Masque - Rescue Mission

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

After three days of unsuccessful searching, the team has finally gotten a bite -- but there are unforeseen complications.



So. Not. Working. Dammit. Nathan stopped at the junction of two tunnels, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he looked first left, then right, all too aware of the rest of the team behind him. Waiting. "I'm being jammed," he finally said, darkly. Why had they left Jim behind? Oh, right. He wasn't actually trained for the field. Still, he would have been damned helpful. No chance of reaching back through this for him or Charles, unfortunately...

Rolling his eyes, Cain walked forward to kneel next to Nathan. "Not a good sign, man. Ain't a one of us knows our way around here. What's the problem?"

Cain was the only one who came forward, which was good. He didn't need anybody else in close proximity, not when he felt like he wanted to claw off his skin. There was a buzz in his mind like nails on a chalkboard, and his hands went white-knuckled on his psimitar. "Who. Who's the problem. Someone's... littering on the astral plane. And we're in the middle of it, so there's no way I'm punching through it to link to anyone who might be able to help."

Thinking for a moment, Cain put his hand on Nathan's back, standing beside him. "Don't look, don't hear. Just like when you and me and Cyke tracked down Dazzler. Ain't much different. You don't need Chuck. Just do your thing, take us in." As he spoke, he flipped his other arm over his shoulder, motioning everyone else to come forward slowly. "Fish through the crap and find where we gotta go."

He'd made the decision that he was up for this, when he'd been asked. Time he prove that it hadn't been bravado, he supposed. Nathan gave his psimitar a little shake, and the blade lit up, glowing gold in the dimness as he pushed power through it.

"Get Wolverine at work with his nose, too," he murmured, sinking into a high-concentration state. "Maybe between the two of us..."



Separated from his teammates and unable to reach Ororo, Kurt suddenly finds himself undercover.



Kurt was alone... at least for now... and somewhat stuck. He'd lost communication with the team, and it was too much of a risk to try to get any closer. If Masque saw him and identified him as an outsider, he'd lose any chance of rescuing Storm. So for the time being, he was just waiting, and trying to gather intel on the number of people in the area.

It was hard to believe a place like this could exist beneath New York. Even harder, perhaps, to see it and realize that people were living here. The uneven orange glow from burning trashcans was the only illumination; the flickering light cast plenty of shadows across a place almost cathedral-like in its scale. Some kind of service junction, maybe, long defunct. Junk and debris had been dragged in and assembled to provide some sort of makeshift shelter. The various levels were littered with constructions of wood and cardboard -- even metal that looked as if it had been salvaged from construction sites -- ranging from ramshackle to surprisingly skilled. People moved in and out of the shadows or huddled around the trashcans, some eating, most talking. Every now and then there was the swell of a raised voice or harsh laughter, but the inhabitants were largely subdued.

And all were deformed.

"Are you new?"

He glanced up at her, blinking, almost shocked to have been noticed. He wasn't, usually, when he didn't want to be. "I... yes. Very new. My name is... Stefan."

"Sorry if I startled you." The words were slow, purposeful -- carefully formed by lips accustomed to functioning with limited mobility. A serpentine coil travelled up to indicate two small depressions -- one on the outside of either cheekbone -- to serve the function of the hand and arm it replaced. "Pit organs," she explained. "I pick up body temperature. I can see in infrared." The tentacle retreated and curled itself around the figure's waist. The woman studied him through lidless eyes, and Kurt realized that what he'd first taken for hair was moving. Dozens upon dozens of tiny snakes, squirming blindly in the darkness. "I had to ask. People keep changing down here. But if you're new . . . I thought you could use some company."

"It is all right", he reassured her. "I was just not expecting to be seen - most people do not look into the shadows. Company would be nice, since you did." She was only one person, after all, and she didn't seem antagonistic at all.

"You learn to look. Most of us like them nowadays." She sighed and leaned against a rusting support beam, the second tentacle moving to join the first around her waist. The scales were delicately mottled -- black, and cream, and something that might have been red in better light. "I'm Judith," she said after a moment. "It's okay. The first part is the hardest. You get used to it, after a while."

"The first part... of the change?" He nodded, glancing down. Playing a role. "Yes."

Judith returned the nod. "Don't let yourself get too comfortable with it. He'll probably get around to making more. Sometimes he'll scrap everything and start all over again. He gets bored, I guess." A tentacle half-uncoiled. "I still had hands until the third change."

Kurt raised his own hand, wordlessly, to show her the mutated fingers there. "I am hoping to stay out of his way for as long as possible. With so many people here..."

"Just keep to yourself," the woman advised, reptilian eyes flicking from his hand back to his face. "Don't even try to get on his good side. The worst thing you can do is attract his attention. No matter what he told you, he almost never fixes anyone -- and when he does it doesn't stick. Just a few days, and then they're back here. He only does it to be cruel."

"Perhaps the two of us together can stay out of his way, then?" he suggested quietly. "The shadows are deep, here." Because he was drawing them around him, but she didn't have to know that.

"It's pretty quiet right now. He's got someone new. That always keeps him occupied for a while." She shuddered, the snakes in her hair writhing in distress. "The worst ones like to go in and watch."

Kurt stiffened, yellow eyes angry. "Watch? These are the people who were with him before?"

The woman caught the edge in his voice, but the inflexibility of her face made her reaction impossible to read. "He didn't change everyone here," she said, glancing back out to where some of the other victims were having dinner. "Some people actually come to him hoping he'll fix them. When they figure out he won't, they either leave or decide that if they can't be normal the next best thing is wrecking people who are." The coils around her waist tightened, almost imperceptibly. "Even if we didn't do anything."

"I suspect most of us here did nothing to deserve this", he said softly. "But perhaps... perhaps there are enough of us now to stop it?"

Judith shook her head violently. "The crazy ones protect him, and if you touch him your body goes soft. When Miko tried to punch him his entire arm just . . ." She stopped, another wave of revulsion rippling through her body. "Anyway, what if we did do something? Nothing we can threaten will make him fix us. He's crazy enough to make us kill him first, and if we do we're stuck for real. If we fight it'll ruin things for the ones who'll take the fix even if it's temporary. Roberta does anything he wants because it means once a month she can go see her son . . ." The coils that had been Judith's arms slid up to wrap themselves around her shoulders, chest, neck. Tight, protective.

"He'll never do it," she said at last, "but as long as we're here there's always a chance."

Kurt looked at her for a long moment, realizing how she'd worried about the others as well as herself. "You are a good woman, Judith", he said quietly. "And I promise you I will help you if I can."

Her almost lipless mouth curved in something like a smile. "Thanks, but I'm doing okay," she said, slackening her grip on herself and pushing away from the support beam. "I used to be a high school biology teacher. Compared to a room full of sixteen year olds the period before spring break, this is nothing."

He smiles slightly in response. "I am... was... a teacher, too. Dance, and German for those who wanted it."

Judith looked as if she would have blinked, had she still been able. "Really? Where?"

"Xavier's Academy." He met her gaze, squarely. "Not far from here."

For an instant she only stared at him in blank incomprehension, then understanding dawned. She opened her mouth as if to speak.

Then the screams began.



Logan and Lorna are the first to stumble upon the tunnel-dwellers. Despite Lorna's attempts at diplomacy, the situation quickly escalates -- and Logan's file on instances of excessive force is updated accordingly.



Logan crouched down in the soaking wet tunnel, sniffing at the air intently. "All this rain and shit in the air makes keeping a scent almost impossible." he grumbled. "But I think they're that way. Smells drier over there." It wasn't the first time he'd made that pronouncement, either.

A fact that Lorna nearly reminded him of before just nodding. It wasn't like she was any help tracking right now. Too much metal. She couldn't see the forest for the trees. Instead she just kept quiet, following him without a sound, keeping an eye out behind them.

Logan kept the pace as quick as he could, moving them closer to the frustratingly vague scent he kept picking up. "Fucking rain." He grumbled. "You getting anything useful?" he asked her roughly.

"There's metal everywhere and a really huge mass of it right in front of me so no." Tunnels made her tetchy. She focused briefly, "As far as I can tell we're headed toward an open space of sorts. But I can't tell you anything more.

"Then stop fidgeting." he growled at her as he paused for a moment to sniff the air and to strain his ears to listen. He wasn't getting much - the tunnels made for some really nasty clashing echoes and the rain was scrubbing the air. "This way." he said, heading down a new tunnel.

Fidgeting? She wasn't fidgeting. Her eyes narrowed at his back. You horrible little... "Let me guess, you think you smell something."

"Lots of things. Only some of them are what we're looking for. But this way." he said brusquely, then headed further into the tunnels. "Finally." he said as they stepped into a drier, larger abandoned subway stop. "Dry off, we move in five."

Must. Not. Maim. Teammate. Lorna ignored his order and leaned against a wall instead, taking the brief stop as a chance to sift through the EM fields and try to sense the more subtle variations of humans. There was a strange low level buzz up ahead that was confused her until she realized what it was. She bit her lip hard to keep from gasping. "There's a crowd up ahead. I think. I...it feels like a crowd."

Logan nodded. "Smelled 'em as soon as I got clear of the wet." He said, confirming her observation. "Before we go in, I got a question for you." he said. "What's got your panties in such a bunch? You've been glaring at me since we started in down here."

"As opposed to the way I glare at you the rest of the time? I'm sorry, is my attitude hurting your feelings?" She rolled her eyes, "Can we stop wasting time? In case you don't remember, we have people to save."

"We do." he agreed, then set off at a trot towards the concentration of scents.

Lorna followed him, nerves heightened. She wasn't sure how keen Logan's sense were. But there were more than just a few people up ahead. And she didn't know how they were going to react. "Hey, let's not rush in, all right?" she said as they turned the last corner and entered the next stop. She drew in a sharp breath. "Oh..."

It was nearly a little city. Debris had been arranged over metal frames to create makeshift shelters, every inch of space used. And every inch occupied by some kind of frighteningly featured mutant. There wasn't an untouched human figure in the lot.

Logan looked at the shantytown underground and then strode in like he owned the place. Anyone who wanted to start something with _him_ was going to regret it. Anyone who wanted to get out of his way was more than welcome to do so. "Think I got something." he said, sniffing the air again. "Far side. Faint, but it might be 'Ro."

Unfortunately for Logan, his intrusion into the shantytown did not go un-noticed. First a few people shrieked and ran, which brought the attention of others - some pressing forward to see what was the matter, others trying desperately to get away, to hide their shame.

Lorna didn't bother to stop the flow of curses that followed on Logan's arrogant stride into the crowd. Curses that only intensified as the people shifted from fear to anger and then to rage. The first thrown bottle and shout to get out emboldened the rest. Soon it was madness with a single goal. Get rid of the intruders. "Wolverine!" she had time to shout once, whether in reprimand or in warning before she had her attention caught by the sudden flood of twisted humanity.

Logan slipped through the crowd like a wraith - he twisted around clumps of screaming and/or panicking ... people, he supposed they were at one time. Now they resembled nothing so much as a twisted mass of body-parts that may or may not have once been human.

His forward progress was checked halfway through when a hand grabbed the sleeve of his leathers from out of the crowd and threw him straight up into the air with no warning.

Lorna was left behind as Logan went on. She tried in vain to reason with the people, assuring them they meant no harm. That they only wanted to help. Though some seemed to believe this, they were overwhelmed by the few for whom her leather uniform and perfectly human features were a threat. She ducked another bottle only to have a punch catch her in the shoulder. The metal there protected her but it unscored her vulnerability there.

Without another thought she lifted herself into the air, metal uniform supporting her above the crowd. Something caught at her ankle. When she looked down it was more like a thick rubbery vine than a hand. It looked like it was coming from the owner's spine. And it was dragging her down. "Wolverine, find Storm. Don't hurt them!"

Logan didn't respond to her, as he flew into the air and then hit ground.

Hard.

Not so hard that he blacked out, but he definitely felt it. If he was anyone other than who he was, something would have broken. He flipped up to his feet just in time to try to sway to one side to avoid a fist the size of a loaf of bread swinging down at his head.

Now he was getting pissed off. All he wanted to do was move through this collection of walking body parts to find Ororo, find who was doing this to the kids and make him _pay_.

A sharp spear of metal convinced the...tentacle to let her go even as Lorna grabbed out for the metal framework of the shelters, making them shake and twist themselves free of their places. Working quickly, she fashioned one into a flat grid, like prison bars--wide as she could make it and dropped it over the mutants on her left.

Part of her was keeping tabs on Logan. She really hoped he wasn't killing anyone.

Logan wasn't, but not for a sheer desire to put some metal to the walking slab of muscle and wrong who was keeping him from retrieving Ororo. Instead, he was playing Dodge The Fist and mentally swearing at his lack of options. Better yet, something about this guy's bodily secretions was acidic - he could smell the leather beginning to smoulder and break down. He finally put some hurt on the guy with a quick combination, but the guy shrugged off his hits like he didn't even feel them.

For all he knew, he didn't.

Lorna had most of the hostile mutants contained, the rest were fleeing. As she worked to capture the last, she heard a screech like a hawk or a bat and turned in the air. It was then she got to see what Jay's new bat wings would look like in flight, heavy and leathery, ending in sharp talons. The woman they supported was more bird than human, her beak-like mouth open in a predatory scream. Lorna couldn't get out of the way and took a hard hit from one of the powerful wings, knocking her to the top of her makeshift cage. Hands came up immediately but all her skin was covered by metal except her face and hair which ripped out in handfuls as she pulled away again.

"Stop it! We just want to help!" Lorna shouted, still hoping for reason. Her cheek hurt, and she really hoped that the pain in her scalp wasn't accompanied by blood.

Logan was getting tired of taking hits and having his own return shots ignored. So it was time to escalate things. With the old familiar ripping pain, he popped his claws, ducked under another acidic swipe of a fist, then stepped up to stab the brute through the foot - clear through the foot, pinning him to the ground. With a scream of rage and pain, the big twisted freak tried to turn Logan into thin red paste against the stones underfoot, but Logan used his other hand to stab the man through his opposite thigh, careful to miss the femoral and the bone both - he hoped.

Reason was long gone as the next shriek proved. Razor sharp talons squealed as they scraped through leather to gouge at the metal below, scrambling for purchase while the woman locked her hands around Lorna's throat and buffeted her with her wings.

That was about enough of that. Pulling a bit of the exposed metal off, Lorna waited for the wings to draw in...then banded them to the woman's sides and shoved her away, letting her fall down to the rest of the captives below.

She raced off after Logan without a backward glance.

As the big twisted man fell Logan was off like a shot, going through what couldn't be gone around. He had the scent now, and though Hell itself bar his way he would _not_ be denied.



Nate and Kurt rejoin forces and see a familiar face. ...Or not.



He was wearing down entirely too quickly. Trying to punch through the psychic static - and why did it seem familiar? - had been bad enough, and now, coming upon this melee... Nathan hung back for a moment, out of his teammates' way as they moved forward. He knew he'd have to follow them in a moment, help Lorna with crowd control, but he had to catch his breath.

A brilliant flash of a mind that had to be telepathic - there was no way it could have stood out in the increasingly panicked and angry crowd otherwise - caught his attention, and Nathan straightened, his grip on his psimitar tightening. Telepathic and he knew that mind. But it couldn't be. Could it?

Kurt was at his side, helping to fight their way through the crowd, and shot a quick worried glance at him. "Cable? What is it?"

"Do you remember the mutant in the tunnels? The telepath?"

"....yes. Did you feel...?"

"I don't know." Nathan gave Kurt a quick look, noticing his rather disheveled state. He'd been doing some fighting before the rest of the team had gotten here, clearly. "That's why we couldn't find you. Psychic static. You told the others where to find Ororo... help me find him?" He'd listened to Kurt the last time. And if he became actively hostile, Nathan didn't think he could take him. Or even hold his own. Not this time.

"Of course." Kurt peered forward into the darkness, trying to see any sign of the man they were looking for.

"We're not going to find him standing here," Nathan grated and moved past Kurt and deeper into the midst of the chaos. None of the more aggressive tunnel-dwellers managed to lay a finger on him as he moved through them, and he concentrated on containing them as quickly and effectively as he could. It burned more energy, of course, even with the psimitar. That wasn't good. If he found the other telepath, he wasn't going to have a lot left.

Kurt followed, slipping easily through the tunnels and clearing a path for them as best he could with kicks and punches where necessary. It was what was needed, after all.

"He'd need to be somewhere else," Nathan called back over his shoulder, creating a telekinetic wall to hold back a handful of particularly determined attackers - victims, he reminded himself. They kept hammering away at the invisible wall, as if crazed. He knocked them out as gently as he could. "Not in the middle of this. He's strong, but to pull off something like that psychic static, he'd need room to concentrate..."

"I cannot find him any faster than you can", Kurt answered as best he could while dodging another attack. "If I had been down here before..."

Nathan looked up, at the walls. If he had to guess, this had been a service tunnel at some point. Big, it was very big, and... up there. The remains of what must have been a catwalk, and there was a figure crouched up there, overlooking the chaos. Precisely where I'd be if I was trying to do something complicated and telepathic and needed some room... He stopped, reversing his psimitar and propelling himself upwards through the air in a TK-assisted leap that took him to the broken end of the catwalk.

And the man crouched there - was not the telepath from the tunnels, whose entire body had been made out of brain matter. Except that he was. This close, Nathan could recognize his mind. However normal he looked. Normal? Hell, almost handsome...

"You," the man breathed, and the recognition on that unfamiliar face and in that unfamiliar mind was as clear as a bell.

"Us", Kurt confirmed, smiling faintly as he caught up. "And you have experienced a change in fortunes since we last met, it seems."

He wasn't making any aggressive moves. Not physically or telepathically, and wasn't even maintaining the psychic static on as concentrated a level as before, but Nathan had both hands on his psimitar and wasn't backing down anytime soon. "That all it took?" he asked harshly, glaring down at the other telepath. "He uses his powers to make you able to pass for a normal human, and suddenly it's all right to help him torture and mutilate others? So much for those noble principles of yours... how many of these people chose to be down here?"

The telepath's new face twisted with rage - and something else, but before Nathan could identify it, the other man was lashing out, and he was every bit as strong as he had been back in the tunnels in Chicago. Nathan went to his knees, his own shields starting to fracture.

Kurt... Kurt, for some reason, was unaffected, he noticed dimly.

Kurt leapt forward, for all the good he could do against a psionic attack. "Stop this!" he snapped at the telepath. "You know the man who leads you is not a good man, though he may have helped a few."

"He gave me this!" the telepath snarled, gesturing at himself. "He gave me this, he gave me back a life-" Nathan could feel him turning his attention to Kurt, the force of his mind, shifting at least in part - and Nathan lunged up off his knees, grabbing the other man by the throat and using the physical contact and the amplifying capability of his psimitar to force a connection.

#Look,# he snarled, mind-to-mind, and pushed what he hadn't been able to not pick up from the victims, both here and at the mansion, at him. Forge and Kyle and Jay and all the others, and everything they were suffering... #Look at what you've been IGNORING!#

#NO!# The return blow smashed through his shields and Nathan fell over, gasping, his psimitar clattering loose on the catwalk. The telepath stood up, his shaking hands clenched into fists, but the anger on his face was faltering already. "I--no, I--"

"He has harmed four of our students", Kurt told him, voice level but angry. "Innocent children, who did nothing but cross his path."

"You-" The telepath's fists clenched and unclenched. "I haven't helped him. I've just... I've just repaid him, for what he did-"

"Nice excuse," Nathan grated shakily, and raised a hand when the telepath rounded on him. "If you try it again," he growled warningly, hurriedly reinforcing his shields, "I stop fighting mind to mind and just beat the shit out of you."

"And do not think I would stop him", Kurt warned. "How, exactly, have you repaid him?"

"Keeping people from finding us. Keeping-" He faltered again. #I haven't been a part of this,# he said, switching back to the telepathy as if it were more comfortable for him. #I've just-#

"Helped him," Nathan pointed out, hauling himself to his feet with the help of his psimitar. "Peachy. And I can tell how happy you are about that, too... so are you going to add to the burden of guilt you're already carrying, or are you going to help us?" He pointed down at the chaos below. "You can help settle that down."

Kurt gave him a steady look. "Will you help us? Or at least, stop fighting us while we try to do our job?"

#... I won't stop you,# came the answer, finally. #But I won't let you take this away from me, either.# And before Nathan could react to the obvious intention behind the words, the telepath lashed out at both of them with an attack meant to leave them dazed for long enough to make his escape.

Which he did, fleeing back off the catwalk and into the shadows.



Backup has arrived, which means Ororo's patience with the whole victim-scene has just run out.



"Drive them out or I'll bury them with your wretched carcasses!" Masque howled, whirling away from the terrified underlings. Screaming was little help; he could barely hear himself over the chaos outside. Even as he spoke something unnervingly like the shriek of tortured metal nearly drowned him out.

This was a disaster. It had taken him weeks to find this place, and now he would have to begin all over again. He never should have trusted that self-righteous pile of grey matter. The only worthwhile telepath Masque had ever found in his slow migration across the midwest, and he had to be a proselytizing piece of shit. He'd had his price, but then, everyone did. A price he would now, thanks to this debacle, find subject to diminishing returns. Just let him see what his precious principles are worth when he comes crawling back for maintenance.

He grabbed a slightly cracked electric lantern from the table and turned to make his escape. Candles were all very good for ambiance, but his appreciation of drama did not extend to stumbling in the dark when his life was at stake. He spared a glance for the woman on the mattress and couldn't suppress a smile. At least he'd had time to finish. It was a crime to rush Art.

"I trust your friends will soon have you on your way to that magical place of help and understanding," he sneered, flicking on the lantern. "For all the good they can do you now."

The sudden sound of Masque's voice addressing her and the near-familiar noises coming from the tunnels outside were enough to snap Ororo out of her state of near-panic. When before there had only been her blood pounding in her ears and the low, dirty chuckle of mocking spectators, now she could hear that things were happening. People were out there, people she knew… the team. They had come, finally.

Lying on the pallet, mute and blind, she couldn't give voice to the anger inside her. She was unable to rise and couldn't see what was happening. Luckily for her, she could sense the world in ways that needed no eyes.

A heavy gust of wind suddenly slammed against Masque, seemingly from nowhere. Similar gusts were eddying about the room, pulling at the curtains and blankets that hung from the walls and causing the remaining candles to sputter and jump.

Masque hit the wall on his side and narrowly avoided his skull's collision with the brick. Candles abruptly snuffed and the lantern-bulb shattered on impact, the room was thrown into darkness. As Masque slid to the floor amidst the howl of wind and panicked screams of the few remaining onlookers he had time to think: A mutant.

The winds grew in intensity as Ororo sensed Masque's desperate attempt to scramble away. No, I will not lose you after all this, was her disoriented thought as the wind rushed past her ears. By now the various pieces of discarded furniture were scraping across the floor, and a few of the flimsier pieces were caught up in the draft.

Through the whirling debris Masque could see a strange phenomenon - a small ball-shaped orb of light that seemed to materialize near the ceiling and drift lower, like a spider descending on a thread. It hung there for a moment, eerily unaffected by the wind in the tiny room. Then, with a flash of light it exploded, knocking loose a chunk of wall.

He'd been able to save himself from the wall, but it was impossible to escape the decrepit masonry suddenly raining down on his head. Even as he moved to shield himself he felt a red stab of pain across the back of his skull, and then there was only darkness.



Ororo's had her moment of catharsis with her assailant. Now someone actually has to wade through the wreckage and drag them out. Fortunately, this is why we have Cain on the team.



The boom echoed through the stone-walled tunnels, causing even Cain's ears to ring. Glancing around, he could see flashes of blue light from a hole in the wall next to him, accompanied by bursts of air and the sound of gale-force winds.

"Found her!" he shouted into his communicator, thrusting one hand into the gap and tearing back, throwing loose stone and concrete out of his way as he burst through the wall. Instinctively, he covered his eyes from the biting winds and explosive flashes of lightning. In the midst of it all, he thought he could see Storm - and even though he couldn't make out her features, Cain had no doubt the lady was angry.

Strangely enough, as Cain neared the side of the room furthest from the door, he could see that the figure on the lumpy mattress was behaving rather oddly. First, it was just lying there, seemingly immobile despite the flying debris and flashes of light occurring every few seconds around them. Second, its eyes were closed, and it seemed to have a very strange expression on its face...

Finally, one of the bright flashes of lightning threw the figure's face into stark relief, and Cain could see that it was Ororo, lying there on the mattress with her eyes closed. Her skin seemed different, thick, almost plastic-like, and her lips were twisted and frozen into a sickeningly-sweet smile. Perfect white ringlets lay on the pillow, each curl stiff and glossy. She had apparently been dressed in a somewhat torn, lacy dress, its puffy sleeves and short hem the perfect imitation of a doll's outfit.

She had been turned into a giant doll - one that could no longer feel the eddying drafts of wind on her skin nor see the careening bits of furniture being blown about the room. It was easy to see why she was panicking now; everyone knew that the normally-calm Team Leader's greatest fear was to be trapped in a dark, closed space... and now she was, in her own body.

"Ah, shit..." Cain felt his goggles ripped from his head by the winds. Kneeling carefully down by the mattress, he cupped his hands around his mouth. "'Ro!" he hollered, "Rescue's here! Think you can ease down the hurricane a bit? We're gonna get you home!"

Whatever this sicko had done to her, it seemed to Cain like she wasn't really in any shape to be moving quickly. As gently as he could, he slid his arms under the mattress and lifted. "I'm gonna carry you out of here, okay?" he yelled over the winds, "Just let up on the wind a bit and I'll be able to find the way out..."

Mentally, Cain gave a shout for Nathan, but received no response. He cursed, then hunched over his team leader and began stalking for the exit.

Suddenly, next to her ear, a familiar sound... Cain? The relief that flooded through her was nothing compared to the feeling as Cain lifted her, tipping her forward enough that her eyelids bobbed open. Once again she could see, and though it was dark in spurts and fits, it was nothing compared to the obscurity that had plagued her before.

It seemed at first that Cain would have to fight his way out through the whirling gusts of wind and flying brick, but little by little the tempest lessened, enough so that he could see the hole he had made in the wall. Ororo was stiff and still in his arms, and even as her eyes returned from their glazed, blank state the winds did not stop altogether.

As he walked through the lessening winds, Cain could see someone else in the room, struggling to regain footing. Shifting Ororo over to cradle her in his left arm, Cain extended a hand to help the half-conscious form up.

Lethargically, two hands clamped around Cain's forearm. The action seemed almost reflexive. Cain felt a small tingle and itch where the deformed mutant touched him, almost as if his skin was literally crawling.

"Wait a minute..." Cain growled, gripping the front of the loose robe the flesh-manipulator was wearing. "Got you, you son of a bitch. Ain't easy to play sculptor when you're dealing with invulnerable skin, is it?" As he spoke, Cain swung his arm upwards, bouncing Masque's head off the stone ceiling and letting him fall roughly to the floor. Picking up the now-fully unconscious Masque, Cain tucked him under his other arm and casually kicked a larger hole in the wall to duck through.

"Juggernaut to all points," he drawled into his communicator. "I got Storm and our creepy-as-hell perp here. Bringing them out now."