xp_logs | Keep The Faith: Torment and Triumph

As the interrogation continues, Terry finds a couple low blows hitting their mark, and takes a stand.

Mystique had left the night before without another word, obviously fed up with Terry's refusal to tell her what she wanted to know. There had been no other visitors to her cell, no food or water provided, and no sign of any of the rest of the team, despite the shapeshifter's threats. It wasn't until the next afternoon that the door opened and someone entered - a wizened old woman in a woolen skirt and jumper.

Terry got up from her position curled on the corner of the bed, eyeing her visitor with weary suspicion. She wondered if fake wool jumpers still itched like the real ones did. And if Mystique was color-blind or just really into her role. "You've got to be kidding me. What the hell is with this get up?"

"Oh, this is what I always wear, dearie," the woman replied in an Irish brogue so thick it was almost undecipherable. "It gets cold on the island, you know. Have to bundle up, stay warm."

Terry's temper, always willing to take a spark, flickered dangerously. "Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat," she spat back, "That's going to be no more effective than playing at Bobby."

"Sure, maybe not to you, but there are plenty of people who are happy to believe me." The sharp look the old woman turned on Terry was completely out of place in her kind, wrinkled face. "I never got the chance to tell you, dearie, what a nice home you have. Such big, strong walls... pity anyone can walk right through the doors, with the right face on."

"Sure now I'm supposed to believe you played tourist at the Keep?" But that was possible. It was even likely. The Keep wasn't high security and little more than expectation of good behavior kept visitors in the approved areas. Bobby. Terry quashed the rising panic before it could choke her. She'd talked to him twenty four hours ago. He was fine. Not even Mystique could have done something to him in that time.

"And that little American boy, such a cute one, he is. So trusting and generous, too..."

Terry's hands fisted involuntarily. "I. Don't. Believe. You." She bit off every word like she could make the lie truth if she just clipped it close enough.

The old woman wheezed out a laugh. "Would you like me to describe the patterns of the rugs? Or the number of steps it takes to get up the stairs? It's hard on these old knees, I'll be telling you that much. But so worth it, if it means I can visit whenever I want. And nothing keeping me from slipping off to have a little fun on my own."

If she screamed just right, she could take the old woman out without breaking a single globe. Terry concentrated on breathing and reminded herself that there was a plan in place. "Are you going to get to any kind of point here? Threaten my bird or something? Tell me how you stole the family silver?"

"Oh no, dearie, not at all. I just thought you might want to hear that you're putting your husband in danger by being so hard-headed. You never know what kind of accidents might happen in a big drafty old place like that one is."

"You know enough about him to know he's not that vulnerable." Terry knew that much. But he was trusting. And if you could take advantage of that, you could destroy him. "If you think that threatening him is going to shake me, you don't know anything about our relationship."

"Of course, because a good leader doesn't care enough to make herself vulnerable." The old woman tsked, shaking her head. "Such a shame."

She couldn't help the flinch, or the fact that she looked away. There was no good response to that. No way to response without revealing how scared she was right now. Instead she counted to ten slowly, until she could be sure that her face was calm and her voice steady. "Like I said, you don't know anything. Sure that's a little sad isn't it? Aren't you supposed to be some kind of super spy?"

The old woman was suddenly gone, replaced once again by Bobby's familiar face, though it was contorted in fear and pain. "Terry, don't let her hurt me," he begged. "I just wanted to be strong for you..."

It was too easy to imagine Mystique putting that look into Bobby's eyes. But she couldn't do anything for him right now. Not until they were out of here. "Stop that. It's not going to work. You think seeing him is ever unwelcome?"

"Terry, please..." After a few more moments of tearful begging Mystique was once again herself, smirking confidently. "Not much of a wife or a leader, are you? Begs the question of whether there's anything you actually can do well."

"Well, I can sing. Let me show you," She started to hum, that sweetly seductive sound that invited a listener to trust her, love her, help her. Her voice took up the melody, sing-song and tempting, "You could offer me something, instead of threatening. I'm already at your mercy, nothing to lose. Give me something and I'll give something back. I was the leader for this. You don't really need the others, do you?"

The shapeshifter lashed out, one fist catching Terry squarely in the jaw in order to curtail the singing, which had been affecting her more than she wanted to admit. "Stop that," Mystique demanded angrily.

Terry caught herself after a stumble and rubbed her jaw, "You know, the punching comes across as a little insecure. What's the matter? Thinking I might have a point?" She didn't try again though. The fact that it had worked at all was surprising.

"I think," Mystique said shortly, "that you should tell me the access codes now, or your team will suffer for it. It may even be you that does it." With those words, Terry found herself staring a a mirror-image, one whose blue eyes narrowed as they fixed on her. "It's your choice."

"Can't do that." Terry gave herself a sunny grin, the punch having given her back a bit of confidence. "We don't know them. Sure and I thought that would be obvious. You've captured yourself a team of junior X-Men. The only thing we know is how to get into the locker rooms. That's trickier than you'd think."

Looking thoroughly disgusted, the other redhead stalked out of the room without another word. She paused in the doorway, however, and picked something up off a table in the hallway, tossing it back into the cell without a backward glance. The cloth, now more red than white, fluttered to the ground, and the door clanged shut behind her.

Terry hesitated for a second then rushed over, lifting the cloth, still wet with new blood. Her legs gave out and she sat heavily. Mystique's shifting tricks she could ignore. This she couldn't. Her decisions were doing this to them. "We're getting out of here," she whispered to herself. Her fist clenched around the fabric. "Right now."

The word is given.

"We're getting out of here. Right now."

The words carried through the metal of the pipes and the concrete of the floor, and Forge opened his eyes from where Nimrod had left him on the floor. Grimacing in pain, he levered himself up to a sitting position, his chained hands making the movement long and awkward. A glance downward told him that his damaged prosthetic was going to need an overhaul when he got out of this, but for the moment, it was exactly what he needed.

Slowly, he bent forward at the waist while tucking his legs under him, squeezing into a crouching lotus position. Craning his neck, he was able to get his teeth onto a broken piece of metal where Nimrod had crushed his calf, then wiggle it back and forth until the strained aluminum and steel gave way, leaving a long splinter of metal clutched in his teeth.

Kicking his legs around, Forge narrowed his eyes and maneuvered the improvised lockpick down to his manacles. While Nimrod had left him cowering on the floor, Forge had been using his powers to examine the construction of the restraints covering his hands. Intricately designed - obviously Toad's work, and for all his disgusting habits, the batrachian mutant was quite the locksmith. But he wasn't the God of Machines, Forge told himself as he probed at nearly-invisible hinges and catches.

Moments later, a subdued click signaled victory, and the restraints loosened enough for Forge to slip both hands free. Dropping the lockpick from his mouth, he smiled and flexed his hands. "Beat that, Remy," he taunted to no one in particular as he surveyed the room. True to what Veres had said, they hadn't left any kind of mechanical device in the room, and they'd stripped him of anything he'd been carrying. No radio, no clock, not even a thermostat.

Inventory: one set manacles, six feet of steel chain, one folding metal chair.

Not a lot to work with, Forge realized, before a light bulb shone over his head. Literally. He glanced up at the bare light bulb in the room's ceiling.

Connection.

"And here we go..." he mouthed, standing on the chair and reaching up to get to work.

***

"All right! All right! Veres! Nimrod! I'll talk!" Forge shouted, bracing himself just outside the locked door's arc. In his hands was the metal chair, wrapped in the steel chain and a long strip of bare copper wire that coiled around the chain and wound all the way back to the light socket. Small arcs of blue lightning jumped across the metal as Forge clutched the makeshift grips he'd made from stripped insulation.

As soon as the door opened and the tall Hungarian was silhouetted in the light from the hallway, Forge brought the chair down as hard as he could. When it connected with Nimrod's back, the sudden release of tens of thousands of volts of electricity filled the room with the sound of a thunderclap. Glowing filaments of electricity arced across the doorway, making the Brotherhood's powerhouse spasm and jump until Forge dropped the chair and collapsed to a knee next to Nimrod's smoking form.

Cautiously, Forge poked the unconscious mutant twice, then flicked a finger against one of his half-open eyes. Satisfied that he'd managed to actually stun the behemoth, he hesitated as he reached for the chair again. It would be so very easy to bring the edge of the metal down like a guillotine across Veres' throat, delivering a lethal jolt of electricity, stopping his heart as surely as if he were strapped into Old Sparky.

"I know what I am. I am aware." Nimrod's words echoed in Forge's ears.

"And so do I," Forge replied to his downed tormentor, dropping the chair and lurching into the hall. "Siryn, this Forge. Go. Go. Go."

Every breath that Kyle took came in smoothly and went out in a ragged exhalation. No matter how many times he tried to slow it, it was as though he couldn't keep air in his lungs. He could feel his heart racing, and his pulse throbbed in his neck and his fingers and toes twitched with unspent energy.

It felt like it took years for Senyaka to leave the room. The sadistic mutant had put his tunic on and smoothed out invisible wrinkles, folded the red mask, and even tidied up the room before he left, leaving Kyle alone, strapped to the table.

"Good. We're alone. Now you can leave." The other Kyle said, from where he leaned casually against a well.

Kyle couldn't help but laugh, even though he didn't want to make any sounds. And laughing -hurt-. ~Great, now I'm nuts and stupid~. He coughed, trying to stop the painful laughter. ~Maybe you didn't notice but I'm kinda strapped down here. And the psycho, that'd be the guy with the mask and the pain fetish, not me, muzzled me.~

The other Kyle pushed away from the wall, and dropped to the floor, doing pushups as he spoke. "I noticed that. You can chew through the leather straps. You're flexible enough to get to them." He switched to one-armed pushups, looking slightly bored with the whole conversation.

~Muzzle, hello? I want a new hallucination. You got all the brain damage or something.~ At least he didn't have to try to talk to the figment of his own obviously broken brain. Maybe this is what Nathan felt like all the time. And yet, Kyle twisted his head towards the restraints at his upper arms. The figment was right, he -could- reach them.

"I told you so." He switched arms, still doing silent pushups. "You dislocated your own thumb to get out of handcuffs a year ago. This is exactly the same thing. ~ Other Kyle said, no indication that the pushups were causing him anything like fatigue. "You aren't going to be able to dislocate out of those restraints. You can get out of the muzzle."

Kyle's mouth would have gaped open, if he could've opened it much more then half an inch. ~You're nuts. I'm nuts! I can't dislocate my jaw and that's just crazytalk. It wouldn't work.~

Other Kyle stood up in a single movement, and walked over to stand right in front of Kyle's face. "It will work, you will do it, or you'll die here. It only takes about fifteen pounds of pressure to dislocate a jaw. You can bite through bone."

--

Twisting around on the raised table he was strapped to hadn't been the hard part. And pushing his jaw against his upraised shoulder until it crunched and strained and popped only required an unreasonably massive amount of willpower to keep from howling in pain.

With his jaw out of place, the muzzle slipped loose, low on his face with one of the plastic buckles resting against his jawbone. He shook his head back and forth, battering himself against the hard surface of the table until he heard a crack, and then another, and more, and then the shards of the destroyed buckle pressed into Kyle's cheek and ear and the side of his head.

More thrashing from side to side and the muzzle finally flipped itself over, hanging loose off Kyle's neck from the single strap that had not broken - the one attached to the collar that Senyaka had put around Kyle's neck.

"Good job." Throughout the entire process, the other Kyle had sat cross-legged on the floor, watching silently. "Now put your jaw back so you can get out of here. That took a long time, he could be coming back."

Kyle slumped in exhaustion. His entire face hurt, and he knew that his imaginary self was right. He couldn't chew through anything with his jaw off to one side. Once again twisting his head, he pushed his jaw against the opposite shoulder until it ground back into place, or at least as far into place as he could feel. Pushing it out, he had known when he was done. Putting it back was more like guesswork.

Panting with effort and pain, he exhaled. The less air in his chest, the more he could bring his face down to the straps holding his upper arms to the table. He could just barely get his teeth on the leather strap, but that was all he needed. It took long seconds of worrying it between his teeth before it frayed.

The other side was much easier. He could twist more, the extra inch or two of movement meant that all he had to do was chew through the strap, not worry it until it frayed and gave under pressure.

And with his upper arms free, Kyle could sit up and use his teeth to unbuckle the restraints on his right hand. And from there, freedom.

He was so busy freeing himself that he didn't notice the imagined Kyle had disappeared until he turned around to look for him.

~I'm still here.~ He heard, but no one but him was in the room.

It was time to get out of this stupid box. Jan didn't like being caged, and enough was enough. Her first zaps were fairly light as she tested the strength of her blasts against the box's mechanisms. Soon they intensified, high-strength blasts of biolectricity leaping from her fingers. The metal meant to bring about the young woman's demise began to give, growing extremely hot and melting.

Without hesitation, Jan freed herself from her prison, wings buzzing as she left the box as quickly as she could. Seconds later, one of the walls began to shake; a few moments after that, there was a nice-sized hole in the wall. Beaming for the first time since she'd flown into the cage, Jan flew outside, flying in circles in the air.

The thunderclap made the walls tremble ever so slightly, like music to waiting ears. Terry didn't even need the follow-up affirmation from Forge before she started to draw breath. Bidding a mental farewell to her inquisitor, Terry walked to the far side of the room, faced the outer wall and without ceremony or warning, began to scream.

Terry was loud, no one doubted that. With the smallest of effort, she could rattle windows and knock back charging opponents. But it was rare that the full power of her voice was needed. Rarer still that anything survived confronting it. The walls smashed outwards; the fragile glass balls exploded; the ceiling tumbled and was swept away on wave after wave of pure sonic energy.

Directing a thread of sound back at herself, she lifted off the ground and headed for the outside through the ruins of the building. Another thread gave broadcasted to the rest of the complex.

"To me, my X-Men."