InsaneJournal

Who: Shepard, Xena, Logan and Callisto
What: A commander, a warrior princess and a wolverine storm a Hydra facility to rescue Callisto while Callisto breaks herself out.
When: April 4th
Where: A Hydra facility
Warnings: High for carnage, NPC deaths and fire. Lots of fire



The passing of time was not something Callisto really comprehended. She didn’t know how many days had passed, she only knew time passed when Marguerite would return and give her more doses of whatever the fuck they were putting in her system. And whatever they were doing seemed to be working. The demons were plaguing her, and Callisto felt power coursing through her veins again. It wasn’t an experience she would want to repeat, it had taken an immense toll on her psyche.

While she’d managed to become mentally stable before she’d been kidnapped, Callisto was definitely no longer stable in any meaning of the word. When she wasn’t being tied to a table, she seemed to be locked in the cell that was too tiny. Currently, she was trapped in that cell. The demons were plaguing her, seemingly laughing at her, and she just screamed at the top of her lungs. One would think her voice would have gone hoarse over a week before with all the screaming she’d been doing.

Her hands tangled in her hair, pulling at it and messing it up further as she was sitting in the cell, rocking back and forth slightly.

Callisto disappearing was nothing new. But there’d been something off about the last of her text messages and Xena had been suspicious for several days. That suspicion had gotten her being nosey, and being nosey had nearly gotten her killed. So she’d gathered a bit of a posse. One Wolverine, 1.0 version, and a Marine that really, really should be in bed.

But Jane wasn’t going to abandon Callisto. She knew her well enough that it was very important to her that she be one of the first friendly faces that Callisto saw. Bruises and cuts and all.

“What I want to know is how you’re fuckin’ walking,”Logan said, pulling his grey mask down over his head.

“Pure force of will and bribing myself with morphine later,” Jane replied, gritting her teeth.

“Just do the shooty thing and let me and bubcake here do melee.”

Jane rolled her eyes at Xena. She was stubborn, not stupid, she doubted her body could handle biotic charges right now. She should have called Garrus. “I’ll hang back, give you covering fire.”

The walls seemed to be closing in on Callisto. She didn’t know if they actually were or not, but she lashed out, ramming her fist into the wall. Pain ran up her arm, but it barely registered with Callisto. At this point, she was numb to most pain. She kicked at the door of her cell as she let out another piercing, echoing scream.

“Let me out of here!” She demanded. She was under the impression her screams were being ignored at this point. But she was right where Marguerite wanted her to be.

Marguerite was keeping a very close eye on her. She had some worries, not that she cared about Callisto’s fate, but that she might be too unstable to actually let loose. In other words she had regrets. There was only one thing to do when there were regrets. At least she’d learned quite a bit and passed it on to others. The videos alone would fuel her experiments for months.

“Sanders, take squad one. Sedate Subject 1009 and prepare her for termination. Be sure to preserve the remains for study. We can learn more from her.”

The entire facility rocked from an explosion and alarms sounded. A faint, distant ‘kiyiyiyiyiyiiyi’ echoed through the hallways to Callisto’s cell.

Callisto heard that distinctive battle cry. It was faint, but it was enough to get her to move. Sure, it might just be a figment of her imagination, but with the explosion and alarms, this was Callisto best and only chance to get out of there. She kicked at the door of her cell a couple more times. It seemed to weaken, but she decided to make a grand exit.

If she was going to die, it damn well wasn’t going to be in this cell, and she damn well would go down fighting. Callisto looked at her hand, then at the door and took advantage of the new power that was running through her. A fireball flew at the door and blew it out, knocking down a couple people in the hallway outside. Callisto crawled out of the cell, then rose to her feet, neck and back cracking.

“Here comes trouble,” she announced in a sing-song voice, paired with a dangerous smile. She then charged at the closest person to her, not caring who it was, she was going to kill them.

Somewhere in the distance came a distinctive series of sounds. The unmistakable swooshing of a Chakram and it’s accompanying ricochet. The snikty-snikt of claws. And the heavy retort of a machine gun.

The man brought his arms up, his eyes glowing red. Mist, like shadow, oozed from his skin and he flung himself at her with an unearthly shriek.

Callisto let out her own shriek that echoed through the halls as she launched herself at him as well. She met him, grunting a bit at the force of the impact. She lashed out with fists and nails. She didn’t need a weapon, she was a weapon. And Marguerite had given her a gift, putting her back in the mindset of the psychotic killer she had been. She was stronger this way, and it wasn’t like Jane was going to be around to keep her relatively sane.

And perhaps this was also helping to cover the loss.

Drawing a fist back, she let fire gather around it and she drove her fist into his chest, letting the fire burn him.

The man grabbed at her wrists, and with supernatural strength started to pull her fist away from his chest. His skin smoldered and smoked, the smell of burning flesh filling the air. But this woman was stronger somehow.

He headbutted her, trying to break free and escape.

Callisto took the headbutt, but she grabbed hold of him, not letting him escape. “Oh no no no, you’re not getting away that easily.” She headbutted him and drove a knee into his groin. She then twisted his arm, testing out her strength and wondering just how easily she could break him.

His arm snapped, and he howled like some otherworldly banshee.

Marguerite was in the process of evacuating, but she did stop to watch that moment. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps letting Callisto go was for the best. The chaos and damage she could do would only serve to help Hydra by keeping so-called heroes busy and sowing discord to swell their ranks.

Not that she actually cared about the cause. She was here for the science, but boosting the cause gave her more test subjects. “Come.” She nodded to her guard and then started for the roof.

“You guys are seeing this right?” Shepard called out, as a man she’d just shot got back to his feet, black mist oozing from his face.

“Hit ‘em enough times and they stay down,” Logan replied, ramming one of the soldiers into the steel wall. He tilted his head. “I hear her.”

Xena glanced at him, then looked into the darkness ahead of them. She checked her pouch and pulled out a syringe. “If she’s not herself, we’re going to need to sedate her and that’s gonna piss her off. Just be ready for that.”

Behind Callisto came a soft footstep, then someone jabbed towards the back of her head.

The sound of the arm snapping and the howl he gave brought a smile to Callisto’s face. She savored the pain she inflicted. She was like him, but perfected, it seemed. There was more to her now. Perhaps they had really given her back her god powers, as well as new ones. She liked the power, though it was a double-edged sword. The damage had been done to her psyche.

“Oh, you aren’t going anywhere,” Callisto vowed, catching sight of Marguerite as she attempted to flee. However, she sensed someone coming up behind her and she ducked the swing. As she ducked, she shifted her weight and drove her foot around to jam into the person’s mid-section.

The attacker caught Callisto’s foot, then twisted hard before backflipping away. They fell into a ready stance, the light revealing a slim woman in black leather, scars crisscrossing every inch of her exposed skin. She faded out of view, only to appear behind Callisto again, swinging a knife up and into her.

Callisto moved with the twist, letting herself flip around, and she landed back on her feet. She got a look at the woman well enough to notice the scars. Then she faded out of view, and Callisto tried to get a read on her. However, the knife blade sinking into her was the only read she got.

She let out a cry as her eyes turned red. She reached back with hands encased in fire to grab the woman’s head at the same time she twisted her body away from her, not precisely caring if the blade twisted or did a lot more damage to her. If she died here, at least it was while she was fighting and not sitting in her cell. Pain, for Callisto, was a motivator more than anything else.

The woman screamed, letting go of the knife and stumbling back, she suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke.

A helicopter had arrived, and Marguerite hurried up the stairs. It was three stories to the surface, and then two more to the roof. She was just reaching the ground floor when she gave the order. “Implode the place. Leave no one alive.”

With the woman seemingly gone, Callisto ignored the guy with the broken arm, if he was still there, and she took off after Marguerite. She moved faster than she had before. Getting to the bottom of the stairs she’d seen the woman disappear into, Callisto’s eyes flashed red again, and the black mist surrounded her as she launched herself up the stairs at an alarming rate of speed. She refused to let this woman leave, and she was going to kill anyone who stood between them.

It wasn’t long before she reached the guards that were with Marguerite. Not caring on taking her time with them, she simply punched her fist through one guy’s chest. “You’re in my way,” she practically cooed to him as he died. She pulled her arm out and let him slump to the floor.

Marguerite decided now was a good time to kick off her heels, and started to bolt up the stairs. Soldiers swarmed in behind her opening fire on Callisto. Marguerite knew they were cannon fodder. That was really the whole point.

“This way.” Xena started climbing up a pipe, hoping they could reach the source of the gunfire more quickly that way. Logan started to follow her, snikting up the wall.

“Really guys?” Jane opened a door, and started going up an emergency set of stairs.

The gun shots hurt and she did bleed. The knife may still be sticking out of her, she wasn’t certain, but she had other things to worry about. Eyes going red again, she showered fire upon them all, more or less engulfing them completely. She then leapt over them and took off after Marguerite.

“You’re not getting away from me!” She called, leaving the scent of burnt flesh and other things behind her. She was oblivious to people breaking in to get to her. The explosion that had triggered the alarms had gone out of her mind by now. Now, she was simply focused on getting to Marguerite before she got away. Though she was probably quite the site. Her right arm was covered in blood almost up to her elbow, and she was also covered in her own blood from the bullet wounds and the knife wound, yet she was still moving like she didn’t feel any of them.

“Jesus.” Logan was the first to witness Callisto’s madness, though Xena was quick to follow. She unhooked her Chakram and threw it. It ricocheted past Callisto and hit Marguerite upside the head. She stumbled to the ground, dazed.

“Don’t kill her!” Xena started running up the stairs. “We might need her for information!”

“God..fucking…” Jane pushed a door open, panting for breath. She looked up. “Callisto!”

The chakram caught her attention and she growled, possibly more inhuman-sounding than it should have been. She continued on up the stairs, intent on getting to Marguerite. “Fuck you!” Callisto called back to Xena. This bitch was dying, and she was dying now.

But then she heard a voice that she didn’t think she should hear. Callisto froze, then shook her head and smacked it. “No, no, stop it, not now,” she muttered, thinking it was just another voice in her head. She stalked over to Marguerite, reaching down and grabbing her around the neck and lifting her up. “Did you really think you could get away so easily?”

Marguerite’s head rolled around a bit, and she looked at Callisto with foggy eyes. Then she laughed. “Do you think killing me will rid yourself of my voice? You will always hear me, petal. In everything you do.”

Jane stumbled, crying out and grabbing her ribs. This was stupid, and she’d never felt more useless. She shoved Logan off. “Go, go!”

“Callisto, if she’s dead, she can’t tell us what the hell they’re doing here.” Xena had her hands out, the same way one might approach a cornered animal.

Callisto tightened her grip on Marguerite’s neck. “Oh, is that why you think I’m going to kill you?” Callisto laughed, amused by that. “I’m going to kill you because I want to. Because I like to.” She squeezed her neck harder, not enough to break it, but definitely enough to cut off her ability to breathe.

At Xena’s insistence, Callisto snarled and turned a red-eyed glare on her. “You don’t have to fucking ask her anything. I’m all you need to know about what they do here.” Of course, as she looked at Xena, she definitely saw Jane. An injured Jane who looked like she was probably not supposed to be here.

“Jane?” Callisto kept a grip on Marguerite’s neck as she stared at the redhead. She still wasn’t certain if Jane was real or if she was hallucinating. But seeing Jane was enough to cut through the madness and murderous intentions, and her eyes turned back to their normal brown.

Unbeknownst to her, Callisto’s wounds were healing. Some of them were already healed, though the blood that had soaked into her clothes was still evident.

Someone tried to get past them at Callisto and Logan clothlined him.

“Maybe…” Marguerite choked. “Go ahead. Just know I’ll be laughing when you lose what you’ve built here.”

The knife popped out of Callisto’s back, the wound sealing with a faint hiss.

“Hey babe.” Jane waved a hand weekly at Callisto. Honestly, she didn’t give a damn what happened with Marguerite, as long as they didn’t lose Callisto in the process. “Sorry I’m late.”

“And I’ll be laughing at you because you’ll be dead and in Hell. And believe me, the demons there are far worse than the ones you’ve given me.” Callisto knew what horrors awaited people in Hell. That’s when she started to burn Marguerite, her other hand causing the fire while she let go of the woman’s throat. She wanted to hear her screams.

Once Marguerite was burning, Callisto closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath before she fully turned around. She ignored Xena and Logan and went straight to Jane. Emotions stirred within her, the kind that might be reminiscent of tears (though Callisto didn’t cry no matter what anyone thought).

“I thought you were gone,” she said, afraid to touch Jane. “Is this...real? Are you real?”

Marguerite’s screams were abruptly cut off when Logan put a single claw through her forehead. He might have waited just a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, but only because he had a vague idea of what they were doing here and if there was anything that could trigger a rage reaction in Logan, this was it.

Xena just sighed.

Jane pulled herself up from a crouching position, leaning heavily on her rifle. “I’m real. I’m here. Garrus found me.” She’d spent most of the past few days very, very out of it. But she had wanted to know where Callisto was, and Xena had too.

Seeing Callisto like this was…. Well it scared her, on a couple of levels. She hadn’t wanted to change her, but they’d both been good at tempering the worse parts of each other. And on the other level? Callisto like this would have been a weapon against the Reapers, one that Jane would have willingly unleashed. It was a sobering thought.

“Couldn’t let them have all the fun.”

If anyone had any doubts about Callisto being a monster, this clearly would dispel them all. She’d been doing well, but then Marguerite had gone and broken her again. She drew in a breath, daring to reach out and she placed her hand against Jane’s cheek. She was real. And more importantly, it was the first human contact she’d had in she didn’t know how long that didn’t involve needles or people manhandling her.

“I suppose not. Though you should’ve just left me here.”

“Never gonna happen. Never leave anyone behind.” Jane put her hand over Callisto’s, leaning her cheek into it. She was tired, and in pain, but Callisto was beautiful and fragile and strong. She wanted her to know that, and to know how she felt, monster or not. “Specially not someone I-”

The ground suddenly rocked, the metal stairs creaking and groaning.

“We gotta get out of here.” Xena started racing up the stairs. “I hope one of us knows how to fly a chopper.”

Talk about a cliffhanger, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. “Don’t look at me,” Callisto responded to Xena, moving to stand beside Jane, letting her put an arm around her shoulders for help getting her upstairs quickly. She’d pick her up, but she doubted Jane would be okay with that. Dignity and such.

Dignity be damned, Jane didn’t want to blow up again. Garrus would never forgive her! But she shuffled alongside Callisto, casually shooting a woman in the face as they made it to the root.

The pilot tried to spin the blades up, but Xena hauled him out of the cockpit. “Get in!”

Logan picked up Jane, handing her to Callisto and then crawling in after them. Jane just sagged into Callisto and closed her eyes. “I should be the one holding you.”

In the absence of any qualified pilot, Xena did the only thing she could. She tried to fly.

Callisto helped Jane get to the helicopter, then climbed in when Logan took the redhead from her, then took her and strapped her into a seat. Callisto didn’t bother strapping herself in, she didn’t quite care if she accidentally fell out of the helicopter to her death. She kept an arm around Jane and drew in a breath.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” Except she definitely wasn’t fine, but she wasn’t going to get into it here. Callisto was still in kill mode, and sitting still was hard. Though she didn’t need to force herself to stay still in her seat because Xena couldn’t fly the helicopter easily. She looked down at the facility she’d been in, a hard look in her eyes.

The chopper wobbled like a kid’s toy, but managed to get airborn as the whole facility seemed to collapse in on itself, imploding and burying itself in thousands of tons of dirt, rock and metal. The crater left behind started filling with water, to further hide what had been done there.

Xena hazarded a glance at the ground, nearly flipped the helicopter and resumed trying to fly. Logan reached over to help steady the controls. “This is a lot different from the Black bird.”

Jane squeezed Callisto’s hand. “Knew something was up, when I woke up again.”

The experience was not one Callisto was going to forget, even though she really wanted to. And she kept seeing that image of her sister, if it really was her sister, flash through her mind. She was conflicted and tormented and broken again. Watching the facility below implode was satisfying, however. She then turned her attention back to Jane.

“You knew what was up, that this wasn’t the afterlife?” Callisto asked, partly in teasing and partly trying to deflect from her experience here.

“Call me old fashioned, but kinda hoped I’d see your face.” Garrus was going to kill her. But it was worth it.

“I would’ve been there, but obviously I couldn’t have been.” Callisto had been grabbed before she even knew that Jane was alive. “What day is it?” She might as well find out how long she’d been in that hell hole.

“The fourth,” Xena said trying to bring the chopper in for a landing without crashing them. Which meant Callisto had been there anywhere from one week to two.

The vehicle they’d taken was parked in a safe place several miles away. Luckily for all of them, Jane was in no condition to drive. She did sit up, and press a hand against her side, before turning to Callisto to inspect her for injury. Jane was fine. Really.

So Callisto had spent her birthday being an experiment. Great. She lightly swatted at Jane’s hands. “I’m fine,” she said. Which she was. There was no trace of any of the bullet wounds or the stab wound on her skin. Just the drying blood and tears in her clothing suggesting there had been wounds. “Where are we going from here?”

“Getting Shepard back into bed for starters,” Logan said. “Then we’re gettin’ someone to look at you. An’ I don’t want to hear it. You don’t gotta stay there but we at least gotta know what they did to you. An’ you probably want to know too.”

Xena didn’t think they’d be able to stop Callisto if she wanted to take off, but she hoped she’d be willing to cooperate. “What’s her name?”

“Jemma,” Shepard said. “We can trust her.”

The simple statement of getting someone to look at her set Callisto off. “No! No more needles! No one’s getting near me with anything like that!” She’d been stabbed so many times, and she definitely wasn’t going to trust anyone coming at her with a needle. She probably wouldn’t even trust Jane with one currently.

“No one said anything about needles,” Shepard said. She shot a look at Logan. “No needles. But I’m sure we can figure something out. I’ll even stay in bed for the rest of the week. Is that fair?”

“No, I’m done being a fucking guinea pig. I don’t trust anyone from a lab.” Now she was getting worked up again, and she was seriously thinking of bolting. She refused to be put under someone’s microscope if she had any say in it.

In order to prevent Callisto from bolting, Jane crawled on top of her. A reasonable request wasn’t very responsible when the requestee was in a state like this, and Jane wasn’t going to let her go anywhere if she could help it.

“No doctors,” Xena promised. She climbed out of the chopper after landing, gripping her Chakram as she approached the car. Just in case.

Callisto was definitely not rational or reasonable currently. When Jane cut off her potential to bolt, she drew in a breath and mussed her hair up more than it already was. She was starting to get really antsy in the helicopter. She had even less tolerance for confined places than she’d had previously.

When she was able, she exited the helicopter, then gave a pointed look at the car they came in. “You couldn’t have come in anything bigger?” She asked.

“It’s what we have for now,” Logan said. Anything bigger would have been conspicuous. He noticed Jane suddenly squeezing Callisto’s hand tight, and wondered at it.

Jane knew Callisto and tight places didn’t work well, and after this experience that was probably only worse. She leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Remember how spaced looked, out that skylight. Think about that.”

Xena glanced back at the two of them curiously.

The claustrophobia was definitely worse now. It would probably take a little time before Callisto would be willing to go back to the Normandy. Or really most enclosed spaces. She pressed her lips together tightly, and closed her eyes as she heard Jane’s whisper. “I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises.” She had no clue where they even were or how long she’d have to keep imagining space. If the drive was too long, she’d flip out and possibly set the car on fire trying to get out.

“Just go to that place,” Jane suggested. They’d make it, probably. She crawled into the car, adding, “Close your eyes. Can’t take you there right now, but I’ll describe it to you.”

Maybe that would help, maybe it wouldn’t. Logan got into the driver’s seat and waited for the others to get in before starting the car.

It was definitely worth a shot.

Callisto looked at Jane, then cast a very skeptical look at the car before she got in beside Jane. She may have been avoiding looking at Xena as if one look would tell Xena that Callisto had been broken again. Not that Xena couldn’t already tell that, but she just couldn’t quite bring herself to look at her. Though there was probably also a feeling that she’d let them both down by being kidnapped like this. She was a better fighter than that, really.

Like Jane had suggested, she closed her eyes and tried her best to imagine what space had looked like.

And through the trip, Jane kept talking about space, and how big it was, and how the void that looked back could be a comfort, and not a terror.