Genosha - The End of the Beginning

[xp_daytripper]

Thomas Moreau is a scary, scary man.

Trigger warning for explicit violence and language.



Clarice had kept quiet throughout the talk and the beatings, hair in her face hiding the scratch marks and other abrasions. She was too pissed off to be scared, despite her powers being gone. She would have loved that years ago. Now, she was just angry as she was held by the guards. She smiled shakily at the guards, even though it hurt, “I’ll tell you want you want to know,” she offered, voice contrite. “Just...just, don’t hurt me. Please.”

Moreau smiled. “You see? That’s not so hard.” He said, eyes moving over the assembled prisoners. “Cooperate. Submit. Because otherwise, I have absolutely no compunction against grinding you into non-existence.”

He stopped in front of Doug, and pressed two fingers into the deep bruise on his face. “Or you can keep blustering. No more threats, Junior?”

The pain didn’t really register on Doug. He’d been bruised and worse before. His brain felt like it was moving through molasses, though, trying to add up who was there, and who wasn’t. No Emma. No Wanda. No Nico. Plus whatever X-Men were still free, as it was clear the magistrates hadn’t made a clean sweep of things.

Terry’s hair couldn’t cover all the bruises. He’d seen the way Amanda wavered on her feet, and how tightly bound Jubilee was. His eyes lingered longest on Marie-Ange, though. How to tell his ex-girlfriend that he’d seen her boyfriend’s dead body? Moreau’s digging hand put him well within arm’s reach, and Doug lunged forward, the top of his forehead striking the older man right at the bridge of the nose. Pain burst in his kidney as he took the buttstroke he knew would come, and sagged to one knee, grinning up at Moreau. “No threats. Old man,” he gasped out between shallow breaths. This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

Thomas Moreau wiped the blood from nose, rubbing it between his fingers. “Interesting. Not willing to quit, ready to keep fighting, is that it? Well, young man, I’m suitably impressed. You’ve proved that we can’t break you, and eventually you’ll come after me. I’m actually very scared about what you might do.”

He walked over to one of the Magistrates and took the man’s sidearm. With a nod, the guard behind Paige drove his boot into the back of her knees, sending her crashing to the ground. Moreau leveled the gun at her, a foot from the back of her head. “And since you’ve proved that, my only option is to get rid of you before you can break out and hurt me. Officers?” He cocked his gun, and all around Doug, Magistrates were training their weapons on the prisoners. Moreau’s eyes locked with Doug’s, and it was immediately clear that this was no idle threat.
“So, why don’t you tell me this isn’t over yet?” As his finger slowly began to squeeze the trigger.

Doug didn’t feel like knuckling under like a ‘good little mutie’. Or playing Moreau’s game. If he really wanted them all dead, they’d have been executed and dumped in shallow graves already. No, he wanted them broken to his purpose. If it was just Doug, he might have seen if Moreau was willing to go all the way. As serious as he sounded, he undoubtedly wanted them to suffer first. But Moreau had picked the right lever to use against him. He wasn’t willing to see friends, the only real family he had left these days, suffer in his place. “It’s over,” he said grudgingly, lowering his eyes first. He may not have believed it any more than Moreau really believed that they would ever break out, now wasn’t the time to test it.

“Is it?” Moreau said softly. “Convince me.”

Of course. Refuse to play one game, get caught in another he should have seen coming. Doug felt about three steps behind mentally. And falling further back. “I don’t know what it is you want,” he said, which was true. He might have been able to read the man better if he had his powers, but at this point he was just guessing. “Just...please don’t hurt her. Them,” he corrected himself almost immediately, forcing himself not to look at any of the women he cared for who had guns to their heads.

“Lesson number one, animals. Resist, and it’s the person beside you that I’ll hurt. I’ll make you watch it, and then, I’ll hurt the person beside them. My brother doesn’t believe in torture, but he’s never been toe to toe with fanatics. I’ve watched men wire their children up with explosives and send them into a bunker to blow up allied troops.” He walked over to Doug and slammed the butt of the pistol into his throat, sending him to the ground as if pole-axed.

“I’ve seen what happens when mutants get their hands on good men. Or when they have a taste for genocide.” His face was ugly; brute with his words. “And if stopping that means grinding you into paste, I won’t even hesitate. Because you’re not people, and torturing you to death in front of each other won’t cost me a moment’s sleep.”

"So, now that you understand how things work around here." Moreau said, stalking around the captives. "I think the time has come to make sure that your little cult leader knows just what a class A fuck-up he made sending you people here. You heard the Chief. Dozens dead. So I need to make it perfectly clear just how much we can hurt you animals if you step out of line."

Fighting down the rising tide of worry and the nagging doubts that they had been outmatched, Ororo lifted her chin as she watched the hard-eyed man prowl around the group. It would be dangerous to show fear, though outright defiance would be just as bad or worse for drawing his ire. She desperately hoped those with her could contain their anger and outrage long enough for them to regroup in private and form a plan - for there would be a way to escape this situation, no matter how dire it seemed at the moment.

"Yeah, fuck you." Kyle spat. He'd fought when they were captured, and been tased and a burn mark was visible on his cheek. He'd continued fighting when they took his X-Men insignia and had a black eye and split lip and a limp for his troubles and was heavily shackled, having clawed at the guard who had pulled him from the cell. "What the fuck do you think you're even going to get away with? You think nobody's fucking noticed a bunch of people just went fucking missing?"

Sarah had been a fighter too, and the absence of her healing factor was shocking to anyone who knew her well. You just couldn’t throw yourself around like she did without a healing factor. Well, you could, but then you look like hell. Sarah could attest to that. She snorted. “Animals. How very fucking original. Are we done here?”

Jubilee struggled to her feet, her body clumsy under the intense amount of bonds they’d decided to tie her with. Her knuckles were still scraped and bloody from the fight she’d put up before being captured, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what else was injured but it certainly felt like at least a few ribs had been badly bruised, if not broken and her elbow throbbed where her arm had been wrenched.

“I think that you have no real idea of who or what we are, dude. So how about we just pretend we’ve all used whatever insults we can think of, and you just get on with whatever it is you’re going to do. Cause like, seriously? So over you people right now.”

“I can’t really tell whether it’s bravado or just stupidity. Commander Semoko?”

“Sir.” A tall black female Magistrate stepped forward and saluted smartly.

“This one has just volunteered for deep core mining in Prenova. But I’m afraid that she might be distracting to the other filth down there.”

“Yes sir.” Semoko pulled out her sidearm. Faster than expected, she had a grip on Jubilee’s hair and smashing her gun across her nose, breaking and deforming it. The second blow landed on the side of her mouth, leaving blood and broken teeth dripping from her mouth. The third one opened her left eyebrow up, and the force actually tore the hair away in her grip, letting Jubilee crash senseless to the floor.

“Dat’s enough.” Remy said, having struggled to his feet. “You win, Moreau. You de one in charge.”

Paige looked up from her hands, where she had been willing them to stop shaking, for her heart to quit jumping in panic, at Remy’s words. She had not attempted to stand since being kicked to the ground, since that moment of closing her eyes against the scene in front of her with the resignation that this was it and Lord have mercy was she going to haunt Doug’s stupid, skinny ass.

There was something she wanted to say, at the tone of his voice, a tiny spark of fury at his words, but either from sense or numbness she remained silent to watch the exchange.
“Do you think I need the likes of you to tell me when I’m in charge?”

“Non. But dere be no more resistance. We understand.” It was odd hearing the Cajun try and placate the man, but Remy knew that things were getting perilously close to desperation. Moreau was egging them on, looking for an excuse to put half of them in the ground. He’d caught a flicker of concern in the eyes of Anderson as she’d been ordered out; that she knew what the play was. He could kill Moreau now, but all it would do is get himself and everyone killed in return.

Jim's gaze fixed on the stain that spread from the ruin the woman named Semoko had made of Jubilee's face. His head pulsed like it was full of broken glass. It was subsiding, but slowly. Coherent thought drifted among the outer edges, crumbling whenever he tried to focus. But he heard a voice say no more resistance, and recognized it as someone he knew. Someone Ororo and Lorna trusted. So he simply let his eyes linger on the pooling blood and not the cold, familiar face watching from the ring of guards, and did nothing.

Angel swallowed hard, shaking, her shoulders hunched up until they were almost touching her ears. Fighting back when she’d been captured hadn’t done her much good - though she’d probably managed to burn a couple baddies before they fought her down and cracked her upside the head. She looked around, her eyes falling momentarily on Kyle before coming to a rest on Vance at the end of the line. Welcome to the X-Men, she thought, a bit blearily, before her attention returned to their captors.

Adrienne was still pretty shocked that the rescue attempt had failed. That was the massive downside of having faith in people, of course. Depending on other people just made it worse when they failed to do what you believed they could do. Now even more of them were stuck here. “It’s great you guys all went and got yourself captured,” she muttered with dark sarcasm to the new captives. “At least there are new faces they can beat on for insulting them and fighting back.” Her own was still pretty messed up from fighting when they’d first been captured.

It was as though there was a weight in his chest that North could not lift, and a fog in his mind that would not dissipate. After the flood of adrenaline that had risen and crested during the fight, he was now so very tired. Wary and weary, dull blue eyes followed Moreau’s movements, hearing and silently registering Moreau’s smug tirade even as he raised his uninjured arm to wave off Adrienne’s angry words, indicating that she should keep her thoughts to herself for now. His jaw was swollen, and he could taste copper where he had bitten his cheek when an asswipe had broken his trigger finger and kicked in his knee. Capitalising on the throbbing pain to keep him in the present, North swallowed a savage growl.

He had averted his eyes when Jubilee was attacked and knocked down, and had nodded once when Remy spoke, military-trained mind recognising the implied order. Lashing out now would only be futile. Opportunities would present themselves later. Failing that, North knew how to create them, even if it would cost him his life.

“Fucking assholes,” Cammie muttered, more to herself than out loud. She had the bruises to attest to just how quiet she had been. In truth a part of her was still really spoiling for a fight because even if she was getting her ass handed to her she could check out mentally for a bit and goading someone into hitting her was something she could control. About the only thing she could right now, “Too big fucking cowards to fucking fight us fair.”

Barely conscious, but still upright, Lex didn't really understand what was going on. He'd been throwing out so much electricity during their frenzied retreat that when he finally went down he hadn't been able to put up much resistance to the men who shackled him. Without his powers he couldn't access that wellspring of power that he normally drew upon. This, in turn, made him feel even more powerless and exhausted. He was sure that was what their captors were going for but he'd be damned if he let them see him falter. So, he let the smirk grow on his face as he watched the magistrates. When they broke free of this place he wanted to revisit this pain on each of them.

“Now, who wants a trip out in the country.” Moreau ambled around them, smiling pleasantly. He nudged the moaning Jubilee with the toe of his shoe. “This one certainly. And the blue furred bastard. He and the blonde seem close, so I think they could use some time apart.”
One of the guards started to make notes, walking up to each of the captives indicated and running an RFID wand across their restraints to mark them.

“Now let’s see. Dogboy could be useful, let’s take the old guy as well. Let’s take the two cheerleaders and the green bitch.” He pointed at Layla, Paige and Cammie. “The mouthy cunt who hasn’t learned to shut it yet. Send her and the little red-head. Frat boy behind her too. Now who else?”

Despite the swelling that threatened to close one of his eyes shut and the purpling bruises on his face, Vance stood as tall and defiant as he could, his one good eye glaring at Moreau, even as he wandered in front of them, clenching his teeth at Jubilee’s harsh treatment. But the only time he took his eyes off of Moreau was when he felt another pair of eyes on him, and his one good eye flicked over, head turned to catch Angel’ s look.

Vance’s jaw tightened noticeably at the look of brief pain in Angel’s eyes, and he stiffened, ignoring the sharp jab of pain that lanced through his chest from bruised ribs. His eyes snapped back to Moreau as Angel was called up for the train, and he couldn’t help himself; when Moreau asked for more volunteers, Vance shifted where he stood, daring Moreau to add him in too.

“How did you know we were coming?” Remy said, and Moreau stopped, thumb running across his chin.

“Aren’t you the take charge type. Well, unlike the Americans, we’re not stupid. My brother knew that mutant terrorists would eventually target us, and likely try to link up with people sympathetic to their cause. So we made sure that those people work for us. Virtually every anti-government and mutant rights ‘secret’ organization in Genosha was started by our agents. We also have some...independent operatives whose job it is to be guards who are a bit too talkative or civil servants with a grudge. The second you started asking questions, you got passed through different agents until we could be sure that you were looking for intel to stage an attack. We didn’t know who you were, but we made sure that with the information we passed along, how you’d likely come after us.” Moreau clapped him on the shoulder. “I think that we’re going to keep you for a chat. But, how about we add the white haired lady in the front to the list too?”

Layla’s hands continually clenched into fists, released and clenched again. Tension held her shoulders tight with the effort to keep quiet, to keep still. The last threat she’d gotten, the one to throw her naked in the common cells, was still at the forefront of her mind. It wasn’t bad enough that Ms. Frost and Mr. Kane had been in here already, but it seemed like all the people who were supposed to save them were stuck here now too. Mr. Summers, Herr Sefton, Herr North and...her eyes kept sliding off to the side to watch Kyle. It seemed really stupid but his split lip and shackles and the bruises she could see starting bugged her the most. She tried to hide it but her eyes kept moving down the line from Ms. Frost to Mr. Summers to Herr Sefton to Herr North to Amanda on the ground and then always returning and lingering on Kyle before dropping to the ground.

People had come for them and they had failed and now people were being separated out. Again. Including Layla. Even her distracted gaze had spotted the gesture in her direction when the asshole issuing orders had mentioned the cheerleaders. She hadn’t seen Sarah, Megan or the others since they were taken, which is why she very quietly-and surprisingly politely-asked, “Are you sending us where you sent the others?”

“Oh, my plan is to reunite you with your friends as soon as possible. Believe me.” Moreau said chillingly, and waved to the guards. “Get them out of here. Some of them have an early train to catch in the morning.”

There was something about the tone of voice he used, his air of superiority and that smug fucking look on his face that really got to Layla when she finally looked at the man. He thought he was so fucking above them, that they were dirt because they were mutants. The blonde was pulled out of the line up by one of the many armed men and she saw the bloody mess they’d made of Jubilee, the mess she’d been trying not to look at just as she was trying not to look at Kyle’s blackening eye. Her hands balled into fists yet again and as she was nudged along to leave the room she had to walk right by Moreau.

She couldn’t help it. Layla had been holding herself in check so well but as she took a step to move past the man she instead pivoted and swung, wanting to shove her fist straight through his smug fucking face.

“Layla, no!” Kurt shouted from further down the line, struggling against the guard who’d grabbed him as he lunged forward and forgot all about being the smart one, only wanting to stop the beating he was sure his student had just earned herself.

The blow glanced off of Moreau, his reactions quick and obviously trained. He rubbed his jaw where her blow had landed, shaking his head. Meanwhile, Layla had been grabbed by two guards, and Kurt left doubled up by a blow to the gut, followed by several kicks to the stomach while he was on the ground.

“Didn’t your last attempt at violence teach you people anything? Obviously, we need a stronger lesson. Take them to the mutate chamber."

“Do you want us to bring back the others, sir?” One of the Magistrates said, but Moreau shook his head.

“No need. They can tell the rest of the animals what they just earned.” He said darkly, before stalking out.