Beyond Evolution

All the way back to Xavier’s, all Rahne could think about was how utterly furious he was, not only at the circumstances that had all come together to unfold as they had that morning in the city, but at himself. If he wanted to cut himself some slack he could just say that it was much easier to distinguish falsehoods from truths when face to face with the one feeding you the lies, but he couldn’t justify it that way. If what Kate had told him was true, Moira hadn’t been Moira for some time, and he spoke to his adoptive mother at least once a week. He’d fallen for the same trick more than once, and it just about boiled his blood. It was made worse by the revealed identity of the woman behind the mind control. How exactly Vanessa Vangrove had gathered and maintained enough telepathic power to control numerous subjects was beyond Rahne. What really mattered was that she was back and making a mess of people’s lives once again. And she had dared to set foot on Muir Island. His home. His territory. When he saw the woman again, he was going to tear her fucking throat out once and for all.

Kate had helped him not only into the mansion, but downstairs to the medlabs, crammed and hectic as it was down there. There were wounded everywhere, so much blood that it seemed to hang in the air like a fog that could be scented and not seen, and all he could hear beyond the drone of his own thoughts was crying and gasps or yelps of pain, the odd hurried order or request for aid or distance thrown in here and there. Rahne didn’t even really snap out of that angry, self-reproachful state until his senses managed to penetrate all that clogging stink of sweat and blood and god knew what else. As soon as his brain truly engaged and made sense of what it was catching on the air, he had his feet under him, the metamorph not even hearing whoever it was who had been patching him up asking him to come back so they could finish. They had managed to set his arm back into place and get it in a sling without him really reacting beyond a brief hiss and a tired grimace, but beyond that, Rahne hadn’t really taken in what they were doing. He knew he had other wounds, but right then, they didn’t matter.

Manoeuvring the cramped room as best he could with all the bodies and the limited space, Rahne honed in on the one scent his senses had fixated upon and finally tracked it to the source, the unwelcome but powerful bite of burned flesh riding thickly along underneath and around it. Fear spiked, mixing strongly with the desire to protect what was -- in its most basic, primal form -- his, and he physically moved a stunned teenager out of his way to finally get a line of sight and a direct path -- all of five feet -- to that person. Those five feet were closed in a second and he was reaching for her hand before he stopped himself; he didn’t want to hurt her or make anything worse. “Angel?”


[ open to angel ]

It didn't take long for the police to arrive at Xavier's gates.

They at least managed to clear a space where the reporters and their vans had camped out, making them step back from the school's entrance as it opened to let several officers in and then shut once more. Their fences would probably have to be made higher soon; this wasn't the first time that the media had found itself on Xavier's property, and likely wouldn't be the last. But the police weren't there to get statements, or to try and poke around for stories.

They were there to take people into custody.

The attacks hadn't exactly been low-profile, and likewise the attackers themselves hadn't been discreet as to their identities. While some weren't known faces, others had been on the news before, and it didn't take long for all of the city's attackers to be found. As Sadie was still in the hospital, a guard was posted outside her room and she was disallowed visitors until she could be interviewed by detectives. The rest had officers sent out to pick them up.

When they asked about what had happened at the school, Scott had simply said that there had been powers-mishaps, and that everything was fine. The officers weren't allowed down to the medlabs. Due to the state of the school, the police agreed to let the X-team members who had been in the city come to the station in shifts to give statements. As dozens of testimonies from both eyewitnesses and persons saved by them attested to, they had been helping rather than causing destruction and so weren't going to be charged. Their accounts were still important, though.

Xavier urged the ones that they had come for to go peacefully, and assured them that his lawyers would be there soon, along with himself and Scott. And so, one by one, Kevin Ford, Adrien Bouchard, Kate Prosser, Warren Worthington III, and Marie D'Canto were handcuffed and taken outside to the waiting cars. The officers tried to block pictures with their hands, but a number were taken anyway, and the filmed version of it was aired live on multiple news stations.


[Narrative.]

It had been the nasty burn on John's arm which had most concerned the healers when Bobby had brought him into the medlabs yesterday. Angelica's radiation had done its job and John's shirt sleeve was blackened, partially burned away to nothing and partially stuck to the ruined skin beneath it. Without Jeremiah to shout instructions and with Maddy being too busy with her own patients, the person helping John had opted for what seemed like the best course of action; pulling his shirt off in order to get to the burn underneath. Obviously they'd never completed a first aid course because in doing that they'd actually taken a good amount of skin with the clothing and John had literally screamed out in agony before passing out.

On the plus side the burn itself didn't actually hurt. In fact it was barely giving him any pain at all and not because he'd been shot up to the eyeballs with drugs. One of the advantages to having a third degree burn was that the nerve endings were usually destroyed in the process, so at least his arm wouldn't be bothering him anytime soon. Or ever again. The skin, or at least what was left of it, would probably just look a little gross when the dressings came off. But John could live with a scar, he'd given enough of them to other people. Of course the flesh surrounding the main injury had been burned to a much lesser degree and it was that which woke John up, his pain meds wearing off long enough for him to jerk awake. For a brief moment he thought he was back on Muir, locked up and having his veins pumped full of the chemical shit Essex had called a cure, but the realisation slowly began to dawn on him. From his position he could see the vaguely familiar surroundings not of his cage but of the medlabs, could hear the steady beeping of a monitor and voices talking in hushed tones outside the door. Xaviers. Of all the places the bastards on Muir could have chosen to send him, they'd opted to deliver him right back into the hands of his old teachers and classmates.

John forced himself upright into a sitting position and subsequently tried to ignore the wave of nausea that hit him as soon as he did. A brief touch to the back of his head and his fingers found more white gauze, significant of a head injury of some kind. He could vaguely remember fighting someone, a girl maybe, and hitting his head on a rock when she'd attacked him. Thanks to the nasty concussion though the details were hazy at best and John didn't really have the time to sit around reminiscing about the previous day's events. He had to go, now, before his doctor or guard or whoever came back and tried to force him to stay. He might not have been able to remember everything that had happened yesterday blow by blow but he could recall enough to know that he'd done some fairly screwed up things. Like attacking Xaviers for instance, apparently with Bobby. It was that particular memory which made John pause for a moment and reconsider but in the end self-preservation won out over any loyalty he felt toward his old friend. Bobby was the school's golden boy, Xavier's favourite son, he'd be forgiven. There was no reason for John to worry about leaving him behind. Himself on the other hand? He'd probably be carted back off to prison before he had time to blink. And while his last stretch had been far less than what it should have been, he knew enough about the law to know that this time he'd be going back for good.

So sucking in a breath and fighting off the urge to vomit, John pulled the oxygen tube out from his nose and started to work on removing the IV that had been inserted into his forearm. Once that was done he was going to have to see about finding a lighter and then some clothes because something told him that a guy running around in a hospital gown was bound to draw attention in a school.

[open to bobby]