Continued from yesterday:
“Eeeew! I do *not* wanna know what I just stepped in.”
Cyclops pulled a face in the direction Havok’s voice emanated from. "Oh, great; working on your heroic reparte, bro?“
"You didn’t just touch what I just touched.” Shuffling, like footsteps, only muffled by a curious noice. It was almost like squelching, but thicker. Like moving through molasses. “Where the heck are we?”
“I think we’re under the warehouse.” Scott looked up, but couldn’t see the trapdoor they’d passed through for the network of pipes and other bits of metal latticing the ceiling far above. “*Way* under it.”
“Does that Leech kid’s power still affect us down here?”
Good question. “Uh, better you fire up than me. Don’t know what I might hit down here.”
Havok chucked his tongue against his teeth, and a faint reddish glow appeared around his raised left hand. “Still good. Guess he needs to keep an eye on us for his powers to work. Either that, or we’re out of his range down here.”
“Perhaps.” Scott was busy staring around them, trying to work out exactly what kind of a place they’d ended up in.
“So, fearless leader of mine, what’s the plan?”
“I’m, uh… working on it.”
Alex sighed. “Why does that not make me feel better? Ow!”
Scott jerked his head up as the light went out, Alex’s concentration broken. “What?”
“Something *bit* me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Seriously. Look - hang on a tick.” A red flare, and Alex raised a foot covered in sticky, viscous black goo. “Ugh, what is this stuff? Feels like glue.”
Scott studied the floor. “I think it’s just sewage.” A sniff. “Smells like it, at any rate.”
“Well, whoever produced it should eat more fibre.”
It took a few seconds, but then, “Eeew! Now that’s a mental image I *really* didn’t need right now.” Scott sighed, traipsing through the mess towards a darkened hole in the wall. “What’s this? Some kind of pipe?” He peered in, resting his hands on the rim to steady himself. Not that the gluey substance around his feet wasn’t providing enough of an anchor already. “This thing’s big enough for us to get through, if we knew what was on the other end.”
Alex was only half listening, concerned as he was with the state of his boot, and the rapidly swelling foot therein. “Uh, Scott? Not that I wanna worry you or nuthin’, but I think whatever bit me might’ve done something to my foot. It’s, like, getting to the size of a grapefruit over here.” He blinked. “Scott? Yo, Cyke?”
Alex turned, to find himself suddenly alone in the dank space. Of Scott, there was no sign, nor any indication where he’d gone. He’d made no sound, and Alex frowned to himself.
“Scott? Bro, you there?”
A deep, resonant rumbling split the confined air. A stab of fear speared Alex’s chest, before he remembered he was an X-Man, and not supposed to get scared of the bogey-man in the dark.
The rumbling came again. It seemed to originate from the tunnel entrance embedded in the wall. Alex schlucked over, grimacing as his injured foot became tender and hard to put weight on. Venom, perhaps? But what kind of venom only affected a single body part; and affected it so fast, as well?
The aperture was rough at the edges, with crumbling brickwork framing a dark cavity that seemed to go on forever. _Not manmade, then._
“Scott?”
Faster then he could react, a large tentacle whipped from the darkness to wrap around Alex’s throat. His hands flew to his neck, but he was already being hoisted aloft and dragged into the tunnel, body crunching against the old bricks to leave many a bruise come morning.
On instinct, Alex’s hands glowed, and a jet of red energy collided with the tentacle. The rumbling became a scream of pain, and he was dropped like the proverbial hot potato…
… Straight down the tunnel, which chose that point to take a sharp, vertical drop into the unknown.
Alex hit the almost-water with a sticky splat, submerging for a second in a chamber obviously quite a bit deeper than the one he’d just been in. Trying not to think what he was swimming around in, Alex pumped his arms and legs and powered back to the surface, drawing in a foetid lungful of air as soon as he broke it.
He almost wished he hadn’t when he saw what was waiting for him.
“Holy shit! This can*not* be happening. Octopi do *not* get that big, and they certainly *don’t* live under warehouses in New York.”
But it was, on both accounts. Tentacles waved everywhere, slapping the walls and ceiling with huge booms not unlike their sonic equivalent.
And suspended high above it all, scrabbling desperately at his neck and waist and the two tentacles wrapped thereon, hung his brother.
“Scott?” Alex took a moment to process, and then began swimming. "Scott! Don’t worry, buddy! I’ll get you down!“
Since he was a little busy, Scott didn’t answer. The second tentacle not trying to crush his larynx had pinned his arms to his sides, thus preventing him from hitting the control on his visor making him helpless as any human in the same situation. Not something he was best pleased about. The words ‘fuck’ and 'off’ featured heavily in his wheezy vocabulary.
Somethng brushed past Alex’s leg, and he turned to swim for a moment on his back. What looked like fins were rippling through the gunk, appearing and then disappearing.
Sudden fire jolted through his side as teeth similar to those recently in his foot fastened in his side. He yelped, and went down, dragged by what looked like the evil grandchildren of eels, only with a lot more teeth, and a lot meaner attitude.
Air escaped his mouth, and he struggled to get back to the surface, but it was no use. Alex found himself dragged yet further into the depths, and black dots crowded his vision as drums thundered in his ears.
_Oh fuck, fuck, fuckity *fuck*!_
~
His vision was filling with spots, his ears filling with a hissing noise, like cicadas…
And someone was singing.
”…dream sweet dreams for me… Dream sweet dreams for you…“
Who the hell would be singing the Beatles in *this* dump? Whoever it was, singing Ringo’s lullaby, they were relaxing the monster.
A distant splashing and sputtering indicated that Alex had found some air.
"Ew! *Gross*! I think I swallowed some…”
Scott was too busy coughing and gasping to tell him about mental imagery. He was just glad to have air.
“That’s it, Octy. Keep a hold on 'em,” said the stranger. “Hang on… help is on it’s way,” he crooned.
“Who *are* you?”
“The name’s Orpheus,” said the kid, who was powder blue. “I enchant critters like Octy, here, with my voice.” He inspected Alex’s swollen foot. “You stepped on Sissy!”
“Sissy being…?” Scott prompted.
“One of my snakes. There’s Hissy, Sissy, Olly[36] and Molly. Nightcrawler made me set the rest loose after James Hook bit Filch.”
“James Hook?”
“Crocodile,” Orpheus grinned. “I have a lot of crocodiles.” He poked the reddened foot.
“*OW*!”
“Patch *could* fix that, maybe… Depends if we got any of the antivenom or not.”
“But then, why would we waste antivenom on a pair of traitors?” said a new, heavily accented voice.
Scott could see little of the speaker but two glowing eyes in the shadows. Until he emerged. “We meet again,” he said.
“Can the cliches, na?” said Nightcrawler. “Well, Orpheus. Seems your pets came in handy for a change. Well done. We’re still going to talk about that verdammt croc, though.”
“Aaaaawww…” Orpheus pouted.
“It hurt one of *us*, kind. Do *you* want that happening twice?”
Orpheus sighed. “…guess not…” He turned to leave.
“Nein. I need you to exert your gentle influence on your squid.”
“Octopus.”
“Whatever. It has our prisoners. I don’t want it to have me as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
Scott finally found his brains and hooked them into his mouth. “You've got some brass-ball nerve, using *kids* to fight your battles for you.”
“Me? Nein, I try to keep them out of it. They were just upstairs to get some clean air, see the stars. Poke Herr General with sticks, that sort of thing. When *you* two idiots barged in, I’m sure they did what they *thought* was best. Right, Anna?”
“*HEY*! How’d you see me?”
Nightcrawler just grinned. “Gekommen sie, liebchen. Give me a report, ne?”
Anna was the quill-girl, and was capable of some moderate camouflage. Her spines recoloured to a dark brown as she joined the group. “They came in to bust the Gen'ral loose so we all went for th’ weapons an' then they found the entrance to Orpheus’ place so we let 'em go.”
“Succinct as ever. Danke, Anna. Was anyone hurt?”
“Leech slipped onna ladder'n’ busted 'is lip but Juliet helped him." Anna shrugged. "He’s okay.”
Another kid had emerged from the shadows, she had only one eye and purplish hair. And a damned big knife, quickly turned to his throat.
“Can I kill him, now?”
“*Leela*[37]…” Nightcrawler sighed, exasperated.
“What about the other one? With the bad foot.”
“*No*. Go fetch Patch.”
“You never let me have any fun,” muttered the purple-haired girl.
Nightcrawler watched her go. “The moral of *her* story is: never let Spiral handle the child-rearing.” He sighed. “Despite what you might think, these children aren’t combattants. Just - refugees, if you will - in this secret war.”
“Refugees?” said Alex. “The hell?”
“Pretty much all of us are second-generation mutants, Herr Summers," Nightcrawler explained. "And there are a great many more *latent* mutants than *manifest* mutants. Second-genners, especially ones born of two mutant parents,” he gestured at himself, “are more likely to be - visible. We can’t pass. Or some of us have something to conceal. And some of us - can’t hide at all.” He patted Orpheus on the shoulder. "They become unwanted. Too visible. Too inherently dangerous. Too *mutant* to be allowed in the sunshine. They fall through the cracks - and go underground.“
"We are legion,” said Orpheus, “and we are many.”
A creature emerged from the shadows, lead by Leela. It was a conglomeration, a fantastic chymaera. Bits of this animal and that, all mashed together in something vaguely humanoid. “Ouchies,” it said. "Sissy-bite, yes? Much nastiness.“ Talons slashed off Alex’s boot as if it were made of wet cardboard. ”…ooooohhh… Yes. Sissy *bit* you, yes she did. Got antivenom. Fix you up. Is it okay, boss?“
Nightcrawler appeared to wrestle with his conscience. "Verdammt… Ja. Do it. Maybe we can score some more. Or perhaps we can pull a raid or something…” He rubbed his head for the third time in as many minutes.
“Headaches?” said Scott. “I get those a lot. You need some heavy-duty Maxipren[38].”
“Really?” said Nightcrawler. “The stuff that the chemists lock up and it costs fifty dollars a bottle? Sorry, Freund, but we can’t really get our *hands* on it. And if I *could*, I’d use the money for more important things. Like *food*.”
_Yipe,_ thought Scott. “Sorry.”
~
Scott frowned. He’d pretty much made up his mind about Nightcrawler from their previous, though extremely brief, meeting. He was nothing but a terrorist, akin to Magneto, giving mutants everywhere a bad name.
But now, coming face to face with him again, he wasn’t sure what to think.
He hadnít realised how bad it was for him. The children around him looked at him like he was some kind of saviour, a surrogate father to all of them. Even in the darkness he could see how young he was. That surprised him. He couldn’t be more than twenty five if he was even that, but he was weary beyond his years. Leadership was a burden to him…he did it because there was no one else. And it was destroying him.
Scott had thought that he was sleekly muscled, but now he could see that he was actually underweight, his cheekbones were way too prominent, giving him a gauntness that only added to his demonic appearance. The guy had to fight for every morsel, and probably then handed it on to someone he thought more needy. Forced to live underground in the stink and the filth, in everything discarded from the world above… just like he and his charges…the refuse of society…
Meanwhile he, his brother, all the other X-Men, lived in a mansion with everything they could possibly want.
’_No wonder he hates everything…_’ Scott thought. ’_No wonder he hates us…_’
~
'So,’ continued Nightcrawler, breaking Scott’s rumination, 'the question is, what shall we do with you?’
He leant back against a wall, arms crossed, his blue brow creased in thought.
'I don’t like killing,’ he said at last, 'it’s sinful and wasteful, I do it when necessary, of course, but I don’t like it. I don’t think it's necessary now, but I do think it would be wasteful. Ja… ja, I know what to do.’
He moved closer to Scott, casting a critical eye over his body. Then, his tail lashed out and caught the small communications device hidden in his uniform.
'Let’s hope the water hasn’t ruined it,’ he muttered, fiddling about with the controls.
*
-Crackle, crackle, crackle-
Rogue picked up the mike, still not taking her eyes of the poll on screen.
'Scott?’ she asked, and was surprised when a terrifyingly familiar German accent replied.
'Nein, I’m afraid not. Who am I speaking to? Are you the leader of the X-men?’
'Uh, uh…’ Rogue, shocked, was at a loss for words, the other three peoples still in the room, Dazzler, Jamie, and Roman, were of little help.
'No,’ she said at last, 'no Ah… um… ah can got and get him, though, if you want…’
'Nein, nein, a message will do. Are you recording this conversation?’
Rogue pressed a few buttons, 'Am now,’ she replied.
'Serh Gut, send this to your leader. We know about your little rescue attempt, it failed, and now we have two of your men. Do you wan’t some proof? Here they are. Say hello one-eye.’
There was a brief noise as if the mike was being moved, then Scott's voice came to them, quick and high.
'I’m here. They have kids guarding the General, one of them can dampen powers, they-’ his voice was suddenly muffled.
'That’s quite enough for now,’ said Nightcrawler suddenly, his voice coming back loud and clear, 'my, what a motormouth. Now, here’s the deal, you want your men back, fine. Go to where the General is being held and drop off… say…’ he cited a large amount of money, 'only one of you is to come. We don’t want any trouble and if there is then the deal’s off. Do that and you have my word that I’ll deliver your men back, safe and sound. I’m not setting a deadline just yet, but don't take too long about it, people are like food, they tend to spoil if you keep them too long. Contact me if you want to talk, and I’ll do likewise. Gutten Tag!’
The communicator cut off, leaving the inhabitants of the room stricken.
*
Nightcrawler popped the communicator into an unseen pocket in his clothes, beneath his armour.
'Well,’ he said at last, 'that’s that sorted. Now, Orpheus, I wan't you to stay here with them and make sure your octopus looks after them whilst I’m away. I have business to deal with, two pieces of business to be exact.’
'If you’re reffering to Corben and Warrington, you’ll have a harder time than you think,’ spat Alex, 'we’re taking care of them now.’
Nightcrawler rasied an eyebrow, 'Oh, so some of your people are bodyguarding them. Danke, that is most useful information, I must keep you around for some interrogation before I let you go, you sound like a relative goldmine!’
With this he strode away, leaving the two X-men with a patched up medic, a blue kid, and an over-large octopus.
*
Xavier looked grim as the message was replayed to him.
'What are you going to do, sir?’ asked Rogue.
'I’m not sure,’ sighed Xavier, 'I’d attempt a rescue mission, but if he’s guarded by children…’
'We shoulda just let 'em kill the General in the first place.’
This whisper came from outside, where the other children, having stayed up all night, were listening covertly.
Not that this was really possible with a powerful telepath such as Xavier.
'What right have you to say that?’ said Xavier, showing no sign of surprise, but a little anger boiling in his voice, 'what right of you to judge someone, anyone, without the full facts at your disposal? What right have you to say who should live and die? The General is a bad man, true, and he should be punished for what he did, but once you kill someone it cannot be undone. Kill the General and more will follow, the killing will not end there, I feel certain. For every person suggesting a punishment on those boards, there is one suggesting a commendation. If the General is allowed to survive mutant kind looses, peace looses, we lose. I will not allow that to happen, not without a fight. Now, it is late, go back to your rooms, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until tomorrow morning.’
The young mutants slipped guiltily away, leaving only Rogue and the Professor in the room.
'You too,’ said Xavier, gesturing to Rought, 'I can use the computers down here to monitor the poll.’
'OK,’ said Rogue, and slipped out after the others.
When she had gone a few stepps down the hallway, she went into a run, catching up with the rest of the kids.
'Wassup?’ asked Jamie, tiredly.
'A rescue mission,’ breathed Rogue.
'Huh?’
'Look, all the other X-men are busy or captured, the Prof won’t call in the government boys to rescue anyone, not against a load of kids. So, I reckon we should go out and do it.’
Jubilee looked doubtful, 'we ain’t fully trained,’ she said, 'and there are loads of them, probably. They are a *legion*.’
'Yeah well, there are loads of us, 'specially if you count Jamie, and those kids probably ain’t fully trained either. 'sides, it’d be a fair fight, kids against kids, no good adult would do it, and the bad one's would probably just kill them. We can fight 'em, grab the General, and perhaps Scott and Alex too, then get out without killing anyone. It’d be just like being the *real* X-men.’
Rogue’s crowd suddenly became enthusiastic, they had all envied their seniors to some degree, all spent time wondering what it would be like to be a 'real’ X-man, doing missions and saving the world. This, it seemed, was their chance.
'But how’re we going to get out?’ asked Sam.
Rogue smiled, and turned an eye on Tabitha, who returned the grin.
'I dare say some of us know some unused exits from this place…’ the Goth said slowly.
Tabitha rubbed her hands together. This was going to be FUN.
~
“Spyguy? You there?”
“Which one? I tripped and fell down the stairs an’ there’s twenty of us…”
Rogue sighed. “Whichever one is in position.”
The Jamies reported in turn. Always weird unless one was used to it.
“I got the whole *joint* staked out,” said Jamie. “The General’s in the middle of the room. There’s a bunch of kids poking him.”
“There’s another lot around a campfire 'bout twenty meters away. They’re makin’ smores.”
“Mmmmm… smores…” said a third Jamie.
“There’s ten of 'em watching the doors, and some of 'em are dropping' rocks an’ stuff into the ol’ machines.”
“And some of them are on the roof,” said a new voice.
“Huh?” said a Jamie. Followed by a, “MMMF!”
“*Fuck*,” said Tabby. “No time for finesse. Sam? Can you -ah- make a door?”
“Remember,” said Rogue. “We don’t wanna hurt 'em.”
Sam charged towards a wall. In a moment, he would blur, and there’d be a large chunk out of it. That’s why he was codenamed Cannonball.
~
With a crash and a scatter of bricks, they were in. For all the good it did them.
“Intruders!” yelled someone, and there was an immediate scramble to arms. The Legion kids watched for a second as the Institute would-be-rescuers poured through Sam’s patented 'instant-entrance’, and then let out an array of war cries akin to an army.
“Ah, put a sock in it,” Tabby snapped, tossing a time-bomb into a nearby cache of metallic things that could’ve been guns. They exploded instantly, hurling the Morlocks around them in all directions, and sending herself slamming into a teammate.
“Watch it!” said Bobby, hauling her to her feet. He was fully iced-up, and as Tabby blinked her way out of star cloud, he pointed a palm at the floor and carried them both to the ceiling, away from advancing forces on a vertical ice pillar.
For a few precious seconds the two of them seemed safe. That is, until a boy that looked like he was descended from bats launched himself into the air and glided up to meet them. He was followed by two other mutants, one a sickly green girl who climbed up the ice itself, paying no heed to freezer-burns and leaving a sticky trail of olive slime in her wake. The other was an androgynous creature, part bird; part human, with a bright yellow beak affixed to his face and leathery membranes[39] stretching from naked arm to naked torso and on to naked leg.
Bobby, with one arm propping up Boom-Boom, sent a stream of ice jetting towards slime-girl. She toppled from her perch, and batboy swooped to catch her. Taking advantage of his divided attention, bobby quickly iced them both to the floor.
“Two down… about thirty to go.” Bobby’s brows pulled together, the Morlocks wielding projectile powers worrying him quite a bit up there, where they were essentially sitting ducks. Not to mention that bird-kid. "Wake up, Tabby. No sleeping on the job, girl.“
Tabby came a wake with a start, took in the situation, and tossed a handful of time-bombs into the Morlocks’ midst. She aimed another at bird-kid while the rest were occupied dodging the blasts, but it fell short, and Bobby and she slid away to a farther corner of the massive room, dropping bombs as they went and stirring up as much ruckus as was reasonably possible.
"Those things come in handy,” said Bobby.
“So does this slide thing,” Tabby shot back; then pointed. “Duck!” A spray of bullets went whizzing over their heads, fired by those Morlocks with neither flying abilities, nor projectile powers. “Crap, nobody said they had *guns*!”
“Nobody said they didn’t, either.” Bobby whipped low, wrapping a cluster of mutants up in a thick igloo. “Methinks you’d be better off on the ground, girl.”
“Methinks you’re right.” She prised his hand from around her waist; waited until they were low enough she wouldn’t break her leg, and jumped. Bobby shot away, the air becoming a veritable roller-coaster of ice slides taking up any and all usable flying space.
Tabby crouched, getting her bearings for a moment. She was in the centre of the warehouse’s main open space. From there, she could see a dozen or so Jamies taking on three large Morlocks. He appeared to be doing OK on his own, although there were a number of unconscious versions dissolving away on the floor in various places. She just hoped the original was still able-bodied.
She transferred her attention elsewhere, and was just in time to see both Sam and Jubilee fly past, the former blasting his way across the length of the room while the latter cut a swathe through the floor with her fireworks. They’d undertaken the task of 'messing up the place' enough to hinder their opponents’ efforts at defence, and nobody could touch them at that speed, so Tabby wasn’t needed there either.
A roar caught her attention, and she whirled around in a classic sweeping manoeuvre she’d learned at her old school, clipping the legs out from under a Morlock running pell-mell towards her. He was squat, and covered in what looked like tusks. One of them caught her arm as he went down, and she booted his head, just to make sure he stayed there. A dribble of blood oozed onto her T-shirt, and not for the first time she wished she and the other kids had uniforms like the proper X-Men - if only to protect their normal clothes from wear and tear.
_Not that the Professor knows what we get up to with our powers that need uniforms._ She ducked another oncoming blow, twisting the kid’s arm around and flinging him over her head so that he crashed into someone on his own side. _Poor sap doesn’t even know we’re here now - whoa!_ She turned, milliseconds too late, and caught a glancing blow to her side that sent her staggering. A time-bomb soon cured the one who’d struck her, but the pain left her winded for a few priceless seconds.
Suddenly a warm back pressed to Tabby’s own, and a familiar southern voice said, “Looks like you could use someone to watch your back.”
“You just want someone to get you close enough to drain their powers," Tabby snapped back .
Rogue smiled. "Who said I hadn’t already done just that?” She raised a hand and a ball of bluish energy crackled in the centre of her palm. "Tag-team?“
"I *knew* I saw a Pokemon game in your room last week!”
___________________
Rahne snarled, baring her fangs. Beside her, Catseye skinned her lips over her teeth too, loosing a feral growl the likes of which only the most pissed-off of jungle cats can manage. They’d both transformed seconds after entering the building, and so now stood, Rahne in the last stages of wolfing-out for a second time, and Sharon as a huge, lilac lion.
The four Morlocks bearing down on them didn’t seem unduly bothered at this display, and came on regardless. They were tall, each with varying degrees of physical mutation that made then tower over those of usual height.
Rahne snarled again, and bounded forward as one with her preferred tag-team partner. The two shape-shifters worked best together, they knew, and now dealt with their quadruple attackers in as much time as it took a person to toast a piece of bread.
A Jamie sped past, hotly pursued by a girl covered in quills. Catseye whipped her paw up, snagging the girl’s ankles and crunching her chin on the floor as she fell. Then the two Institute kids leaped away into the fray once more, slashing, biting and clawing their way through opponents like a hot knife through butter. These Morlocks were tough, and they received many flesh wounds and other aesthetic injuries, but none of them had ever been trained by Wolverine. Logan had undertaken all the kids’ training before Dann came on the scene and he decided to pull a Mad Max, 'going it alone’ on the open road.
During their scuffles, Rahne half-shifted back to human, finding opposable thumbs rather useful for hurling people aside and into things. Walls, mostly. Raw, animal rage welled up in her chest, and she roared like a thing possessed, stilling blood and freezing breath into those who valiantly faced her. That they still came on spoke volumes for their faith in their cause. Or their fear of their leader. None of the Institute kids knew enough to say.
Sharon hissed, snaking her way through legs and scoring her elongated nails through flesh as she had done since childhood bullies tried and failed to make her their sport in the playground. Her slitted eyes blazed, and she ripped and tore for all she was worth.
Yet neither of them ever hurt an opponent enough to kill them. The urge was there, string and ferally irresistible, but to their credit, both girls ignored, or at least suppressed such bloodthirsty desires.
Suddenly, Rahne stopped, and let out an urgent yelp that had nothing to do with her hurts. Catseye stopped, tail lashing and a ring of groaning Morlocks around her. Her left shoulder was bleeding profusely, staining her foreleg an ugly shade of purple as blood mixed with the lilac of her fur, and above one eye was a gash that would probably need stitches when she shifted to her usual half-human, half-feline form.
Rahne inclined her head, and Sharon looked to see a cluster of Morlocks carrying a chair out of a partially concealed back door. A chair with an unconscious MacAllister tied thereon.
Noiselessly, the two shape-shifters ploughed their way towards the exit, but it had swung shut before they skidded to a halt in front of it. They exchanged a glance, looking back at the melee consuming the room behind them, then crept cautiously through the aperture, lest somebody be waiting for them on the other side.
They found themselves in a small anteroom, and started when the door closed behind them, plunging it into both silence and darkness. Of the Morlocks and General, there was no sign, and Catseye led the way, her eyesight supremely better than Rahne’s in poor light.
They followed the trail through another door, and down a sloping corridor that seemed to incline downwards - although it was difficult to tell such things on four legs, when their centres of gravity were skewed from normal. Gradually, the passage got narrower, the roof lower, until they came to a dead-end, noses pressed against a flat, very solid brick wall.
Rahne shifted her vocal chords back into place. “What now?”
Sharon gave the equivalent of a shrug, and padded back a few paces, looking for a door or corridor they might’ve missed. There was none, and she returned with a perplexed look on her shifting face.
“Gone,” she said simply. “Trail gone cold.”
“Dinnae be stupid. People don’t just *disappear* into thin air.”
Catseye sniffed the air, frowning. “Furfriend’s nose be out of service? Smell, smell, see what sniffy shows?”
Rahne cocked her head to one side, but did as she was bid. She drew a long lungful of air, coughed, and pulled her furry brows together. “That smells… odd, to say the least. Like the energy residue Cyclops or Havok leave behind after using their powers.”
“Cyclops and Havok been around here?”
“Maybe… smells different, though. Like energy residue, right enough, but… not theirs, I don’t think. I can’t quite put my paw on it, but it’s nothing I’ve ever come across before.” She inhaled again, scratching her chin. “Do you remember what Ororo said about a Shiva-lady who could teleport more than one person at once? I wonder if this is what her power residue smells like?”
Catseye looked crestfallen. “If she use powers, we miss. She gone bye-bye, and we no find no more. All gone.” She sighed, and made as if to turn back towards the fight in the main body of the warehouse. “We go back? Help others?”
Rahne cast around, disgruntled. “I’d bet my boots that wherever they just spirited MacAllister away, that’s where they’re keeping Scott and Alex, too. Probably where they’re leader’s at, come to think of it. I didn’t see him, nor that Shiva-lady back there; and they seemed to be the ring-leaders to this whole operation.”
Sharon padded back and forth, shifting further into her more comfortable lion form, but leaving her voice-box intact so as to talk. "We go back, tell others. Get Cannonball come make big smashy hole in wall. See what on other side. Maybe Cyclops? Maybe Havok? Maybe nasty General-man?“
Rahne sighed. "Well… it’s a plan, I suppose. That lot’d never find this place without us guiding their way. Guess they need us. I just…" She looked back. "If we leave it, we may lose them. I… och, bugger it all! Let’s go.”
Catseye beamed as best she could through her fangs, and turned. Rahne followed without a backwards glance, confident her canine nose could get them back to this spot, no problem.
Which is probably why they didn’t see the glimmer of light spark at the centre of the space, nor realise it was one of Spiral’s portals opening, until string hands reached out and dragged them into it.
“Sorry, ladies, but we can’t have you going around and spilling our secrets, now, can we?” Spiral held each girl at one arm’s length, and then brought her hands inward, cracking their skulls together with a resounding 'CRUNCH’. They fell limp, each one draped in her string grasp, and she smiled to herself as the portal faded away on an empty corridor.
~