Remy
Too close to the ground, Kitty got ahold of herself. Instead of splatting dead meat into the dirt, the pair slipped through the Earth until they emerged in a darkened cavern. Landing with a solid smack that left Remy seeing stars, the pain in his body reminded him how lucky they truly were. They were in a cave or tunnel, but he couldn't tell from his back whether the space was natural or manmade, though the lumps of rock jabbing his backside certainly tipped the scale in Mother Nature's favor. He lay very still and took deep breaths to try and calm his jackhammering heart.
Rolling his head to the side while his eyes adjusted, the details became clearer, and he found Kitty staring blankly towards the ceiling. Shaking, he scooted towards her and laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, petite," he whispered hoarsely. Her entire team, her family, snuffed out in an instant, the pair of them escaping only by accident. Remy knew what it was like to have the whole world ripped out from under you.
"Don't count them out yet!" Her laugh was a small sob, but she muffled it.
"Kitty…"
"Peter, his armored form would have survived the fall, and Kurt would have grabbed somebody else and teleported, and Lorna could have encased them in a magnetic bubble or Bobby would have used ice…" The glitter of tears streamed back down her face to run into her ears and hair. She shook off Remy's hand and scrubbed her eyes with balled-up fists. "Alive or…or dead, it doesn't matter, does it? It's up to us now."
"Quoi?" Remy managed to get himself into a sitting position, and Kitty did the same.
"You heard Lorna – the clone baths are our priority."
He stared at her open mouthed. "Are you fucking kidding me? They blasted us from the sky! Your friends are dead! How can you…?"
She stood and wiped dirt from her battered uniform. "How can we not? The Shadow King has taken everything from me…EVERYTHING! But, tonight, you and I have a chance to stop him, or slow him down enough so someone else can! Can you really just walk away from that?" She held a hand out to Remy. "They think that they killed us all. Essex and his people will never see us coming!"
He took her hand and let her drag him to his feet, but shook his head. "Charging in after Dr. Evil is all well and good, but we don' even know where we are! We could be hundreds of miles from Bum-Fuck, Nebraska and Essex's compound."
"We could be," she conceded, "but we're not."
Remy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his scar screaming, failing to keep his temper in check. "Oh, how you know that, Miss Smarty Pants?"
"Because of this." She gestured to their feet and the rocks that had left their mark on Remy's backside.
Remy pulled a recipe card from his pocket - Beef Wellington - and charged it as he knelt down again. The ground was littered with clusters of shining crystals, dark silver in color, growing like mold on bread.
"Niobium," a triumphant Kitty declared, "as in the Niobium mines that connect to Essex's tunnels."
Travelling through the mines was slow going. Every step closer to Essex held the threat of an alarm or other sensors that could give them away, but they tread lightly, Kitty walking them on air and phasing through walls and floors, pulling Remy along if the coast was clear. The tunnels around them changed from carved stone to steel laced with wires and blinking lights, each step more and more familiar to his eyes.
They came upon a massive sliding door, reaching floor to ceiling, and Remy grabbed Kitty's arm to keep them in the shadows. So far, her phasing power had kept them free of detection, but from a safe distance he scrutinized an entrance to the lab. It wasn't a door he had ever used during his time here, but it was definitely one of the doctor's. No visible cameras, but that didn't mean there weren't hidden eyes, or heat and pressure sensors. The door itself was too thick to wedge open or blast apart. The keypad alongside it looked easy enough to disable, but before he could even step up to the plate, the door swished open.
Kitty yanked him into the wall behind them just in time. It was the strangest sensation, his molecules occupying the same space as the metal, like swimming through Jell-O. Remy couldn't see what was happening, but he could hear muffled voices.
"You have your orders," a man barked. "Bring any survivors straight to the pens."
Footsteps, heavy, rushed, the swish of the door again. Kitty swam them out, and her big brown eyes found Remy's. Essex's flunkies were searching for survivors, presumably of the X-Men's crash. If the team had somehow survived as Kitty predicted, they were in for a world of trouble, but he and Kitty couldn't help them now, not with so much at stake.
Essex's crew hadn't spotted them. More good luck, or was the door's only security the keypad lock? If so, they hadn't bothered to upgrade their security these last few years, despite the remodel. Remy stepped up to it with Kitty's hand on his shoulder.
"I'm gon' disable the alarm," he murmured, "then you phase us through the door."
"What?" she hissed in his ear, but he set about disabling the keypad.
"I can turn off any alarm, but somebody still gonna notice the door opening. If it's already shut down, you phasing us through won't trip anything. Now, hush, and let me work."
He was sweating by the time the red light turned green, and grinned in triumph. "Ready?"
Kitty brushed her face against the door and skimmed its surface to the other side, then pulled them both through. It had been a long time, but what lay beyond was a replay of Remy's worst nightmares.
The space went on forever, football fields long, stories high, a darkened maze of computers that cast a greenish glow over every inch. Winding stairs of grated metal joined platforms and catwalks. Like something out of an Escher print, the space seemed to double over on itself, row after row.
As they took hesitant steps forward, they discovered several hospitals worth of medical equipment, scalpels, saws, restraints, examination tables, all stained with blood.
A cold sweat slid over Remy. He had been here before, another lifetime ago, when he was young and senseless and scared. He was a better man now, not the desperate coward who had come begging for help with his out-of-control powers. But he had made a deal with the devil, and paid dearly for it. He had fled this place and unwittingly led Essex's crew straight to New Orleans and the Thieves in hiding. How could he have been so stupid?
"Which way?" Kitty's whisper jarred him from his thoughts.
From her tone, the girl probably hadn't expected a real answer, but Remy grabbed her wrist and steered her further into the labyrinth, his body taking a path his mind didn't want to remember knowing. It was there, at the back of his mind, the burning pain, the slab, the hot smell of grinding bone, more real than it had been in years. He expected to turn a corner and see his own body strapped to a table.
A shadow crossed the end of their row, and Remy pushed Kitty out of the light in time to watch a man emerge from a nearby room. Tall, slim, with brown hair and red glasses, Remy recognized the man as the grown- up version of the boy who had accompanied Essex that day in his father's home - Cyclops was his name now, born Scott Summers. Remy never had the pleasure of his company when he was in Essex's employ. The man frowned, but kept walking.
After he passed, Remy and Kitty hustled into the room he had vacated, sneaking onto a platform overlooking another underground warehouse. This one was packed with row upon row of large, glass cylinders. Remy leaned on the platform's railing, and realized that the cylinders, filled to the brim with bubbling liquid, held the bodies of dozens of men and women, asleep and floating naked as the day they were born. But Remy knew these poor souls had never been born, not really. They were just clones.
"Now what?" he called over his shoulder to Kitty.
They had come to stop Essex from cloning Amahl Farouk, but what did that truly mean, destroy Farouk's clone? Did they destroy the equipment, too? But how did you trash the place without jeopardizing the bodies floating inside? How far were they willing to go to stop a tyrant, how many lives were they willing to sacrifice? Were these clones even truly alive? Would it be murder, justified homicide, or disposal of medical waste? Remy was starting to feel sick because he didn't know any of the answers.
"We find Farouk's clone."
The girl was hunched over a computer console at the edge of the platform. So much for sneaky. The chance he and Kitty would get out of this mess alive? Remy didn't want to calculate the odds.
"I'm in."
Remy watched her eyes dart back and forth, her fingers across the keyboard a blur worthy of Pietro.
"There are several versions of Farouk in progress down below," she glanced up at Remy. "Tanks one through twelve."
"Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, petite," Remy murmured. A dozen Shadow Kings. The vomit made it up a little further this time before he swallowed it.
"Besides that," Kitty continued, "his DNA profile is archived in the system."
Twelve different Shadow King's on deck, with the recipe on file for more, enough to make the man an immortal army. They really had no choice, Remy realized, and pulled the deck o cards from his pocket. He stood at the railing and charged a fistful.
"What are you doing?" Kitty hissed and grabbed his wrist, but Remy wrenched his arm free.
"We don't stop this bastard here," Remy declared, "he don't get stopped, maybe ever!"
A shift in the light was the only warning they had. Remy shoved Kitty to the ground, narrowly avoiding a red blast that destroyed the railing where they had been, and sent charged cards towards the blast's source. Cyclops dove out of the way, but Remy's kinetic bombs took out half the platform and the computer. Kitty grabbed Remy's collar and pulled them both through to the ground below.
Above, the platform was engulfed in flames, smoke spilling down the mangled staircase, but the man hung over the platform's edge and fired a beam of red energy from his eyes.
They dodged the blast and started to run, alarm bells ringing off the glass cylinders, but Remy skidded to a halt. "Kitty, wait!" He pulled her closer to the cylinders.
She looked panicked and ready to argue, until Remy pointed to the numbers at their feet. Number fifteen. Close to the Kings asleep in their baths. She let go of him, and he sent more cards sailing towards their attacker, hoping to confuse the man through all the smoke. The pair inched further back down the row, coaxing him to return fire.
Responding blasts rained down on them. Remy had pegged him right, Cyclops wasn't paying enough attention to where he was firing, anger making him reckless. They dodged the first few shots while Remy fired back to let Cyclops know where they were, then he and Kitty stood their ground. She phased, and an optic blast passed harmlessly through them, instead exploding several of the cylinders behind them. A hot rush of human soup sent broken glass and bodies splatting to the floor, new alarm bells joining the chorus. Kitty grabbed Remy's hand, and they sprinted through several more cylinders in the row, their computerized bases sparking and smoking. Between Kitty's power and the man's friendly fire, number one through twelve were done for.
They couldn't stay much longer or they would be done for, too, but they had to guarantee Essex couldn't make any more clones, at least for a while.
"Aim for the ceiling!"
A coughing Kitty, coming up for air long enough to solidify Remy, pointed towards a series of thick cables, barely visible, strafing the ceiling and connecting all of the cylinders. The power source for the clone baths. His lungs were taking in too much hot smoke, but Remy let loose a swarm of charged cards. Kitty grabbed him and wrenched him through the flooring as the ceiling caved in above.
Even phased, the force of the blasts tossed them hard to the metal grating of the level below, and Kitty lost her grip. Remy pin-balled off of a computer the size of a minivan and slapped against the floor, earlier bruises that hadn't even blossomed getting new friends.
Kitty wasn't moving when Remy checked for her pulse. She was breathing, but blood flowed from a wicked gash on her forehead. He shook her tiny body, but over her shoulder Cyclops staggered into view and fired. Remy grabbed Kitty and rolled with her, shielding her body with his, the optic blast chasing them. Mid roll, Remy got a card off, distracting their attacker long enough for him to leap to his feet with Kitty tucked into his chest. The men continued to trade shots back and forth. Kitty wasn't heavy, but Remy was losing steam and running out of cards.
An explosion shook the world around them, and acrid smoke snaked its way down from above. Reinforcements for the wrong team arrived in the form of the blonde crony that had been part of Essex's wedding visit – Havok, Scott's brother Alex. The blonde raised his hands and fired, Remy just sidestepping a searing shot that liquefied the computer behind him. He ducked down to avoid another optic blast, but when Remy stood, a powerful hand snatched him by the throat. Kitty slipped from his grasp and crumpled to the floor, and a choking Remy was hoisted into the air. Remy clawed at the fingers crushing his throat, and his scrambling toes felt for solid ground.
"WHO DARES!?"
The familiar voice sent chills down Remy's spine in between gags. Dr. Essex shook him back and forth like a rag doll, and the stars returned to Remy's eyes, the world greying at the edges. It wasn't solid ground, but Remy's lungs found relief when his feet landed on Kitty's body. Essex held him fast, but Kitty stirred beneath him, and Remy used his feet to shake her awake.
"Run, girl, run!" Remy hissed.
Cyclops fired on her, but Kitty's weight disappeared from under Remy's feet, the trap-door choke catching him again once her body was gone.
Another explosion knocked them sideways, louder this time, an earthquake shake. Essex kept his hands on Remy and bore down.
"Do you realize what you've done, you…!?" Essex snarled, but his gleaming red eyes widened when he met Remy's. "You?" Dr. Essex laughed, a cold, cruel keen that eclipsed the continuing alarm bells.
"Sir!" Cyclops came up behind the doctor. "We have to go! This whole place is going to go up!"
"Yes, Scott," Essex brought Remy's feet to solid ground, and Remy gasped. "You are correct, of course. Ready the ship!" he barked to the blonde. "We must deliver unfortunate news to Cairo, but," he turned his slithering smile back to Remy, "we may have a consolation prize to offer the Shadow King."
Remy
Their ship was small but fast, and from the window, Remy watched the exploding Nebraska fireball retreat from view. His stomach did a backflip, and not just because of his own precarious position. Kitty seemed like a smart girl. Hopefully she had headed his warning and gotten the hell out of Essex's base instead of doing something stupid and heroic.
Remy was still a little woozy from the tussle and fumes, but he tested his bonds for weak points. His hands were in manacles that allowed no free range of motion, and there had to be some sort of power dampener at work, maybe in the bonds themselves or the thick necklace choking him, because he couldn't charge anything. That only left his feet or his mouth to get him out of trouble. Luckily, at a young age, he had learned to pick locks with either, all while blindfolded, upside down, and in a tank of water, but he was distracted by his captor's heated conversation.
Havok was supposed to be keeping an eye on Remy, but had drifted towards Dr. Essex and Cyclops.
"This is a waste of time!" Cyclops, still nursing his own set of wounds thanks to Remy, was arguing with the good doctor. "We could teleport, and be there just like that!" He snapped his fingers. "Why are we flying all the way to Cairo?"
Essex wasn't a man used to explaining his orders, but to Remy's surprise, the doctor answered in soothing tones.
"At first thought, my dear boy, speed would seem to be our paramount concern. We must reach Cairo, and our beloved ruler, before news of our failure finds him through other channels. If we are able to present the events of tonight on our terms, to spin it favorably, we may yet survive this day. But therein lies our biggest challenge: What did happen tonight? Proceedings moved at an alarming pace. Our security is supposedly impenetrable - we have some of the world's fiercest mutants at our disposal - yet we were ambushed by a group of…schoolchildren…led to our very doorstep by Candra's whelp." Remy noticed the voice was no longer soothing. "The King does not tolerate failure. If we are to save our own necks, we need a moment to reflect, to plan, to strategize." Essex's red eyes found Remy, making his skin crawl. "If we do not, all of our plans will be forfeit, along with our lives."
The doctor stood and moved towards Remy, that same hungry expression on the man's face pulled from the memories of his ill-fated wedding day and the years that followed. Remy was something to eat, and the doctor was tucking in. Despite the collar tugging at his throat, Remy stuck out his chin in defiance.
"Name, rank, and serial number be all you getting' from me, M'sieu," Remy challenged, but Essex laughed.
"I already know all of that LeBeau, and more. So much more." He grabbed a handful of Remy's hair and yanked his head back. "Tell me, do you remember what I said to you when last we met?"
Remy fought the urge to spit in Essex's face. "Don't know what you talkin' about." In the darkened cabin, Remy had gotten a boot off unnoticed and was feeling around with his toes. The manacles holding his hands were secured to the floor, but the lock holding them was just a glorified pin and tumbler. Piece of cake.
Essex twisted, and Remy grimaced. It felt like the doctor was going to rip out the hair he had a hold of, but instead, Essex forced Remy's head to the side and traced one of his fingers along the exposed scalp.
"No, LeBeau. Try again. I'm sure you can remember." His fingertip followed the scar Remy kept hidden beneath his thick mop of hair, and the touch sent a white-hot kick to the depths of Remy's stomach, bringing with it a flash of the past.
After Candra's murder, Remy's mutant powers had been out of control, his touch charging anything and everything whether he had wanted it to or not. He had been a danger to himself and others, and out of desperation had stumbled upon Dr. Essex and his shop of horrors. A brutal brain surgery, the lingering scar its souvenir, had saved Remy's life, but the things the doctor had asked him to do in return…Remy squeezed his eyes shut.
"Repaid that debt a long time ago," Remy hissed through clenched teeth and met Essex's stare. They had followed his escape, straight to the underground tunnels, Jean-Luc and the thieves no match for the Marauders. So much blood, so much confusion, Remy had only managed to escape by blowing most of the St. Louis cathedral to smithereens, the good Lord would never forgive him for so many things...
"Oh, I don't think so," Essex purred, revealing two rows of pointed fangs behind his dark lips. "With every breath you owe me, thief. I take your life as my payment."
The lock at his feet gave way, and Remy swung the freed shackles up, connecting with Essex's face, sending him flying backwards into the blonde. Remy wasn't sure what his plan was, they were thousands of feet in the air probably over the middle of the Atlantic by now, but he'd rather die on his own terms than be under Essex's thumb again.
Cyclops fired, and Remy held up the manacles binding his hands to deflect the shot. Guy was a genius, Remy thought, cutting loose with a laser beam in a fucking airplane, but the optic blast pulverized the metal, almost doing the same to Remy's hands on the inside.
"We need him alive!" Essex roared.
Before Remy could turn, Havok tackled him and slammed his head against the deck plating. A forearm crushed into the collar still circling his windpipe.
"I won't…help you!" Remy sneered. He struggled, but Cyclops had piled on with Havok. The space of the cockpit was too small for Remy to maneuver. The pair were stronger than they looked, and they fought dirty. Remy got in a couple good licks, but he was seeing stars thanks to a cheap knee to the groin. His powers still weren't working. What had they done to him? They yanked him to his knees.
"You see, LeBeau, I do not need your permission." Essex grabbed Remy's jaw with a rough hand. "You should feel honored. As your X-Men no doubt ascertained, Amahl Farouk is not much longer for this world - his body at any rate. For years we have explored several avenues for extending his life, including host bodies to house his mind when his current form succumbs to his…carnal excesses. The Shadow King at his very essence is a being of pure telepathic energy, and, unfortunately, a host body would require a nervous system equipped to handle this vast amount of energy. There have been a few possibilities, the latest contestant the girl you rescued from Madripoor. Since she remains tantalizingly out of reach, I have explored other avenues. The facilities and data you destroyed would have given the King a clone of his own body, custom designed for his tremendous power." Essex shoved Remy's face in disgust. "Ashes, thanks to your X-Men. The equipment in that facility will take years to replace."
"You're welcome," Remy smirked, and received a punch to the stomach from Alex.
"Enough!" Essex commanded, and knelt before a hunched over Remy. "Magnus's bumbling protégées would never have made it into my laboratory, not without you! For this, I consider your fate…poetic justice. Your mutant abilities have always given you mastery over a remarkable volume of energy, your nervous system wired to handle heavy voltage. The framework to wield that power still resides in your body, even though your own powers have been neutered. You will make a perfect host for his majesty."
A cold sweat washed over Remy, along with the renewed urge to vomit. He couldn't let this butcher control him again, couldn't let him know how frightened he was to be this close to him. Instead, he scoffed at Essex. "Ain't a telepath yet that can get to me!"
Essex stood and brushed imagined dirt from the front of his dark uniform. "I am aware of your supposed telepathic resistance, but, as you shall see my arrogant young friend, telepathic resistance does not equate immunity. You will be facing the most powerful psychic being who ever existed, and an army of those who serve him." Essex smiled again. "If you believe in a deity, now would be the time to say a prayer."