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xp_logsOne team hits the cellblock, the other goes for the nuke. There's chaos enough for everyone and things definitely do not go as planned. On a number of fronts.
It was a moonless night; Nathan wasn't above counting the small blessings. He crouched down beside the remains of a fence, staring hard at the derelict Model Industries building. "Team 2," he murmured over his com, "we're on site. Five minute mark." They had to hit both the launcher here and the cellblock at roughly the same time, so as not to tip off one group of terrorists or the other.
It was the perfect site for the launcher, really, here at the north end of the island. He hadn't been surprised at all when his telepathic scouting had revealed that.
"They're moving around on the second floor, most of them," he murmured to Lorna - and Remy, although of course Duncan and Langstrom and the others listening back on the mainland still didn't know it wasn't just him and Lorna on this end. "Two on the first. Watching the doors. Seven... no, eight on the second. Plus the telepath." Although he was going down as soon as Nathan was close enough. "Four by the windows facing the sea. They're... expecting a water approach. I can hear them worrying."
Lorna nodded, sensing the same thing though of course, her dim sense of human-sized EM fields was much less effective than Nathan's telepathy. "No locks on the doors to worry about. They have guns but I can deal with those. Powers worry me," she replied equally quietly. "We should go through the roof."
#Lots of clean views. If dey've got LLIS on any of de guards, we'll show up like a fireworks heading to de roof if dey look de wrong way at de wrong time.# This was the X-Men, and not an Agency mission, which meant Remy had to play by different rules. Normally, he'd lethally disable the two on the first floor, and move to a second position before radio comm security had time to catch up with him. #I say we drop de two on de ground floor, and hit de main group in a whirlwind; shock tactics enough to give us time to neutralize de teleporter and compromise de launcher.#
Pros and cons on both sides. Nathan stared hard at the building for a few more precious moments, weighing the options. "First floor's a shooting gallery," he murmured. Not just for the men with guns - if any of those energy projectors were here, that could be a real problem. He hadn't tested his shields against energy fire since his powers had returned. "But if I could make sure they're all looking at the water..."
It was a trick Charles could have managed far, far more easily. Almost effortlessly, Nathan suspected. He wasn't Charles, and he still wasn't comfortable with much beyond the communications level with his telepathy. But creating the perception of the sound of a high-powered boat in the distance wasn't too difficult, and insinuating it into the minds of eleven people was a strain but not impossible. The telepath, proving that he wasn't all that strong at all in the conventional sense, didn't even notice the artificiality of the perception.
He sensed them reacting in concern - not panic, they were too well-trained for that. #They think they hear a boat,# he sent quickly, sending Remy and Lorna a quick flash of what he'd done. #Second floor, they're all looking at the water - the ones from the launcher are moving towards the windows instead.# Putting distance between them and the launcher. Perfect. "The two on the first floor are distracted, let's hit them first and quietly - go." He was on his feet and moving even as the words were out of his mouth.
Lorna flinched at the unexpected mental touch but followed Nathan soundlessly. This was hardly the time to remind Nathan exactly how much she hated having people in her head. Or to be getting distracted by it. Metal peeled away from her hands so her fingers could touch the door as they came up against it. Hinges melted away and she eased it back without so much as a sound, motioning for the other two to go in first.
---
There wasn't much noise coming from the tourists who'd been crowded into several of the cells at this end of Alcatraz's main cellblock. The occasional whimper or moan from the young or the particularly terrified, urgent whispering from time to time between some of the adults, and all of it fell silent whenever one of their captors walked by to check on them.
Rogue surveyed the area from her position, hovering a few inches off the ground. It didn't look like any of the hostages were in immediate danger, but there was no telling how long that would last. Her eyes flitted over the guards, until she noticed a pair standing apart from the rest. Pointing at the man and woman talking to each other, she subvocalized, "No guns on those two, so add two unknown mutant signatures to the mix."
Kurt was ready and waiting to go in, and just hoping that the plans he'd been given were up-to-date enough not to cause a disaster when he teleported in.
"Just two?" he asked.
On the cellblock floor, one of the pair, a dark-haired, cold-faced woman, glanced down the length of the cellblock, shaking her head. "~This is foolishness, Turpal-Ali,~" she said to her companion, in Chechen. "~All of this effort, for nothing. We could kill them now and none of those fools on the mainland would be any the wiser.~"
"~It's necessary,~" the man standing beside her corrected. "~It's a way to restrain the Americans while Ilyas's plan works itself out, Markha.~" He smiled a bit wryly. "~They're squeamish about civilian casualties. We both know this.~"
She laughed, and it was an unpleasant sound. "~It didn't restrain them from sending in their soldiers, did it? Ah, well,~" Markha Gaekava conceded. "~It's not as if we didn't expect that.~"
"~And their fate should discourage others from following their example,~" Turpal-Ali Geliskhanov said, with as little emotion as he had shown when he'd led the team that had massacred the pinned-down SEALS. "~Time is our friend and their enemy, Markha.~"
Wolverine didn't like the situation. At all. Too many guards, too many overlapping fields of fire, too many ways for a hostage to get splashed if this thing went sour. "Isolate and neutralize." he muttered. "Nightcrawler - after I take the guards down, can you teleport them into a cell that we control?" he asked over the X-Men coms. "Need to cut down the odds here a little before someone vulnerable gets hurt."
Rogue shook her head, glancing around the corner again to assess the guards' positions within the cell block. Wolverine trying to get to all the guards by himself would be too chancy. "There's too many for you to take down by yourself without risking some of those hostages. We should all go in, one from either side of the cellblock and Nightcrawler can teleport to the guard closest to the hostages, if he's got line of sight." she interjected before Kurt could respond. "Then while you two clean up the mess, Ah can start evacuating the hostages to one of the empty offices out front."
"I will not be able to teleport anyone into a cell until I see the inside of one," Kurt subvocalised back. "Until I know the exact dimensions, it is too risky. But I will do what I can."
"Don't like it. We rush them, somebody will splash the hostages." Wolverine muttered. "We need to isolate the guards and neutralize them away from the hostages. Maybe we can stage a diversion..." he mused.
Rogue shook her head. "Negative. Set up doesn't look good for a diversion. We try and draw fire, they might just open up on the hostages before going to check out the situation. And we'd only be pulling them down one end of the hallway anyways, they'd still be too close to the innocents." She frowned. "We already know these are some brutal folks. I say we gotta just move fast to isolate and take 'em down, just time it when they shift away from the cells with the folks in 'em. Nightcrawler? Thoughts?"
"I agree with Marie," Kurt said quietly. "We should eliminate every risk we can that they will feel threatened and decided to kill the hostages. Between us, I believe we can do it."
"~How much longer, do you think?~" Markha was asking, completely ignorant of the quiet strategizing going on at the other end of the cellblock. "~Surely they can't expect this to drag on indefinitely.~"
Turpal-Ali gave her an amused look. "~You haven't had experience in such situations before. They will do their best to have it 'drag on'. I am sure Ilyas will oblige them, as it's in our interest as well.~"
"~How?~"
"~What do you think we're actually trying to accomplish here, Markha?~"
"All right, new plan." Logan said to his two team-mates. "I'll draw their fire down this hallway here. Rogue, you take one flank. Nightcrawler, you've got the other. Get in, get the hostages, get out. Rogue, you're resistant to their firepower. I expect you to provide soft cover for our hostages. Nightcrawler, I want maximum confusion and maximum speed. Get as many hostages as you can per teleport, and keep moving. These cells are dark, they'll have trouble targetting you." he said with a mirthless grin. "And as for me, I'll draw as many of them as I can down this central corridor here and deal with them." he said. "Any questions?"
"Understood", Kurt said with a grim smile of his own. "I am ready to move."
"Then let's do this," Marie said firmly. Her training with Cain had gotten her to stop flinching when she was fired upon, so acting like a human shield wasn't going to be too much of a problem.
---
Both men on the first floor were looking out over the water, idly following the lights of the city. Their automatic weapons were slung, and it was obvious that they didn't expect trouble without warning first. Remy moved silently, trusting Nate to take the one on the right. He waited a two count, and grabbed the first man, twisting his head back painfully with one hand over his mouth, and the other at his throat. There was a small amount of noise as he struggled, but Remy's thumb was pressed down deeply on his carotid artery. After a silent ten count, he eased the limp man to the floor. Almost idly, he pocketed the two grenades that had been clipped to the guard's webbelt.
Nathan turned away from the other man, also lying unconscious on the ground, and his gaze moved over the first floor of the derelict building, fastening on the stairs up to the second floor. Up the stairs, or over the edge of the catwalk, he thought, glancing upwards. They'd be exposed, with the stairs, exposed and walking right down the length of the shooting gallery.
But Saidullayev was closer to the stairs, and the launcher... He looked at Lorna, pointing upwards at the catwalk. "~Gets you up there and taking their guns away faster,~" he subvocalized over the coms. "~I'll take the stairs.~" He gestured silently at Remy to follow him.
Lorna nodded, the door back in place behind her. She'd come to the same conclusion as Nathan and already had a good grip on the metal of the gun. Of course, that would only deal with that aspect of the threat. What came next would be the hard part. Taking a stabilizing breath, she lifted herself up over the catwalk just as the men began to move. Guns jerked from hands to surprised shouts then the sound of air rushing out of lungs as she turned their weapons against them.
Remy was moving even before the first shout. The cajun grabbed the top of the rail and vaulted over it, using his spatial sense and enhanced agility to give him a safe window on to the second floor. He spun and pulled the pins on both grenades, throwing them towards the racks of equipment the terrorists had brought, hoping to possibly kill the uplink or the power supply that way.
As the explosions scattered the terrorists, Remy was already moving left, clearing the stairs for Nate and drawing fire away from him. He hadn't identified any of the terrorists yet, moving too fast to do more than plot their position and avoid their fire.
Nathan reached the top of the stairs and brought his psimitar around, focusing. The blade flared with light, and the psi-blast, a combination of telepathy and telekinesis, sent the telepath flying back against the wall and down into a crumpled heap on the floor. Lightning came at him from the direction of the windows and Nathan dove for the floor even as he threw up a TK shield. It deflected the blast, barely.
Lorna bit off some deeply creative cursing as Remy's stunt with the grenades sent shrapnel across the second floor. Ripping a section railing from the edge of the catwalk, she hurled it into one of the energy throwers who was targeting Remy, having dispatched the three she'd taken the guns from in the first place. Then she whirled, blasting back at another mutant who...just kept coming.
LeBeau had cleared a gunman and pivoted in the air, lashing out with his staff. The energy projector had the misfortunate to have gotten used to projecting the focused plasma blast through his hands. It made his shots easy to track, and unfortunately for him, gave Remy an obvious target. The staff spun, the slightly flexible titanium alloy draw kinetic power exponentionally from the give and the speed. It shattered both wrists with frightening efficiency. The man went down howling, trying to curl around the pulped injury.
Another blast went over his head, and Remy tracked the section of steel smash heavily into the second energy projector. He shifted, ready to follow it up when another figure entered his spatial sense, bearing down on Lorna. The way the man was ignoring her onslaught said this was the superstrong thug. She didn't need rescuing, but her priority was the nuclear weapon. If the bruiser got lucky, the situation could get very bad quickly. He vaulted a ruined server stack and lashed out, his cards blasting chunks of the floor out in front of the charging mutant. His heavy tread hit the already weakened floor and it collapsed under him, hurtling him to the concrete floor sixteen feet below. Remy followed, leaping down the hole.
"Get de nuke. I'll take care of dis one!" he called as he disappeared.
Nathan was back on his feet, focusing on the remaining psi-signatures. The teleporter... where was the teleporter?
Then someone else, someone he recognized from the tape, was stepping out into the open, eyes narrowing and a look of cold anger on his face. Ilyas Saidullayev met his eyes - and the building went mad. Debris of every sort levitated, flying at him at murderous speeds, coming from all directions. Everything that wasn't nailed down, with the sole exception of the launcher, had turned in an instant into deadly missiles.
---
Turpal-Ali caught the movement out of the corner of his eye as Logan moved to carry out his part of the plan. "~Trouble,~" he snapped over his coms. "~Yevgeny! How many?~"
"~Just the one... no, three!~" came the reply from his teammate in the gun gallery, and then there was the unmistakable sound of Yevgeny's plasma blasts as he opened fire on Marie.
Logan did everything in his power to draw their attacker's fire. He was loud, he was obvious, and he was heading straight for them. He popped his claws and waved them at his attackers. If that didn't get their attention, little else besides a 9mm migraine would.
Kurt was all business, teleporting forward a few feet at a time in an effort to locate the hostages, and meanwhile glancing sideways at the cells to establish their dimensions.
Hostages were screaming, panicking as the terrorists opened fire, not just with plasma blasts from above, but those with guns on the floor of the cellblock as well. Parents shielded children with their own bodies, and Kurt's appearance only made some of the terrified civilians lose it even faster.
Kurt didn't waste time trying to calm them down, not when there was imminent danger to the hostages, instead grabbing one or two at a time - especially careful to take parents and children together - and teleporting with no ceremony to a place of safety outside before he returned.
The vast majority of them, oddly enough, were Japanese. Not all reacted in terror to Kurt, either. Those able to keep their heads realized what he was doing, and as he teleported back inside the cells, one after another, those inside almost automatically began to push the young or the elderly forward to be taken first.
He nodded to those doing so, in acknowledgment and respect, and a silent promise to come back for them when the more vulnerable hostages were safely gone.
Most of the guns seemed to be pointed at Logan as he made a spectacle of himself and Marie did what she could to block the rest of the bullets from reaching Kurt or the civilians. She let out a few curse words as an energy projector opened fire from somewhere in the gun gallery. Not for the first time, she wished that one of her abilities included something that could be used at long range without resorting to throwing things. Frowning, she forced herself to ignore him sincehis blasts were directed at Logan, while the other two seemed to be heading towards the cells and Kurt. Landing in front of the male Chechen, she shook her finger. "You wouldn't hit a lady, would ya?" Rogue asked as she aimed her fist at his face.
Logan spent much of his time getting shot. It hurt - a lot - but every bullet that spent itself in his body was one less that might go into a hostage. His body would repair each gunshot in moments, but he was still getting torn up fairly badly inside. A worthwhile trade, he thought through the haze of the pain. Better him than the hostages.
Turpal-Ali started to duck, then smiled grimly as a precisely placed plasma burst tore up the concrete between him and the girl. Yevgeny, giving him some room - and watching his back. He took the moment for a quick assessment of the situation. And there was Markha, coming up behind the girl quickly. Perfect. As bullets seemed to be doing no damage to her, Markha's intervention might be a necessary first step...
Leaping up as the ground in front of her shattered, Marie remained oblivious to the woman closing in behind her. She kept her attention fully focused on Turpal-Ali, since he hadn't revealed his power yet, meaning she needed to stay alert and on her toes. Anything but fire. Please, just no more fire. She continued towards him slowly, keeping her feet a few inches from the ground to pass over the broken floor.
Logan advanced further, the flesh behind the bullet holes in his leathers closing as quickly as they could. But as always with him there was no blood on the floor, only some splatter behind him that was carried by the bullets that through-and-throughed him. He grinned a disturbingly feral grin and advanced on the man with the gun. He was going to enjoy lacerating him.
Kurt 'ported back in from another ferrying of hostages, and looked around just in time to see the woman reach for Marie's arm. There was half a second frozen... half a second too long, though he teleported forward immediately after... just too late to stop Markha grabbing Marie.
At Markha's touch, Marie landed heavily, unable to keep herself the mere two inches above ground where she had previously been hovering. The two had obviously worked in tandem frequently - she barely had an instant to blink in surprise that someone was touching her and nothing was happening before Turpal-Ali launched his attack. The Chechen man leaned in close, almost touching her lips as he blew out an opaque cloud that a surprised Marie couldn't avoid inhaling. Leaning back, the smile on his face spoke to the enjoyment he felt as he waited for her to succumb to his toxic breath.
Coughing, Marie's eyes started to water as the poison worked it's way quickly through her system. Her body was burning from within, sweat dripping from her profusely, but she felt cold and her body shivered convulsively. She didn't even realize when she had fallen to her knees, her only concern was the fact that she couldn't seem to draw a full breath. But Ah'm invulnerable was her last conscious thought before her body hit the floor.
Logan roared as Marie crumpled like a beer can. Anyone between him and her was The Enemy and would be destroyed. He did, however, retain enough of himself to avoid killing the gunman in his path - instead, he just grabbed the man, ducked a clumsy swing, and then reached over to break the man's arm over his upper leg. He went down screaming, cradling his now-useless arm, and the screams were like music.
Kurt stared in frozen horror as Marie crumpled, and as Logan lunged forward to take on her attacker... and then something in his mind broke, and he teleported straight forward to engage Turpal-Ali, giving him no chance to use his power or do anything but try to defend himself from Kurt's fists and feet.
---
It was clear that Saidullayev wasn't trying to merely slow Nathan down; he wanted him gone, now. Chunks of concrete, nails, splinters of wood - they were all speeding towards Nate with one intention, that of tearing him into as many small pieces as possible so that he could get on with his mission.
Nathan froze them in mid-air. It was like slamming into a brick wall, and the headache started instantly - Saidullayev was strong, far stronger than he'd expected, and Nathan knew very decidedly out of practice. It was an effort even to channel force through the psimitar to amplify it. Focus was far harder than it should be, and for a moment he flinched, taking an automatic step back...
No. Who was the Spartan here, and who was the fucking homicidal terrorist? Nathan's grip on the debris solidified, and his jaw clenched as he started to push back. Right back into your face, you bastard...
The Chechen man spat a curse, though he hadn't expected to get off that easily. The other people around them were engaged in their own personal battles, and nobody seemed to notice the look of intense concentration that came over Saidullayev's face next. Nobody except Nathan.
Immediately the debris fell to the floor, ignored, as the terrorist altered the lines of telekinetic force in a smooth, practiced move and abruptly buffeted Nathan with several heavy TK blows.
Nathan managed to block a few of them, but not all, and was profoundly glad for the thickness of his body armor. It prevented broken bones or worse, but it didn't keep him from hitting the floor hard, gasping as he caught his breath. Next he'll be aiming at my head...
He was so not falling for that particularly predictable tactic. Nathan gritted his teeth and forced power through the psimitar, feeling it build. It flung him up off the floor and through the air at Saidullayev, telekinetic energy gathering around him, glowing gold.
Let's take this outside.
Together, the two telekinetics crashed through the exterior wall and fell. The drop wasn't insanely high, but it was high enough. The impact with the wall plus the impact with the water was harder than Nathan had anticipated. He didn't quite black out, but he found himself drifting away from Saidullayev for a moment, stunned.
After the surprise of the impact, the coldness of the water began to set in, and neither man was exactly dressed for a nighttime swim. Nathan felt himself began to sink steadily, as if there was a giant thumb pressing down on him from above, and knew it wasn't just the water drawing him down. Beyond him, Saidullayev floundered, spitting out water as he concentrated on both Nate and his own plight.
I hope Lorna's gotten to the nuke, was the first dim thought that popped into mind. Followed almost immediately by Fuck, I'm drowning! Stars were bursting behind his eyes, but Nathan found his concentration again, concentration and a dogged determination that he was not dying at the hands of a low-rent Chechen version of himself. Not tonight.
His exoskeleton took shape around him and he erupted out of the water, shattering Saidullayev's grip. The wings of the firebird unfurled, blazing brilliantly against the dark water and darker sky. Nathan could breathe again, and for a moment, he concentrated on doing just that.
He could hear an angry, though almost impressed, curse from below as the water churned and frothed. Saidullayev was still there, though he was making his way towards the nearby rocky shore as quickly as possible.
The bomb or the terrorist. The choice flashed through Nathan's mind in an instant, the decision made almost as quickly. Damn it! The firebird's wings beat once, twice, propelling him upwards. Back to the nuke, and his team.
There were priorities and then there were priorities.
---
Logan left Kurt to his bloody business, as he was more concerned with getting Marie out of harm's way. "Rogue? Rogue? C'mon, kid, hop to it!" he said, eyeing her for signs of life. She was alive, he noted with a surge of relief after a few moments - he saw her draw a shallow breath and release it. Looked like whatever kind of serious whammy got put on her took her down and out.
Marie's breathing grew more and more shallow with every breath, as she continued to deteriorate. Her clammy skin had grown shades paler than normal and she suddenly began seizing with such intensity that she cracked one hand on the concrete floor. She let out another breath and it took even longer than before for another shaky breath to be inhaled.
Markha's first instinct had been to help Turpal-Ali, but with the American girl unconscious, the feral seemed to be distracted. It would be the perfect opportunity to take him down and then she could turn her focus to the teleporter who seemed intent on beating her teammate to a bloody pulp. Then they could deal with all the hostages. Running forward, she reached out to grab him while simultaneously pulling a knife from her belt.
With a total focus and clarity of situation, Logan's claws took the knife - and a good chunk of the hand that wielded it - with a swipe of the claws on his left hand. The other hand raked claws across his attacker's chest, scoring deep into muscle and bone. Not a killing blow, but an incapaciting one. The woman fell with a gurgling scream but Logan ignored it.
He had more important things to worry about. "Man down!" he subvocalized over the com as he dropped to his knees next to Marie's laboring body. He could hear her heart go arrhythmic, feel her fight to draw breath grow even more labored. If he didn't do something soon he was going to lose her.
Logan pulled off his glove and gently put it next to Marie's face. He composed himself as best he could, waiting for her power to come and steal away his vital energy, steal the very stuff of his life.
If he sacrificed, she would live.
At first the pull was soft and subtle, as Marie's injured body struggled to take in his life energy and healing factor. Gradually, her white blood cells grew stronger, combating the biotoxin flowing through her system. They were no match for her stolen enhancement and her breathing became steady and even. Tissue that had begun to deteriorate started to regenerate as Marie's body regained strength. It greedily pulled more and more from Logan until visible lines appeared on his face, blue veins rising to the surface. Her eyes snapped open, the girl pushing the man's hand away and watched him fall to the floor, blood flowing from several of the bullet holes that had reopened.
Cracking her neck, her anger flared as she surveyed the situation, dropping to her knees to brush a gloved hand across Logan's face. The energy projector in the gun gallery chose exactly that moment to resume his attack on her and her fallen companion, hitting the ground with a plasma blast mere inches from where Logan's body had crumpled. Snarling, she launched herself upwards, letting her nose lead her directly to Yevgeny. "Boo," she drawled as she grabbed him and swung him out of his hidden position, slamming his body against a cement wall. Feeling his body grow limp, she tossed him back into the gun gallery, baring her teeth at his fallen body.
She noticed that Kurt was still pummelling the man who'd attacked her and saw no need to stop him. Before he'd helped her, Logan appeared to have taken care of all the gunmen, their unconscious bodies strewn at one end of the corridor. Landing by Wolverine, she checked his vitals and was relieved to find him breathing regularly. "Man down, tangos and guards have been neutralized, will resume evacuation protocol," she said into her comm. She noticed that several of the hostages were peering out from one of the cells, terrified expressions plastered on their face. "~Do not worry, we will get you all out of here safely,~" she said with a small bow to the Japanese group.
Turpal-Ali was failing fast under Kurt's onslaught, taking step after step back until there was nowhere else to go. And still Kurt didn't stop, looking more like the demon than he ever had before as he snarled at the man in guttural Rom. He hadn't even noticed that Marie was back on her feet, or that Logan was down, though it wouldn't have surprised him. And it wasn't even only Marie he was thinking of - it was her, and Marius, and even Radonic, and others.
"~You will pay for their pain~."
He was too fast, this blue-skinned mutant - and mutants, why were other mutants attacking them? It was all the thought Turpal-Ali could spare for the whys and wherefores, because he was being backed into a corner, into one of the cells, and the other mutant's face was twisted in blind rage. He just kept coming, and there was no way Turpal-Ali could block even half of those blows.
A foot slammed into his jaw, and bone fractured beneath the blow.
He hadn't fallen yet. That was all Kurt could see, that the man wasn't down.
Of course, in Kurt's current state of mind, staying down was no guarantee of safety.
Unable to use his power, in a not-inconsiderable amount of pain, Turpal-Ali finally stumbled, losing his footing. He hit the ground awkwardly and tried to roll away from Kurt's assault.
Down, but he was still conscious, still moving, and that meant he might get back up again and continue the fight. That meant it wasn't done yet. Kurt kicked him in the ribs, with bone-breaking force.
#Nightcrawler!# Nathan's voice in his mind was sharp, his presence edged with shock, concern, and more than a trace of anger. #Kurt, stand down! Now!#
His head snapped up as if in response to an actual sound, and he looked down at the man at his feet, seeming about to ignore Nathan and continue the attack. Then he shook his head, eyes wide, and all but staggered a step or two back.
#Secure the terrorists and get the rest of the hostages out,# Nathan snapped - and was gone again, his attention clearly drawn elsewhere.
None of the terrorists looked to be in any state to walk, so wouldn't take much securing, he noticed absently through his confusion. That left the hostages, and he turned to complete the job he'd been doing before.
---
Ears still ringing from the grenades, all Lorna could tell was that Remy had shouted something as he'd vanished with the brute she'd been about to face. Shrugging it off and hoping that he hadn't said something like 'by the way, I just pulled the pin on another grenade and it's right behind you', she turned to assess the situation. The energy thrower she'd hit with the railing was just struggling to his feet. She slammed him back again with barely a thought then looked around for the other one.
His dulled screaming was barely enough loud enough to cut through the ringing. Ignoring his injuries, he let off another blast of energy, the power surging through wrists twisted and maimed. Lorna threw herself to the floor, feeling the superheated energy sear over her back and the metal beneath heat. This time she did swear and with a quick sloppy gesture yanked the railing from one mutant to the other.
As she was dealing with the energy-projector, there was another flash of light - not directed at her or any of her team, just a harmless-looking flare over by the stairwell. When it faded, there was a young woman in fatigues standing there, and she bolted for the launcher, hands outstretched as if she were desperate to make physical contact.
Someone shouted at her, and another man stepped out from behind the launcher, staring hard at Lorna. Had the building been properly lit, Lorna would have been able to see his eyes swirling in nauseating patterns of green and blue. As it was, there was no need to see the minor physical manifestation of his powers when its effects became so obvious.
It was lucky that Lorna was already on the ground as the world tilted alarmingly and spun on its end. Nausea was instantaneous and Lorna was forcibly reminded of the tunnels a year previous when she'd been assaulted by a telepath. But in that year, Lorna had learned a great many new tricks. The world might be rebelling, her body might be insisting that she would fall if she tried to stand but the EM fields remained stable and secure. And the mutant had made the mistake of standing too closely to a window. Glass shattered as the metal frame ripped itself from the wall and wrapped around him and threw him to the ground. Vertigo vanished and Lorna lay gasping on the ground, disoriented and sick.
There were a great many factors for which no one could account, in a situation like this. One of those factors on this particular night was the youth and inexperience of the woman rushing towards the launcher to teleport it away. Seeing her teammate attacked by a windowframe drew a very specific reaction. The teleporter stumbled to a stop, recoiling instinctively - and she was still a good ten feet from the launcher.
Lorna gave her no time to recover. Still half-kneeling, she flung a hand out, EM fields warping and bending like water and soundlessly taking the launcher with them. Inside the missile, the touch was more delicate, small touches and tiny tweaks--work that she could have never done without tutelage from the master of this mutation. She looked from the useless weapon to the woman and shook her head.
And that was when Nathan flew back in through the windows - 'through' being the operative word. The wings of the exoskeleton smashed through what was left of that side of the wall as he made a spectacularly clumsy landing, skidding across the floor and nearly falling to his knees. The young teleporter looked at him, wide-eyed, and then vanished in another flash of light.
Nathan swore and looked back over his shoulder. "She's gone for Saidullayev," he said, the exoskeleton collapsing as he rushed over to the launcher, even as he gave Lorna a quick, intent look. "You all right?"
Lorna nodded wearily and finished climbing to her feet, wobbling a bit as she stood. "That's useless now. I figured it was better than letting it get away so that they could try this again. Nice entrance, did you learn that landing from Cannonball?"
"That's me. Hard on historical sites," Nathan said without looking up from the missile. Telekinesis loosened the tiny screws on one of the plates and it shifted aside to give him a closer look at the innards of the missile. They had no Geiger counter with them, definitely an oversight, but he needed to check the warhead itself, to make sure there was no visible damage. "Cable to base," he said. "The launcher is disabled. Repeat, the launcher is disabled and we've got the nuke-"
He cut himself off suddenly, every bit of color draining from his face so fast that his complexion was nearly gray. He reached up and switched off his com, and only then did he let the reaction come. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, his voice shaking badly. "It's a neutron bomb."
Lorna had been checking the various downed terrorists but turned back at that, spurred by the strain in his voice. "Cable?"
#It's a neutron bomb. It's American,# he sent, switching to telepathy half in distress, half out of not wanting her mike to pick up anything else. #It's a W70-3. If they'd detonated this over the city, an airburst... it's a tactical anti-personnel nuke. Most of the city would have been left intact, but the population...#
She shuddered and flinched both at the telepathy and the implications. #Warn me before you do that,# she sent back, hard-won shields shuttering into place. As always her thoughts were far from clear, messy from lack of practice though they held a sharper line than they had before. #How did they get an American bomb?# She secured the last of the gunmen with a seamless band of metal over his wrists.
"Not a clue," Nathan said very softly, aloud. #Remy, if you're done down there, feel free to join us.# He reached up and turned back on his com. "Cable to base," he said, and his voice was as steady as it had been shaky a moment before. "We've recovered the nuke. The weapon appears to be a modified W70-3 with enhanced radiation capabilities. Let your specialist know, but stand by until we're sure we've secured the island."
Duncan would have heard that. Something, some vague instinct, made him think that was a good idea. To make sure that someone they could trust knew about this. He'd have to make Cooper knew too.
Remy came up the stairs, moving slowly and trying to ignore the pain in his ribs where he'd been thrown into the steel support pillers. He'd stopped the blood from where his scalp had been gashed open, leaving his auburn hair looking rusty and brown now. #Guess dat's dat.# he commented, before taking a seat on a stack of metal boxes which at first glance looked to be carrying boxes of Russian made semtex.
Doing a double-take at the amount of damage that Remy had taken, Lorna crossed the floor quickly, avoiding debris and disabled terrorists alike. She stopped, hovering just out of arm's reach, trying not to look distressed as she gave him a surreptitious once over. Time was when she'd have closed the gap instead of hesitating but it didn't seem like the right thing to do, temporary teammate or not. She took a breath and backed off again.
"Nightcrawler, join us when you can. We need you," Nathan said over the com, not reaching out to Kurt's mind - he had gotten himself under control, Nathan had felt that much, but he didn't want to delve into what had happened. Not right now. He needed to stay focused. #We have to get you off the island fairly promptly, Remy. I can only stall for a few minutes. Come over here and take a look at this bomb while you've got a chance.#
Remy walked over the rocket and took a look. #Doesn't look like a Russian construction. Too small, too many micro-components.# That about exhausted the limits of Remy's knowledge about large munitions. He'd never been involved in any of the Agency's counternuclear sabotage programs.
#It's American. I recognized it as soon as I removed this piece of the casing. It's an enhanced-radiation device - a neutron bomb. Of a type that should have been retired in the early 90s.# Nathan shook his head. "Nightcrawler," he said more forcefully over the coms. "I need you up here."
There was only one thing that Kurt, specifically, would have been called for at this late stage of the mission. After a moment, his voice came over the comms, oddly flat and disjointed. "Where is Gambit?"
"Gambit?" Over the comm, David Langstrom's voice cut in over the command frequency. "Cable, this is Langstrom. Did your teammate just say Gambit?"
#KURT!# The projected thought was as involuntary as it was loud, but Nathan shoved the flash of anger away and thought fast. Very fast. "Yes," he said rapidly, "we IDed him with Saidullayev but lost track of him in the firefight - he came in with the teleporter, in the thick of it. That's why I said stand by, because we haven't secured-" Interior walls shattered under the impact of telekinesis in a perfectly timed interruption.
#Remy, get off the semtex.# In contrast, Nathan's mental voice was perfectly cool, although there was another internal voice that was cursing a blue streak. The evening had just developed an unnecessary complication, and there was no way they could be sure of a perfect solution. Not on the fly like this.
#Langstrom isn't going to just let that slide on a fake explosion, Nate.# Remy knew what the plan he had in mind was, but also knew the tenacity of the CIA officer. He pulled off the torn strip of cloth that he'd used to stop the bleeding on his head, and passed it over with his staff. #Starting to run out of dese. Leave de cloth somewhere, he'll get suspicious if you hand him something just like dat. Dere's enough spots downstairs to confirm it.# He bent down and started shifting the boxes of semtex to the opposite corner. #Better for you if Remy doesn't exist anymore.#
Part of the exterior wall blew outwards under another telekinetic shockwave. There wasn't going to be much of this old building left by the time they were done. "Polaris, watch your back!" Nathan yelled, despising the theatricality. Channeling the aggravation, he collapsed the floor on the south side of the building. #Blow the damned Semtex, Remy. I'll shield us and the nuke.#
Lorna gave Nathan a mocking salute and tucked herself behind both men so she could add her shields to his around the nuke. She'd really hate to have it blow up now. Things had been going so well up until now too.
"Stay on the nuke!" Nathan yelled, then rolled his eyes at himself and blew out one of the few semi-intact rows of windows. This would have been funny if the situation hadn't been this serious. To have gone through the whole operation and blown it like this at the end of the day...
Remy finished wiring up the detonator. His staff lay on top of the pile, and he hoped the explosion wouldn't carry it out to sea. He stepped back, laying the wire as he went until he was inside of Cable's shield range, and triple clicked the trigger.
Nathan flinched as the explosion smashed against his shield, the force of it ike a living thing boiling with fury, trying to find a way in. For a moment, he didn't think he was going to be able to hold, and the absolute absurdity of the situation was the only clear thought left to him. We get the nuke and then blow ourselves up... But then it was over, the explosion had run its course - and taken most of that side of the building with it - and he was on his hands and knees on the floor, his head spinning and the taste of blood at the back of his throat.
Deafened for the second time this mission, it took Lorna a minute to recover and respond to the voice demanding over the comms to know what the hell was going on over there and where was LeBeau? "Vaporized, sir." She looked over at Remy then to Nathan, still kneeling on the ground recovering from shielding the blast, "Blown out to sea." She moved to Nathan's side and offered him her hand. "We're clear here for pick up of the remaining terrorists."
It was a moonless night; Nathan wasn't above counting the small blessings. He crouched down beside the remains of a fence, staring hard at the derelict Model Industries building. "Team 2," he murmured over his com, "we're on site. Five minute mark." They had to hit both the launcher here and the cellblock at roughly the same time, so as not to tip off one group of terrorists or the other.
It was the perfect site for the launcher, really, here at the north end of the island. He hadn't been surprised at all when his telepathic scouting had revealed that.
"They're moving around on the second floor, most of them," he murmured to Lorna - and Remy, although of course Duncan and Langstrom and the others listening back on the mainland still didn't know it wasn't just him and Lorna on this end. "Two on the first. Watching the doors. Seven... no, eight on the second. Plus the telepath." Although he was going down as soon as Nathan was close enough. "Four by the windows facing the sea. They're... expecting a water approach. I can hear them worrying."
Lorna nodded, sensing the same thing though of course, her dim sense of human-sized EM fields was much less effective than Nathan's telepathy. "No locks on the doors to worry about. They have guns but I can deal with those. Powers worry me," she replied equally quietly. "We should go through the roof."
#Lots of clean views. If dey've got LLIS on any of de guards, we'll show up like a fireworks heading to de roof if dey look de wrong way at de wrong time.# This was the X-Men, and not an Agency mission, which meant Remy had to play by different rules. Normally, he'd lethally disable the two on the first floor, and move to a second position before radio comm security had time to catch up with him. #I say we drop de two on de ground floor, and hit de main group in a whirlwind; shock tactics enough to give us time to neutralize de teleporter and compromise de launcher.#
Pros and cons on both sides. Nathan stared hard at the building for a few more precious moments, weighing the options. "First floor's a shooting gallery," he murmured. Not just for the men with guns - if any of those energy projectors were here, that could be a real problem. He hadn't tested his shields against energy fire since his powers had returned. "But if I could make sure they're all looking at the water..."
It was a trick Charles could have managed far, far more easily. Almost effortlessly, Nathan suspected. He wasn't Charles, and he still wasn't comfortable with much beyond the communications level with his telepathy. But creating the perception of the sound of a high-powered boat in the distance wasn't too difficult, and insinuating it into the minds of eleven people was a strain but not impossible. The telepath, proving that he wasn't all that strong at all in the conventional sense, didn't even notice the artificiality of the perception.
He sensed them reacting in concern - not panic, they were too well-trained for that. #They think they hear a boat,# he sent quickly, sending Remy and Lorna a quick flash of what he'd done. #Second floor, they're all looking at the water - the ones from the launcher are moving towards the windows instead.# Putting distance between them and the launcher. Perfect. "The two on the first floor are distracted, let's hit them first and quietly - go." He was on his feet and moving even as the words were out of his mouth.
Lorna flinched at the unexpected mental touch but followed Nathan soundlessly. This was hardly the time to remind Nathan exactly how much she hated having people in her head. Or to be getting distracted by it. Metal peeled away from her hands so her fingers could touch the door as they came up against it. Hinges melted away and she eased it back without so much as a sound, motioning for the other two to go in first.
---
There wasn't much noise coming from the tourists who'd been crowded into several of the cells at this end of Alcatraz's main cellblock. The occasional whimper or moan from the young or the particularly terrified, urgent whispering from time to time between some of the adults, and all of it fell silent whenever one of their captors walked by to check on them.
Rogue surveyed the area from her position, hovering a few inches off the ground. It didn't look like any of the hostages were in immediate danger, but there was no telling how long that would last. Her eyes flitted over the guards, until she noticed a pair standing apart from the rest. Pointing at the man and woman talking to each other, she subvocalized, "No guns on those two, so add two unknown mutant signatures to the mix."
Kurt was ready and waiting to go in, and just hoping that the plans he'd been given were up-to-date enough not to cause a disaster when he teleported in.
"Just two?" he asked.
On the cellblock floor, one of the pair, a dark-haired, cold-faced woman, glanced down the length of the cellblock, shaking her head. "~This is foolishness, Turpal-Ali,~" she said to her companion, in Chechen. "~All of this effort, for nothing. We could kill them now and none of those fools on the mainland would be any the wiser.~"
"~It's necessary,~" the man standing beside her corrected. "~It's a way to restrain the Americans while Ilyas's plan works itself out, Markha.~" He smiled a bit wryly. "~They're squeamish about civilian casualties. We both know this.~"
She laughed, and it was an unpleasant sound. "~It didn't restrain them from sending in their soldiers, did it? Ah, well,~" Markha Gaekava conceded. "~It's not as if we didn't expect that.~"
"~And their fate should discourage others from following their example,~" Turpal-Ali Geliskhanov said, with as little emotion as he had shown when he'd led the team that had massacred the pinned-down SEALS. "~Time is our friend and their enemy, Markha.~"
Wolverine didn't like the situation. At all. Too many guards, too many overlapping fields of fire, too many ways for a hostage to get splashed if this thing went sour. "Isolate and neutralize." he muttered. "Nightcrawler - after I take the guards down, can you teleport them into a cell that we control?" he asked over the X-Men coms. "Need to cut down the odds here a little before someone vulnerable gets hurt."
Rogue shook her head, glancing around the corner again to assess the guards' positions within the cell block. Wolverine trying to get to all the guards by himself would be too chancy. "There's too many for you to take down by yourself without risking some of those hostages. We should all go in, one from either side of the cellblock and Nightcrawler can teleport to the guard closest to the hostages, if he's got line of sight." she interjected before Kurt could respond. "Then while you two clean up the mess, Ah can start evacuating the hostages to one of the empty offices out front."
"I will not be able to teleport anyone into a cell until I see the inside of one," Kurt subvocalised back. "Until I know the exact dimensions, it is too risky. But I will do what I can."
"Don't like it. We rush them, somebody will splash the hostages." Wolverine muttered. "We need to isolate the guards and neutralize them away from the hostages. Maybe we can stage a diversion..." he mused.
Rogue shook her head. "Negative. Set up doesn't look good for a diversion. We try and draw fire, they might just open up on the hostages before going to check out the situation. And we'd only be pulling them down one end of the hallway anyways, they'd still be too close to the innocents." She frowned. "We already know these are some brutal folks. I say we gotta just move fast to isolate and take 'em down, just time it when they shift away from the cells with the folks in 'em. Nightcrawler? Thoughts?"
"I agree with Marie," Kurt said quietly. "We should eliminate every risk we can that they will feel threatened and decided to kill the hostages. Between us, I believe we can do it."
"~How much longer, do you think?~" Markha was asking, completely ignorant of the quiet strategizing going on at the other end of the cellblock. "~Surely they can't expect this to drag on indefinitely.~"
Turpal-Ali gave her an amused look. "~You haven't had experience in such situations before. They will do their best to have it 'drag on'. I am sure Ilyas will oblige them, as it's in our interest as well.~"
"~How?~"
"~What do you think we're actually trying to accomplish here, Markha?~"
"All right, new plan." Logan said to his two team-mates. "I'll draw their fire down this hallway here. Rogue, you take one flank. Nightcrawler, you've got the other. Get in, get the hostages, get out. Rogue, you're resistant to their firepower. I expect you to provide soft cover for our hostages. Nightcrawler, I want maximum confusion and maximum speed. Get as many hostages as you can per teleport, and keep moving. These cells are dark, they'll have trouble targetting you." he said with a mirthless grin. "And as for me, I'll draw as many of them as I can down this central corridor here and deal with them." he said. "Any questions?"
"Understood", Kurt said with a grim smile of his own. "I am ready to move."
"Then let's do this," Marie said firmly. Her training with Cain had gotten her to stop flinching when she was fired upon, so acting like a human shield wasn't going to be too much of a problem.
---
Both men on the first floor were looking out over the water, idly following the lights of the city. Their automatic weapons were slung, and it was obvious that they didn't expect trouble without warning first. Remy moved silently, trusting Nate to take the one on the right. He waited a two count, and grabbed the first man, twisting his head back painfully with one hand over his mouth, and the other at his throat. There was a small amount of noise as he struggled, but Remy's thumb was pressed down deeply on his carotid artery. After a silent ten count, he eased the limp man to the floor. Almost idly, he pocketed the two grenades that had been clipped to the guard's webbelt.
Nathan turned away from the other man, also lying unconscious on the ground, and his gaze moved over the first floor of the derelict building, fastening on the stairs up to the second floor. Up the stairs, or over the edge of the catwalk, he thought, glancing upwards. They'd be exposed, with the stairs, exposed and walking right down the length of the shooting gallery.
But Saidullayev was closer to the stairs, and the launcher... He looked at Lorna, pointing upwards at the catwalk. "~Gets you up there and taking their guns away faster,~" he subvocalized over the coms. "~I'll take the stairs.~" He gestured silently at Remy to follow him.
Lorna nodded, the door back in place behind her. She'd come to the same conclusion as Nathan and already had a good grip on the metal of the gun. Of course, that would only deal with that aspect of the threat. What came next would be the hard part. Taking a stabilizing breath, she lifted herself up over the catwalk just as the men began to move. Guns jerked from hands to surprised shouts then the sound of air rushing out of lungs as she turned their weapons against them.
Remy was moving even before the first shout. The cajun grabbed the top of the rail and vaulted over it, using his spatial sense and enhanced agility to give him a safe window on to the second floor. He spun and pulled the pins on both grenades, throwing them towards the racks of equipment the terrorists had brought, hoping to possibly kill the uplink or the power supply that way.
As the explosions scattered the terrorists, Remy was already moving left, clearing the stairs for Nate and drawing fire away from him. He hadn't identified any of the terrorists yet, moving too fast to do more than plot their position and avoid their fire.
Nathan reached the top of the stairs and brought his psimitar around, focusing. The blade flared with light, and the psi-blast, a combination of telepathy and telekinesis, sent the telepath flying back against the wall and down into a crumpled heap on the floor. Lightning came at him from the direction of the windows and Nathan dove for the floor even as he threw up a TK shield. It deflected the blast, barely.
Lorna bit off some deeply creative cursing as Remy's stunt with the grenades sent shrapnel across the second floor. Ripping a section railing from the edge of the catwalk, she hurled it into one of the energy throwers who was targeting Remy, having dispatched the three she'd taken the guns from in the first place. Then she whirled, blasting back at another mutant who...just kept coming.
LeBeau had cleared a gunman and pivoted in the air, lashing out with his staff. The energy projector had the misfortunate to have gotten used to projecting the focused plasma blast through his hands. It made his shots easy to track, and unfortunately for him, gave Remy an obvious target. The staff spun, the slightly flexible titanium alloy draw kinetic power exponentionally from the give and the speed. It shattered both wrists with frightening efficiency. The man went down howling, trying to curl around the pulped injury.
Another blast went over his head, and Remy tracked the section of steel smash heavily into the second energy projector. He shifted, ready to follow it up when another figure entered his spatial sense, bearing down on Lorna. The way the man was ignoring her onslaught said this was the superstrong thug. She didn't need rescuing, but her priority was the nuclear weapon. If the bruiser got lucky, the situation could get very bad quickly. He vaulted a ruined server stack and lashed out, his cards blasting chunks of the floor out in front of the charging mutant. His heavy tread hit the already weakened floor and it collapsed under him, hurtling him to the concrete floor sixteen feet below. Remy followed, leaping down the hole.
"Get de nuke. I'll take care of dis one!" he called as he disappeared.
Nathan was back on his feet, focusing on the remaining psi-signatures. The teleporter... where was the teleporter?
Then someone else, someone he recognized from the tape, was stepping out into the open, eyes narrowing and a look of cold anger on his face. Ilyas Saidullayev met his eyes - and the building went mad. Debris of every sort levitated, flying at him at murderous speeds, coming from all directions. Everything that wasn't nailed down, with the sole exception of the launcher, had turned in an instant into deadly missiles.
---
Turpal-Ali caught the movement out of the corner of his eye as Logan moved to carry out his part of the plan. "~Trouble,~" he snapped over his coms. "~Yevgeny! How many?~"
"~Just the one... no, three!~" came the reply from his teammate in the gun gallery, and then there was the unmistakable sound of Yevgeny's plasma blasts as he opened fire on Marie.
Logan did everything in his power to draw their attacker's fire. He was loud, he was obvious, and he was heading straight for them. He popped his claws and waved them at his attackers. If that didn't get their attention, little else besides a 9mm migraine would.
Kurt was all business, teleporting forward a few feet at a time in an effort to locate the hostages, and meanwhile glancing sideways at the cells to establish their dimensions.
Hostages were screaming, panicking as the terrorists opened fire, not just with plasma blasts from above, but those with guns on the floor of the cellblock as well. Parents shielded children with their own bodies, and Kurt's appearance only made some of the terrified civilians lose it even faster.
Kurt didn't waste time trying to calm them down, not when there was imminent danger to the hostages, instead grabbing one or two at a time - especially careful to take parents and children together - and teleporting with no ceremony to a place of safety outside before he returned.
The vast majority of them, oddly enough, were Japanese. Not all reacted in terror to Kurt, either. Those able to keep their heads realized what he was doing, and as he teleported back inside the cells, one after another, those inside almost automatically began to push the young or the elderly forward to be taken first.
He nodded to those doing so, in acknowledgment and respect, and a silent promise to come back for them when the more vulnerable hostages were safely gone.
Most of the guns seemed to be pointed at Logan as he made a spectacle of himself and Marie did what she could to block the rest of the bullets from reaching Kurt or the civilians. She let out a few curse words as an energy projector opened fire from somewhere in the gun gallery. Not for the first time, she wished that one of her abilities included something that could be used at long range without resorting to throwing things. Frowning, she forced herself to ignore him sincehis blasts were directed at Logan, while the other two seemed to be heading towards the cells and Kurt. Landing in front of the male Chechen, she shook her finger. "You wouldn't hit a lady, would ya?" Rogue asked as she aimed her fist at his face.
Logan spent much of his time getting shot. It hurt - a lot - but every bullet that spent itself in his body was one less that might go into a hostage. His body would repair each gunshot in moments, but he was still getting torn up fairly badly inside. A worthwhile trade, he thought through the haze of the pain. Better him than the hostages.
Turpal-Ali started to duck, then smiled grimly as a precisely placed plasma burst tore up the concrete between him and the girl. Yevgeny, giving him some room - and watching his back. He took the moment for a quick assessment of the situation. And there was Markha, coming up behind the girl quickly. Perfect. As bullets seemed to be doing no damage to her, Markha's intervention might be a necessary first step...
Leaping up as the ground in front of her shattered, Marie remained oblivious to the woman closing in behind her. She kept her attention fully focused on Turpal-Ali, since he hadn't revealed his power yet, meaning she needed to stay alert and on her toes. Anything but fire. Please, just no more fire. She continued towards him slowly, keeping her feet a few inches from the ground to pass over the broken floor.
Logan advanced further, the flesh behind the bullet holes in his leathers closing as quickly as they could. But as always with him there was no blood on the floor, only some splatter behind him that was carried by the bullets that through-and-throughed him. He grinned a disturbingly feral grin and advanced on the man with the gun. He was going to enjoy lacerating him.
Kurt 'ported back in from another ferrying of hostages, and looked around just in time to see the woman reach for Marie's arm. There was half a second frozen... half a second too long, though he teleported forward immediately after... just too late to stop Markha grabbing Marie.
At Markha's touch, Marie landed heavily, unable to keep herself the mere two inches above ground where she had previously been hovering. The two had obviously worked in tandem frequently - she barely had an instant to blink in surprise that someone was touching her and nothing was happening before Turpal-Ali launched his attack. The Chechen man leaned in close, almost touching her lips as he blew out an opaque cloud that a surprised Marie couldn't avoid inhaling. Leaning back, the smile on his face spoke to the enjoyment he felt as he waited for her to succumb to his toxic breath.
Coughing, Marie's eyes started to water as the poison worked it's way quickly through her system. Her body was burning from within, sweat dripping from her profusely, but she felt cold and her body shivered convulsively. She didn't even realize when she had fallen to her knees, her only concern was the fact that she couldn't seem to draw a full breath. But Ah'm invulnerable was her last conscious thought before her body hit the floor.
Logan roared as Marie crumpled like a beer can. Anyone between him and her was The Enemy and would be destroyed. He did, however, retain enough of himself to avoid killing the gunman in his path - instead, he just grabbed the man, ducked a clumsy swing, and then reached over to break the man's arm over his upper leg. He went down screaming, cradling his now-useless arm, and the screams were like music.
Kurt stared in frozen horror as Marie crumpled, and as Logan lunged forward to take on her attacker... and then something in his mind broke, and he teleported straight forward to engage Turpal-Ali, giving him no chance to use his power or do anything but try to defend himself from Kurt's fists and feet.
---
It was clear that Saidullayev wasn't trying to merely slow Nathan down; he wanted him gone, now. Chunks of concrete, nails, splinters of wood - they were all speeding towards Nate with one intention, that of tearing him into as many small pieces as possible so that he could get on with his mission.
Nathan froze them in mid-air. It was like slamming into a brick wall, and the headache started instantly - Saidullayev was strong, far stronger than he'd expected, and Nathan knew very decidedly out of practice. It was an effort even to channel force through the psimitar to amplify it. Focus was far harder than it should be, and for a moment he flinched, taking an automatic step back...
No. Who was the Spartan here, and who was the fucking homicidal terrorist? Nathan's grip on the debris solidified, and his jaw clenched as he started to push back. Right back into your face, you bastard...
The Chechen man spat a curse, though he hadn't expected to get off that easily. The other people around them were engaged in their own personal battles, and nobody seemed to notice the look of intense concentration that came over Saidullayev's face next. Nobody except Nathan.
Immediately the debris fell to the floor, ignored, as the terrorist altered the lines of telekinetic force in a smooth, practiced move and abruptly buffeted Nathan with several heavy TK blows.
Nathan managed to block a few of them, but not all, and was profoundly glad for the thickness of his body armor. It prevented broken bones or worse, but it didn't keep him from hitting the floor hard, gasping as he caught his breath. Next he'll be aiming at my head...
He was so not falling for that particularly predictable tactic. Nathan gritted his teeth and forced power through the psimitar, feeling it build. It flung him up off the floor and through the air at Saidullayev, telekinetic energy gathering around him, glowing gold.
Let's take this outside.
Together, the two telekinetics crashed through the exterior wall and fell. The drop wasn't insanely high, but it was high enough. The impact with the wall plus the impact with the water was harder than Nathan had anticipated. He didn't quite black out, but he found himself drifting away from Saidullayev for a moment, stunned.
After the surprise of the impact, the coldness of the water began to set in, and neither man was exactly dressed for a nighttime swim. Nathan felt himself began to sink steadily, as if there was a giant thumb pressing down on him from above, and knew it wasn't just the water drawing him down. Beyond him, Saidullayev floundered, spitting out water as he concentrated on both Nate and his own plight.
I hope Lorna's gotten to the nuke, was the first dim thought that popped into mind. Followed almost immediately by Fuck, I'm drowning! Stars were bursting behind his eyes, but Nathan found his concentration again, concentration and a dogged determination that he was not dying at the hands of a low-rent Chechen version of himself. Not tonight.
His exoskeleton took shape around him and he erupted out of the water, shattering Saidullayev's grip. The wings of the firebird unfurled, blazing brilliantly against the dark water and darker sky. Nathan could breathe again, and for a moment, he concentrated on doing just that.
He could hear an angry, though almost impressed, curse from below as the water churned and frothed. Saidullayev was still there, though he was making his way towards the nearby rocky shore as quickly as possible.
The bomb or the terrorist. The choice flashed through Nathan's mind in an instant, the decision made almost as quickly. Damn it! The firebird's wings beat once, twice, propelling him upwards. Back to the nuke, and his team.
There were priorities and then there were priorities.
---
Logan left Kurt to his bloody business, as he was more concerned with getting Marie out of harm's way. "Rogue? Rogue? C'mon, kid, hop to it!" he said, eyeing her for signs of life. She was alive, he noted with a surge of relief after a few moments - he saw her draw a shallow breath and release it. Looked like whatever kind of serious whammy got put on her took her down and out.
Marie's breathing grew more and more shallow with every breath, as she continued to deteriorate. Her clammy skin had grown shades paler than normal and she suddenly began seizing with such intensity that she cracked one hand on the concrete floor. She let out another breath and it took even longer than before for another shaky breath to be inhaled.
Markha's first instinct had been to help Turpal-Ali, but with the American girl unconscious, the feral seemed to be distracted. It would be the perfect opportunity to take him down and then she could turn her focus to the teleporter who seemed intent on beating her teammate to a bloody pulp. Then they could deal with all the hostages. Running forward, she reached out to grab him while simultaneously pulling a knife from her belt.
With a total focus and clarity of situation, Logan's claws took the knife - and a good chunk of the hand that wielded it - with a swipe of the claws on his left hand. The other hand raked claws across his attacker's chest, scoring deep into muscle and bone. Not a killing blow, but an incapaciting one. The woman fell with a gurgling scream but Logan ignored it.
He had more important things to worry about. "Man down!" he subvocalized over the com as he dropped to his knees next to Marie's laboring body. He could hear her heart go arrhythmic, feel her fight to draw breath grow even more labored. If he didn't do something soon he was going to lose her.
Logan pulled off his glove and gently put it next to Marie's face. He composed himself as best he could, waiting for her power to come and steal away his vital energy, steal the very stuff of his life.
If he sacrificed, she would live.
At first the pull was soft and subtle, as Marie's injured body struggled to take in his life energy and healing factor. Gradually, her white blood cells grew stronger, combating the biotoxin flowing through her system. They were no match for her stolen enhancement and her breathing became steady and even. Tissue that had begun to deteriorate started to regenerate as Marie's body regained strength. It greedily pulled more and more from Logan until visible lines appeared on his face, blue veins rising to the surface. Her eyes snapped open, the girl pushing the man's hand away and watched him fall to the floor, blood flowing from several of the bullet holes that had reopened.
Cracking her neck, her anger flared as she surveyed the situation, dropping to her knees to brush a gloved hand across Logan's face. The energy projector in the gun gallery chose exactly that moment to resume his attack on her and her fallen companion, hitting the ground with a plasma blast mere inches from where Logan's body had crumpled. Snarling, she launched herself upwards, letting her nose lead her directly to Yevgeny. "Boo," she drawled as she grabbed him and swung him out of his hidden position, slamming his body against a cement wall. Feeling his body grow limp, she tossed him back into the gun gallery, baring her teeth at his fallen body.
She noticed that Kurt was still pummelling the man who'd attacked her and saw no need to stop him. Before he'd helped her, Logan appeared to have taken care of all the gunmen, their unconscious bodies strewn at one end of the corridor. Landing by Wolverine, she checked his vitals and was relieved to find him breathing regularly. "Man down, tangos and guards have been neutralized, will resume evacuation protocol," she said into her comm. She noticed that several of the hostages were peering out from one of the cells, terrified expressions plastered on their face. "~Do not worry, we will get you all out of here safely,~" she said with a small bow to the Japanese group.
Turpal-Ali was failing fast under Kurt's onslaught, taking step after step back until there was nowhere else to go. And still Kurt didn't stop, looking more like the demon than he ever had before as he snarled at the man in guttural Rom. He hadn't even noticed that Marie was back on her feet, or that Logan was down, though it wouldn't have surprised him. And it wasn't even only Marie he was thinking of - it was her, and Marius, and even Radonic, and others.
"~You will pay for their pain~."
He was too fast, this blue-skinned mutant - and mutants, why were other mutants attacking them? It was all the thought Turpal-Ali could spare for the whys and wherefores, because he was being backed into a corner, into one of the cells, and the other mutant's face was twisted in blind rage. He just kept coming, and there was no way Turpal-Ali could block even half of those blows.
A foot slammed into his jaw, and bone fractured beneath the blow.
He hadn't fallen yet. That was all Kurt could see, that the man wasn't down.
Of course, in Kurt's current state of mind, staying down was no guarantee of safety.
Unable to use his power, in a not-inconsiderable amount of pain, Turpal-Ali finally stumbled, losing his footing. He hit the ground awkwardly and tried to roll away from Kurt's assault.
Down, but he was still conscious, still moving, and that meant he might get back up again and continue the fight. That meant it wasn't done yet. Kurt kicked him in the ribs, with bone-breaking force.
#Nightcrawler!# Nathan's voice in his mind was sharp, his presence edged with shock, concern, and more than a trace of anger. #Kurt, stand down! Now!#
His head snapped up as if in response to an actual sound, and he looked down at the man at his feet, seeming about to ignore Nathan and continue the attack. Then he shook his head, eyes wide, and all but staggered a step or two back.
#Secure the terrorists and get the rest of the hostages out,# Nathan snapped - and was gone again, his attention clearly drawn elsewhere.
None of the terrorists looked to be in any state to walk, so wouldn't take much securing, he noticed absently through his confusion. That left the hostages, and he turned to complete the job he'd been doing before.
---
Ears still ringing from the grenades, all Lorna could tell was that Remy had shouted something as he'd vanished with the brute she'd been about to face. Shrugging it off and hoping that he hadn't said something like 'by the way, I just pulled the pin on another grenade and it's right behind you', she turned to assess the situation. The energy thrower she'd hit with the railing was just struggling to his feet. She slammed him back again with barely a thought then looked around for the other one.
His dulled screaming was barely enough loud enough to cut through the ringing. Ignoring his injuries, he let off another blast of energy, the power surging through wrists twisted and maimed. Lorna threw herself to the floor, feeling the superheated energy sear over her back and the metal beneath heat. This time she did swear and with a quick sloppy gesture yanked the railing from one mutant to the other.
As she was dealing with the energy-projector, there was another flash of light - not directed at her or any of her team, just a harmless-looking flare over by the stairwell. When it faded, there was a young woman in fatigues standing there, and she bolted for the launcher, hands outstretched as if she were desperate to make physical contact.
Someone shouted at her, and another man stepped out from behind the launcher, staring hard at Lorna. Had the building been properly lit, Lorna would have been able to see his eyes swirling in nauseating patterns of green and blue. As it was, there was no need to see the minor physical manifestation of his powers when its effects became so obvious.
It was lucky that Lorna was already on the ground as the world tilted alarmingly and spun on its end. Nausea was instantaneous and Lorna was forcibly reminded of the tunnels a year previous when she'd been assaulted by a telepath. But in that year, Lorna had learned a great many new tricks. The world might be rebelling, her body might be insisting that she would fall if she tried to stand but the EM fields remained stable and secure. And the mutant had made the mistake of standing too closely to a window. Glass shattered as the metal frame ripped itself from the wall and wrapped around him and threw him to the ground. Vertigo vanished and Lorna lay gasping on the ground, disoriented and sick.
There were a great many factors for which no one could account, in a situation like this. One of those factors on this particular night was the youth and inexperience of the woman rushing towards the launcher to teleport it away. Seeing her teammate attacked by a windowframe drew a very specific reaction. The teleporter stumbled to a stop, recoiling instinctively - and she was still a good ten feet from the launcher.
Lorna gave her no time to recover. Still half-kneeling, she flung a hand out, EM fields warping and bending like water and soundlessly taking the launcher with them. Inside the missile, the touch was more delicate, small touches and tiny tweaks--work that she could have never done without tutelage from the master of this mutation. She looked from the useless weapon to the woman and shook her head.
And that was when Nathan flew back in through the windows - 'through' being the operative word. The wings of the exoskeleton smashed through what was left of that side of the wall as he made a spectacularly clumsy landing, skidding across the floor and nearly falling to his knees. The young teleporter looked at him, wide-eyed, and then vanished in another flash of light.
Nathan swore and looked back over his shoulder. "She's gone for Saidullayev," he said, the exoskeleton collapsing as he rushed over to the launcher, even as he gave Lorna a quick, intent look. "You all right?"
Lorna nodded wearily and finished climbing to her feet, wobbling a bit as she stood. "That's useless now. I figured it was better than letting it get away so that they could try this again. Nice entrance, did you learn that landing from Cannonball?"
"That's me. Hard on historical sites," Nathan said without looking up from the missile. Telekinesis loosened the tiny screws on one of the plates and it shifted aside to give him a closer look at the innards of the missile. They had no Geiger counter with them, definitely an oversight, but he needed to check the warhead itself, to make sure there was no visible damage. "Cable to base," he said. "The launcher is disabled. Repeat, the launcher is disabled and we've got the nuke-"
He cut himself off suddenly, every bit of color draining from his face so fast that his complexion was nearly gray. He reached up and switched off his com, and only then did he let the reaction come. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, his voice shaking badly. "It's a neutron bomb."
Lorna had been checking the various downed terrorists but turned back at that, spurred by the strain in his voice. "Cable?"
#It's a neutron bomb. It's American,# he sent, switching to telepathy half in distress, half out of not wanting her mike to pick up anything else. #It's a W70-3. If they'd detonated this over the city, an airburst... it's a tactical anti-personnel nuke. Most of the city would have been left intact, but the population...#
She shuddered and flinched both at the telepathy and the implications. #Warn me before you do that,# she sent back, hard-won shields shuttering into place. As always her thoughts were far from clear, messy from lack of practice though they held a sharper line than they had before. #How did they get an American bomb?# She secured the last of the gunmen with a seamless band of metal over his wrists.
"Not a clue," Nathan said very softly, aloud. #Remy, if you're done down there, feel free to join us.# He reached up and turned back on his com. "Cable to base," he said, and his voice was as steady as it had been shaky a moment before. "We've recovered the nuke. The weapon appears to be a modified W70-3 with enhanced radiation capabilities. Let your specialist know, but stand by until we're sure we've secured the island."
Duncan would have heard that. Something, some vague instinct, made him think that was a good idea. To make sure that someone they could trust knew about this. He'd have to make Cooper knew too.
Remy came up the stairs, moving slowly and trying to ignore the pain in his ribs where he'd been thrown into the steel support pillers. He'd stopped the blood from where his scalp had been gashed open, leaving his auburn hair looking rusty and brown now. #Guess dat's dat.# he commented, before taking a seat on a stack of metal boxes which at first glance looked to be carrying boxes of Russian made semtex.
Doing a double-take at the amount of damage that Remy had taken, Lorna crossed the floor quickly, avoiding debris and disabled terrorists alike. She stopped, hovering just out of arm's reach, trying not to look distressed as she gave him a surreptitious once over. Time was when she'd have closed the gap instead of hesitating but it didn't seem like the right thing to do, temporary teammate or not. She took a breath and backed off again.
"Nightcrawler, join us when you can. We need you," Nathan said over the com, not reaching out to Kurt's mind - he had gotten himself under control, Nathan had felt that much, but he didn't want to delve into what had happened. Not right now. He needed to stay focused. #We have to get you off the island fairly promptly, Remy. I can only stall for a few minutes. Come over here and take a look at this bomb while you've got a chance.#
Remy walked over the rocket and took a look. #Doesn't look like a Russian construction. Too small, too many micro-components.# That about exhausted the limits of Remy's knowledge about large munitions. He'd never been involved in any of the Agency's counternuclear sabotage programs.
#It's American. I recognized it as soon as I removed this piece of the casing. It's an enhanced-radiation device - a neutron bomb. Of a type that should have been retired in the early 90s.# Nathan shook his head. "Nightcrawler," he said more forcefully over the coms. "I need you up here."
There was only one thing that Kurt, specifically, would have been called for at this late stage of the mission. After a moment, his voice came over the comms, oddly flat and disjointed. "Where is Gambit?"
"Gambit?" Over the comm, David Langstrom's voice cut in over the command frequency. "Cable, this is Langstrom. Did your teammate just say Gambit?"
#KURT!# The projected thought was as involuntary as it was loud, but Nathan shoved the flash of anger away and thought fast. Very fast. "Yes," he said rapidly, "we IDed him with Saidullayev but lost track of him in the firefight - he came in with the teleporter, in the thick of it. That's why I said stand by, because we haven't secured-" Interior walls shattered under the impact of telekinesis in a perfectly timed interruption.
#Remy, get off the semtex.# In contrast, Nathan's mental voice was perfectly cool, although there was another internal voice that was cursing a blue streak. The evening had just developed an unnecessary complication, and there was no way they could be sure of a perfect solution. Not on the fly like this.
#Langstrom isn't going to just let that slide on a fake explosion, Nate.# Remy knew what the plan he had in mind was, but also knew the tenacity of the CIA officer. He pulled off the torn strip of cloth that he'd used to stop the bleeding on his head, and passed it over with his staff. #Starting to run out of dese. Leave de cloth somewhere, he'll get suspicious if you hand him something just like dat. Dere's enough spots downstairs to confirm it.# He bent down and started shifting the boxes of semtex to the opposite corner. #Better for you if Remy doesn't exist anymore.#
Part of the exterior wall blew outwards under another telekinetic shockwave. There wasn't going to be much of this old building left by the time they were done. "Polaris, watch your back!" Nathan yelled, despising the theatricality. Channeling the aggravation, he collapsed the floor on the south side of the building. #Blow the damned Semtex, Remy. I'll shield us and the nuke.#
Lorna gave Nathan a mocking salute and tucked herself behind both men so she could add her shields to his around the nuke. She'd really hate to have it blow up now. Things had been going so well up until now too.
"Stay on the nuke!" Nathan yelled, then rolled his eyes at himself and blew out one of the few semi-intact rows of windows. This would have been funny if the situation hadn't been this serious. To have gone through the whole operation and blown it like this at the end of the day...
Remy finished wiring up the detonator. His staff lay on top of the pile, and he hoped the explosion wouldn't carry it out to sea. He stepped back, laying the wire as he went until he was inside of Cable's shield range, and triple clicked the trigger.
Nathan flinched as the explosion smashed against his shield, the force of it ike a living thing boiling with fury, trying to find a way in. For a moment, he didn't think he was going to be able to hold, and the absolute absurdity of the situation was the only clear thought left to him. We get the nuke and then blow ourselves up... But then it was over, the explosion had run its course - and taken most of that side of the building with it - and he was on his hands and knees on the floor, his head spinning and the taste of blood at the back of his throat.
Deafened for the second time this mission, it took Lorna a minute to recover and respond to the voice demanding over the comms to know what the hell was going on over there and where was LeBeau? "Vaporized, sir." She looked over at Remy then to Nathan, still kneeling on the ground recovering from shielding the blast, "Blown out to sea." She moved to Nathan's side and offered him her hand. "We're clear here for pick up of the remaining terrorists."
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