Logan (six_reasons) wrote in the_next_step, @ 2009-05-15 14:26:00 |
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Retribution
Who: The X-Men, abductees, NPC!Guards, NPC!Labcoats, Sentinels
What: rescue mission
When: Friday night
Rating: Gonna make this a strong R
Status: Open
Warnings: Rating is for violence, you know that'll happen in spades. It's going up now but don't feel like you need to tag in right away, while the action will only take place in the space of hours this'll be open all week to make sure everyone can get in and get their shit done.
Any questions? Shoot 'em our way.
((this post is extra-long because I tacked Brenna's torture scene on)
~~~~~
There had been no missions since the school had been rebuilt. It was almost unspoken that the X-Men needed to focus solely on their own after a time when so many of them had been lost inexplicably, and Logan had been loathe to break the status quo. Not really his usual state of being but his actions no longer affected just him.
After Emma's visit he'd contacted Tony again, gave him the information she'd gleaned and set him to work on refining it, seeing if he could get some kind of schematic for the place and pinpoint exactly where their people where inside of the building. Logan didn't want to go in blind, didn't want to chance losing anyone because he hadn't planned properly and he'd welcomed Scott's advice for once; the man was more of a tactician than he was even if he was staying behind to guard the school from unknown elements. Logan could remember planning things like this, just not when or what.
The team had been briefed: the facility was underground (why was it always underground?) with their people being held three levels down on the Detention Block. Their cells were isolated one from the other to increase deprivation, though most of not all had been placed with another mutant, with most of the testing rooms on that same level, with some on the level above. Logan had hoped to be able to figure out who was where so that everyone knew, instead of him relying on his sense of smell to guide him, but the info hadn't been that detailed. Tony had gotten them enough, and he'd more than readily agreed to accompany the X-Men. Logan couldn't thank the man enough.
There'd been discussion about the robot prototypes, what they could possibly be, but with only speculation they just agreed to watch out for them.
They took the Blackbird like always, Ororo piloting with Andrew as co-pilot due to his military training. They were going into the place in three groups: Logan, Tony, and Tamsin; Ororo, Dani, and Mikhail; Ethan, Andrew, Rachel, and Remy. That last one he wasn't sure about but the Cajun had come to him, offered his help, and he was loathe to turn it down, especially if it meant another pair of eyes, another set of boots on the ground to save his people. He'd take all the help he could get.
Cloaked both with their stealth and under cover of darkness and Ororo's fog, they left the school in Scott's capable hands and turned northeast, the incredible engine of the SR-71 Blackbird getting them to their destination in record time.
He'd already told them: do whatever was necessary to get their family out safely. Anyone they didn't know, didn't recognize, was a potential enemy, even other obvious mutants because they wouldn't be expecting rescue from strangers. Give no quarter because none was given to the mutants. Save their friends.
They landed nearby, hoofed it the last half-mile, and when they finally got inside, all hell broke loose.
Brenna's head shot up off the pillow the instant the alarms started sounding, heedless of the way it felt like someone was using it as a bongo for a particularly lively rendition of 'Copa Cabana.' It was a sound she hadn't heard before.
Their door burst open to admit Stoic and Chuckles, both looking determined. “C'mon, ladies, we're moving you to some place more secure.” Chuckles bound her hands behind her with a zip tie, something they hadn't done before; they left Sarah unbound.
“What's going on?” Brenna asked, trying to get a good look around but she didn't see anything, not even when they hit the main corridor of the Detention Level, but the alarm was louder here, piercingly-so.
“Doesn't concern you --”
“It does if you guys are under attack. I don't wanna get hit in the crossfire.” They were heading past some of the interrogation rooms, now.
Stoic looked back to her and for the first time she saw something other than solidity in his eyes. “Don't much care if you get caught or not, but we're moving you because that's what we were told to do.” He faced forward again, gun at the ready. Sarah was behind him, Brenna behind her with Chuckles bringing up the rear. She saw the little girl reaching for the small device on the back of Stoic's belt that would deactivate their collars and deliberately stumbled, let Chuckles bump into her to distract him from what Sarah was doing.
Things happened quickly, then, very quickly. Stoic must have noticed something because he started turning even as Sarah ripped the device off of his belt and fumbled her finger over the button. Bones began to protrude from her body almost instantly. Brenna felt the rush of her TK return but felt somewhat useless with her hands bound; she'd never had much luck directing the flow without the use of her hands, it was another big limit of hers. She heard Sarah's savage cry as she pulled a sharp bone free of her skin and stabbed it at Stoic, even as she turned to face Chuckles, dropping her shoulder and kind of tackling him, as much as she could for being tiny and weak. It stunned him because he hadn't been expecting it but he lashed out, knocked her onto her butt.
She wriggled her body even as she saw him bringing his tranquilizer gun to bear, rolled when he fired and missed the moving target by scant inches, then managed to slip her legs through her arms so that her bound hands were now in front of her. She lifted her hands and flicked Chuckles back contemptuously into the wall, shattering the weapon with her TK.
“Sarah, can you help me?” When she got no answer she turned to find Stoic dead on the ground, blood flowing from the wound made by a bone shard where his heart was, and Sarah was on the ground with a couple tranq darts in her. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
Chuckles was stirring as she knelt and braced her foot against one of Sarah's bone shards on the floor, using it to cut the zip tie from her hands. She flexed her hands once they were free, restoring the circulation that had been cut off, grabbed the device for the collars and somehow found the button that made them open (thank goddess, it felt wonderful to have that off) and by that point Chuckles was on his feet again with a handgun pointed at her.
“Those real bullets?” she asked, her grin making his falter a little.
Time seemed to slow down so that she saw his finger tense on the trigger. TK burst from her hands to halt the movement, pull the gun from his hands until it clattered onto the floor, and then wrap him up tight. She dragged him into one of the interrogation rooms and tossed him against the wall, shutting the door behind them after she'd pulled Sarah in and left her unconscious near it. “You still wanna play, sweetheart?” she asked. “I mean, I haven't really gotten the chance to give you everything I've got, though you've been more than generous.”
She sat him up against the far wall, gave him enough freedom of movement while still keeping him pinned there. She used her TK to tighten painfully on the softest parts of him, the ones he seemed to be so fond of. “You like being in control, don't you, Chuckles?”
“What'd you call me?” he asked, his voice high-pitched.
Brenna snorted. “Chuckles. Don't know your real name. Labcoats got name badges but you don't.” She knelt in front of him, straddling his legs so that she sat on them in a crude play of intimacy. “Don't much care to know it, because you're nothing. You made nothing of me so I'll make nothing of you. Seems only fair.”
She touched his face, made him look at her, and she was satisfied to see the fear there. “Did raping me make you feel like a man, Chuckles? That the only way you can get a woman?” She tightened her fist which tightened her TK around him, making him squeak. “Rather pathetic. I'll be the last one you ever had.”
“Please.” Oh, was he begging? “Please, don't hurt me.” Oh, this was good. She found the knife at his belt and pulled it free, delicately ran the flat of the blade under his eye and pressing the tip in just below, drawing one crimson drop of blood. “Please.”
“Any reason I shouldn't?” She opened a cut on his cheek, then his arm. “The thing is, cutie, I've stored up every hurt you gave me, held it close for this moment. The goddess I worship lives for that kind of thing, for making bad men pay for what they've done.” Another cut along his forearm, and she had to open his vest and shirt padded with body armor to get at his chest properly. Another cut over his heart, shallow and painful. She eased up on the TK that was crushing him, for now at least.
“Just kill me, then, and get it over with.” He actually blanched at the fierce smile she gave him. There was no part of her that wasn't enjoying this, taking back what he'd tried to keep.
Brenna damn near purred at him, running the dull edge of the knife down his untouched cheek. “That'll come but I want to have you screaming before then. Do you know what my name is?”
“You're 2293, I don't care otherwise.”
“My name is Brenna. You're going to die with that on your lips. The same lips that told me what you were going to do to me, told me to take it because otherwise you'd hurt that little girl over there, that you'd hurt my family.” A low, husky laugh trickled out of her. “Say my name, sweetheart.”
He stared at her, agog, shaking his head. She opened a cut down that cheek. “C'mon, one little word. Say it or I'll cut something worse.”
“Brenna.” He screamed as she cut him again, across the top of one thigh. “I thought you said you wouldn't cut me!”
“Said I wouldn't cut something worse, not that I wouldn't cut you.” She cocked her head to the side, looking at him. “I could let you bleed out from a dozen shallow cuts. Sounds good but not painful enough.” She saw more fear in his eyes, wondering what the hell could be more painful than bleeding out. She let him know.
“I killed a man before. It was on accident, he was trying to rape me, too, and I panicked.” She leaned in close, pressed the hand with the knife into the wound on his thigh, touched his face with the other and smiled when he moaned in pain. “I've been told my TK makes it feel like your skin is on fire, like you're having a stroke and a heart attack at the same time.”
“Please,” he begged again. “I'm sorry.”
She bared her teeth at him and pressed a kiss to his mouth, then his forehead before pulling back to look him in the face again. With a tiny movement of her hand she redirected the TK not being used to hold him to touch him all over, blue psi-fire finally blooming in her hands and along his skin, dragging a ragged scream from him. “Does it hurt?” she asked, satisfied when he nodded frantically before his head jerked back into the wall. “Oh, no sweetheart, can't let you bash your own head in.” She held it firm and increased the pressure, pushed it into him. “Say my name again.”
“Brenna,” he choked out, then he screamed it. “Brenna!” She watched him try to thrash, knew it was agony not to be able to move, to give himself some comfort by trying to get away from it.
She knelt again and drew the knife over his throat, her name dying the last time he said it on a gurgle as bright, hot blood splashed up onto her. “Good enough.” She'd gotten his fear and his helplessness, and goddess help her, it would be enough.