Standing beside Logan at the staging point overlooking the lab, Marie has just the right amount of information and free time to second guess herself, the structure housing the lab is massive. Logan had told her that the lab is in an old cold war bunker, but this is more like a fortress. Tall angular walls of steel reinforced concrete are built right into the mountainside. The only entrance she can spot looks more like a vault than a door.
Her watch makes two short beeps, glancing down she can see they are just ten short minutes from the start of their part in the operation. As if on cue several explosion rocks the nearby jungle, plumes of black smoke rise from the canopy followed by the sound of gunfire.
Logan's eyes scan the fighting with interest, a callous grin on his face. “Looks like FARC is actually on time for once.”
She remembers Logan mentioning FARC during the briefing but couldn’t place the name, now deep in the jungles of Colombia, her memories gets a jolt. She knows them from the sitting in on some of Irene’s meetings, the FARC are narco-terrorists, or revolutionaries depending on who you ask. But the narco part is always constant. The thought of working with these criminals, even to save other mutants, is very disturbing to her.
“Logan?” She can’t believe she just tugged on his sleeve like a scared child. Pushing her embarrassment at her childish act aside, Marie focuses on the far more important issue, “Please tell me we are not working with FARC.”
“Not so much working with them as working in the same area as them.” For anyone else, she would be accusing them of parsing words, but Logan is different. She knows he is working towards something, even if no one, not even herself knows what he is working towards. And Marie is confident profiting from the drug trade is not one of them.
She lets out a sigh of relief, as distasteful as this is, she understands the politics behind it. Out here in the jungle, no one can get anything done without acknowledging the cartel at the very least. Emma and Sabretooth walk up next to them taking in the carnage spreading below them. Security forces marked with bright AIM logos speed into the jungle. Advanced Idea Mechanics another group she is familiar with from all the meetings she sat in with her mother. Marie shudders to think what a group as well funded, staffed and equipped like AIM could accomplish if they dedicate themselves to eradicating mutants.
Logan clicks another button on his smartphone, then looks over at Sabretooth. “Yer up next Victor.”
Sabretooth takes a running start and leaps off the edge of the cliff, his hang glider deploying mid-air with a pop. He looks back straight at Marie and yells with a smirk, “If Stryker is actually here, next time we go drinking the whores are on me!”
She knows it’s just to annoy her, she knows that but she can’t help but peek at Logan, who is as stoic as ever. Absentmindedly she wonders how obvious her attraction to Logan must be if Sabretooth picked up on it in just a few days. The sound of screeching, burning metal brings her back to the present. The smoldering husk of Blackbird Two slowly spiraling from the sky, further, in the distance, Blackbird One ascends at an incredible speed, the telltale smoke trails of missiles rising with it.
“Logan…” She couldn't find the words for this situation, even though she has memories of so many atrocities locked in her head, seeing the possible death of classmates, in reality, is quite a shock still. She fights off an involuntary shiver spreading through her body at the thought of who might have just passed away. Logan acknowledges her presence with a hand on her shoulder. She notices numbly that he has already broken camp. “Blackbird One completed deployment. Two is lost, no casualties yet”
She seizes on the fact that there are zero casualties currently but doesn’t let herself be too hopeful. None reported could just mean they haven’t found the bodies yet. Logan fiddles some more with his smartphone and says something she can’t believe, “Honestly one out of two is not bad.”
“Not bad?! They're my classmates Logan! Students at the school!” Perhaps it is due to the shock at the possibility that her classmates and her friends could be among the dead or perhaps that Logan genuinely sounded impressed with only the loss of one plane, but she finds herself in front of him screaming. She almost added that they are his students, before catching herself. This Logan didn’t teach at the school.
She rarely loses the temper like this, and she knows the guilt she is still feeling is fueling this outburst. Since she came to the school she can count such incidents on one hand. Each time she let loose she always saw a degree of fear even in the faculty members, even Emma. She expects it now, who wouldn’t fear a mutant that not only takes your powers but your mind as well. All but Logan, of course, he merely looks amused, like a parent indulging the tantrum of a child.
“The site is defended by S-400s.” Logan patiently explains, despite the angry life sucking mutant girl gesticulating wildly in front of him, and he seems to think that explain everything.
It doesn’t, and Marie wonders what might happen if she jumps at him. She hopes that the ever so composed Logan would perhaps panic or shrink away. But she knows what would actually happen, she would easily get pinned to the ground and receive a lecture on the flaws of her attack. So instead she keeps yelling, “You keep saying that! What is an S-400?!”
“A Russian air defense system, counted amongst the best in the world. Beast did good work, better than I would have expected.” Logan’s calmness is bordering on infuriating for Marie. Even though on some level she expected this, Logan can be very practical at times, but she didn’t think he would be like this towards the team. The other Logan, her Logan wouldn’t have treated this so casually, like it’s just a statistic on the news.
Logan raises his smartphone to her face, on its screen is a live video feed from inside the cabin of Blackbird two, she can see Jubes panicking over an unconscious Kitty. At first, she wonders how he manages to acquire such a feed, and why he is showing it to her before his intentions dawned on her, she has a visual now.
Chiding herself for overreacting, Logan had said there were no casualties and is already preparing for a rescue. All the while she is standing there trying to find fault in his very practical assessment of the situation. If it were not for Logan that could have been her up there. She meets his eyes and nods before disappearing in a cloud of blue, sulfurous smoke.
She reappears in the smoky cabin of the Blackbird, the motion of the plane almost throws her off her feet. Taking a moment to orientate herself she spots Jubes slightly aft, pulling hard at the belt holding an unconscious Kitty to the seat. Both of them look frazzled and singed but otherwise fine. Nevertheless, Marie has to ask, “Jubes? You okay?”
“Marie, thank freaking god!” Jubes looks at her wide-eyed and waves her over. “Quick! Help me, Kitty is stuck.”
Maneuvering herself over the seat, Marie grabs Kitty’s arms and with a light tug phases her free of the seat. “Anyone else still here?”
“No, Mr. Worthington left with the others.” Jubes gathers some medical supplies from under the seat, then helps Marie lift Kitty to her feet.
Worthington is a familiar name to Marie, an old wealthy name, one she would not expect to be associated with X-Men. Though she does remember a rumor about the Worthington heir being... difficult. Regardless Worthington is supposed to be a name associated with excellence, Marie cannot fathom how abandoning your teammates could be considered excellence. Even though this Worthington might not even be the one she is thinking of she still can't keep the accusation from her voice. “He just left you here?”
“No, no! I told him to go- WOAH!” Jubes screams as they sink through the floor of the aircraft together. Marie deftly maneuvers them away from the surrounding debris. Jubes takes the moment to continue her explanation. “Anyways, there were a few of us with more serious injuries and I didn’t know Kitty’s belt was stuck.”
While the explanation made sense Marie is still not happy with the way the team leader handled this situation and makes a note to at least talk to the Professor regarding this mission later. Marie secures her mask and signals for Jubes to do the same while fiddling with Kitty’s.
A wall of air slams into them as soon as she unphases, the updraft threatens to push them back into the cloud of flaming metals swirling around the disintegrating Blackbird. Marie frantically searches for a place to teleport to, when she catches sight of Logan perched on top of a tree, just above the canopy line, signaling her with a strobe light.
Materializing next to Logan with an audible pop, Marie hands Kitty over to him. Logan slings Kitty over his shoulder and casually steps off the branch he was on, disappearing into the leaves below. Levitating down after him with Jubes, Marie finds Logan completely unphased by the hundred plus foot drop and already has Kitty stretched out on a blanket.
Emma crouches down next to Kitty and pulls out a large, mean-looking injector from her medkit. Marie dislikes needles herself, but she knows Kitty is utterly terrified of them and tries to intervene. “Woah, can't we just let her wake up normally, Kitty hates getting shots.”
“Not enough time, we are already behind schedule.” In the few second it takes for Logan to reply Emma apparently already completed the injection, Marie didn’t even notice till Kitty bolts upright gasping for breath.
“Alright, you two are now with us.” Logan throws each of them a pack from the back of his ATV and orders them into formation. “Everyone, take your pills. I got point, Emma’s rear guard, you three in the center. We are dropping in from the top.”
Even though she knows he must have done this thousand of times before, Marie watches with some trepidation as Logan descends towards the roof of the base. Further down below she can see the battle between the Lab’s security forces and her fellow mutants. From the radio chatter, she knows only one strike team remains committed to the attack, the other withdrew along with the injured. Magneto appears to be leading the attack, Marie easily spots him in his burgundy and purple cape hovering above the battle. From the roster, she knows there are at least another dozen people participating in the attack, but she is only able to distinguish Bobby and Johnny by the powers in the fray.
“Alright, I’m in position,” Logan’s voice crackles over the comms. Rest of the team gathers around Marie, having also received the signal. She focuses on the distant flashing light, but a wave of dizziness hits her. Closing her eyes she clears her mind and tries again, pushing past the discomfort. When she opens them again she is standing on top of the building with Logan crouched next to the control panel of the roof access. There seems to be an electrical buzz in the air, below her the strike teams seem to have been pushed back from the entrance, as a swarm of men and vehicles streams out of the main gate.
“I can’t believe even with Magneto, the Professor and Mystique they’re still getting push back.” Kitty is crouched near the edge of the roof observing the battle below. Marie is not sure why Kitty is saying that considering Magneto just single-handedly stopped an assault by four armored vehicles
“There is a damping field in place, weakening our powers.” Logan remarks while he continues to operate a device linked to the roof hatch, “They are all at 50 percent tops.”
That definitely catch Marie's interest, she wasn't even aware of a field that can counteract mutant powers perhaps she can live a normal life after all. She looks at Logan hopefully. “A dampening field? Can it-”
“Long-term exposure is fatal.” Logan is quick to dash her dreams, she understands though, best to let these things die a quick death.
“Fatal?” Jubes suddenly stand up from where she is sitting.
“Why don’t they use this as a weapon?” Kitty wonders aloud, it is a good point, with these in the field the fight against the humans would be that much harder.
“Costly to mass produce, limited range, high energy draw, the usual shit.” She listens as Logan list the flaws of the device and smiles to herself, she didn’t actually expect Logan to have an answer, and from the looks of it no one here did, either. “Oh, and fatal to everyone.”
“Are we just going to ignore the ‘fatal to everyone part’?” Jubes seems a bit miffed that they just skipped her over and has now placed herself at the center of their little group.
“That why we took the pills right?” It is just a guess on Marie’s part, but she recognized the company label on the bottle. Her mother recently purchased a large stake in that company and she remembers them being a company specialized in anti-radiation treatments
Logan nods, still completely focused on working that device of his. “Counteracts exposure for the short term.”
“But you didn’t take any Logan.” She gives him a worrying glance, death by radiation poisoning is not pretty.
“I heal, slower but I still heal.” The roof access pops open with a hiss, Logan steps down partly into the hallway, scoping out the passage before motioning for them to join him.
Emma leads the groups, wielding an uncharacteristically large handgun, follow by Jubes and a still woozy Kitty. As she is helped down by Logan she feels his hand, his bare hand slipping through a ventilation slit on the back of her suit. She feels the pull of her skin immediately but with the aura of the dampening field it is not nearly as strong or judging by Logan’s expression as painful. His hand slow caresses up and down the small of her back. She lets him guide her forward being very careful not to make a sound.
The moment didn’t last nearly as long as she would have wanted. Right before they catch up to the team, his hand withdrew and he zips up the opening. She gets some of his powers, she is sure of that, the heightened senses, the strong predatory instincts, it all feels familiar, just like how she knew it would feel. His thoughts and personality are strangely muffled to her, all she picked up is that this is a precautionary measure to ensure her safety, nothing of his memories or personality.
A loud crash is heard from behind them, Marie spins around only to see Sabretooth crouched in the hallway. She watches as he stands up to his full height then takes in several deep searching breaths. Another hiss breaks the silence, Logan opens the other hatch wide, tilting his head toward the other side. “Victor.”
Sabretooth rushes past them with a roar. Logan quickly closes the hatch after him and signal for them to stay. “We give him a few minutes.”
“Why?” Marie thought this was a team mission, what is the point building up this team if they are going separately.
“Gonna take at least that much time for him to attract enough attention.” Marie feels a prick of guilt, she should be more horrified at the sight of one member of their team being used as a distraction. But this is Sabretooth, mean, nasty, psychotic Sabretooth, and he heals. She consoles herself with the knowledge that Sabretooth would not hesitate to do the same or worse to any of them.
Just as Logan predicated, alarms blare throughout the facility within a few minutes after Sabretooth is out of sight, Logan looks up at the flashing yellow lights and smiles. “That’s our cue. Emma data center, Girls the power station, I’ll sweep the holding cells. We will all meet up in the hangar after.”
Marie takes out her newly issued smartphone and activates the only app loaded. A map of the entire facility quickly flashes across the screen until it centers onto her position. A red line appears, mapping out the way to her destination. She looks at her friends and they all nod at each other.
Marie leads her team down a sparse dimly lit metal corridor, they are pushing ahead as fast as they can, knowing that every minute longer the dampening field is functional, is another minute that their classmates are in danger.
“I can’t believe how well this is going!” Jubes calls out from her position in the back.
“Yeah, just looking at him you wouldn't think Mr. Logan is very tech savvy,” Kitty agrees, she had been very curious about the smartphone Logan gave to Marie. Marie had to promise to let Kitty fiddle with it after the mission before Kitty would leave her alone
“I know right? I kind of figure he’d be like ‘Hey! What the hell is a text message?’ kind of a guy.” The three of them share a chuckle at Jubes’ best imitation of Logan’s voice.
Marie knows Logan is not a Luddite, but she is also a little surprised and more than impressed with the amount of detail of the app Logan provided. In addition to the map she has the access code for every door they have encountered so far, and a shutdown command for each automated defense turret. The routing protocol even guided them past the security team sweeps. “Come on, he is not that b-”
The door opens into a locker room, a currently occupied locker room. Six men in various stages of dress stand before them, apparently just as shocked as Marie. To her right, Kitty stops suddenly as she reaches the doorway and gasps.
“Hey! Why are we stopping?” Jubes chipper voice rings out beside Marie, before pointing at the man in the back “OMG that guy's hung!”
“Jubes!” Kitty chides, sounding positively scandalized.
The five other men perhaps simply overwhelmed by Jubes sheer force of personality all turn to look at their fellow guard. Marie then sees it for what it is, a distraction, and leaps into action. The dampening field is making it difficult to call up the other powers at her disposal, armed with a fresh dose of Logan, she knows she is more than a match for any one of these men.
Sprinting forward Marie kicks off the nearest bench in a spin and drives the heel of her foot into the back of the closest guard. Catching a low hanging lighting fixture, redirecting her momentum she slams both feet into the next guard just as the fixture tumbles from the ceiling into a third guard. Marie flips herself in mid-air and braces herself for impact.
“Way to go to girl!” Kitty slides to catch before Marie can land, phasing them both through the metal bench. Drawing her stun gun in the same motion she shoots one of the remaining guards in the chest.
“Heads up!” Jubes screaming from behind them, Marie and Kitty cover their eyes just in time to shield them from a blinding flash.When Marie’s vision returns Jubes stand over the last two guards with her own stun gun in her hands.
Raising both her hands in the air for high fives, Jubes yells out, “Woo! We are awesome!”
Marie smiles and slaps Jubes and Kitty’s hands. Looking down at the phone she is glad to see that this locker room leads directly into the power plant control room. Catching the bright orange safety signs she is just about to tell them to put on the safety gear when Kitty interrupts. “Is he really considered hung?”
Jubes burst into laughter, Kitty gives them both an annoying glare before she too starts to laugh. Finally, Marie unable to keep a straight face follows the example of her friends. As great as this moment is they still have a mission to do. “How about we save that talk for after the mission?”
The trio forms up by the door, on the other side, is the main control room for the power station, Marie reads the access code off her phone, but before she can punch in the codes Kitty reaches out to stop her. Kitty points up at the security camera, “They already know we're here, I’ll bet there are a lot of guns pointed at that door right now.”
“Right, charging in head-on would be bad.” Taking a step back Marie considers her options. This is the only way in or out of the room, with the dampening field in place, she can’t access Kitty’s powers. Sending Kitty in alone would be suicide.
Jubes walk up to the metal door and kick a few times, the dull sound of metal striking metal rings throughout the room. Snapping her fingers a few bright sparks appears above her. “Hey, maybe I can melt the door.”
Kitty shakes her head. “That won't change the fact that they would still be shooting at us.”
A look of concentration descend on Jubes’ face before she snaps her fingers again, “Marie, can’t you do what you did to Magneto? You know the eye beams.”
Marie taps two fingers to the side of her head, duplicating Mr. Summer’s signature pose. She stares at the door but nothing happens. “Can’t, the field is suppressing all my others powers.”
“Hey, Marie can I look at the phone for a bit, ” Kitty calls out by the door’s control panel, waving Marie over. “I think I have an idea”
Kitty takes the phone and steps up to the control panel, and reaches through the casing and pulls it open. With her other hand, she taps quickly on the phone's keypad, while she adjusts the wires. Soon the entire room dims and the overhead sprinklers activate, spewing white CO2 gas into the room, before quickly stopping. Kitty looks back at them with an embarrassed smile, “Oops! Sorry, wrong room.”
The lights flicker on and shortly after Kitty pulls her hand out of the control panel, she flashes a quick smile and a thumbs-up. “Got it!”
“You triggered the fire suppression system?” Marie is amazed by Kitty’s jury-rigging skills, controlling the extinguishers using door controls.
“Yup, the CO2 one. If they're smart they will come out of that door any second now.” Wiping some sweat off her forehead Kitty reluctantly hands Marie back her phone. “Or they will be unconscious when we go in.”
“How you do that?” Jubes asks before Marie could. Marie would never have thought of this, they shouldn’t even be controlled by the same thing.
“Lucky guess, I figure the doors would seal when the fire suppression system activated.” Grinning Kitty pats the door affectionately, “And as a fail safe if the door is locked down due to temperature changes the extinguisher would kick on, just to be safe. So I fiddled with the thermometer.”
“Thank you! Safety-minded engineers!” Jubes cheers, just as quickly a frown appears. “But we won’t be able to breathe inside either.”
Kitty points up towards the ceiling, where several large intake ports can be seen. “I’ll activate the exhaust fans before we go in.”
Marie checks the time on the phone, it's been close to three minutes now and nothing. “Well, looks like they’re going to be stubborn”
“Or stupid,” Jubes adds, rubbing her hands together, sending a shower of sparks around her. “Let's do this.”
Kitty turns off the fire suppression system and activates the ventilation fans. Marie waits for her signal before pulling on the manual override lever. Slowly the heavy metal door slides open, Kitty phases in through the partially open door, then stick her hand out with a thumb up. “All clear!”
By the time Jubes and Marie get the heavy door open Kitty is already hard at work on the power station controls. Marie checks all the bodies in the room, four in all, making sure each is still breathing, then zip ties each and every one of them. The loud hum of the generator ceases as she finishes up with the last guard, the girls smile at each other and come together for a group hug.
Marie knows she is supposed to go straight to the hangar after her mission, but she is worried about Logan. Tapping a few buttons she sets their new destination as the lab. “Let's go see how Logan is doing."
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Chapter End Notes:
Up next, wrapping the raid up and collecting on a rain check