Who: Gunnar Richards, Evelyn Foster & Thea Peeters What: An unintentional rescue mission (1/2) Where: A reincarnate “treatment” facility in Pittsburgh, PA When: Saturday, January 23rd 2016 Warnings: Violence, torture, and language
Gunnar and Evelyn had worked out something of a system, since they’d begun tracking down traces of the facilities responsible for what was, as they uncovered further evidence of their deeds, very nearly a genocide of reincarnates. They had been methodical, pulling apart the locations thoroughly enough that there would be no reappropriating the materials used therein. All the names they had found, Gunnar had kept track of, files beginning to build up in his home. He never had guests, outside of Evelyn, there was no point in trying to hide the information that they’d recovered. It was safer in his home than it would have been nearly anywhere else. He didn’t plan on inviting anyone inside that wouldn’t appreciate what it was that they were doing.
Facility after facility destroyed, but always too late, sometimes by what Gunnar could only assume (from the state of the bodies left behind) was mere days, the places abandoned as they received word that another place had been razed, another set of secure locations compromised by the information that they’d found there. It was a race, one that infuriated Gunnar because they never seemed to be fast enough, no matter how promptly they moved on the information that they uncovered. Every failure only drove him to work harder, only drove his obsession with seeing an end to these torture chambers to greater heights. He hadn’t been to work in two weeks, claiming illness when he ran out of personal days. He’d been taking a lot of personal days, lately. He imagined he’d receive some sort of disciplinary action, soon, but it was truly amazing how little Gunnar cared, anymore, for that carefully constructed old life. The old life of a man who’d found a balance and dedicated himself to carefully maintaining it, the life of a man who was trying, on some level, not to be the villain that others had made him out to be.
He’d let guilt over that period in his younger life when he’d lost control rule him for too long. How much important work had he missed out on trying to make amends for youthful stupidity? He knew exactly how much time he’d wasted trying to earn the forgiveness of someone who would never be willing to give it? That Gunnar was gone, and the one that had taken his place had the sort of drive, the sort of purpose, that the lost man he’d been had never found. He’d rediscovered what he’d known, all along; the world needed villains, far more than it would ever really need heroes.
This particular facility was likely to be more of the same. They’d arranged to go to it as soon as they’d determined the exact location, but the mundies running it were likely a step ahead of them again, hastily clearing out before Gunnar and Eve arrived. It would still lead them to more information. It would still be a heavy financial hit for the organization funding the experiments within. It was still worthwhile, no matter how frustrating never quite catching up to them was. They would catch up, someday. They came closer with each facility they destroyed. One day, they would be the ones a step ahead, and they would show no mercy.
Gunnar adjusted the helmet he’d made, modeled after Erik’s but far less showy. The rest of what he wore was less showy, as well, and far more tactical. More appropriate for the kind of undertakings that they had planned than the atrocity that Erik had chosen for himself, in the comic books he’d come from. Gunnar respected Erik greatly, was fond of him in the way that one tended to be fond of the first person to truly understand him, but he did question his sense of fashion. Satisfied that his helmet would be staying on, he glanced over at Evelyn, making her own last minute preparations, as well. “On my mark.”
They had spent enough time together by now that Eve had gotten exceptionally good at anticipating him. For instance, she could tell when he was beginning to be consumed by something. The first time Eve had witnessed Gunnar’s more… intense, erratic behaviors, it had been something of a shock. You would never guess just how unraveled Gunnar truly was on the inside, from only meeting him a handful of times. On the outside he appeared calm and neatly put together, when in reality, he was a china cabinet already dangerously close to tipping over. Privately, Eve preferred this version of Gunnar. He was fearless, calculating, and never hesitated in the face of doing what needed to be done. The longer they spent on this project of theirs, the more focused he became, and the more they accomplished, at an increasingly faster, more ruthless rate. She respected the intensity of Gunnar's devotion in the things he set his mind to, regarded his obsessions as things to be handled with care, while keeping them properly motivated. That wasn't hard, considering their interests always seemed to align. Eve was just as determined to wipe out every single one of these places as he was, they were two people hell bent on taking this thing as far as it could go. Nothing would stand in their way.
Eve was currently in her own blue skin, but when Gunnar spoke, as she turned around to face him she immediately morphed into the skin of a government official, someone higher up on the food chain in charge of these ‘treatment’ facilities that Eve had started regularly posing as whenever they sought to infiltrate another site. The real monkey suit had been missing for weeks, but no one had noticed, thanks to Eve’s diligence with her cover. This was their routine, she went in first as the decoy to scope the place out. Usually they got to a facility too late and it was already deserted, but in the event that anyone had been left behind, they wouldn’t think anything of her entrance until it was already too late. While it was frustrating, every time they got there only to find a place empty, Eve knew that one day they’d catch up to the monsters doing this. You would be hard pressed to find a pair more determined to get justice for those wronged and to exact vengeance on those who made it their mission to treat reincarnates like animals.
She was ready. Eve hadn’t been what you would call an extremist before she’d met Gunnar, more like morally gray with a flair for the dramatics. With Gunnar, she was able to explore parts of herself that she’d always known were there, but she’d always been too cautious to really tap into. Having Mystique as a reincarnate helped, of course. When you could literally be anyone you wanted, whenever you wanted, there really wasn’t much room for a moral high ground anymore. Non-reincarnates just didn’t understand, anymore than all of the people absent a mutated gene. Having the abilities they did, it made them special. It made them extraordinary. It made them superior. And these human vermin were trying to stamp out everything that made reincarnates unique by sticking them in cells and experimenting on them like lab rats. The whole thing made Eve’s blood boil, and even more ready to take this newest place down. Her expression was grim, set against her newly masculine features, though he could maybe make out the barest hints of a malicious smile in the corners of her mouth where they stood outside their most recent target. Moments like this, it really struck her how much more he resembled Magneto these days. They’d come a long way. “Ready when you are.”
As much as Gunnar preferred Evelyn’s more natural form, the vibrant blue of her remarkable skin, he’d grown accustomed to the guise that she’d chosen for this venture, enough so that he thought he could likely recognize it on sight, even if he hadn’t known that Eve was supposed to be present. The sudden shift didn’t startle him; his own expression didn’t even alter as her entire body changed. It was all simply Evelyn and her mutation. Evelyn, the second person to truly seem to, if not entirely understand him, at least accept him without seeming to believe there was some sort of defect to be corrected in his personality, in the very core of his being. Evelyn had followed him in this without question, had not flinched when the use of his powers made his emotions fly out of control more and more often as time passed by. He didn’t tend toward the sentimental, but there was no way he could have done this without her, faithful by his side. That wasn’t sentiment. That was simple fact. The only thing that would have pleased him, pleased Erik more, was to have Erik's children by his side. To have his nephew, Erik's grandson, there… but that was even more unlikely than Mason welcoming his overtures of friendship.
No, Gunnar was not happy. There was too much in the world to be unhappy about, to be outraged about. The need to pretend otherwise faded every day, the mask of a normal man that he wore around family, around coworkers, wearing thinner with every new discovery he made about what their kind had done to his in these secret chambers. With that, though, came a strange sort of contentment, of peace, knowing that he wasn’t blinding himself to the truth of things any longer. Between rage and serenity, as Charles had told Erik, Gunnar had found the true sort of balance that he had tried desperately for most of his life to fake. Atrocities were being committed, but Gunnar was doing more than sitting on the sidelines, wringing his hands over them. Forgetting about them as excuses arose to do so, as personal life, personal drama, got in the way. What had all those who told them to stand aside done, with their words? Empty promises, and that was all. They hadn’t saved a single life that was worth saving.
“Go,” he told Evelyn. She would ascertain that the building was clear, and then they would destroy what remained. If there were any bodies, they would recover them, lay them out so that their loved ones would have at least a chance to find some closure, in knowing for a fact what had happened to them. They would look for whatever secrets the facility held, the ones they only thought they had destroyed well enough that no one would find them out, and those would lead them the next step closer to finding an active site. The routine was familiar, by now, approaching the level where Gunnar thought that he could likely do it in his sleep. Gunnar was between rage and serenity. Gunnar was ready.
As soon as Gunnar said the word, Eve nodded and was off without missing a beat. There was no room for hesitation in what they were doing, and she had never for a moment paused during their time together. From the moment Gunnar had come up with the idea and brought it to her, she had been on board from the very start. Frankly, she had been on board ever since the first time they’d met. She’d known that she and Gunnar shared like minds from their first conversation, it had been obvious to her in the beginning that this was someone actually worth spending her time on. Eve wasn’t any more prone to sentimental attachments than Gunnar was, and she wouldn’t be quick to call the nature of their relationship ‘sentimental’, but it certainly meant more to her than most people she’d come across. It meant enough that she’d wordlessly chosen to stay by his side after their first meeting, and that was the sort of devotion that, even unspoken, should be obvious enough to Gunnar that Eve didn’t just hand out to people lightly.
It was the sort of trust that could only come out of the kind of partnership they had.
The tall, dark haired man that Eve was masquerading as strode across the lawn, hands tucked into his pockets and whistling casually as he approached the building. Sharp, blue eyes took in the front entrance, noting that the place already looked far less abandoned than their usual targets. Wearing the name badge in plain view on the outside pocket of his blazer, Eve was well trained enough no matter the face she was wearing to not look as surprised as she felt when she walked in to find human life, instead of the usual empty hallways, overturned file cabinets and loose papers floating across the floors like tumbleweeds. The corners of her eyes crinkling, almost narrowing, Eve quickly ascertained that this facility was still fully functional, phones were ringing and there were people in white coats milling about the front reception desk like they had any nerve to actually proclaim themselves healers. They didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Someone noticed her… him, and it took Eve a moment too long to realize she was being spoken to directly, and addressed as a ‘Mr. Conway’. Ah, yes. That was the name of the man whose life she had stolen. Eve felt no guilt in that thought, when she remembered the countless reincarnate lives that had already been taken from this earth. The receptionist asked who he was here to see and Eve turned to her with a winning smile, one hand in her pocket pressing ‘send’ on a pre-made text to Gunnar to let him know that the place was occupied as she responded in a voice far more masculine than her own. “I’m here for the reincarnates.”
When the text from Evelyn popped up on his phone, Gunnar had to read it twice to make certain. Occupied. The facility was occupied. They had, at last, stopped playing catch up. Gunnar wasn’t naive enough to believe that it would be all occupied facilities from there on out, but it was a start. They were closer by far than they’d ever been, and Gunnar would not allow their trail to go cold again, now. There wouldn’t be time to shut anything down, to try to wipe anything, if they moved quickly. That wasn’t a concern, in his mind. The layout of all these places tended to be similar, one very much like the next. He and Evelyn would know, roughly, where to go. What they’d find, and where. The only knowledge they wouldn’t have was about the people within, both employees and captives, about the activities themselves, whether there was some sort of schedule. The things you couldn’t learn from a dead building, that you could only learn from a living one. After this, they would have less to discover about that, as well.
Numbers, he texted back. They needed to know how many reincarnates were being held within the facility, how many staff were there to hold them. He imagined that Evelyn would think on her own to to obtain that information before they began their assault in truth, and he wasn’t even certain if she’d have the opportunity to see his message before he made his way into the building. That, he was afraid, would have to be far more subtle than his usual approach.
Concentrating, Gunnar pushed against the earth’s magnetic field. He’d rarely used Erik’s powers to fly, before he and Evelyn began this mission. It had seemed like a waste of effort, of energy, when he’d been doing his best to minimize the impact that their use made on the chemistry of his brain. It was risking too much for too little, when he could simply walk. It was less dramatic, but he’d carefully restrained that part of himself, as well, even censoring his words, his sarcasm. He’d long passed the point where that use of power could do any more damage, however, and it wasn’t as though he was pushing himself into the air entirely for the sake of drama. There was also the matter of stealth to be considered, getting himself above the level that any surveillance equipment would see. He pushed up, and further up, until he was able to propel himself toward the building, far less carefully than when he’d first begun practicing. He’d been awkward, ungainly, his first few attempts at flight. Now, it felt like flying was meant to. Freeing.
The roof was his intended destination. There might, he thought, be some sort of entrance to be had up there. A way in that wouldn’t disrupt Evelyn’s ability to maintain her cover, whilst there, before they met up and cover became entirely unnecessary. Once their moment came, he would be able to lock down the building easily. Then, it would be… as much as he hated to use a cliché, fish in a barrel.
The receptionist gave him a clueless look and Eve had to stop herself from rolling her eyes, instead faking an impatient sigh and looking at her watch, imitating the very air of someone who believed he had more important places to be. Men in general, but in particular men of a certain status and power, tended to act this way, as if anyone and everyone was inconveniencing them simply by existing. Eve had known enough men like that in government alone to be able to mimic it flawlessly, without practice, and she knew from her very brief interactions with the body she was currently impersonating that it wasn’t, unsurprisingly, very far off from the truth.
“The reincarnates, woman. I was called here to assess them.” The woman looked up at Eve, replying timidly, “I don’t have that down in my books…” To which Eve responded quickly, practically snarling at the mousy girl with the phone, “Well that would explain why I was called here so suddenly with no appointment in my calendar, and therefore had to uproot my entire schedule today just to be here, wouldn’t it? Now if you could stop wasting any more of my time and please tell me where I might find them and roughly how many I’ll be dealing with today so I can properly manage my time spent here, I might very well be less inclined to send a complaint to whoever your direct superior is about your unwillingness to cooperate.”
After that verbal tongue lashing, the receptionist was a lot quicker to comply, and Eve inwardly relaxed, while outwardly maintaining her impatient posture and even proceeded to start tapping her foot while the woman looked through some computer records before looking up at Eve with wide, nervous eyes. “... There’s only one today, sir. It’s been here the longest, the others were…” She paused, seeming to be struggling to choose her words carefully. “... transferred.”
‘It’. ‘Transferred’. Eve very nearly bristled. Of course she was no longer surprised to hear reincarnates referred to as little more than ‘its’, but it still made her blood boil, and after enough of her and Gunnar’s missions she knew what ‘transferred’ meant. It meant they’d been taken down to the incinerator. Working hard to keep the growl out of her voice this time, Eve took out her phone and trained her gaze on it, texting Gunnar while speaking to the receptionist in a much more icy tone. “Do let them know that I’m here, will you?” Of course, as soon as the people in charge of this facility were alerted to his presence, they would figure out very quickly that there was something going on here, but by then, Eve and Gunnar would already be descending upon them all. It would be too late. 1 reincarnate. Staff visible: 4.
Gunnar’s phone buzzed in his pocket, no sounds that would give him away to anyone who might have been lurking. Whether there was any need for that level of caution was uncertain; he couldn’t feel any guns nearby, the metal of both gun and bullet telltale. Gun nut that his father was, Gunnar had spent many nights, in what was left of his teen years after Erik had made himself known, memorizing the shape of a broad array of them when he couldn’t calm his mind. While others had lulled themselves into the oblivion of sleep by counting sheep, Gunnar had counted bullets, made an account of them by caliber in his head until the monotony of it had distracted him from the horror show of Erik’s long enough to sleep until the next bout of nightmares.
It was always possible, he supposed, that they’d realized who it was they were dealing with, found a way to make entirely plastic firearms so that Gunnar would be unable to detect them. It was possible, he knew, maybe even probable. His identity had been made unfortunately public, and there were only so many things that could do to the rubble of the buildings they had left what he had. If they were wise, they would have thrown everything they could invest into creating the kinds of weapons that he could not detect, could not manipulate. It would have been worthwhile, if they had only realized that he was a man who did not give up, once he had determined that he would see a job through until the end. He did not, however, have a very high regard for the intelligence of this particular organization. They were the worst kind of humans.
He retrieved the phone from his pocket, checked the message with a frown creasing his face. Only one… that couldn’t have been all that had been held, here. Was it possible for this to be a trap, one set to catch the two of them specifically? It had been equally obvious that the two of them had been pulling these facilities apart. It was the kind of move that he would make, arranging a target too enticing to be passed up, making it appear as though they finally had what they’d wanted all along, a chance to save even one. It might have made them let their guard down in elation, made them stupid about their approach. It was a good plan.
Though he still didn’t think much of their intelligence, Gunnar shot back a message to Evelyn, anyhow. Guard up. Could be a trap. At the same time, however, they were entirely correct. Gunnar would not, could not, pass up a chance to save even one from what these monsters were doing to them. If they were aware, if they were cautious about the fact that it could be something meant to spell their doom, they still had to at least try. He could accept no less. In place. Signal when ready.
The thought that this was a trap did cross Eve’s mind, almost simultaneously with the response that Gunnar sent her, confirming his own suspicions of it. It wasn’t shocking anymore that they were of one mind about something, but it also ultimately meant nothing. It wouldn’t stop them from finishing what they started here, Eve knew that Gunnar wouldn’t hesitate any more than she would. Trap or not, if there was even one reincarnate held prisoner in this place, Eve and Gunnar would liberate them or die trying. Eve had never shied away from the notion of dying for something she believed in, and she wouldn’t want to be captured. Eve wasn’t a woman who was built for captivity, and it was too risky, letting herself fall into the hands of people like that. With her brand of mutation, men of science would suddenly have countless ways to turn her gifts into things that could be misused and weaponized for the purpose of furthering their cause.
Eve would rather die than let that happen.
While Eve was still looking at her phone, the receptionist was talking to someone on hers, and it only took a moment for Eve to look up and register that the woman was speaking in a suspiciously hushed tone. Ah, yes. That would mean whoever was on the other end was most likely informing her that they hadn’t asked anyone to come assess their latest test subject today, and Eve sadly couldn’t simply write them off as morons, no doubt by now the constant news cycling of her and Gunnar’s anonymous exploits against other facilities had reached their ears and a conclusion could be easily drawn from that. After all, it’s what she would think.
She also wasn’t going to waste time assuming that there was still a chance they could get away with this for a little while longer. The jig was up, but Eve didn’t care anymore about the element of surprise. Lesser evolved people would always fear what was different, and reincarnates? Mutants? They would always be different from them. These men in lab coats and the mousey girl at the desk couldn’t even begin to understand how that made reincarnates infinitely better than them, but Eve wasn’t here to explain to the mundanes why they were the future, and not them. She was here for the reincarnate they were keeping locked in a cage.
Eve sighed and sent a quick reply to Gunnar (Now.), before turning her attention to the man in a white coat timidly approaching her, flashing him her most winning smile. On this face, anyway. It would look a bit different on her own. He said something like, “We weren’t expecting you today, sir, would you please come with us?” As if Eve wouldn’t see right through that. She feigned like she was going to comply before suddenly striking like a viper, lifting her leg in the air while her whole body reverted back to its natural blue form as she pinned the man to the wall with her foot on his neck. “I don’t think so. I think, instead, you’ll be coming with me.”
In the time that Evelyn had been chatting with the receptionist, finding as many answers as she could before she could no longer keep her cover up, Gunnar had searched the roof for any hidden access. A door, perhaps, or the opening to some sort of ventilation system, or a crawl space. There was nothing there for him, nothing that would lead him neatly into the interior of the building. Disappointing, really, when he and Evelyn could have approached from different areas and met up in the midst of everything. Instead, he could have gone back down, swung in through a window, simply found some other opening that would allow him access without the use of the front door. It would have been easier by far, allowed him to save his energy for the rescue.
When the signal came from Evelyn, he was still on the roof. Gunnar wasn’t certain how urgent the ‘now’ had been, but in case it was the sort of thing where it actually meant now, as in he needed to be there in that moment, he couldn’t take the time to search for another way into the building. Access point or no access point, Gunnar was going through the roof.
There might not have been a vent, but there was metal in the roof, pipes running the length of what he assumed to be a hallway below him. A twist, and they were bursting through the brick of the roof, and the concrete of the ceiling below, Gunnar using his makeshift clubs to bust out a large enough opening for his body. He dropped through, hitting the floor with a thud, any pretense of stealth entirely abandoned. It would have been impossible for anyone within to have avoided hearing his entrance, something that should hopefully distract anyone that Evelyn was facing enough for her to get the upper hand, if she didn’t already have it. Evelyn, he thought with pride, wouldn’t be distracted. She’d know exactly what he’d done, most likely.
It was a little dramatic, yes. Perhaps he’d bit down on his flair for that for too long. Something about mentally punching one’s way through the roof was incredibly satisfying.
He cut an imposing figure, he knew, black helmet and black armored vest. Not quite as eye catching, and absolutely no cape, but it was a different world that he lived in, far different from the one that Erik knew. Rugged was superior to eye catching, as far as clothing went, and Gunnar could more than make up for the lack when it came to presentation. The men who poured out into the hall, guns raised, weren’t properly appreciative… but they would be. They fired their guns, and Gunnar stopped the bullets with a raised hand and a thought.
Thea was frustrating her captors, and she knew it. Having Molly blessed her with a few gifts, the most useful of which was her invulnerability. Sure, she could still get hurt by things. Chemicals, fire, that sort of thing still hurt her. But blunt force? That didn’t stand a chance, and it was something they were finding the more and more they did tests on her. She was resilient. Which was why, at this stage of the experimentation, Thea was the only one left alive for them to torture. When she’d first been brought in she could have sworn there were at least a dozen other reincarnates in there with her--though she never got the chance to actually count--all of whom had very distinctive screams when it was their turn to be studied.
The cell next to hers was trashed; the bars were ripped out of the floor and ceiling, concrete was sprayed everywhere. It had been hers when she first got there, and in a hasty attempt to escape she broke out of the prison. Unfortunately, she’d passed out from exhaustion immediately after her impressive display of strength, which led to her being moved into a different cell. They weren’t afraid of her escaping, not once they knew the limitations on her strength, so in the end it had amounted to a high-powered temper-tantrum. She had more stamina now, mostly from days of torture and their attempts to push her powers to their breaking point for their own knowledge.
That didn’t stop her from having an attitude appropriate of her age, however. She was constantly sarcastic to whoever interacted with her for the day, especially when she accepted that she wasn’t getting out of there any time soon and asking about release was a waste of breath. A couple of times the doctors or scientists or whatever-the-hells stuck her extra hard with the needle in retaliation for her smart mouth, but it hadn’t discouraged her. What did she have to lose? They were going to kill her eventually anyway.
Thea perked up at the sound of commotion in the building, a crashing noise that had the guards--several of them, as they didn’t trust just a couple to be able to guard her--speaking to each other in hushed whispers. She pushed herself off of the cold floor and over to the cell bars, the plain white cotton hospital-like outfit they had her in dirty in spots from the floor. Slowly, she smirked, looking at the nearest guard. “Aren’tcha gonna go check that out? Sounds like you got a problem out there.” When he scowled she snorted. “Whatever. Guess you’re too chicken.”
The abruptness and noise of Gunnar’s entrance hardly phased her, but then, Eve had been expecting it. She was focused on the man she currently had by the throat, and while there had been a momentary concern about a sudden influx of armed men suddenly swarming the area, they rushed right past her in pursuit of what they clearly viewed as the bigger threat. Eve didn’t take offense. She was one woman, after all, albeit a very blue one. She looked more mutant than female like this, except for the breasts, but she couldn’t blame them for prioritizing the loud crash of plaster and metal, whatever was capable of doing that was priority number one. That suited her just fine, as Eve wasn’t quite finished with the man she had pinned to the wall by her foot, and the receptionist was too busy cowering behind the desk to be of any help to him.
“You’re going to show me where they keep the reincarnates, and you’re going to cooperate, or I’ll crush your windpipe right here.” Eve’s yellow eyes flashed in anger as the man sputtered and struggled, his sputtering eventually dulling to quiet, pathetic whimpers, until she pressed in on his throat a little more aggressively and he immediately held up his hands in surrender. ‘Al-alright, I’ll-” The man choked, struggling to speak. “I’ll show you. Just...”
Eve’s attention only momentarily shifted at the sound of gun shots, but it happened so quickly that the man cowering under her foot wouldn’t have noticed, and then she was back on target. She could only assume they were shooting at Gunnar, but she wasn’t going to start worrying about him now. Her partner was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Besides, bullets? Magneto did always have a way with guns. Turning her attention back to the whimpering man in front of her, Eve didn’t miss the person trying to sneak up on her out of the corner of her eye. With the honed reflexes of a mutant with near-supernatural agility, Eve hooked her leg around the first guy’s neck and twisted her body at a sharp angle to flip him over onto the ground.
He had barely landed on his back before Eve was straightening up from her crouch and turning herself into a full round house kick straight to her would-be attacker’s chest that sent him flying a few feet back and crashing into the reception desk, immediately knocked out. The receptionist screamed in surprise, appearing frightened and rooted to the spot, but Eve paid her no mind for the moment. Stooping down to grab the first guy by the coat collar and drag him to his feet, Eve practically snarled as she yanked him into an upright standing position. “Now take me there.”
Gunnar could easily have turned the bullets back on the men who had fired them, but he still had hopes that they would be able to give him more information about the organization, information that would put him and Evelyn even closer to finding the head of the serpent, the key member without whom they would all crumble. That was the ultimate goal, wasn’t it, to disarm this particular branch entirely. He was well aware that it would likely mean killing someone in a position of personal or political power, someone with tremendous wealth at their disposal, but he wasn’t phased by that in the least. Gunnar would do what he had to.
The bullets dropped to the floor with a deceptively cheery jingle, and when the group of them went to fire again they found their guns mysteriously (or not so mysteriously, if any of them had figured out what it was that Gunnar could do) jammed. A few bullets even exploded within the barrel of the guns themselves. The ones holding those guns dropped them with a cry of pain, but the rest soon found themselves disarmed, as well, all the guns hovering their way over to Gunnar. There was no fixing them, not without taking them apart and doing it by hand, but they still made an impressive display, turning slowly midair to point back at the men who had held them.
Their eyes were so fixed on the guns that none of them noticed Gunnar lashing out at them with one of the pipes he’d used to break through the roof. He made short work of them, taking them down with knocks to the head and restraining them with their own handcuffs. Meant to subdue, he guessed, not kill. It wouldn’t do to kill escaped reincarnates before they’d been used, to their full extent, for the scientists in this place to experiment upon. He jammed the mechanisms on the handcuffs, as well, so that even with the key it would be impossible to get out of them unless one was capable of mentally manipulating magnetism.
If that was the best their security had to offer, Gunnar was very nearly insulted by how easy they had been to take out. They weren’t all that tough, when they didn’t have the advantage of surprise, were they? He could hear the sounds of fighting toward one end of the hallway; Evelyn’s location, toward the lobby. Leaving the men cuffed on the floor, Gunnar stalked down the hallway toward her, locking down every metal door he could feel in the building, scrambling every electronic lock. No one else would be getting in or out of places unless Gunnar opened it, himself. He doubted Evelyn needed his help with what she was doing; he took his time.
The commotion they had all been hearing had gotten louder, more violent sounding. The guard Thea had been talking to distracted by the sounds of gun shots echoing off of concrete. Her own eyes flashed to the door that was locked by some kind of computerized panel as three of the guards walked towards it slowly with guns raised. She pressed her head against the bars as far as she could trying to crane her neck to see as best as she could; cages really were a hinderance for a curious teenaged girl.
“Sir, the door won’t open,” The guard closest to the door called back to the guard near Thea, barely keeping the inflection of concern out of his voice. They were nervous, which meant that none of this was planned. For a brief second Thea had hope--somebody was here to take down this organization, and she was going to be saved. Maybe it was Jay. Or the Avengers. Whoever it was, these men with guns were going to be sorry.
The hope was fleeting, however, and was quickly replaced by fear, a familiar emotion for as long as she’d been down there. She frowned. Maybe it wasn’t somebody there on a rescue mission. It could just as easily just be somebody wanting to hit the U.S. government to hurt them. Or maybe it was a rescue mission, but seeing as she was the only reincarnate still alive down there, she could easily be overlooked. They could bomb, or burn the place to the ground with her in it.
It was the last thought that prompted her to move. She was stronger now than before she got there. If she could get one clean shot, maybe she could use the commotion to get out of there before she passed out from using her strength. She moved to grip the door of her cell and, with an angry cry, shoved it out as hard as she could so that it flew into two soldiers and knocked them off their feet with a loud CRUUUUUUUUUNCH!
The man in Eve’s clutches had to realize that he had no choice, didn’t he? She wasn’t going to let him go (and she very likely wouldn’t even after he did as he was told), so really, there was no point in refusing now, was there? Unless he was some kind of irritating martyr. Eve really did hate those types, if they weren’t being martyrs for something she happened to agree with. If they weren’t, they were just in the way, and if this man was thinking about trying to put himself before her like a sacrificial lamb on the altar, he was going to be in for a rude awakening. Eve wasn’t what you’d call the ‘mercy’ type, and if the man wanted to do something as foolish as die for nothing, then she was just cruel enough to make sure he lived until it became utterly unbearable for him. Lucky for him, that didn’t seem to be the route he was choosing.
“It’s on the bottom floor,” the man rasped, gasping desperately for breath as Eve wrapped a hand around his throat and squeezed, just in case he was thinking about doing something as stupid as lying. “I-I swear! I swear. All the… labs… are right below us. That’s where she’ll -” Eve abruptly let go of his throat and he doubled over gasping. “... be.”
She? So they were dealing with a female reincarnate. Not that it mattered, but Eve had to wonder how young she was. Some of the records they’d found of deceased reincarnates that had been unlucky enough to fall into these people’s hands… well, they’d been tragically young. It just made Eve even more angry, and more determined to bring this entire organization down. Treating anyone like this was one thing, but kids? Even Eve had her limits. Children, especially reincarnate children, were their future. It was their duty as the adults leaving this world to them to keep them safe. Not a notion that Eve would have necessarily bought into once upon a time, but when you spent enough time with mutants like Magneto, the righteousness started to rub off on you. She heard Gunnar approaching before she saw him, her grip on her captive’s collar reasserted as she turned her head to look at her partner, eyes blazing with fury and anticipation.
“They’re down below.” Eve spoke crisply, all business like as she yanked the man forward to tighten her grip on him before turning him around and pushing him roughly forward, towards the stairs. “He’s going to show us where. Just in case he’s stupid enough to be lying.” If he was, it was pretty much implied what would happen to him in Eve’s icy, merciless tone. She would throw him down the stairs herself, or else maybe lock him up in one of the cages he’d put innocent reincarnates in and leave him to slowly starve to death. It would be a fitting end.