xp_logs | Kyle's arrival. well, at least his RESCUE. Wednesday evening.

x-wildchild.livejournal.com posting in

Nate and Pete, Dr. Maddy, Sam and Paige go rescue the furball. Summaries as the logs go on.

Nathan, in search for the kids he's trying to rescue, comes across Morgan, and Morgan has a very, very, very bad day. Nate gets to kick a lot of ass. He's very good at that, did you notice?

Nathan flattened himself against the wall, his eyes widening as he saw the three men standing on the back deck of the safehouse. The older man in a lab coat, smoking, he didn't know. But there were two men in body armor standing with him, two men all too familiar to Nathan, and they weren't supposed to be here. Foley wandered a few steps away from the other two, leaning heavily on the railing, while Morgan stared down bleakly at the man in the lab coat, who was saying something Nathan couldn't hear from here.

"Problem," he whispered sotto voce over his com to Pete. "There's a field team here."

He didn't have a chance to hear Pete's reply. Foley whirled, his eyes widening, and Nathan cursed. Should've used my telepathy... Sonic mutants and their damned hearing. He dove for cover as Foley let off a sonic blast. The wall where he'd been was spiderwebbed with cracks, and Nathan's ears were ringing. Not lethal force, though. Why not lethal force?

He rolled, coming back to his feet, and tore one of the trees out of the ground with his TK, hurling it in their direction. Morgan's exoskeleton shimmered into existence and he caught it with a claw, throwing it right back at Nathan. A quick shield deflected it, and Nathan took a step back, rapidly sizing up options as both Foley and Morgan started towards him.

All of the options went right out the window as he saw the way they were looking at him. Foley looked... torn, visibly shaken, and to see his mask down to that extent, in a situation like this, shook Nathan to the core.

Morgan, on the other hand, looked like he was on the verge of a berserk rage, something Nathan had never seen in him before. Hadn't even thought Tim - cool-headed, utterly rational Tim - was capable. "Son of a BITCH!" he snarled, the claws of his exoskeleton stretching, tearing at Nathan's shield. "Why are you here–WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?"

Nathan gritted his teeth, backing away and reinforcing the shield. "Why do you THINK?" he flung back at Morgan and smashed at the ground beneath Morgan's feet. The exoskeleton, overextended already, toppled, and Nathan lashed out at Foley as well, seeing the other man raising his hands to fire off another sonic blast. Foley went flying backwards, hitting the ground hard, his limp body rolling beneath the deck.

Which left Nathan facing the real threat. The one that could kill him, if he wasn't really damned careful about what he did now. "I'm here for the kids, Morgan," he said harshly, reinforcing his shield as Morgan's exoskeleton got back to its feet, the man floating inside the glowing form visibly shaken by his impact with the ground. "Don't get in my way."

"FUCK YOU!" Morgan howled at him and charged, the ground shaking with every step. Nathan gritted his teeth and launched himself up off the ground, landing on the edge of the roof, out of the exoskeleton's easy reach. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man in the lab coat running back into the house. He let him go. Bigger concerns right now.

And he had put himself up here quite deliberately. "Pissed at me, Tim?" he snarled back, still holding his shield. Come on, reach for me... That was one of the weaknesses of Morgan's exoskeleton. If he stretched too far, it wasn't nearly as sturdy. "Come and get me then, you poor son of a bitch. Not going to go easy on you this time--"

Unbelievably, Morgan fell for it. The arms of his exoskeleton reached out for Nathan again, crashing against his shield and thinning to a dangerous level. Nathan gritted his teeth, held his shield, and sliced through them. A scream of pure agony burst from Morgan as his exoskeleton rippled, its energy shimmering in wild patterns. And as he fell, it started to flicker.

Nathan flung himself into the air again, landing a few feet in front of Morgan and lashing out against as soon as he was on solid ground. He felt the burn of feedback as their telekinesis intersected, but it was his that won out, punching through the unstable exoskeleton even as a dazed Morgan tried to transmute it into a simple shield. Wrong move, Tim, Nathan thought and took it up close and personal, a TK-shielded fist smashing through the shield again and connecting solidly with Morgan's jaw. And you should have remembered that, all the times you came to grief this way in training...

Morgan reeled backwards, barely keeping to his feet, but recovered more swiftly than Nathan would have imagined. Dull golden energy gathered around his fists and he flung himself at Nathan wildly. Almost berserk. "Fuck you," he choked out, "fuck you, you bastard, like you care about any of the rest of us, LIKE YOU EVER DID!"

Oh, this was wrong, Nathan thought, shielding desperately even as he tried to land TK-assisted blows of his own. He could see in Morgan's eyes how close to the edge this must have pushed him, even if it was a different edge than what he'd seen in Foley. What the hell were the directors thinking, sending first-gen operatives to a conditioning facility? Like rubbing their noses in it, daring them to break...

The feedback built steadily between them as they hammered at each other with their telekinesis at such short range, and Nathan could taste blood at the back of his throat, could feel himself beginning to slip from the pain. Morgan seemed too maddened to feel it, but Nathan knew he had to get some distance and get it soon, or he was going to lose this fight.

Morgan gave him the opening. A stumble, as if he was finally beginning to feel the strain of it, and he fell back a step, his shield slipping. Just enough, and Nathan closed his eyes and let go.

Groundburst. Much smaller than the one he'd apparently managed in that warehouse in New York - a radius of twenty feet, no more. But just as effective. His TK exploded outwards, turning the grass beneath their feet into glass and flinging Morgan back like a rag doll until he hit a tree and slumped to the ground.

Nathan's eyes snapped open and he froze for a moment, half of him wanting to go to Morgan's side right there, the other half of him remembering the mission and urging him to run for the safehouse, get to the kids. The decision was made for him as someone opened fire from the house. He flung up a shield instinctively, but it was a weak one, in the immediate aftermath of such a high-level use of his TK, and he had to run back to cover.

Over by the edge of the woods, Morgan was stirring. Nathan stared desperately at him, opening his mouth to yell--something, he wasn't sure what, when Morgan suddenly cried out and crumpled to the ground again. Nathan reeled back against the wall of the house. He'd felt that from here. A telepath, triggering one of the obedience imperatives...

More shouting, and Nathan gritted his teeth, swallowing the instinct to run to Morgan's aid. Wasn't the mission. "I'm sorry," he muttered and ran for the nearest entrance to the safehouse. Priorities. The kids first. I'm so sorry, Tim...

---

And now, Pete gets to kick some ass. He is also very good at this. Also, in case anyone might have been wondering, Pete is not a nice man at all.

Pete was making his way to the control room to ransack the computers when he heard them coming. Two of them, by the sound of it. Pete stepped quietly into a side room, and stood by the door, waiting for them to go past. Then he stepped out into the hallway behind them, and put a hotknife through the head of the one on the left. There was a dull thud as the body hit the floor, and a surprised cry from the remaining one, but Pete was already moving backward, away from them, down toward the other end of the corridor, down toward where it turned a corner. By the time the bastard recovered his wits enough to react, Pete had thrown himself round the corner, and the sticky liquid the Mistra operative spat after him hit the wall, where it smoked and started to burn its way through the paint, then the wall beneath.

He stopped as soon as he turned the corner, and dropped into a crouch. 'Come on, be stupid.' Pete thought, as he heard the footsteps approach. Then they stopped. 'Bugger.'

He fished in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, then threw them quickly around the corner and was rewarded by another gob of the acid, this time coming down from a high angle to miss his cigarettes, and hit the floor. Pete stepped around the corner, casting a spread of hotknives back along the trajectory the acid must have taken, up toward the roof. He was rewarded by another scream, and a second thud.

He stooped, picked up his cigarettes, stepped over to where the man lay writing on the floor, a series of impressive burns and cauterized wounds over his lower torso and thighs.

"You've very fucking stupid, you know that? Not only are you a special kind of little bastard, but you attempted to kill my cigarettes."

Pete stepped back as the man attempt to spit more acid at him, but succeeded only in vomiting up a little near where he lay, which began to eat into the floor. He glanced up at the wall and ceiling, noting the traces of a glue-like substance that the guy had obviously been hanging from.

"Evolution's a wonderful bloody thing, but it should really have given you more brains, to go with your interesting extra bodily fluids. It might've done wonders for your long term survival."

Then he put a last knife through the guy's head, and moved on quietly, hoping things were going as well for Nate.

---

Kyle is having such a bad day. Not as bad as some people, but its still not good. Nate rescues him, for interesting values of rescue, and Kyle has a wiggins and runs away. Run, Kyle, Run.

Impossibly, he knew where he was going. Nathan ran through the pitch-black corridors of the safehouse, locked on the unmistakable feel of an empath ahead of him. Where an empath was, given the sort of panicked retreat that was going on at the moment, he was almost certain to find the kids. Transporting them at this stage of the conditioning was dicey, and would require more than sedatives.

Someone fired at him from down the hall. Nathan froze the bullets in mid-air and sent the man in body armor at the wall and through it, barely registering his mind wink out in death. Obstacle. Get rid of the obstacle

There were those blank nightmares faces again, and Kyle decided, rather remotely in his mind that maybe this was the part in the movie that he was supposed to know Kung Fu even though he'd never been taught and kick ass and take names. Except that his legs and arms still felt like wood, and all he could manage were a few feeble kicks and that low snarl that he'd learned seemed to come out even when he never wanted it to.

Maybe, he thought dimly, he should be using his teeth. He'd bitten -himself- enough in the last few howevers. if he could just get ahold of someone...

"They're in the hall!" one of the blank faces said. Sounding anything but blank. "Cruz, put him out, we've got to get out of here..."

The door - the reinforced steel door - exploded inwards. Nathan took one step into the room, the air around him glowing fiercely gold, and his eyes widened as he saw the technicians - and the empath, the damned empath - standing around a gurney. An occupied gurney. The sight of the boy lying there snapped the last of his self-control.

"Get AWAY FROM HIM!" The words tore themselves from his throat in an animal snarl and he was moving even as he spoke, going for the empath first. He visualized internal organs exploding, tearing themselves apart, and lashed out with his telekinesis. The man dropped without a scream, blood bubbling from his mouth and nose.

Oh. Hey. Blood. Kyle definitely recognized that smell. He'd bitten his tongue enough and scratched a little too hard at an itch too often to not know that one. Huh. Blood was new, and the blank faces faded out. That was new too, he thought dimly. He'd have rubbed his eyes, but the restraints were definitely inhibiting that, which was really kind of annoying, when he thought about it, because he was really kind of confused as to why there was so much yelling.

They went for their weapons. The stupid, stupid bastards. In close quarters, with him, they went for their weapons.

Conditioning staff. Not field operatives. So very, very stupid. Nathan tore through them with no mercy, no hesitation. A single stray bullet could kill the boy, and he wasn't letting that happen. No more dead children.

He crushed the throat of one with a thought, turning as the body dropped to lash out with his telekinesis again and send the IV stand through the chest of another like a flung lance. Three left, then, and he caught the bullets - and taser darts, they were trying to use a taser on him? Idiots.

"Jesus! Robbins, do--"

"SHUT UP!" Nathan snarled and gestured. Two of the empty gurneys flew through the air and crushed the man with the taser between. One of the remaining men dropped his gun, backing away.

Kyle wrenched one eye open - dimly aware that he'd had them clenched tightly shut, and that was a bit freaky, now that he thought on it. No blank faces, and two really scared-looking guys and a big scary guy. Hrm. Maybe it was the big scary guy who was making the room smell like blood.

He whimpered and actually managed to struggle against the straps holding his arms down. Which, he decided, was his accomplishment of the day. He'd have said something and he was seriously considering trying to make some sort of witty kid-sidekick comment, because this was the part where he was supposed to. Except that he wasn't sure his voice was working. Or most of his brain, because nothing was coming to mind.

Nathan saw the boy looking at him. Saw past the scared confusion, saw the damage already done, and that was it. He glared at the two remaining Mistra personnel, the air around him blazing. And they fell, dead before they hit the ground, puddles of blood rapidly accumulating beneath their heads.

More blood. Kyle looked around as much as he could, trying to figure out exactly what was going on, and not having a lot of success, because it was really -damn- hard to get a good look at anything when he was strapped down. And if he'd been able to do more than cough and try to attempt speaking very unsuccessfully, he might've asked the big scary guy to let him up.

Nathan took a deep breath, trying to let the anger drain away. Had to be calm. Reassuring as he could be, standing in a room of dead bodies. "It's all right," he said raggedly, still breathing hard from his run. The boy jerked against the restraints, and Nathan raised a hand. "Shh," he said, making the concerted effort to change his body language as he spotted the outward signs of a feral mutation. "You'll be all right. I'm here to help you."

It was really difficult to stop trying to pull his arms free - even if it wasn't doing any good, it gave him something to do, once he'd figured out that he could move them a little bit. But after a bit, he managed to stop struggling, lying back and catching his breath, only to get a nose full of that intense smell of blood - and sweat, he thought, and something bitter and burning, and ... ~god, tell me that's not -shit-~ he thought. At least, he hoped it wasn't -his-. That would be really embarrassing.

He was fighting the drugs, Nathan could feel it. "I'm going to let you loose," he said softly, stepping over one of the bodies and approaching the gurney, but slowly. He had a fair amount of confidence that he could restrain the boy telekinetically if he had to, but he didn't want to have to do that. Trading one set of restraints for another wasn't the aim here. "Just listen to me... I'm going to let you up, and we're getting out of here."

Okay, free, yeah, he could do that. Kyle tried to not move, and lay very, very still, not entirely sure what was going on. Except that the back of his throat was starting to itch from those -smells- and he was almost sure that was someone else's shit, and hadn't he read somewhere or heard that when you die you take a dump? He screwed his eyes shut again and tried not to breathe. Which lasted all of about three seconds before he inhaled again deeply and nearly choked.

Still a short distance away from the gurney, Nathan focused on the restraints. They undid themselves, and Nathan reached out a hand, palm up. "Can you walk?" he asked very softly.

Kyle nodded, got all the way to sitting up and trying to shake the stiffness out of his arms before the condition of the room registered to his senses.

That, he thought, was a lot of blood. Much more than he'd expected, though it explained the -smell-. And his stomach - good God, why was his stomach growling? He curled his fingers up and backed away from Nathan. If the big scary guy was the only person alive and everyone else was dead, then that meant that he'd killed... all.. those... people. Kyle snarled, and kept backing away, not taking his eyes off Nathan.

Oh, shit. Nathan's jaw clenched, and he consciously altered his posture, his body language again. "You have to come with me," he said, his voice a low growl. Be dominant, like they'd taught him to do when dealing with ferals. "We have to get out of here. There are more of them here."

Kyle just kept backing up until he got the end of the gurney and then stopped, eyes wide in fear. A low snarl escaped him and he tensed. If he backed up, there was blood. If he went forward, there was blood. And it was just like the cell only smaller and he couldn't even -move- here.

Nathan cursed under his breath. The boy was on the verge of outright panic, he could sense it. He had to do something. Reaching out telepathically, he made contact as gently as he could. #Calm down,# he sent soothingly. #I'm sorry... I didn't mean to scare you...# But the boy's thoughts were becoming more erratic, not less, and Nathan gritted his teeth, knowing that he had to risk an outright suggestion...

And as he reached out, trying to smooth out Kyle's thoughts as gently as he could, something snapped in his mind. Light, blazing emerald light, burning...

The minstrel fell, but the foeman's chains... a voice whispered in his mind, and a scream tore itself free from Nathan's throat as he tried frantically to break contact, raise his shields. The room tilted erratically around him, and he was lying on the floor suddenly, sprawled, gasping for breath.

Kyle tensed, and for a moment, the room stopped shrinking in on him, and his skin stopped that ungodly crawling and itching. And then the walls snapped, pressing against his senses. Too much blood, the air too thick and still and rank with the bitter coppery taste of death, of blood and waste and fear. And the door was open, and it was all he could do to not run over Nathan on his way out. And Kyle wasn't even sure he'd managed -that-.

---

After Kyle goes on his runner, Nate goes looking for him. He doens't find him, he does find the other 5 kids. Unfortuanlty for them - and Nate - they're not really in a state to be rescued. Nate has cope failure.

Where had the boy gone? Nathan caught himself on the doorframe, swaying and blinking as his vision tried to double. He ignored the bodies of the conditioning team in the room behind him and stumbled out into the hall. There was an alarm going in the background. Still. How long was I out--and why was I out? Last thing he remembered was trying to calm the boy down telepathically, and then something had happened... had he hit a trigger? No, eight weeks in, it was too early for there to be any trigger...

Someone shot at him from the end of the hall, bullet that slammed into a shield that seemed to raise itself. Nathan, still dazed, waved a hand at the blurry figure and it let out a scream as it was smashed against the wall. "No time for this," he muttered, tottering in the other direction. "Need to find the kids..." He'd lost his com somewhere. In the room?

No time to go back for it. The cells couldn't be far away. They'd want them close at hand. Conditioning went on regularly, and they couldn't be taking them from one side of the house all the time.

They weren't far. Nathan turned at the next left and froze, seeing the reinforced doors at regular intervals stretching down the hall. For a moment, memory superimposed itself over the reality of the moment and he stumbled, catching himself against the wall before he could fall. He was breathing rapidly, his heart thundering in his ears, and somewhere along the line he had forgotten that he was supposed to be focusing, here. Oh, well.

The first door was locked. With a combination keypad and a biometric scan. Nathan shook his head slowly and tore the door right out of the frame with his telekinesis. Words of reassurance sprung to mind, and he opened his mouth to tell the kid inside that it was going to be okay, that he was here to help...

...no kid. Just a white, empty cell. "No," Nathan muttered fitfully. Had to be the boy's cell. Had to be. His telepathy was all over the place, his shields flickering madly, so he couldn't reach out to their minds, he'd have to talk to them... "Stand back from the door," he called hoarsely, and pulled the door out of the frame a little more carefully.

Empty. "No. No, no..."

Three empty cells.

Four.

Five.

Six...

Where were they? Where WERE THEY? Nathan followed the hall, breaking into a stumbling run. But there were no more doors. He ran, took the first turn, looking for more doors, more cells. Maybe the facility had been intended for more kids, sometime in the future. They had to be here. Just somewhere else. Had to be. But all he found were offices, labs...

Another metal door. At the very end of the hall, and Nathan started to tremble as he approached it, realizing what it was. No lock on this one.

Why would you lock a freezer, anyway?

He opened the door, the chill of the metal seeping through his gloves. In that first glance, he saw shelves of food and medical supplies. Then he looked down at the floor.

Five bodybags. All in a neat row.

---

Sam's helicopter is being shot at. Sam is displeased. He and Paige and Dr. Maddy kick some ass. Kyle gets outside, and tries to kick Sam's ass, but gets tranqed in -his- ass.

Taking another check of the dials and indicators in case they needed to make a hot-and-fast getaway, Sam kept one ear listening to the comm in his ear for any signal from Nathan and Pete. As a result of this distraction, he didn't notice the Mistra operatives sneaking up on the helicopter until the first gunshot cracked towards the Blackhawk. Sam popped out of his seat and towards the back of the helicopter quickly. Someone was _shooting_ at his helicopter. Someone was shooting at _his helicopter_. This would not do. Someone was going to get punched for this. "P...Husk, with me," he called out, after sparing a glance to make sure Dr. Bartlet was out of the direct line of fire.

Madelyn nodded briefly at him, keeping well down. "Go on," she told him, drawing the tranq pistol she'd brought along - a real gun would have left real holes, and as much as she hated Mistra with a burning passion, X-Men didn't kill. And neither did doctors. Still, she was glad for the Kevlar body armor she'd managed to grab - its weight was strangely comforting, like an old friend. "Be careful - I'll try and cover you as much as I can, barring immunity to Mr Sedative here."

Under any other circumstances, Paige would have bristled at her brother's tone. But these weren't any other circumstances. Straightening, Paige made to follow Sam, pausing only to give Madelyn a smile that said she knew she'd be safe. Threading her fingers through her hair -- it eliminated a wasted second if she needed to husk -- she turned away. She didn't like leaving the doctor here. Not at all. She also didn't know how the X-uniforms were ever going to stand up to her mutation in the future, but that was another story.

Continuing past Paige and out the side door, Sam didn't even bother touching the ground, using the edge of the portal as a springboard to launch himself into the air, blast field immediately springing up around him with a loud 'bang'. It wasn't a moment too soon, either, as a bullet sizzled to slag against the chemokinetic flames. His head swiveled from side to side, already looking for threats.

Alessandra diMarchello, a Mistra operative for ten years, recognized the flyer instantly. It wasn't as if they all hadn't been told to familiarize themselves with the files on the X-Men. "Take out the helicopter," she snapped over her coms and launched herself into the air with an explosion of plasma, already taking aim at Guthrie. Let's see just how much that blast field of yours can take, boy...

Sam had seen the flyer launch, and was well prepared to dodge out of the way of her initial pass like a toreador spinning out of the way of a charging bull. He wasn't sure how much maneuverability this woman had, but he doubted it was quite as good as Haroun, who had been working him hard in recent months. Diving low as the other flyer tried to turn, he drove his shoulder into the stomach of another operative who turned just a second too late, slamming him to the ground, unconscious.

'One down... Madelyn saw the man Cannonball had hit crumple to the ground, definitely not getting up again any time soon. She squeezed the trigger of the tranq gun, aiming for the relatively-few gaps in the body armor the operatives were wearing, grinning a little to herself in satisfaction as the dart hit home in the neck of a woman who had been lining up to take a shot at Cannonball while he was distracted by the other flyer. The Mistra operative, clutched at her neck, casting her eyes around for where the dart had come from, before the gun slipped from her fingers and she dropped. 'That's two... four more to go... She glanced out the door of the chopper again, looking for another target, before ducking back as a couple of stray bullets bounced off the metal with a ping, and swore slightly. A little too close - still, if they were using guns, that was a good indication they didn't have long-range powers, if they were mutants... Crossing to the other side of the chopper, Madelyn peeked out and lined up another shot.

Sam watched the Mistra operative go down with a tranquilizer dart in the neck and returned his attention to the flyer, who was coming back on a return course. He rather doubted she'd fall for the same trick twice. Touching down gently, he turned his blast field off and waited for her to come at him. She obligingly made a beeline for him, and at the last minute, Sam's blast field sprang up around both hands as he belted her sideways into a tree. Grinning to himself, he surveyed the battlefield, which between his efforts along with Paige and Doctor Bartlet, was rapidly coming under control. Suddenly, he whirled as a large metal door boomed open behind him.

Outside. Outside and still the blood and why was he still smelling blood and thank God he was outside.

Except that Kyle was -still- smelling blood and he was almost certain he wasn't his, and .. .more scary people. Scary alien looking people with funny clothes and goggles and smelling like burning .. something. Kyle had not idea what was burning, but there was definitely burning. He could taste it, foul and bitter in his mouth and sinuses.

He looked around, focused on the guy, the one who smelled like burning -whatever- and snarled. More of the assholes who put him here in the first place, or more of the scary big guy who made everything smell like -blood-.

The skin had been off well ago, Paige taking up her preferred metal husk. It was study enough to resist gunfire, but allowed her the freedom of movement to punch people in the nose. Which she did now, following with a knee to the gut. Her assailant toppled to the ground, groaning; he wouldn't be getting up for a while. Idly, Paige ran her fingers over her abdomen, assessing the damage, as she surveyed the scene. She blinked. There seemed to be a young boy outside now, and he did not look happy.

'Four... no make that five.' Madelyn noted Paige's rather effective bludgeoning had taken out another operative at the same time she had managed to hit one in the unprotected back of the knee. Then sudden movement caught her eye and she saw a young boy - one of the kids, has to be her mind supplied, even as she reloaded. He looked... well, confused was putting it mildly. Berserk was possibly closer.

Sam turned slowly to face the young boy who had snarled at him and carefully kept his arms away from his body in a non-threatening manner. From his apparent age, and the battered khakis and undershirt he was wearing, Sam was guessing that this was one of the children they were here to rescue. From the slightly elongated canines, and the hardened claws on his fingers and bare toes, Sam was guessing some manner of feral mutation like Wolverine or Sabertooth. "It's all right..." he said soothingly, approaching the boy like he would a skittish horse. "Ah'm not here to hurt ya..."

Kyle was panicked beyond speaking - actually, to be dead accurate, he was panicked beyond rational thought. Which is why not a damn thing Sam said registered. The smell of burning -something- did and the bodies on the ground and the metal -thing- running around and the whup whup whup that was making the inside of his head -hurt- and he needed to just make it -stop-.

He growled, deep in his throat and sprung at Sam, snapping and snarling and biting at anything that even looked like skin.

The kid springing didn't quite take Sam by surprise, but he spent an agonizing moment trying to figure out how to deal with him without injuring or further spooking him. Using the boy's momentum, Sam attempted to put him into one of the judo holds Scott had taught him. The boy kept flailing around, though, and Sam received a few cuts on the arms from the boy's claws, narrowly avoiding worse damage. "Doc, a little help here!" he called distractedly.

Okay, promises to stay in the chopper didn't count when someone was calling for her help. Aware that Paige was dealing with the last of the Mistra operatives, Madelyn jumped out of the open door and, keeping as low as she could and using the helicopter as cover, crossed half of the distance between Sam and the struggling kid. Her first shot went wide - the kid wouldn't stay still, and she swore again. Two more darts left... She aimed and squeezed the trigger.

Ooh. Quiet. And fuzzy and heavy.. and ... oh, look, Kyle noticed, that annoying whupping noise was getting -so- much quieter. He blinked, struggled again because he was still stuck, and that wouldn't do, and then slumped over into Sam, unconscious.

The last of the operatives on the ground and possibly with broken parts of their face, not restricted to jaw, nose and cheekbone, Paige had been one step away from diving to assist her brother before the tranq dart whizzed past. Turning her head quickly to it's source -- one could never be sure how many people were running around with tranquilizers these days -- she grinned at Madelyn and gave the thumbs up.

"You know. He's kind of cute when he's not attempting to bite people," Paige commented idly as she approached Sam, who was still shuffling Kyle in his arms.

"He's been through a lot," Sam said. "Ah'm not inclined to hold the bitin' against him, if even half the things Cable says about the Mistra conditioning are true." He strode purposefully toward the helicopter, strapping the boy into one of the seats in the back before turning to Doctor Bartlet. "Mind takin' care of these scratches, doc?"

"Just let me finish here..." Madelyn said, checking the boy's pulse and breathing - both strong and steady. She'd been reluctant to add to the drug cocktail that would already be inside him, but there hadn't bee a whole lot of options. "Hopefully he'll be a lot more forgiving about me shooting him in the ass than certain other people." Satisfied Kyle was secure, she turned to Sam. "Have a seat, Mr Guthrie. Paige, do you mind keeping an eye out for any more surprises? I don't trust our intell quite as much as I did before, somehow."

Watching Sam brush past her with her eyes, Paige found herself looking at the doctor and nodded. She stood outside the helicopter door, for all the world appearing like an ancient guardian statue, with her silvered eyes carefully scanning the area. Without distracting herself from her task, Paige easily rehusked; the same form, minus the bullet dents. It wasn't a matter of narcissm, more safety. Husk when you could, especially when they only lasted an hour. "Wouldn't put it past these people to have poison laced his claws," Paige mentioned, still staring outside. She could pretend that she wasn't worried and was merely being cautious.

The cuts were shallow, and bleeding freely. "Not until they finished the conditioning," Madelyn pointed out, grabbing the antiseptic cream and a swab from her medkit. "They wouldn't give him the means to kill himself until they were sure he wouldn't." Her tone was matter-of-fact.

"He could still survive with a heavily infected wound. Besides, they didn't trim his claws," Paige returned, almost as if she were reading from a textbook. She'd rather be overcautious than have a puss filled sibling, as amusing as the angry to the point of cruelty part of her thought it might be. She darted her eyes over to Madelyn, relieved to see that Sam had his head turned away, and gave her a look, speaking plainly that while she wasn't trying to tell the doctor how to do her job, he was her brother after all and that meant a little bit of fuss, before turning away as if nothing had happened.

"I'll keep it in mind, run some blood tests when we get back. And I'm sure Sam will tell me if he starts feeling strange, won't he?" Madelyn winked back at Paige and finished bandaging the worst of the scratches. "I wonder what's keeping the rest of them..." she said, her eyes flickering to the open door of the facility.

After Doctor Bartlet finished bandaging his scratches, Sam returned to his seat in the pilot's chair, rechecking all of the dials and indicators he had been checking when the Mistra operatives had started shooting. He wanted to make sure that if they got in the air, that nothing was broken or not working. Better to find out on the ground than in midair.

There was a burst of static over the coms, followed by a crashing noise. Silence, for a few long moments, then an unmistakable British-accented voice, demanding an answer from Nathan.

There was none.

---

Everyone goes to look for Nate. Paige picks the right place, and comes across.. a Nate. A not-well Nate. And some suspiciously body-shaped bags. Gah. More cope failure for Nathan.

He had left the door to the freezer open, but it was still so cold in here. The cold was seeping upwards from the floor he was kneeling on, spreading through him inexorably despite the body armor, but Nathan ignored it, staring blankly at the bodybags. Five. Five bodybags. Too large for the bodies inside. Five.

Paige stood behind him in the doorway, a hand resting lightly on the metal frame. She'd been one moment from moving on, having already scanned the room quickly for Nathan, before finding him on the ground. It had been too long a pause in her mind before she realized why exactly he was there and where exactly she was. Luckily, instinct took over and her nerves went to ice; a painfully cold sort of calm. On an inhale of breath she entered the room, boots ringing out against the tile.

"I've found him. If you can spare it, send someone. Lifting assistance. Far end of the south wing," Paige said into the comm, before turning it down. She wouldn't be answering their questions anyway. By now she had crossed the room and stood at Nathan's shoulder. "Come on. Let's get them out of here."

Five bodybags. Five. There was something buzzing in his ears - someone talking? But it didn't register. Just the bodybags. Black against the light gray floor. Five bodybags, one boy out there somewhere, six cells. One out of six. Only one.

Letting the silence ring out for as long as she could, Paige decided he wouldn't be answering and she'd have to try a different approach. "Sir. Sir, there's nothing you can do for them except get them out of here," she said gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. She had serious doubts that she would get anything from him but she'd had to try. Paige didn't enjoy bringing out her nasty side unless she absolutely had to.

Someone touched his shoulder and Nathan flinched violently, barely restraining himself from lashing out with his telekinesis when his vision cleared suddenly and he realized that it was Paige. "What--" he started, disoriented. Paige wasn't supposed to be in the safehouse. She and Sam were... He put a shaking hand to his temple, trying to focus. He'd searched for more kids, found the empty cells, found... his eyes flickered back down to the bodybags, lingered there for a long, blank moment, before he shook himself out of it again. Still on site. He was still on site. Had to focus. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat. "H-Help me up?"

"Come on," Paige replied gently, reaching down for his hand and pulling smoothly. He came to his feet somewhat unsteadily and she quickly moved her hand to the front of his shoulder, an anchor. "Let's get out of here," she said easily, giving him a knowing look and just managing to keep her thoughts on whether she could carry two at a time to herself.

Nathan looked down at the bodies, struggling to keep his emotions in check. "We can't--we have to--" He stopped, pain flooding through him, and raised his free hand. The five bodybags floated smoothly up into the air. So light. Like they didn't weigh anything... A strangled noise caught in his throat and only Paige's support kept him upright. The bodies, however, didn't so much as dip in the air.

Couldn't let them fall.