head in a quick nod and pointed to the left. Jack got in front of him, definitely looking forward to cowboying their way through the compound. At the end of the hallway, where the sounds of a firefight were getting louder, Riley skidded into view. "Thank God!"
"Ri!" Jack exclaimed, "What're you doin' in here?"
"Getting you two to our exfil. Matty pulled a classic 'her' thing and somehow snuck half of Phoenix and maybe most of Mexico's army in here while we thought we were gonna have to take this place with just the six of us. Got a jeep waiting right outside if we can get around all the action."
Jack moved to pass her one of the guns he'd grabbed off Walsh and Murdoc's men.
Riley pulled the piece Jack had given her for her birthday out of her waistband. "What do you take me for, Dalton?"
He grinned. "A chip off the old block." He gestured toward the intersection fo hallways in front of him, looking for direction and Ri tipped her chin indicating the one away from the noise. "Aright, let's roll."