xp_logs | Early Sunday Morning

It's time to pay for what's been done.

Garrison, Kurt, Sarah Morlock, Callisto and Annalee.

"Are we sure she is this way?" Kurt asked without looking at the others, tail flickering restlessly. "This is one I do not want to lose."

Sarah moved in the front of the group, following her own muscle memory from years of running in these tunnels. "Yeah. There's the perfect hiding spot down here. It's close to home."

"There's power down here." Kane noted off-handedly. The occasional flicker of light lapped against the bricks of the far wall, too white to be the product of a flame from a candle or a lamp. The mouldering brass signs screwed into the wall were almost deteriorated to the point of illegibility, but he could just make out access markings for the Manhattan line. Must have been part of the subway system, a long time ago.

Callisto was bringing up the rear, her usual scowl of concentration (not that Callisto needed a reason to scowl) in place. She tended to stick close to one side or another of the tunnel, occasionally lifting a hand to run her palm along the wall beside her. She was silent. "Good", Kurt answered both Kane and Sarah shortly, lips drawing back into the kind of smile you might see on a big cat. "She surely cannot have gone too far."

Sarah could see the light at the end of the tunnel now, literally. A light coming from the small room at the end of the hall seemed brighter than the light coming from the deteriorating light fixtures in the tunnel. Maybe it was just more consistent. Either way, she gestured quietly towards the light, and continued along the wall. The tunnel opened into a near enclosed damp room. Water oozed down the brick and pooled in the corners, which held piles of cardboard boxes and abandoned blankets obviously scavenged from hospital and hotel dumpsters. Kane strained slightly to see if he could peer around the edge of the wall, and see the whole room.

"I won't let you hurt my children!" The voice was a screech, the sound of sanity breaking. The figure that erupted from beneath a pile of boxes was tattered and scrawny, shrivelled hands bent into claws. "Not again! You can't take them!" The words were accompanied by a wave of fear and protective anger, Annalee's empathy pushing past her limits in an effort to stop the intruders.

"They are not your children!" Kurt roared back at her, the empathic assault only reinforcing his own feelings as he advanced on the old woman. "Artie, perhaps, but not the others and you have hurt them more than we ever would. You took my sister."

Annalee shrank back at Kurt's approach. "I have to keep them safe!" she cried, voice wavering. The fear overwhelmed the anger, radiating off the old woman.

"Safe, my bony fucking ass!" Sarah feared that these kids--kids with futures ahead of them-- would be stuck in the tunnels and end up broken and fucked up like she did. "These tunnels did us a hell of a lot of good when we got massacred. They did me a fucking lot of good when I lived down here with the corpses of my family. There is no life here. No comfort. No safety."

Kane relaxed somewhat. Their villain might be a mutant, but strip that away, and it was just a sad, troubled old lady.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I have to take you into custody. Those kids are going back to their real homes now." He stepped forward with his hands empty.

"I can't leave here!" Annalee looked from one face to the next, hoping to see a way to make them see. "I have to make things better. They killed my children, I couldn't keep them safe, no matter what I tried! I can't let that happen again!" She reached out and grabbed Kane's hand, pushing all of her grief and terror into him. "Please, help me!"

Garrison groaned as the empathic waves pushed into him, overriding his own mental shields and filling him up, to the point he thought he might burst. In a heartbeat, he could feel the tangible emotions of death all around him. Abandoned children that he'd found and protected and loved, suddenly betrayed and killed; their piteous cries for help - asking why didn't he save them? Why wasn't he there to protect them from the pain and blackness. What had they done wrong to deserve this?

"-ck!" With a choked scream, halfway between a cry and a sob, he tore his hand back, reeling backwards blindly. He smashed into the brick and the sudden fear of being trapped here, of failing again surged as he used his strength to batter a hole into the adjoining tunnel and try to flee.

"Callisto!" Kurt snapped without looking at her. "Go after him, see he does not get lost before it wears off. And you, Annalee... you are going to the Vault. The children will be safe, I will promise you that."

Callisto gave a quick nod, and bolted down the corridor and disappeared though the hole into the adjoining tunnel.

At the name, Annalee's head shot up, looking at the back of the woman running away from her. "Callisto?" she said, her tone that of abandonment. The woman who had kept them safe for so long had left her with these upworlders, to let them do with her as they wanted. She looked at Sarah, recognising the child she'd helped raise, glaring at her with anger and betrayal. Blaming her.

With a sob, she collapsed into herself, curling into a ball. Her powers wouldn't help here. Her children were gone, her people were dead. She was alone and they would take her away. She had failed.

Kurt looked down at her, face set... but his grip on her arm as he reached down to pull her to her feet was a little gentler than it could have been.

"Come, Sarah. Callisto will bring Dominion out safely when she can."

It's time to go home now.

Artie glared at the X-Men. He projected the words in large, red, capslocked text. "I'M NOT LEAVING. THIS IS MY HOME AND I'M STAYING RIGHT HERE. RIGHT HERE. WITH MY MOTHER. YOU BASTARDS CAN'T TAKE ME AWAY FROM HER." His shoulder ached from an earlier fall and he was soaked with water. Probably water, shivering with cold and emotion. He aimed a kick at Warren's knees before turning and running. He knew the tunnels. He knew them in a way that none of the X-Men did and damned if he was going to let them take him away from his mother again.

"Was I this stupid at his age?" Kyle grunted, and went off following Artie without waiting for a clear order to do so. The kid might know the tunnels, but Kyle had enhanced senses on his side, and could see in the dark better than anyone else on the team.

He was also faster, stronger and significantly better trained than the seventeen year old, and so Artie got a few dozen yards before Kyle grabbed him around the waist in a tackle. Twisting at the last second had two advantages, first, it let Kyle avoid the flailing limbs of the teenager, and second it meant Kyle, not Artie hit the murky sewer water back first, rather than shoving Artie down into it. It was sewer water, even if he had to tackle the kid, he wasn't going to shove his face in water that probably had dead rats, trash and poo in it.

Artie grunted as he landed on top of Kyle, flailing his legs but unable to move his arms. He did, however, manage to lean far enough forward to bite Kyle's arm. Hard. "let go of me. i hate u dog boy."

"Stop it!" Doreen's tail was spiked out, both from the previous fight and from what was goin on now, "Artie, come on," she said, appealing to him at the moment. Though she didn't think Kyle had to tackle him, but someone here had to play peacemaker and it might as well be her, "We have to go back anyway, please don't fight about it?"

Molly still liked the Batcave, but she kinda missed her room back at the Mansion. And she wanted a bath reeeeeallly bad and she missed the sun. Plus next month was she and Nico's birthday party and they were gonna have it at the pool and they didn't really have a pool down here. But Artie was grumpy. And so were most of the adults.

"Is he gonna be okay?" she whispered to Klara with a frown. He looked really mad.

"Eventually," whispered Klara. "It will be harder for him to let go, I think. But the Mansion is safe."

She was really looking forward to enjoying sunlight again. Most of all, she missed the greenhouse. Klara had grown flowers around the area she slept in, which dealt with some of the sewer smell and made it more like what she wanted "home" to look like. Right now, she wanted to know that Nico would be okay. After her powers had been used like that, she imagined Nico would be upset.

Nico was not upset what are you talking about Klara. She was obviously okay, avoiding everyone's eyes and tapping a foot eagerly to get the hell out of there. She had been reluctant to go down in the first place, and the way she had been used...well, she was pissed. Upset? Come on; she wanted to turn Annalee into a little mountain of ashes, and because she knew her temper was anything but stable at the moment, Nico couldn't allow herself to deal with the others right now. She would have plenty of time to feel like a tool of sorts (not that her past experiences hadn't made her feel that way), but for now? She wanted out. She needed out. So excuse her while she avoided everyone.

Crystal stood with the group, watching but not speaking. If only Annalee had gone about reuniting with Artie another way, a way that would have been safe not only for him but for the everyone else as well. But that wasn't what had happened, and while Artie might believe that he would be perfectly happy living in a sewer tunnel right now, how long could things have remained that way? While Crystal understood that different people chose to live in different ways, Artie should be able to live out in the open, not hide away from sight. She didn't like the fact that Artie had to be physically restrained in order to be brought back to the mansion, but he wanted to stay with someone who had manipulated others into staying with her as well. Crystal did not like it at all when people made other people speak or act in a way that was against their nature.

Being kicked in the shins was not something he'd been expecting, and Warren had winced slightly as Artie had taken off. He didn't at all understand the boy's continued desire to stay down here - who would want to live in a tunnel when you had the option of a mansion? But he didn't say anything, just straightening and pausing as they waited to be sure Kyle had grabbed Artie once more.

"Let's keep moving, everyone," is what he did say, looking at the kids. They looked like they needed hot showers, clean clothes and most likely a whole lot of food.

Meggan had hesitated when Artie had taken off, accidentally stalling the progress of anyone behind her, but now she nodded. “Right, sorry,” she murmured over her shoulder. She thought she understood where Artie was coming from, but this wasn’t the right way to go about it. Not forcing people to think they always wanted to live among the sewer rats, and staying in the filth might just make everyone sick. While she wasn’t mad at him, not really, she missed her nice, clean bed. A bed that didn’t have anything dripping nearby. The sooner everyone made it back, and made it into some dry clothing, the better.

Sarah missed her room too, and was a little worried that if she stayed there any longer she might come down with something. For all she knew maybe she'd already caught something in her time down there, which was all the more reason to get the heck out of there and back to her warm, comfy bedroom. She didn't know what to do when Artie ran away so she just stood there, nodding at the suggestion that they keep moving on. "I'm ready to go."

Artie sighed and managed to resist struggling against Kyle's hold. He wasn't going to be able to make a break for it right now. Kyle would track him down. Whatever. He'd be back tomorrow or next week or next month, as soon as they stopped watching him. "fine. whatever. lets go."

Matt understood where Artie was coming from. And he wanted to go back too. The echo-thing with his powers was freaking him out. Thank goodness he hadn't taken off after Kyle to get Artie, but he had considered it. "Hey, man," he said to Artie once he was back, "Sometimes, the right thing to do sucks. And you know...you got a mom. You can see her or visit or whatever, right?" He didn't know who his mother was and his father had died not telling him. "You're pretty lucky."

Tabitha just brought up the rear in silence. She made a mental note to have a word with Haller, soon