Ahab -- The Rescue, part II

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The turn.

WARNING: Graphic violence



Binding the fleeing lab technicians with cable ties would have been much easier with the use of two hands. But with just one and a half, it required a flexibility that would make an acrobat jealous. Injured hand wrapped to keep it from getting hurt more, Shiro was employing some creative techniques to cuff the techs.

He was nearly knocked to his feet, though, as the hospital erupted, first with a thunderous boom, and mere moments later with a blinding flash of light. Shiro's first reaction wasn't much more than wtf. But with lots of actual swearing. His second was to glance over at Rogue and Siryn briefly before abandoning the techs to rush into the building. He could only hope that it was a friendly boom.

Terry yelped involuntarily as the explosion rocked the area and she fumbled the knot she was tying. Luckily the tech was in no shape to take advantage of her momentary lapse and she finished up as quickly as she could, running after Sunfire.

What now? was Marie's only threat as she finished securing a knot. Pushing off the ground, she sped to catch up with her teammates and find out what exactly had happened with a final prayer that nothing else had gone wrong.

***

It was blinding. Nathan staggered to a stop, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes, instinctively. It didn't do much good.

The last time Jennie had caused a lucksnap, two city blocks had been destroyed and one of her friends had nearly been killed. This time the effects were on the opposite side of the spectrum, and much simpler.

Clarity. Precious and incomplete. But enough.

When the light subsided, the girl pulled her hands away from her face, breathing heavily. She looked at her hands, and then towards the man standing nearby. His signature still stood out sharply, but now, so did his face. Her eyes widened in recognition. She stared at him in shock, opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't piece together the thoughts to form words. A loud crash made her twist towards the left, and another signature on the other side of the room caught her attention. The aura pulled at thin shreds of memory, --such a pretty bird--. Thoughts began to coalesce in her shattered mind, and her face twisted into an angry snarl. Before Nathan could stop her, Jennie was gone.

***

It was too easy. The stocky man smirked, watching the chaos unfold from a relatively safe vantage point at the side of the room: Take away a mutant's powers and he was nothing, worse than a baseliner - a child stumbling through a haze. He was about to take himself out of harm's way when the world went white.

The light -- the flip --

It hurt him, that he knew. Kyle didn't understand what the blinding light was, but it had hurt him. He'd hoped for one brief moment that this was a nightmare, a variation on the ones he'd been having since March. But in those nightmares, he was always alone.

He wasn't now. What was pack were now his friends, he could still smell them, and feel them on the air and under his skin. What were targets became teachers, friends. People he knew. People he could not attack. They had packs... no, -families-, Kyle reminded himself, of their own.

And the man that had been wholly half of his entire world a moment ago was -not- his Leader, not his Master, and he was the reason they were all here.

He unfolded, standing straight, and panned the room, nose in the air and teeth bared. Kyle couldn't feel him like he could the rest. But he could smell him. He'd fled, and that was only going to make this easier.

Kyle tilted his head back letting out a baying howl, and then took off in a run in the direction that Rory Campbell had fled.

Across the room Marius's spine curled almost double as the world snapped like a branch finally pulled too far in the wrong direction. Sound, smell -- lines and chance flickering around him -- his hands rose to tear at his head.

Retractable claws creased down the side of his face, trailing dark strands. Marius uncrouched, the moment of disorientation settling around him. Suddenly the mutants moving around him were more than just signatures. They were people he knew. People he'd been waiting for . . .

. . . or people who had put him here.

Wipeout blinked, hard, momentarily disoriented, rubbing at his eyes to rid his vision of the dark spots that had replaced the flash of light. It was definitely time to get out of here - he turned to leave, but something, an ordinary human reflex, made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and he glanced wildly in the other direction, seeing nothing.

Marius slammed into him from the opposite side claws-first. Instincts even deeper than those instilled by the conditioning took over, threaded through lingering traces in his own mutation. They'd driven him back in the throes of the hunger that no longer existed, just like they'd taken over when he saw his two friends lying unconscious in the streets of Monte Carlo. They looked at the man twisting beneath him and said: mutant, threat -- attack.

With an inarticulate cry, Wipeout threw an arm up to protect his face; but he hadn't realized that he might need something to protect his arm. Kicking at the boy - a savage! This job was turning out very badly indeed - he found himself falling, struggling, under Marius's weight.

A claw snapped as Marius' ripping fingers caught in the man's protective bodyarmor, thwarting the chance of evisceration, but. Marius could remember the table. Beaten, barely conscious, body heavy and cold with chemicals -- and that man, standing nearby. Not a doctor, not a technician. Just standing there, watching.

The stiff padding of the armor protected the vital areas of Wipeout's body, but joints still needed to be able to articulate. And so when Marius pressed his face to the bend of the mercenary's elbow his sharpened teeth found nothing in their way but fragile cloth.

Wipeout's scream echoed through the room; his other arm, flailing ineffectively, managed only to pull him back at the same time that the boy's head snapped away, tearing flesh with it. He fell, clutching his elbow, breathing uneven and ragged, and tried to curl up, to prevent another attack.

Marius's jaws worked under crimson-smeared olive skin, chewing the flesh once, twice. Then, having taken all he needed, he spat the red gob onto the tile unswallowed. Leaning over the cringing man, the boy bared teeth stained with Wipeout's own blood, and amber eyes bleached white as Marius suppressed every unfamiliar power on the floor.

There was enough consciousness in him to notice that it really didn't take much blood at all.

Wipeout cringed away from the boy, clutching at his arm, silent with fear and a white, quiet rage at the absolute mess this was becoming. But he didn't seem to hold the little bastard's attention, prone though he was: The boy was gone in an instant, off to some unknown task.

***

It was like struggling up from a deep slumber, fighting the pull to sink back down into darkness where it was calm and safe. The colors were overbright, sounds and smells too loud; choking, suffocating, threatening to confuse her. But Jennie's entire world had sharpened, pinpoint thin towards the man up in the seats, driven by one desire. They would never hurt her again.

"...bloody arse-" Still a little disoriented from the kick to his face, Ramrod hadn't taken any notice of Jennie until it was too late.

She slammed into him so hard she knocked them both through two rows of seats. Instincts tinged with the barest shreds of memory drove her, they'd built her as something that would hurt mutants. And now they would see just how successful they were. Retractable claws scraped against flesh, coming away red.

The bitch had torn a good chunk of his skin off. "Feckin' cunt!" Directing a kick to her stomach, he made a quick grab for his wooden staff. It lengthened in his hold, forming into a stake as he struck out at her.

Jennie barely sidestepped the sharp end of the stick, lifting her elbow and trapping it between her arm and body. With a vicious tug she pulled it loose from his grip and flung it away. There was no fear in her eyes, only deadly purpose. She was possessed of an almost suicidal madness, to return the hurt that had been given to her. She struck again, so fast she was a blur of red and black.

What he lacked in agility, he more than made up for in build and strength. He blocked her next attack with his arm and swung his fist out. Backing away, Ramrod smarted out a grin as he pulled a piece of wood out of his coat. A look of puzzlement crossed over his face however as he eyed the tool in his hand. The damn thing had been rendered completely useless by the sudden loss of his powers.

"...shite-"

The girl grabbed Ramrod by the front of his coat, picking him up and throwing him hard against the back wall of the theatre. Within moments she was on top of him, raking him with the clawed things that had become her hands.

She was strong and merciless, all too powerful. Ramrod hadn't quite expected that of course. He blocked her attacks with his arms and attempted to kick her off of him but it was a futile effort as her moves were far too quick, his reactions slow in comparison.

Claws found purchase in the Irishman's face, digging in savagely. Jennie lowered her face until it was inches from his, expression cold. She could tear him to pieces, rip and shred and rend until there was nothing left. But what remained of Jennie wanted him to suffer. Suffer as long and as hard as she had, tied to a table, screaming for her mother in the dark. Jennie's face began to reflect the crimson light from her fingers. It was not cohesive thought, but feeling that drove her.

Never again. Never, never never...

The loud scream echoed throughout the theatre with the blunt brutality of a gunshot. White spots of pain danced through his vision as he clutched a hand against his upper abdomen, fingers fisting, digging into the material of his shirt. His eyes flashed out in anger for the briefest of moments as he lunged forward in a last ditch attempt to overpower her; but the burning feeling in the area of his stomach proved a little too much as he doubled over in pain, dry heaving before upchucking blood all over the floor.

Jennie stepped back calmly as Ramrod retched up blood, tilting her head and watching her handiwork with the detached curiosity of a child who had just fried an anthill with a magnifying glass. Blood dripped from the tips of her fingers. He really should have taken better care of his health, it had taken very little nudging for him to develop a bleeding ulcer.

Kurt was staring in open horror at what Jennie had done - and knowing the nature of her powers, it was easy to guess Ramrod's sudden collapse and hemorrhage was down to her. He forced his eyes away from the other man, looking up at the girl slowly.

The girl met Kurt's eyes, and a reflection of several emotions crossed her face. Pain, rage, loss, and a brief flicker of hope. His name she couldn't quite place, but she knew him. She did. She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, looking down at her bloodied hands. Then the emotion drained out of her face, like a chalk slate being wiped clean. The shreds of memory fading like a half-remembered dream.

She swayed, and when she looked back up at Kurt, it was obvious her moment of clarity had faded. The Hound was back, and it saw Kurt only as a mutant, and a threat. She growled and crouched, ready to spring.

He didn't hesitate, but there was terrible sadness in his eyes as he pulled the tranq gun from its holster, leveled it, and fired it at her chest.

The sound of a shriek being sharply cut off echoed throughout the theatre. The girl stared at the dart sticking out of her chest, and then back up at Kurt. Her eyes rolled up to the top of her head and she crumpled bonelessly to the ground.

Kurt looked at Ramrod first, just to check... but he didn't seem to be in immediate danger of death, and Kurt couldn't find much sympathy for him, really. His next move was to Jennie, checking her pulse before lifting her. Time to get her out of harm's way.

***

The jumble of thoughts going through Ororo's mind was slammed into sudden relief as she impacted the wall, thrown bodily against the unforgiving cement-enforced barrier by the mutant brute she was fighting. They were outnumbered. They were outpowered. They had found the students, but there was not much left of them to call students anymore. The spike of rage this thought drove through her was enough to propel her up off the floor and onto her feet once more, and she turned to confront her opponent with a newfound sense of purpose. It wasn't often that the weather-worker got angry, but there was every reason for her to be now.

Hairbag was advancing on her, close enough now to swipe with his claws to try and take her down again. No need or want to speak, not here, just determination to get the job done they'd been paid for.

With a twist Ororo moved out of the way of his claws, grateful for the leather suit which had so far protected her from the worst of the injuries offered by the heavyset man. Around them chaos reigned, though her senses felt dulled with the absence of her powers and she had to rely on the sights and sounds of the fighting to locate the rest of her team.

Her opponent seemed unconcerned for the rest of his own team, focusing only on her. One heavy clawed almost-paw slashed out at her throat, above the collar of her uniform.

Ducking quickly, Ororo once again evaded him, lashing out with a foot towards his kneecap. She knew she could never defeat him with strength, and so began to glance around as she retreated for anything that might provide her with an advantage.

Hairbag growled as the kick connected, staggering for a moment, but recovered quickly and followed her. The claws were metaphorically retracted for a moment, as he tried another route... tackling her with all his weight.

This proved to be a much more effective strategy as they both went crashing to the ground together. Ororo's breath was driven from her in a rush and she could do little else but try and squirm out from under her very heavy opponent. Spots danced before her eyes as she struggled to suck in a breath, knowing that every second she spent trapped was another moment left for Rory to escape.

The weight on Ororo suddenly increased as red-clad arms snaked around the neck of the man above her, elbows braced against the collarbone and wrists crossed so the dark hands could cover her attacker's face right over left. In a normal fight crooked fingers could have done damage by hooking the more vulnerable tissues: a tearduct, a nostril, the corner of the mouth. These fingers were tipped with claws -- and, as the boy who had been Ororo's student curled back his lips over his blood-stained teeth behind the mass of stiff, bristly hair on the man's scalp, tore.

Just as she had been about to get her wind back it was driven out of her again, and Ororo had to fight to keep from being crushed by the increased bulk on top of her. As Hairbag began to contend with this new threat she drew her legs up to her chest and planted her feet on his chest, pushing with all her strength to try and take advantage of the sudden instability of his lurchings.

Hairbag was rather thoroughly distracted from Ororo at this point, focusing more on the pain in his face and trying to throw off his attacker. He was bleeding profusely all over her, though.

Waiting for an opportune moment, as soon as the tangled forms of Hairbag and Marius reared back Ororo rolled out from beneath them, scrambling to her knees as soon as she could. She had no way to predict how this would turn out - though Marius (or what had been Marius) was rending the other man with claws and teeth like a wild animal, Hairbag was much heavier and had not yet given up the fight. There was only one thing she could think of to do.

Quickly Ororo unclipped the tranq gun from where it hung on her belt, checking with shaking fingers that it was loaded with darts. As the two mutants twisted and fought before her she raised it levelly and shot off several darts, aiming for Hairbag's broad chest as best she could.

Hairbag's pelt was heavy; clothing was constricting and uncomfortable. He wore no kind of covering on his upper body, and that was why there was nothing to buffer the solid thok, thok of two darts finding their mark. One struck the join of the chest and shoulder. The other, the neck.

Blood in his eyes, wounds ripped into his face. Marius' opponent didn't even seem to register the darts. A huge clawed hand flung him away. The boy went sprawling. He sprung to his feet again, snarling and ready for retaliation, only to find the other man already staggering. Hairbag made a wild swipe at the air, the movement clumsy and uncoordinated, and fell. Muscles went slack, knees buckled, and the mercenary hit the floor. Unconscious, defenseless, the sheen of red dusting the edge of Marius' altered perceptions mellowed and dimmed. Hairbag was down.

Slowly, Marius turned to Ororo.

She lowered the tranq gun. How could she not? Though he was barely recognizable as the boy that she had last seen at the mansion, it was still Marius. She wasn't a threat to him, she only wanted to bring him back where he could be safe, where hopefully something could be done about his condition. Keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed towards the floor, Ororo stood silently, waiting to see if he would recognize her.

Breath coming deep, blood on his face and in his throat. Blood all he could smell. Lights wound around the woman standing before him, her gun lowered and posture open. Two colors danced, shifting intensity with every panting breath: red and white at war. For an instant what was left of Marius struggled, grasping for the thing that stalled him about this woman he should know.

Then, like a word said too many times, the connection between the meaning and the thing was lost. Crimson flooded the world. All that remained was his master's voice, and the command it had left him with.

Augmented muscles bunched beneath the sensor-studded red of the bodysuit, and Marius lunged.

To her credit, Ororo's hands were finally steady as she lifted the tranq gun in one smooth motion, aiming it at the oncoming young man and squeezing the trigger as many times as it would take to bring him down. It was only afterwards, bending over the fallen body, that she began to shake again, her nerves as fragile as the thinnest sheet of ice on a puddle. Staring down at the twisted, unfamiliar features of Marius' face, all she could think was: What if we are too late?

***

The scene that greeted Shiro as he blasted his way into the operating theater was not one he could have ever dreamed. He'd seen many of his teammates turned into foes, been one himself, even. But the three students who were ripping, clawing, and violently fighting their way to vengeance were not the three he'd have imagined to be facing. He froze as he landed, surveying the scene with a frightening intensity. Children fighting without any apparent goal but to cause as much pain as possible, wielding more power than they were designed to have, unable to discern between friend and foe . . . In the back of his head, Shiro could hear muffled shouts and curses in Korean and the thunderous clap of superheated air burning everything in its path.

"There you are, you little tosser," the Oxford-accented voice was rougher now, as Slab lumbered his way into the room, mass increasing as he stalked towards Shiro. "That auburn-haired tart has most likely given me a concussion, but you - you burned me, and that, as Sir Winston himself said, is the shit up with which I shall not put. Prepare yourself for a sound thrashing, lad!"

By the time he reached Shiro, Slab was over ten feet tall, with one blistered fist cocked back for what was sure to be a killing blow.

"What have you done to them?" Shiro's voice was quiet but hard. He jumped just moments before the titanic fist was to pound him into the ground, and flew over it, landing neatly a few feet away. The sounds of the fighting, of teachers trying to rein in their students, and the smells of blood and battle were too much. When Shiro looked up at Slab, all he saw was a middle-aged, heavyset Korean businessman, baring his teeth in a vicious smile as he held out the small, plastic inhaler.

"Shi ne!" It was barely more than a growl, and Shiro blasted himself at Slab, wreathed in blindingly golden flame, and aimed a punch square at Slab's jaw. Shiro's small stature notwithstanding, he was moving at such speed that the momentum he carried would have been enough to snap a normal person's neck.

Despite his size and strength, Slab's punches missed the faster mutant, and Shiro's uppercut sent him reeling. Grunting from both the pain of the punch and the searing heat of the flame, Slab reached down, picking up a hospital gurney and began swinging it wildly like a club, more to try and keep Shiro at bay as he suddenly found his attempted ambush becoming a fight for his life.

"See what you have done to me?" Shiro asked pleasantly even as he tore through the gurney with a concentrated blast of almost white fire. "I have you to thank for this, Chung Sheng Ho. And to display my gratitude, I will offer you a trip direct to the gates of hell." Beneath his fiery mantle, the power indicator on his right glove glowed a deep red, all the rays of the sun emblem illuminated. But that was ignored and everything else forgotten as Shiro flung himself like a torpedo at Slab's torso, igniting the air as he made contact with his opponent. He only saw his Kick dealer in front of him, and Shiro needed to make him pay. In Shiro's mind, there was nothing but him, Chung Sheng Ho, and a burning deli in the Lower East Side.

Slab swatted ineffectually at Shiro, then began screaming as his already-ragged shirt ignited, the scent of burning cloth changing to the acrid smell of searing flesh as he began to burn.

He was in excruciating pain by the sound of it, and that made Shiro smile. "Is that it?" he asked. "The great Chung Sheng Ho, brought down by one of his own dependents? Some criminal you are. But all the same, I will be doing everyone a favor by disposing you. And you ought to thank me. By killing you now, you will not have committed all the acts of evil that you could have, and maybe your next life as an eel will not be so painful." Just desserts for destroying his body, Shiro thought. If he was to be ravaged by this poison, then the simple fact of karma insisted that Ho ought to experience its effects, too. The thought almost made Shiro laugh as he concentrated, ionizing the air between his cupped hands and shaping the fire into a basketball-sized fireball.

Out of nowhere came a scream, a solid fist of sound that slammed Shiro hard--knocked him to the ground and pinned him there. "Sunfire!" Without letting up on her keen, letting another broadwave of sound smother Slab as well, Terry ran to her teammate's side, terrified that he'd really been about to kill the other mutant. She'd heard what most others wouldn't have, the hysteria and the taunts. Letting her scream fall silent, she kept talking, "Sunfire, that's enough. He's down. It's okay now."

The surprise attack had startled Shiro out of his fire form and extinguished the fireball, leaving nothing but hot air and a corrosive odor. "How dare you," he snarled as he pulled himself to his feet. He could not recognize the girl standing before him, and he found himself unable to care. Whoever she was, she had interrupted him. "What have you done?"

"That's not Chung Sheng Ho." She'd never have remembered the name if Shiro hadn't just said it. "You're in New Jersey." Terry watched him warily, ready to scream at the first flicker of flame. With her luck, he'd go after her hair and then she'd have to kill him messily.

A soft, nagging voice in his head insisted that he did know this girl. She was a classmate at one point, a peer, a teammate. Shiro shook his head ferociously, trying to clear the cobwebs he felt growing in his mind. What she said made no sense. He was in Manhattan. He was going to brutalize the man who had chemically brutalized him. Why did that concept make his head hurt?

She dropped her voice lower, pitched it to carry to his ears alone, "Shiro, we're done here. We've got Marius and Jennie and Kyle." Carefully she took a step closer, not trying to touch him just yet. By hearing alone, she placed everyone else in the room, knew that they were distracted with their own tasks and too far away to step in. "Talk to me, don't just look at me like that."

"Kyle?" Shiro knew that name. Why couldn't he place it? His head hurt. He continued staring at Terry, as if her just standing there would make everything make sense. Slowly, the pieces started coming together. The shouts and curses and sounds of a building burning to its foundations softened, replaced once again by the sounds of mutants battling one another, of teachers trying to reach their lost students. It was like the metaphorical (and cliché) veil was being lifted from his head as he slowly returned to reality. "Siryn? What just happened?"

Terry lifted hand and rubbed her temple, grimacing when she found her skin gritty with pulverized concrete. "You nearly killed him. Called him Ho." She gestured to Slab, now lying burned and mercifully unconscious a bit away. In order to speed this up, Terry decided to leave out the part where she knocked them down. "You all the way back with us now?"

Shiro shut his eyes tightly and forced himself to focus. His left hand throbbed painfully, and it took him a minute to remember that Slab had broken it. Slab, whom he and Marie had left unconscious outside. Why was he inside now? "I ought to leave. Make sure that those technicians will be securely apprehended." In his state, he would only hinder the mission, though from the looks of things, he wasn't sure if that was even possible.