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xp_logsThe first team of X-Men rescuers make it into the cell block where their friends are housed.
With the power out and Scott's team well on their way to diverting security attention Jean's group was left to get into the building and find their people. Over the comms Doug and Wade were mapping out a route that would get them to the main holding area the most quickly. Security personnel were scurrying around the facility, trying to figure out what had happened to the power while trying to position themselves in case this was some sort of assault, but all of that chaos left a wide enough window to slip through to get to their own people.
The air was humid and thick, and made Jean's uniform stick to her skin. It did not help her mood. There was a wall in their way. But that hadn't stopped them before. In fact Jean sometimes welcomed the challenge. But this time she had a single-minded prerogative. She stared sightlessly at the citadel, occasionally turning her head as she followed a psionic version of radio chatter. coming from the guards.
"There are four, no, five...guards on the ground closest to us on the other side of the wall. We need to stay down low and out of sight. If any one of those guards suspects something and manages to radio the others there could be trouble, for both us and those inside," Jean said quietly. 'Trouble' was as light a word as she wanted to use. All understood the gravity of the situation. She didn't need to emphasize it.
"Paige, do you see any close entrances near by?"
"Best bet is probably that set of windows there," she replied, finishing her quick assessment of the area. She pointed, low. "See, there? Approximate location and the most cover, but a decent vantage as well."
Jim nodded to himself and glanced at the newest trainee. "We should probably do this all in one shot. Vance, how visible is your TK field in the dark? Would lifting us over the wall be too conspicuous?"
Vance grimaced slightly and ignored the bead of sweat that slid underneath his tight-fitting uniform and ran right down the middle of his back, even as he looked at the dark and looming prison. He'd just been out from a place like this for just a few months, and here he was, heading right back /into/ one. It didn't make much sense.
Except that he'd said he would be here to help, and to learn how to help others. And if the Professor and the team thought this was the way to help-- then he'd be damned if he was going to back down. Vance looked back over to Haller, keeping his voice low, "Unfortunately, it's more visible the less light we've got. I'm not exactly-- subtle." Useful, but not subtle.
Sarah might have stared at them in disbelief for a moment, before steeling herself to the situation. There were people inside, some of them family, and she was here to break them the fuck out. "Flying over a wall thanks to a fucking telekinetic? Let's just cross that off my list of life experiences I never wanted to have."
"I think your talents would be best used when we get inside, Vance," Jean said, adjusting the gloves on her uniform.
"Luckily we've got three telekinetics so it shouldn't be a problem to get in quickly. Haller, you take Sarah. Try to open the window. I'll bring Paige, Vance and myself. Before that, however, we need a distraction for the guards."
Tilting her head over to Haller, Jean smiled. "Shall we go with Operation Wildfire?"
"Okay." Jim glanced at Sarah. "Be ready. I'm not exactly delicate, but I'll get us over. But first . . ."
With a deep breath, the telepath put hand on Jean's shoulder. When he opened his eyes again they had gone green. "'Kay, I'm up," he said, his voice now bearing the lilt of Cyndi. "Show me."
The link was immediate and familiar. Cyndi felt more than saw Jean's own eyes lose focus, her vision replaced by that of a guard within the perimeter. From the guard through Jean and into Cyndi -- the area behind the wall spread before them.
Flashlights were concentrated near the front gate. The distraction had come around the same time as a shift-change, and some of the more senior guards were trying to sort out what they could. A large halogen lantern had been lit inside the gatehouse, though without power there was only a single occupant, fruitlessly searching for a backup radio.
"Get ready, Bones," Cyndi muttered. Then, with a twist of her mind, the back of the gatehouse roared into flame.
There wasn't much time after the warning that Sarah felt herself launched up into the air rather ungracefully, and she tried not to flail. The sensation was worse than being on an airplane. Holding the bone club in her hand tightly, Sarah winced as they approached the ground on the other side of the wall quickly. Too quickly. They landed with a hard thump just inside the perimeter wall, and Sarah pushed herself up off the ground with a snort. "Remind me not to ask you to help me move."
"May be shit at removals, but I'm almost unmatched in demolition." The lanky man's voice now had a hint of Texan twang, or at least how a child might once have thought it sounded. Jack unfolded himself and focused on the window indicated by Paige, unconcerned with discovery. Sarah looked to be in an even worse mood than he, and he trusted her to stab first and ask questions later. His job was to open the way as quickly and quietly as possible.
It should have been like clockwork: apply steady, even pressure to the window until it fractured, then quietly remove the pieces. Minimal sound, empty frame, no problem.
Or it shouldn't have been, which is why he used a particularly foul invective when an unexpected spike in his telekinesis shattered the glass.
One of the guards, halfway toward scrambling to help with the fire, abruptly stopped in his tracks, turning his head toward the sound. He started to put his hand on his radio but stopped short, eyes glazing over. A moment passed and he shook his head, blinking rapidly before he slipped his hand away and resumed his sprint toward the fire. The shards of glass froze in midair before they started to slip off toward the ground below toward Haller and Sarah's head as Jean landed in front of them carrying Paige and Vance in tow with quite a bit less turbulence.
She gave Haller a brief inquisitive look of concern, tilting her head. His control over his abilities wasn't normally this erratic, even between personalities.
It was a new experience, being lifted and carried by someone else's telekinesis-- that, and not being surrounded by his own pink glow while moving through the air. Even though he trusted Jean's abilities to land him safely, there were moments Vance had to force himself from reaching out with his own TK and giving them all away.
Vance landed capably, if not gracefully, and looked around at the rest of the team as they regrouped inside the walls, his whole body tense at the prospect of going back into a secure prison, words failing him as he waited for them to move once more.
Sarah glanced at Haller reluctantly. "I guess we need to get inside while we still have an advantage. Try not to fly us directly into the wall, yeah?"
Scowling, Jack flicked a sidelong look at Jean. He said nothing, but a pulse of tightly-coiled frustration touched her shields. He was the manifestation of an emotional state. Whatever Jim repressed had a tendency to leak.
"I'll take this one, Marrow," Jean said, meeting Haller's eyes. Her mental voice was clear and calm.
~ Jim. The children and our teammates need us. I need you with me. All of you. I need you to focus.~
The children. There was the root of the festering little infection that had spread to the bone. It was still the set of Jack's jaw doing the scowling, but one of his grey eyes faded black in the darkness, and it was Jim's thought that came to her.
I'm sorry. We'll try.
Jean's eyes flickered past him toward the window and the remaining shards of glass were carefully plucked out of the window. "I'm going to lift everyone through the window one by one. Stick to the shadows and the buddy system. Don't go off alone," she said.
Paige nodded, being lifted up to and through the window, landing softly on her toes. The office belonged to a low-level administrator, no one important. The levels housing members of the Genoshan leadership would be on high alert, and anyway, those were far above them. Where they needed to go was down.
The office contained nothing but the generic collection of post-it notes and family photos, though sound seemed stifled in the sticky, motionless cool of an abruptly disabled HVAC system. There were noises in the corridors, but they were distant. The hallway proved to be empty, as did the stairwell.
It was, however, pitch black.
Unable to see in complete darkness and without gear to compensate, Vance held his hands out to the front and sides as much as he could until he found a wall to follow. He found himself getting more and more skittish with the noises in the background filtering through the darkness as they had the effect of both being muffled and exaggerated in his ears all at once.
"Mind if I shine a little light on the situation?" he asked in a low voice and waited for confirmation instead of just lighting the way and making a nice pink target of himself or the others.
"I lived in the dark for years," Sarah told him, her eyes having adjusted quickly to the darkness of the hallway. "But you do what you need to. We'll move faster if you can see too." That was the plan. Get them in and get everyone out, quickly as possible.
"It may also be quicker if we split up to look for the nearest stairwell, "Jean said. Time was a luxury they did not have.
"Stay in groups of two. If you find anything either use the comms or send out a mental signal."
"I think my eyes have adjusted," Paige said, taking a few careful steps and finding things satisfactory. "We three take left, you two got right?"
Jim gave Jean a crisp nod, and followed Paige down the hall.
"Gotcha," Vance answered before he glanced in Sarah's direction, splitting off and heading down the hallway with her. As they branched off, Vance moved in front of Sarh a his eyes glowed a pink color, bathing the hallway in a low level light. After a moment, two separate lines of pink energy moved from his eyes down either side of the corridor, stretching out in front of them as the telekinetic felt his way along, moving more assuredly with each step.
Suddenly, Vance faltered as a flashlight suddenly clicked on from around a corner and shined onto him. The new trainee raised a hand, trying to block the light, and froze as he heard the words barked through the corridor, "Stop! Or I'll shoot!"
"No, wait!" came the strangled reply from Vance, hands coming up as if to stop the guard--but nothing happened. No pink glow of his shields, nothing. Instead, he just froze in place, an easy target.
Well. That went poorly.
As far as Sarah was concerned, their only saving grace was Vance's powers making him incredibly distracting, and his dismal response to the armed guard only further focused the guard's attention on him, and not her. Luckily his response hadn't involved mentioning her. She stood back in the shadows against the wall, silently willing Vance not to look at her. If they would just take another step forward...
And then the guard took two. The gun firmly trained on Vance, they came forward with plastic ties to bind his hands behind his back. "Just stay right where you are. Don't move." Seizing the moment of distracted vulnerability, Sarah took the bone knife and with all her strength she lodged the bone into the guard a few inches below the shoulder. The jagged bone slipped in between ribs, and the guard collapsed to the ground gasping desperately for air.
Not as poorly as getting your flesh and lung punctured by a sharp piece of bone-- as evidenced by the guard on the floor of the hallway struggling to breathe, even as he tried to staunch the flow of blood flowing from his chest wound.
"No!" Vance cried out as he watched the bone driven in hard and neatly, his voice slightly louder in the blackness of the hallway. Where his TK didn't react to strike out at the guard before, it lit the hallway as the pink aura pressed tightly to the writhing guard over his chest wound, forcing the wound closed tightly even as Vance ran over and dropped to his knees, desperately looking for a med pack-- anything he might be able to use to help save this man's life.
Sarah stared in disbelief for a moment as Vance attempted to help the guard who just threatened to shoot him. She would never again complain about being stuck with Remy during near-death situations. At least Remy could take care of himself. "Oh for the love of..." she muttered, and finally put a bone covered hand on Vance's shoulder, jerking him none too gently to face her. "Listen to me. He was going to kill you. And me." She looked quickly over her shoulder down the dark hallway. "And we don't get the hell out of here, there will be more coming. And they will succeed. And you will be fucking dead. Understand?"
Vance jerked his head to face Sarah as she whipped him around, and anguish warred with realization, even as he was brought back to reality sharply. He looked down the dark hallway, following Sarah's own gaze, then back at her. "Right," he said as he tried to keep the emotion from his voice, and pushed himself quickly to his feet, ignoring the blood on his hands. "You're right. I'm sorry-- let's move."
The group of three were effectively divvying up checking the hallway when Paige came to the third last door. Her smile shone briefly white when she opened it. "Bingo. Bring them back."
;
Jean held up a hand as she spotted a guard with his back to the group. There were two in that hallway, the cell doors lining either side. She saw one, but could sense the other near the end of the hall. So close yet so far. ~Two guards. One here, one at the end of the hall. We need to take them out before they radio for backup. Vance, you and I will knock them out. Haller, let the others know we're here. Paige, Sarah, grab the guard's keys once we've knocked them out. We work quick and cleanly. Any questions?~
~Copy. Be there momentarily.~ Fortunately for Vance, the mental link didn't necessarily transfer the nervousness he felt, the words in his mind more firm than perhaps those from his mouth. Moments later, Vance and Sarah rejoined Jean, and he looked across the hallway at the established Teke, body rife with nervous energy.
~You go left, I'll go right?~ And when Jean gave the signal, Vance struck, his own teke streaking out and around the corner, both cracking the guard sharply across the face to knock him out, then cradling his body so that he hits the floor soundlessly, the guard's mouth covered with a band of pink teke to prevent him from crying out.
Jean's gaze flickered up to the guard who had just turned toward the sound and the man struck the wall before he could make a sound, gently sliding to the ground.
~Everyone. Go.~
As the two guards went down, Jim extended his mind to touch the familiar presences in the cellblock beyond. Four . . . not as many as they'd hoped, but better than nothing. Garrison, Angelo, Molly, Meggan -- he touched each mind he found in turn, and sent them a single message:
~We're here. We're getting you out. Be ready.~
Sarah approached one of the felled guards quietly, and patted down their pants pockets. She found a small bundle of keys on one side. Grabbing them, she wrapped her fingers around the bundle to keep the noise down. "I was sort of hoping there would be one master key that opened everything."
"No no, Marrow, I'm the optimist. Step away from my shtick." Paige came quietly around so that the keys were between them as they moved on, curious to see if they were anything familiar. Just regular keys, each seemingly identical but for their individual teeth.
"Most keys generally have a tag number identified on them. If we're very lucky they have a cell number. See if they match up," Jean said. She glanced to Vance.
"In the mean time, Hubba start popping open doors. Keep it quiet. Legion keep an eye out mentally."
Hopefully someone would have some luck getting the doors open one way or another.
"Okay," Vance confirmed to Jean as he moved into the cell block. As Sarah moved towards one set of cells, he stepped to the other side. A little tendril of pink flared out from his head and slid into one of the locks, covering the whole set. He stood there, focusing on it for a long minute before there was a clear *clack* as the bolt slid back, and the door to the cell swung open on its hinges, pulled by his teke and leaving Vance's brow in a light sweat.
Sarah took a quick look at the keys, and just as Jean had suggested each one was stamped with a three digit number. She searched for a cell number to match them to, but there was nothing visible from where she was standing. Once she examined the lock more closely, that's where she found it. It was stamped with an almost identical set of three digit numbers as the keys, and Sarah quickly found the one that matched. "Okay guys, we're here to get you the hell out of this place."
At the telepathic note, Meggan had leapt up from her hard perch with a rush of unbridled joy, and edged closer to the door to wait. She had started to become unsure as to whether a anyone could actually get in for a rescue, the longer she’d been alone. Who else was still in a cell near to her? Everyone had been rearranged so often, that she didn’t know anymore. She just wanted out of this place, with everybody at home. “Yay to a rescue,” she cautiously whispered as her cell was unlocked and she was able to step outside. She didn’t dare to speak louder.
Angelo was standing as close to the door as humanly possible, staring out through the window. He wanted to know who 'we' was, and he got his answer. He grinned broadly at Vance as the door swung open. "Hey, newbie. Really good to see you."
"Thank fuck. I was wondering what took you guys so long." The Canadian was mottled with bruises, but looked steady enough on his feet as he followed a pained looking Angelo out. "Did you get everyone? Adrienne, Sooraya, Yvette?"
Jim shook his head, not bothering to hide his own disappointment. "They're not in this block, but we aren't the only team down here. Hang on--" His eyes slid to green, and he extended a hand to the opposite end of the hall, towards where he had sensed the final psi-signature. A puff of flame bloomed in front of one door, just long enough to illuminate the placard bearing its identification number. Haller's telekinetic specialties did not lend themselves to stealth, and anyway, they had keys.
"Hit that one, Bones," said Cyndi, punctuating it with a jerk of her head. "Last one for the area."
Molly lifted her head as the door opened. She was hesitant at first, but heard the others talking. She knew their voices. That was good. Finally she peeked her head out the door and shuffled out of the cell in her bright orange jumpsuit that was way too big for her. She had to roll up the legs and the arms to make it fit. It was really dark, but she could see a little.
"X-People," Molly said with a bright smile. She had just made her way over to Meggan and Angelo when a loud blare erupted through the hallway like a cop siren. The lights came on, along with some little orange lights that were mounted in the wall next to the ceiling.
The sound of people marching was heard, clutter-clack. Molly inched closer to Angelo, staring at the hallway with wide eyes.
Jim's stomach sank. He didn't need to look at Jean to know what she was thinking. The power shouldn't have been back on yet. Something had gone wrong, which meant someone was in trouble.
And now that the Genoshans were coming, so were they.
With the power out and Scott's team well on their way to diverting security attention Jean's group was left to get into the building and find their people. Over the comms Doug and Wade were mapping out a route that would get them to the main holding area the most quickly. Security personnel were scurrying around the facility, trying to figure out what had happened to the power while trying to position themselves in case this was some sort of assault, but all of that chaos left a wide enough window to slip through to get to their own people.
The air was humid and thick, and made Jean's uniform stick to her skin. It did not help her mood. There was a wall in their way. But that hadn't stopped them before. In fact Jean sometimes welcomed the challenge. But this time she had a single-minded prerogative. She stared sightlessly at the citadel, occasionally turning her head as she followed a psionic version of radio chatter. coming from the guards.
"There are four, no, five...guards on the ground closest to us on the other side of the wall. We need to stay down low and out of sight. If any one of those guards suspects something and manages to radio the others there could be trouble, for both us and those inside," Jean said quietly. 'Trouble' was as light a word as she wanted to use. All understood the gravity of the situation. She didn't need to emphasize it.
"Paige, do you see any close entrances near by?"
"Best bet is probably that set of windows there," she replied, finishing her quick assessment of the area. She pointed, low. "See, there? Approximate location and the most cover, but a decent vantage as well."
Jim nodded to himself and glanced at the newest trainee. "We should probably do this all in one shot. Vance, how visible is your TK field in the dark? Would lifting us over the wall be too conspicuous?"
Vance grimaced slightly and ignored the bead of sweat that slid underneath his tight-fitting uniform and ran right down the middle of his back, even as he looked at the dark and looming prison. He'd just been out from a place like this for just a few months, and here he was, heading right back /into/ one. It didn't make much sense.
Except that he'd said he would be here to help, and to learn how to help others. And if the Professor and the team thought this was the way to help-- then he'd be damned if he was going to back down. Vance looked back over to Haller, keeping his voice low, "Unfortunately, it's more visible the less light we've got. I'm not exactly-- subtle." Useful, but not subtle.
Sarah might have stared at them in disbelief for a moment, before steeling herself to the situation. There were people inside, some of them family, and she was here to break them the fuck out. "Flying over a wall thanks to a fucking telekinetic? Let's just cross that off my list of life experiences I never wanted to have."
"I think your talents would be best used when we get inside, Vance," Jean said, adjusting the gloves on her uniform.
"Luckily we've got three telekinetics so it shouldn't be a problem to get in quickly. Haller, you take Sarah. Try to open the window. I'll bring Paige, Vance and myself. Before that, however, we need a distraction for the guards."
Tilting her head over to Haller, Jean smiled. "Shall we go with Operation Wildfire?"
"Okay." Jim glanced at Sarah. "Be ready. I'm not exactly delicate, but I'll get us over. But first . . ."
With a deep breath, the telepath put hand on Jean's shoulder. When he opened his eyes again they had gone green. "'Kay, I'm up," he said, his voice now bearing the lilt of Cyndi. "Show me."
The link was immediate and familiar. Cyndi felt more than saw Jean's own eyes lose focus, her vision replaced by that of a guard within the perimeter. From the guard through Jean and into Cyndi -- the area behind the wall spread before them.
Flashlights were concentrated near the front gate. The distraction had come around the same time as a shift-change, and some of the more senior guards were trying to sort out what they could. A large halogen lantern had been lit inside the gatehouse, though without power there was only a single occupant, fruitlessly searching for a backup radio.
"Get ready, Bones," Cyndi muttered. Then, with a twist of her mind, the back of the gatehouse roared into flame.
There wasn't much time after the warning that Sarah felt herself launched up into the air rather ungracefully, and she tried not to flail. The sensation was worse than being on an airplane. Holding the bone club in her hand tightly, Sarah winced as they approached the ground on the other side of the wall quickly. Too quickly. They landed with a hard thump just inside the perimeter wall, and Sarah pushed herself up off the ground with a snort. "Remind me not to ask you to help me move."
"May be shit at removals, but I'm almost unmatched in demolition." The lanky man's voice now had a hint of Texan twang, or at least how a child might once have thought it sounded. Jack unfolded himself and focused on the window indicated by Paige, unconcerned with discovery. Sarah looked to be in an even worse mood than he, and he trusted her to stab first and ask questions later. His job was to open the way as quickly and quietly as possible.
It should have been like clockwork: apply steady, even pressure to the window until it fractured, then quietly remove the pieces. Minimal sound, empty frame, no problem.
Or it shouldn't have been, which is why he used a particularly foul invective when an unexpected spike in his telekinesis shattered the glass.
One of the guards, halfway toward scrambling to help with the fire, abruptly stopped in his tracks, turning his head toward the sound. He started to put his hand on his radio but stopped short, eyes glazing over. A moment passed and he shook his head, blinking rapidly before he slipped his hand away and resumed his sprint toward the fire. The shards of glass froze in midair before they started to slip off toward the ground below toward Haller and Sarah's head as Jean landed in front of them carrying Paige and Vance in tow with quite a bit less turbulence.
She gave Haller a brief inquisitive look of concern, tilting her head. His control over his abilities wasn't normally this erratic, even between personalities.
It was a new experience, being lifted and carried by someone else's telekinesis-- that, and not being surrounded by his own pink glow while moving through the air. Even though he trusted Jean's abilities to land him safely, there were moments Vance had to force himself from reaching out with his own TK and giving them all away.
Vance landed capably, if not gracefully, and looked around at the rest of the team as they regrouped inside the walls, his whole body tense at the prospect of going back into a secure prison, words failing him as he waited for them to move once more.
Sarah glanced at Haller reluctantly. "I guess we need to get inside while we still have an advantage. Try not to fly us directly into the wall, yeah?"
Scowling, Jack flicked a sidelong look at Jean. He said nothing, but a pulse of tightly-coiled frustration touched her shields. He was the manifestation of an emotional state. Whatever Jim repressed had a tendency to leak.
"I'll take this one, Marrow," Jean said, meeting Haller's eyes. Her mental voice was clear and calm.
~ Jim. The children and our teammates need us. I need you with me. All of you. I need you to focus.~
The children. There was the root of the festering little infection that had spread to the bone. It was still the set of Jack's jaw doing the scowling, but one of his grey eyes faded black in the darkness, and it was Jim's thought that came to her.
I'm sorry. We'll try.
Jean's eyes flickered past him toward the window and the remaining shards of glass were carefully plucked out of the window. "I'm going to lift everyone through the window one by one. Stick to the shadows and the buddy system. Don't go off alone," she said.
Paige nodded, being lifted up to and through the window, landing softly on her toes. The office belonged to a low-level administrator, no one important. The levels housing members of the Genoshan leadership would be on high alert, and anyway, those were far above them. Where they needed to go was down.
The office contained nothing but the generic collection of post-it notes and family photos, though sound seemed stifled in the sticky, motionless cool of an abruptly disabled HVAC system. There were noises in the corridors, but they were distant. The hallway proved to be empty, as did the stairwell.
It was, however, pitch black.
Unable to see in complete darkness and without gear to compensate, Vance held his hands out to the front and sides as much as he could until he found a wall to follow. He found himself getting more and more skittish with the noises in the background filtering through the darkness as they had the effect of both being muffled and exaggerated in his ears all at once.
"Mind if I shine a little light on the situation?" he asked in a low voice and waited for confirmation instead of just lighting the way and making a nice pink target of himself or the others.
"I lived in the dark for years," Sarah told him, her eyes having adjusted quickly to the darkness of the hallway. "But you do what you need to. We'll move faster if you can see too." That was the plan. Get them in and get everyone out, quickly as possible.
"It may also be quicker if we split up to look for the nearest stairwell, "Jean said. Time was a luxury they did not have.
"Stay in groups of two. If you find anything either use the comms or send out a mental signal."
"I think my eyes have adjusted," Paige said, taking a few careful steps and finding things satisfactory. "We three take left, you two got right?"
Jim gave Jean a crisp nod, and followed Paige down the hall.
"Gotcha," Vance answered before he glanced in Sarah's direction, splitting off and heading down the hallway with her. As they branched off, Vance moved in front of Sarh a his eyes glowed a pink color, bathing the hallway in a low level light. After a moment, two separate lines of pink energy moved from his eyes down either side of the corridor, stretching out in front of them as the telekinetic felt his way along, moving more assuredly with each step.
Suddenly, Vance faltered as a flashlight suddenly clicked on from around a corner and shined onto him. The new trainee raised a hand, trying to block the light, and froze as he heard the words barked through the corridor, "Stop! Or I'll shoot!"
"No, wait!" came the strangled reply from Vance, hands coming up as if to stop the guard--but nothing happened. No pink glow of his shields, nothing. Instead, he just froze in place, an easy target.
Well. That went poorly.
As far as Sarah was concerned, their only saving grace was Vance's powers making him incredibly distracting, and his dismal response to the armed guard only further focused the guard's attention on him, and not her. Luckily his response hadn't involved mentioning her. She stood back in the shadows against the wall, silently willing Vance not to look at her. If they would just take another step forward...
And then the guard took two. The gun firmly trained on Vance, they came forward with plastic ties to bind his hands behind his back. "Just stay right where you are. Don't move." Seizing the moment of distracted vulnerability, Sarah took the bone knife and with all her strength she lodged the bone into the guard a few inches below the shoulder. The jagged bone slipped in between ribs, and the guard collapsed to the ground gasping desperately for air.
Not as poorly as getting your flesh and lung punctured by a sharp piece of bone-- as evidenced by the guard on the floor of the hallway struggling to breathe, even as he tried to staunch the flow of blood flowing from his chest wound.
"No!" Vance cried out as he watched the bone driven in hard and neatly, his voice slightly louder in the blackness of the hallway. Where his TK didn't react to strike out at the guard before, it lit the hallway as the pink aura pressed tightly to the writhing guard over his chest wound, forcing the wound closed tightly even as Vance ran over and dropped to his knees, desperately looking for a med pack-- anything he might be able to use to help save this man's life.
Sarah stared in disbelief for a moment as Vance attempted to help the guard who just threatened to shoot him. She would never again complain about being stuck with Remy during near-death situations. At least Remy could take care of himself. "Oh for the love of..." she muttered, and finally put a bone covered hand on Vance's shoulder, jerking him none too gently to face her. "Listen to me. He was going to kill you. And me." She looked quickly over her shoulder down the dark hallway. "And we don't get the hell out of here, there will be more coming. And they will succeed. And you will be fucking dead. Understand?"
Vance jerked his head to face Sarah as she whipped him around, and anguish warred with realization, even as he was brought back to reality sharply. He looked down the dark hallway, following Sarah's own gaze, then back at her. "Right," he said as he tried to keep the emotion from his voice, and pushed himself quickly to his feet, ignoring the blood on his hands. "You're right. I'm sorry-- let's move."
The group of three were effectively divvying up checking the hallway when Paige came to the third last door. Her smile shone briefly white when she opened it. "Bingo. Bring them back."
;
Jean held up a hand as she spotted a guard with his back to the group. There were two in that hallway, the cell doors lining either side. She saw one, but could sense the other near the end of the hall. So close yet so far. ~Two guards. One here, one at the end of the hall. We need to take them out before they radio for backup. Vance, you and I will knock them out. Haller, let the others know we're here. Paige, Sarah, grab the guard's keys once we've knocked them out. We work quick and cleanly. Any questions?~
~Copy. Be there momentarily.~ Fortunately for Vance, the mental link didn't necessarily transfer the nervousness he felt, the words in his mind more firm than perhaps those from his mouth. Moments later, Vance and Sarah rejoined Jean, and he looked across the hallway at the established Teke, body rife with nervous energy.
~You go left, I'll go right?~ And when Jean gave the signal, Vance struck, his own teke streaking out and around the corner, both cracking the guard sharply across the face to knock him out, then cradling his body so that he hits the floor soundlessly, the guard's mouth covered with a band of pink teke to prevent him from crying out.
Jean's gaze flickered up to the guard who had just turned toward the sound and the man struck the wall before he could make a sound, gently sliding to the ground.
~Everyone. Go.~
As the two guards went down, Jim extended his mind to touch the familiar presences in the cellblock beyond. Four . . . not as many as they'd hoped, but better than nothing. Garrison, Angelo, Molly, Meggan -- he touched each mind he found in turn, and sent them a single message:
~We're here. We're getting you out. Be ready.~
Sarah approached one of the felled guards quietly, and patted down their pants pockets. She found a small bundle of keys on one side. Grabbing them, she wrapped her fingers around the bundle to keep the noise down. "I was sort of hoping there would be one master key that opened everything."
"No no, Marrow, I'm the optimist. Step away from my shtick." Paige came quietly around so that the keys were between them as they moved on, curious to see if they were anything familiar. Just regular keys, each seemingly identical but for their individual teeth.
"Most keys generally have a tag number identified on them. If we're very lucky they have a cell number. See if they match up," Jean said. She glanced to Vance.
"In the mean time, Hubba start popping open doors. Keep it quiet. Legion keep an eye out mentally."
Hopefully someone would have some luck getting the doors open one way or another.
"Okay," Vance confirmed to Jean as he moved into the cell block. As Sarah moved towards one set of cells, he stepped to the other side. A little tendril of pink flared out from his head and slid into one of the locks, covering the whole set. He stood there, focusing on it for a long minute before there was a clear *clack* as the bolt slid back, and the door to the cell swung open on its hinges, pulled by his teke and leaving Vance's brow in a light sweat.
Sarah took a quick look at the keys, and just as Jean had suggested each one was stamped with a three digit number. She searched for a cell number to match them to, but there was nothing visible from where she was standing. Once she examined the lock more closely, that's where she found it. It was stamped with an almost identical set of three digit numbers as the keys, and Sarah quickly found the one that matched. "Okay guys, we're here to get you the hell out of this place."
At the telepathic note, Meggan had leapt up from her hard perch with a rush of unbridled joy, and edged closer to the door to wait. She had started to become unsure as to whether a anyone could actually get in for a rescue, the longer she’d been alone. Who else was still in a cell near to her? Everyone had been rearranged so often, that she didn’t know anymore. She just wanted out of this place, with everybody at home. “Yay to a rescue,” she cautiously whispered as her cell was unlocked and she was able to step outside. She didn’t dare to speak louder.
Angelo was standing as close to the door as humanly possible, staring out through the window. He wanted to know who 'we' was, and he got his answer. He grinned broadly at Vance as the door swung open. "Hey, newbie. Really good to see you."
"Thank fuck. I was wondering what took you guys so long." The Canadian was mottled with bruises, but looked steady enough on his feet as he followed a pained looking Angelo out. "Did you get everyone? Adrienne, Sooraya, Yvette?"
Jim shook his head, not bothering to hide his own disappointment. "They're not in this block, but we aren't the only team down here. Hang on--" His eyes slid to green, and he extended a hand to the opposite end of the hall, towards where he had sensed the final psi-signature. A puff of flame bloomed in front of one door, just long enough to illuminate the placard bearing its identification number. Haller's telekinetic specialties did not lend themselves to stealth, and anyway, they had keys.
"Hit that one, Bones," said Cyndi, punctuating it with a jerk of her head. "Last one for the area."
Molly lifted her head as the door opened. She was hesitant at first, but heard the others talking. She knew their voices. That was good. Finally she peeked her head out the door and shuffled out of the cell in her bright orange jumpsuit that was way too big for her. She had to roll up the legs and the arms to make it fit. It was really dark, but she could see a little.
"X-People," Molly said with a bright smile. She had just made her way over to Meggan and Angelo when a loud blare erupted through the hallway like a cop siren. The lights came on, along with some little orange lights that were mounted in the wall next to the ceiling.
The sound of people marching was heard, clutter-clack. Molly inched closer to Angelo, staring at the hallway with wide eyes.
Jim's stomach sank. He didn't need to look at Jean to know what she was thinking. The power shouldn't have been back on yet. Something had gone wrong, which meant someone was in trouble.
And now that the Genoshans were coming, so were they.
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