Genosha - The End of the Beginning
May. 27th, 2012 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsKurt's team infiltrates the prison area, looking for their people.
Waiting made seconds stretch out into a seeming endless number of moments. Kurt's team waited outside the citadel's wall, alone apart from the comm device whispering into Kurt's ear. Updates came with the progress of Bishop's group as they advanced in their mission to the main power structure. Tension mounted as the group drew closer to their objective, though when it was complete distant sounds of surprised voices informed the team before the coordinating men could. Power was down, Scott's team was in motion and Kurt had to move into what would be pitch black lower levels to find their people.
The darkness wasn't a problem for him, and he suspected not for Catseye either - certainly not if she shifted into either catshape - but Kurt was mindful than the same wasn't true for Kyle and Clarice. He turned and beckoned to the group. "Time to go. No lights just yet, Cheetara and I will take point as we can see if anyone is there."
Nodding at Kurt's instruction, Catseye shifted into cougar form and took a second to adjust to the influx of information from her heightened senses. She could hear the voices much more clearly now, and could see farther down the corridor ahead, but couldn't discern any shapes inhabiting it. Of course, there wasn't really a way for her to communicate that to her teammates without shifting back, since there was no telepath among them. So she just kept moving forward, tail swishing back and forth, figuring if she did encounter anyone, her attacking it would serve as a sufficient heads up that someone was there.
Clarice didn't like 'porting blind and that was what she essentially was right now since they wasn't any light. She had a headset light so her hands would remain free, but it wasn't on just yet. Following Catseye and Nightcrawler, she headed carefully down the corridor, hoping that there wasn't any obstacles on the ground to trip over.
Kyle did his best to not keep double-triple-quadruple checking on Doreen. He trusted her, he knew she was perfectly adequate in situations like this, he knew for a fact that she was keeping her excitability in check, but dammit, she was his girlfriend and he couldn't help but not like this at all. He slid to the back of the group, taking the rear guard position. "I don't hear anything, it sounds clear to me." No footsteps or walkie-talkies yet anyway.
Dori was trying her best not to let her twitchiness get the best of her. But between all the smells and everything going on, it was hard. She'd really rather be outside somewhere hanging in a tree.
"I don't hear anything either," Dori said, keeping herself as calm as she could, "Don't smell them yet either." If only because this place smelled weird.
The team reached the end of the corridor and Catseye found herself hesitating as she got her first (albeit truncated due to the darkness) view of the prison complex proper. It wasn't as large as she thought it would be... in fact it just sort of looked like any old office or school building. Just a main area with a bunch of closed doors with little windows in them along the edges, and a staircase on the one end. She had to remind herself that there could be any number of horrible, evil things happening to her friends behind those doors in order to keep up her drive to do what they were here to do. Luckily, she snapped back into focus right before a security guard lumbered past, giving her time to get out of the way on silent paws. She turned back to Kurt, awaiting orders about how he wanted to handle the checking of the rooms- did he want them in teams, did he want some people to check the rooms while the others incapacitate the guards?
Kurt, to most eyes, was currently just a pair of yellow eyes glowing from the shadows he'd drawn around himself thanks to his secondary power. He singled out Kyle and Dori, pointing them to the stairs, then Catseye to the guard, and finally indicated himself and Clarice and the doors.
'What was behind door #1' was not a game that Clarice much cared for, especially since she had seen what was behind doors before and had been scarred by it. This did not bode any better either. Nodding to Kurt, she slipped silently over to the one closest. She didn't have any sort of powers of invisibility or to see in the dark so she kept one hand on the control for the light she wore, though it was still turned off.
***
Kyle went down to all-fours, gesturing carefully to Dori to keep upright to keep watch. He barely breathed, inhaling and exhaling painstakingly slowly to eliminate even that noise from the background, and then shook himself all over, and let out a almost animal-like snort as he sniffed and took measure of the smells - and mouth open, tastes - in the air.
He went all the way down to the floor with his nose nearly touching it before Kyle popped back up, face set in an expression of barely controlled anger. Metal and old blood and sweat and the smells of a hundred people, and new blood, for sure and the slightest hint of apples and under that, barely, a acrid smell that reminded him of the operating table Rory Campbell had strapped him and Marius and Jennie to. He motioned for Dori to come closer. "Go get Cheetara. I need confirmation, BigCat style." He said, voice so quiet he was almost just mouthing the words. "It may be Yve... Penance."
"Okay," Dori said, nodding once. It was different, working together in the field, but she could do it. And she resolved not to mess up. Padding quietly as she could - which was pretty darn quiet, given the lack of shoes and soft feet, though there was the hollow click of claws on the floor most people wouldn't be able to hear it. She went back to where Catseye was, "Wildchild needs your nose," she said as softly as she could.
Catseye looked up from the guard she'd pounced on and knocked unconscious. It had been a proud moment for her, calculating the angles and speed to get her pounce perfect, hitting the guard square in the shoulders and falling on him so she knocked the wind out of him and he rapped his head soundly on the floor. She chuffed at Dori in understanding, licking her friend's hand and heading upstairs to Kyle.
***
Switching on her light, Clarice looked through the first door, a slight shimmer around her front as she created a teleportation portal in case anything came at her. If something did, it wouldn't hit her, but would be transported to her secret place. They wouldn't like it regardless. "You see anything Nightcrawler?" she asked. Her light didn't compete well with Kurt's nightvision.
"Empty", he whispered, peering over her shoulder. "To the next."
The next several were also empty. Finally though, Clarice's light caught something in a cell. "What is it?" she asked, unable to quite make out what looked like a bundle of rags or clothing or something. Maybe someone had been in it recently, but not now.
"Abandoned clothes", Kurt said, frowning. "Or bedding, perhaps, I cannot quite tell. Not a person, in any case."
***
Kyle was still crouched and investigating the faint trails of scents when Catseye and Dori arrived back. The faint trace that he had thought was Yvette had been stale, days old. Nothing new to indicate she was still there. But there had been something else... "It's too faint for me to be sure, I can't tell -shit- for sure here, but..." He stayed down, fingertips barely resting his fingers on the ground. "Do either of you have anything, because I don't wanna, put you know, ideas in your heads before you tell me what you smell."
"Sweat," Catseye piped up when she'd shifted back into human form, poking clawed fingers into her stomach until she drew blood to cut her hunger pains out of her mind. "Fear. Blood. Musky, male smell. Expensive shampoo, but really faint. Hasn't been used for a while. I don't think it's any of our people. Dori?"
"Maybe? There's some people there and they might be hurt. I mean, none of them sound comfortable, so we should hurry," Dori said firmly. If anyone was hurt they needed to get them out of there ASAP.
Kyle grunted in the affirmative and gestured down towards the cells. "Thought so too. Lets get this shit open." He got out of his crouch and jogged down towards the cell doors, peering into the small window. Empty, empty, empty, huddled body in a jumpsuit. The prisoner flinched as Kyle tapped the window, and his face came into full view, and Kyle stepped back in surprise.
He tapped the comm in his ear. "Blink, Nightcrawler, might need you over here. We've got definite prisoners by the stairs, and I swear to God one of them's that Philip kid who was at the mansion. I'm pretty sure he's hurt." Not worth sending Catseye back the ten feet now that he had a confirmation.
Kurt nodded affirmation to Clarice and headed that way. "How much blood can you smell, Wildchild? Is he hurt? Do you know if it is a minor or major injury?"
"Hard to say." Kyle said, half on his comm and half to Kurt himself as he arrived. "There's so much going on and a lot of it's faint, so I'm guessing minor but I hadda get the X-ladies here to confirm for me."
Peeking through the little window in the door, Clarice tried to open a portal disc so she could teleport through. Nothing happened. She opened the discs as easily as breathing. What the hell? Trying again, her brow furrowed in concentration and confusion. A third time. A fourth. "Kurt, try to 'port through the door," she said, taking a deep breath. "Because I can't. My portals aren't opening."
Kurt frowned deeply, glanced through the door, and tried. Then tried again. And then set his back to the wall. "This is not right. I think they may know we are here."
Kyle glanced at Kurt, and dropped back into a protective crouch. "You think they know we're here? No -shit-, they know we're here."
Waiting made seconds stretch out into a seeming endless number of moments. Kurt's team waited outside the citadel's wall, alone apart from the comm device whispering into Kurt's ear. Updates came with the progress of Bishop's group as they advanced in their mission to the main power structure. Tension mounted as the group drew closer to their objective, though when it was complete distant sounds of surprised voices informed the team before the coordinating men could. Power was down, Scott's team was in motion and Kurt had to move into what would be pitch black lower levels to find their people.
The darkness wasn't a problem for him, and he suspected not for Catseye either - certainly not if she shifted into either catshape - but Kurt was mindful than the same wasn't true for Kyle and Clarice. He turned and beckoned to the group. "Time to go. No lights just yet, Cheetara and I will take point as we can see if anyone is there."
Nodding at Kurt's instruction, Catseye shifted into cougar form and took a second to adjust to the influx of information from her heightened senses. She could hear the voices much more clearly now, and could see farther down the corridor ahead, but couldn't discern any shapes inhabiting it. Of course, there wasn't really a way for her to communicate that to her teammates without shifting back, since there was no telepath among them. So she just kept moving forward, tail swishing back and forth, figuring if she did encounter anyone, her attacking it would serve as a sufficient heads up that someone was there.
Clarice didn't like 'porting blind and that was what she essentially was right now since they wasn't any light. She had a headset light so her hands would remain free, but it wasn't on just yet. Following Catseye and Nightcrawler, she headed carefully down the corridor, hoping that there wasn't any obstacles on the ground to trip over.
Kyle did his best to not keep double-triple-quadruple checking on Doreen. He trusted her, he knew she was perfectly adequate in situations like this, he knew for a fact that she was keeping her excitability in check, but dammit, she was his girlfriend and he couldn't help but not like this at all. He slid to the back of the group, taking the rear guard position. "I don't hear anything, it sounds clear to me." No footsteps or walkie-talkies yet anyway.
Dori was trying her best not to let her twitchiness get the best of her. But between all the smells and everything going on, it was hard. She'd really rather be outside somewhere hanging in a tree.
"I don't hear anything either," Dori said, keeping herself as calm as she could, "Don't smell them yet either." If only because this place smelled weird.
The team reached the end of the corridor and Catseye found herself hesitating as she got her first (albeit truncated due to the darkness) view of the prison complex proper. It wasn't as large as she thought it would be... in fact it just sort of looked like any old office or school building. Just a main area with a bunch of closed doors with little windows in them along the edges, and a staircase on the one end. She had to remind herself that there could be any number of horrible, evil things happening to her friends behind those doors in order to keep up her drive to do what they were here to do. Luckily, she snapped back into focus right before a security guard lumbered past, giving her time to get out of the way on silent paws. She turned back to Kurt, awaiting orders about how he wanted to handle the checking of the rooms- did he want them in teams, did he want some people to check the rooms while the others incapacitate the guards?
Kurt, to most eyes, was currently just a pair of yellow eyes glowing from the shadows he'd drawn around himself thanks to his secondary power. He singled out Kyle and Dori, pointing them to the stairs, then Catseye to the guard, and finally indicated himself and Clarice and the doors.
'What was behind door #1' was not a game that Clarice much cared for, especially since she had seen what was behind doors before and had been scarred by it. This did not bode any better either. Nodding to Kurt, she slipped silently over to the one closest. She didn't have any sort of powers of invisibility or to see in the dark so she kept one hand on the control for the light she wore, though it was still turned off.
***
Kyle went down to all-fours, gesturing carefully to Dori to keep upright to keep watch. He barely breathed, inhaling and exhaling painstakingly slowly to eliminate even that noise from the background, and then shook himself all over, and let out a almost animal-like snort as he sniffed and took measure of the smells - and mouth open, tastes - in the air.
He went all the way down to the floor with his nose nearly touching it before Kyle popped back up, face set in an expression of barely controlled anger. Metal and old blood and sweat and the smells of a hundred people, and new blood, for sure and the slightest hint of apples and under that, barely, a acrid smell that reminded him of the operating table Rory Campbell had strapped him and Marius and Jennie to. He motioned for Dori to come closer. "Go get Cheetara. I need confirmation, BigCat style." He said, voice so quiet he was almost just mouthing the words. "It may be Yve... Penance."
"Okay," Dori said, nodding once. It was different, working together in the field, but she could do it. And she resolved not to mess up. Padding quietly as she could - which was pretty darn quiet, given the lack of shoes and soft feet, though there was the hollow click of claws on the floor most people wouldn't be able to hear it. She went back to where Catseye was, "Wildchild needs your nose," she said as softly as she could.
Catseye looked up from the guard she'd pounced on and knocked unconscious. It had been a proud moment for her, calculating the angles and speed to get her pounce perfect, hitting the guard square in the shoulders and falling on him so she knocked the wind out of him and he rapped his head soundly on the floor. She chuffed at Dori in understanding, licking her friend's hand and heading upstairs to Kyle.
***
Switching on her light, Clarice looked through the first door, a slight shimmer around her front as she created a teleportation portal in case anything came at her. If something did, it wouldn't hit her, but would be transported to her secret place. They wouldn't like it regardless. "You see anything Nightcrawler?" she asked. Her light didn't compete well with Kurt's nightvision.
"Empty", he whispered, peering over her shoulder. "To the next."
The next several were also empty. Finally though, Clarice's light caught something in a cell. "What is it?" she asked, unable to quite make out what looked like a bundle of rags or clothing or something. Maybe someone had been in it recently, but not now.
"Abandoned clothes", Kurt said, frowning. "Or bedding, perhaps, I cannot quite tell. Not a person, in any case."
***
Kyle was still crouched and investigating the faint trails of scents when Catseye and Dori arrived back. The faint trace that he had thought was Yvette had been stale, days old. Nothing new to indicate she was still there. But there had been something else... "It's too faint for me to be sure, I can't tell -shit- for sure here, but..." He stayed down, fingertips barely resting his fingers on the ground. "Do either of you have anything, because I don't wanna, put you know, ideas in your heads before you tell me what you smell."
"Sweat," Catseye piped up when she'd shifted back into human form, poking clawed fingers into her stomach until she drew blood to cut her hunger pains out of her mind. "Fear. Blood. Musky, male smell. Expensive shampoo, but really faint. Hasn't been used for a while. I don't think it's any of our people. Dori?"
"Maybe? There's some people there and they might be hurt. I mean, none of them sound comfortable, so we should hurry," Dori said firmly. If anyone was hurt they needed to get them out of there ASAP.
Kyle grunted in the affirmative and gestured down towards the cells. "Thought so too. Lets get this shit open." He got out of his crouch and jogged down towards the cell doors, peering into the small window. Empty, empty, empty, huddled body in a jumpsuit. The prisoner flinched as Kyle tapped the window, and his face came into full view, and Kyle stepped back in surprise.
He tapped the comm in his ear. "Blink, Nightcrawler, might need you over here. We've got definite prisoners by the stairs, and I swear to God one of them's that Philip kid who was at the mansion. I'm pretty sure he's hurt." Not worth sending Catseye back the ten feet now that he had a confirmation.
Kurt nodded affirmation to Clarice and headed that way. "How much blood can you smell, Wildchild? Is he hurt? Do you know if it is a minor or major injury?"
"Hard to say." Kyle said, half on his comm and half to Kurt himself as he arrived. "There's so much going on and a lot of it's faint, so I'm guessing minor but I hadda get the X-ladies here to confirm for me."
Peeking through the little window in the door, Clarice tried to open a portal disc so she could teleport through. Nothing happened. She opened the discs as easily as breathing. What the hell? Trying again, her brow furrowed in concentration and confusion. A third time. A fourth. "Kurt, try to 'port through the door," she said, taking a deep breath. "Because I can't. My portals aren't opening."
Kurt frowned deeply, glanced through the door, and tried. Then tried again. And then set his back to the wall. "This is not right. I think they may know we are here."
Kyle glanced at Kurt, and dropped back into a protective crouch. "You think they know we're here? No -shit-, they know we're here."
