Morlock Skirmish
Posted on Sat May 25th, 2024 @ 3:01pm by Jean Grey & Warren Worthington III & Scott Summers & Bobby Drake & Hank McCoy & Alex Summers & Lorna Dane
7,300 words; about a 37 minute read
Mission:
Episode 0: X Lang Syne
Location: Sewers of New York
Timeline: October 1986
The Blackbird delivered the team to the overflow tunnel and exactly as planned. They traveled through the large drainage pipe for several miles until the faint smell of sewage filled the air.
“I am going to seriously blow chunks if I have to smell… that… the entire time we’re down here.” Lorna moaned before pinching her nose with her fingers. “Like how do they deal?”
“It will pass once we get past the ventilation duct.” Warren said with little tolerance for Lorna’s whining. None of them liked the smell. “But that tells us we’re getting close. Stay alert.”
“Rank.” Lorna replied but she was happy it would pass soon. “Your fur is totally going to smell like farts, Hank.”
Alex shifted over to stand by Lorna, holding out a small blue jar with the lid screwed off. "Here , put a little bit of this under your nostrils... not too much. It'll mask the smell."
“Oh wow, that’s like a super smart idea.” She took the offered jar and dabbed its contents under her nose. The medicinal smell of eucalyptus covered the smell of the sewer. Lorna handed it back to him. “Thanks, Alex.”
“I know how to shower, Lorna,” Hank replied, more irritated than he sounded. Seriously, he had lived with this fur for a full year by this point. He was aware of how to clean it. “But maybe we should be quiet,” he added in a loud whisper.
“Don’t have a cow, Hank!” Lorna ignored his request for silence. “I was just, like, worried about you and junk!”
Bobby slid by on his ice sled and offered Lorna a hand. "Wanna lift?" he asked as he passed her.
“Totally!” Lorna said with a grin as she took his offered hand. “It’s like surfing whenever you want.”
"Weird how we haven't seen anybody yet," Bobby said. "Isn't it supposed to be an entire Village of the Damned down—whoa, hold up!"
Skidding to a halt, Bobby held up his hand to keep everyone else back. Up ahead, there was a small child dressed in rags with a ratty stuffed bear in one hand. Bobby couldn't tell whether it was a boy or girl. Their face was downcast, with eyes for nothing but their feet.
"Someone's up ahead," Bobby said. They looked harmless enough but there was no telling what had happened to Scott and Jean. "What do we do?"
“Everyone stay back,” replied Hank automatically. A child in the street was one thing, but a child in the sewer? Something smelled rotten and it wasn’t just the sewage. “We’re looking for our friends,” he called to the “child.”
The child didn’t answer Hank, instead they began to sing in a small haunted voice.
“Ring around the Rosie
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes…”
The child trailed off before finishing the nursery rhyme.
“We all fall down?” Warren said out loud, to curious and compelled to let it go unfinished.
“Yes! Yes, you will!” The filthy child began to laugh until it turned into a horse cackle as the tunnel of the sewers dissolved into total blackness.
The X-Men were left in total sensory deprivation, the kind of blackness that was disorienting and confusing due to the complete lack of bearings it created. It was in this setting that a band of voices began to hoot and holler at them. A mob of unknown size that slowly began to surround them in the dark.
"X-Men! Duck!" It was the only warning Bobby gave before he released a cold snap in every direction but down. Hopefully it missed and hit the right people without anyone getting seriously hurt. With the lights out, there was no way of knowing.
Hank had a flashlight attached to his belt- because of course he did- and would have had it out and lit sooner if he hadn’t had to heed Bobby’s warning. Without complaint, though, he managed to get the flashlight out and shone it around at his friends. “Is everyone all right?” he asked.
“God damn it, Iceman.” Warren grumbled. While he did duck in time the high profile of his wings prevented him from getting low enough to completely avoid the attack. An icy sting was felt throughout the tip of his wing. Not enough to ground him but enough to draw blood and shed a few downy feathers.
If not for the flashlight beam cutting a swath of illumination through the darkness, Hank would've never seen the head of a bone club swinging a downward arc straight for his head.
"Beast! Look out!" Bobby shouted.
With a characteristic roar, Hank swiped at the bone club almost lazily, knocking it to the ground, then he went for the wielder. His aim was not to kill or even maim. Instead, he attempted to scare them off by swiping one clawed hand as he snarled rather nastily at them.
A blood curdling scream filled the tunnel and Bobby felt a rustling of movement behind him as Lorna was forcefully removed from his ice slide. Grabbed by unknown hands in the dark, her terrified shriek was soon muffled as she was dragged away.
“You cowardly assholes!” Warren barked as he made contact with an assailant in the darkness. He threw a few heavy punches and made contact with slimy skin. The Morlock groaned and heaved as they hit the sewer floor. “We’re looking for the guy with glasses and the girl with red hair. Give them back and we’ll leave.”
"Nobody leaves here!" called out an angry voice that still held the lilt of amusement. "You'll figure that out just like they did!"
"Who's that?" Bobby shouted. It was still too dark to see beyond the glow of Hank's flashlight.
Hank's sweeping attack and the small flashlight on his belt brought his assailant into view. To his surprise it wasn’t some massive strongman or boogeyman lurking in the darkness. It was a scrawny teenage girl with lavender hair and magenta tinge to her skin but the most jarring characteristic about her were the massive bone protrusions that sprung from her back, shoulders and face. For all the fear they had attempted to instill in the X-Men she looked genuinely scared of the snarling Hank.
Bobby’s pointless questions were answered by a pair of leathery gorilla hands grabbing hold of his ankles. Without hesitation, the hands yanked him from his ice sled in one smooth tug, making sure to knock his head on the way down to temporarily stun him.
While Warren had managed to incapacitate his first opponent, he was no match for the trio of Morlocks that moved on him. Using the darkness to their advantage, Warren found his legs bound with a material that looked and felt like spider silk before they tackled him to the ground.
Had the girl not just wielded a weapon at him, Hank would have likely been surprised enough to hesitate. But, he knew better than to underestimate any foe, even a small one. The capture of his friends only fueled him and he continued to swipe at anybody who came near.
“Fuck this.” Alex murmured more to himself than to the team, turning on his heels he faced back towards Warren and where he had fallen to the ground. Alex released a burst of plasma energy from his hand that illuminated the tunnel before impact with the three Morlocks and the bound Angel.
The three Morlocks hiss and recoiled from the searing heat the blast had created, giving them a momentary reprieve from the assailants.
“Havok, you’re going to melt my face off.” Warren hissed from his bound position on the floor, he winced slightly from the heat that bathed him.
“What!? It worked, didn’t it!?” Alex couldn’t help but snigger at Warren’s faintly singed eyebrows.
As Havok worked to free Angel, Beast was still snarling at the bone-covered Morlock. She seemed to be recoiling and looking for a way to escape him. The last three X-Men appeared to momentarily gain the upper hand, until the smell of clove cigarettes suddenly filled the sewer.
It was a warm and spice filled fragrance that masked any odor the sewers may have provided. It was an inviting and pleasant sort of smell that traveled on gentle plumes of smoke. As they inhaled, the trio suddenly felt less worried about the sewer and the Morlocks. Another deep breath and the Morlocks became their friends and the idea of harming them became a forgotten and foolish endeavor.
“Come on, friends.” A bewitching feminine voice called out to them “Come and join us.”
"Jean..." Bobby let out a groan of pain as he finally roused. "Is that you, Jean?"
“Yes, it’s Jean.” The obviously not Jean’s voice replied as another wave of sweet smoke filled the tunnel and their nostrils.
“Don’t be an idiot Bobby.” Alex replied as he started walking towards the dreamy female voice. “That’s Lorna.”
“Whoever she is, she sounds like a treat.” Warren agreed with them as he freed his legs from the spiderwebs and joined Alex in his slow walk towards the woman.
Hank, who had been as distracted by the voice as the others, turned his growl on Warren this time. “That’s my mother, you cad!” he said. But as soon as he said it, something in the back of his mind told him that was ridiculous. His mother was in Illinois. What would she be doing in a sewer in New York? “Wait…” he said, almost to himself.
"Sleep!" called out a melodious voice. "Sleeeeeeep..."
And then it all went black, though this time not from the lights going out.
Buckets of rank water splashed everyone awake. The X-Men were trussed up against a dank brick wall like a slaughterhouse.
"Ready yourselves, X-Men!" called out a voice shrill with anger and a lust for violence. "Yes, I know who you are! So called champions of the mutant cause! But what have you done for Morlocks? The world still despises us! We are outcasts among our own kind! Even your leader rejects us!"
All eyes saw Callisto, one-eyed leader of the Morlocks, cast a crooked finger at Scott who sat bound to a chair like a captive king on his ramshackle throne. Jean was tied up beside him, similarly to the others.
"What the hell is this?" Bobby groaned. He reached out to siphon thermal energy from the air and manipulate a heat sink for a biting cold snap, but nothing happened. "Hey, is it a little warm in here to anybody else?"
"You will find your powers have abandoned you," Callisto taunted, "just as the surface dwellers have abandoned us!"
Alex fought against his restraints but knew there was truth to the one-eyed woman’s words, that crucible inside of him that filled with energy to the point of overflowing was suddenly cold and absent. He looked around the room and frowned upon seeing his brother seated in a chair with his naked gaze fixed off into the distance, refusing to look at anyone. “What sort of sick games are you playing? Why is he like that?”
Warren remained relatively calm considering the situation. His bound wings were of little consequence to him. He had spent just as much time training with and without them to feel capable when they were taken away.
While Alex questioned Callisto’s intentions with Scott, Warren noticed Jean. A long thin welt and a bruise had formed across her cheek, an obvious sign that they had been physical with her. His blue eyes met hers and even without her telepathy Warren could tell she wanted to tell him something.
He noticed Lorna next. She hadn’t been bound and tied with the rest of them, instead she was sitting perfectly still on the floor with an exceptionally vacant stare on her face. An elderly woman stood behind her, brushing her long green hair while whispering something into her ear.
“Let the girls go.” Warren attempted to negotiate with the Morlock leader. “You’ve had your fun with both of them already. They’ll go and never mention this place again.”
Hank had, of course, attempted to break the restraints but had been unsuccessful. Something was repressing their abilities and Hank was no longer super strong. Now he was just regular strong. In frustration, he growled low in his throat. “Let’s see,” he mocked. “How should we gain acceptance? Oh, I know! Let’s kidnap the people who want to help us. That should do it!”
“The Morlocks are not looking for acceptance!” Callisto sneered at Hank and his mocking tone. “The world attempted to crush us and yet we manage to stand on our own.” Callisto began to slowly circle the restrained X-Men, sizing them up and mentally noting their strengths and weaknesses. She was going to savor their self-inflicted demise.
“You look down on us, pity us for our ugly faces and our underground dwellings. You think you needed to come here to help us, save us? We saved ourselves. When the world told us we were offensive and unworthy of its love, we came here.”
The X-Men gazed around the room and surveyed the brood of Morlocks that had gathered. Most were visibly deformed or disfigured by their mutations, making them hard to look at or at least uncomfortable to be around. The few that appeared normal had an uneasy presence about them, a streak of violence or an air of madness that radiated off of them. The Morlocks were outcasts simply because they were born too different. In a world that barely tolerated an angelic Warren or Jean’s loving presence those who repulsed society were doomed to be hated.
“You will receive Morlock justice for your insolence and trespassing. You will battle one another in the pit for our amusement. When you are incapacitated, you will be imprisoned. You will fight again and again until you can no longer stand and then you will be disposed of.” Callisto returned to Cyclops and tenderly stroked his cheek before she continued. “My bridegroom and I need some celebratory entertainment. You four will do nicely.”
Callisto’s single eye then traveled down to Jean, she would still be useful bait. “If you refuse to participate, I will punish Jean because of it. Blackened eyes and missing teeth will sully that pretty face.”
Callisto smiled from her plan, she would satisfy her bloodlust before her carnal desires. “The large blue one and the small blonde one… send them to the pit.”
Hank and Bobby were tossed into a high walled stone pit that had once been used for water storage. Too tall to climb out of, they were unshackled and allowed to move freely within the pit. With their powers still missing, they only had their physical strength for the fight. It seemed a sick joke to pair off Bobby and Hank against one another, Callisto seemed eager for the first beat down of the evening.
“Morlocks!” Callisto boomed from her seat above the pit. “Behold the once mighty X-Men now turned into mere fighting dogs for your entertainment. This is the gift your leader gives to you.”
The Morlocks cheered and eagerly awaited the first blood to be spilled.
"Hey, here's how we do it..." Bobby whispered to Hank. "I'll throw a few hits at you, make it good. Then you throw me up and out of here. While I distract them, you climb out and go for the others. Sound good?"
Callisto couldn’t help but smile as Bobby immediately defied her. She gestured to a greasy man that lifted Jean up onto her feet. Her hand balled into a tight fist and she punched Jean so hard in the stomach that it knocked the wind out of her.
Jean doubled over from the pain as the oxygen left her lungs. Her body reacted to the punch and she wretched and gagged. A pitiful gasp for air moved past her lips before she sobbed and heaved from the aftershock of pain.
“I told you she would pay for your defiance.” Callisto said with a chuckle as she returned to her seat to watch them. “You better start fighting or I’ll do something worse.”
Hank snarled up at her. “You’re asking me to hurt one friend to save another?” he asked. “You want me to choose who to save? Fine then! I choose Iceman!” And he promptly sat on the floor and crossed his arms.
“Interesting choice.” Callisto said with a devious grin as she looked down at Jean. “You heard him, he picks her.”
Callisto gestured to a few Morlocks in the back who in return brought out a pair of cinder blocks. They spaced the blocks out evenly in front of Callisto before bringing out a sledgehammer.
“Don’t do it! They’ll fight!” Alex dared to speak for Bobby and Hank worried about what would come next.
“Line her up” Callisto ignored Havok’s empty promise and directed and the man holding Jean plus another began to drag and push her into place.
Jean turned sheet white as all the blood left her face. Her stomach churned and she began to fight against the large men who easily moved her. “No!” Jean screamed as she threw all of her weight back in a sad attempt to break free. She longed for her telekinesis and telepathy, either one of them would have saved her from this.
The men shoved her to the floor and aligned her elbow and hand each on a cinder block. Leaving the span of her forearm unsupported between the two blocks. Jean continued to fight and scream but it was hopeless, the men firmly held her in place.
Callisto picked up the sledgehammer, she palmed and casually swung it to get a better feel for the weight of it before facing Jean. Without hesitation or mercy, she lifted the hammer over her head and brought it crashing down onto Jean’s forearm. They were spared the sound of hearing the bones break thanks to the cheers of the crowd.
Jean howled and sobbed in fear as her arm was broken. Her cries then turned into panic filled shrieks from the pain and horror of seeing her now deformed arm. The agony in her screams was sickening, the break had been brutal and cruel.
The sound of Jean's sobbing turned Scott's stomach but he grit his teeth and refused to react. All he could do now was trust in his friends to find a way out of the situation. When that moment came, Scott needed to be ready... no matter how heartbroken he was inside.
“What the fuck, Beast!?” Warren angrily shouted down at Hank. He was outraged by his choice, that he had picked Bobby over Jean. His instincts to defend and protect took over and he was practically seeing red.
Jean typically remained in the back during combat. Her telekinesis kept her away from the action and Scott always watched her back on missions. Warren had never seen her take an especially hard hit. Her nose had never been broken from a punch nor had her ribs been cracked from impact with the ground. She could defend herself well enough but she was no brawler or scrapper. Bobby on the other hand, would step out onto the frontlines. A fist fight until being incapacitated would be miserable but it wasn’t a completely foreign experience for him like it was for Jean. Hank had picked Bobby because it was easier for him, it was the selfish choice.
The men holding Jean let go of her and she recoiled to cradle her misshapen arm to her chest. Her cries turned into sad whimpers of pain. She knew she was at risk of going to shock, or having some sort of embolism thanks to the break so she did her best to try and stay calm despite how much her arm hurt.
"It's okay, Jean..." Scott whispered as loud as he dared. "We're going to be okay."
“At least Bobby can take a punch. Plus you know how to hit one another,” Warren barked. “Both of you get off your asses and take it like a man.”
“Tick-Tock.” Callisto laughed before looking over at the almost catatonic Lorna. “She’s next.”
Bobby was completely frustrated by Hank's decision. For whatever reason, he'd ignored Bobby's plan and didn't help him get out of the pit. Then he refused to even stall for time with a few hits until they could work out a different plan. Was he stupid or something?
That's when it hit him. Bobby blinked. Part of Hank's mutation was his intelligence. What if he was being a total idiot right now because he was cut off from the advanced mental processes his brain was accustomed to? That would be even harder than Bobby being cut off from his cryokinesis.
"Fine!" Bobby shouted. "You want blood? I'll give you blood!" His fingers curled together into fists and he punched his own face. "There! You happy?" He punched himself again. "I'm bleeding! Does that make you happy? Or do you have to hurt a beautiful innocent girl for that?!"
Another punch against his chin sent him sprawling sideways and he stumbled to catch his balance. "I can do this all day! Just leave her alone!"
Callisto marched over to Scott and bashed his knee. "He has another one, you know. Care to go for both or will you start following directions?"
Scott's mouth opened in pain but he refused to let a sound out. Instead he just shook against the chair to which he was lashed and tried to force the pain away. At least Callisto had turned to him and away from Jean and Lorna. That thought kept him from roaring in agony.
Alex fought against his restraints in protest of everything that was happening. “If we get free, you realize you’re done for.” The comment caused one of the Morlock guards to jab his side with a stick, the abuse was non discriminatory.
Meanwhile, in the pit, Hank had joined Bobby in beating himself up. The way he figured, they were all dead anyway, so why not piss them all off for awhile first? He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of cooperation.
Callisto laughed at their pathetic attempts at self-mutilation but the novelty of their efforts soon wore off and she signaled for Lorna to be brought over. “Give her to me Annalee.”
The elderly woman who was combing and braiding Lorna’s bright green hair suddenly stopped and a look of horror appeared on her face. “Mistress, you promised her to me. A daughter and a sister for Leech.”
“Am I not your leader!?” Callisto boomed and the whole room coward in response.
Annalee murmured a few apologies and the emotionless Lorna was brought forth. Callisto then looked over to Beautiful Dreamer. “Light me one of your cigarettes.”
Beautiful Dreamer pulled a clove cigarette from her bag, providing the X-Men with the actual face of the woman who had tempted them in the tunnels. She lit the cigarette and gave it to Callisto.
Callisto pulled out Lorna’s forearm and began to burn her arm over and over with the cigarette. A trail of burn marks was created across her fair skin. But the upsetting part of the whole thing was how silent and calm Lorna had remained. Not a peep was made and her stare was vacant, a living doll subject to any whim.
The Morlocks suddenly became an even more dangerous group of individuals. They could remove your mutant abilities, fog your mind with total confusion, and take away your complete autonomy. They were violent and insane, and now they loathed the X-Men.
“It’s not my favorite game to play but if I must… I must.” Callisto said with a shrug. “Annalee, make these two think they hate each other. If you make it extra violent, I’ll give you your babydoll back.” She patted Lorna on the shoulder with a grin.
“ENOUGH!” A now furious Warren shouted, he couldn’t stomach any of this for a moment longer. Someone had to do something to make this stop and that person was him. “You think you’re such hot shit. But all I see is a bully who is beating and abusing their victims. How about you show all of us how tough you really are... CALLISTO, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A FIGHT IN THE PIT.”
“A challenge!” The crowd began to murmur the word over and over again in dismay.
Callisto visibly bristled at the call to fight. “You dare to challenge me!?”
“You have to…” Jean dared to speak. Her face was ashen and her overall condition seemed poor. Her obvious need for medical care suddenly made this mission urgent. “It’s the Morlock code… when challenged you must defend your position. If she loses, Warren will become the leader of the Morlocks.” In their time speaking to Leech, Scott and Jean had learned about The Morlock’s twisted rules.
Callisto looked down at Jean in contempt but knew that she was right. “Very well, clear the pit and I will send your angel to hell.”
At her direction, Warren was pulled down from where he'd been strung up and marched over to the platform where Callisto sat with Jean and Scott. He barely had time to stretch his tired muscles and sore joints before he was pushed onto his knees before her.
"Since you had to go and play hero, we're making this final." She pulled a knife from behind her back and slung it to the ground where the tip stuck into the old brick that had been softened by an eternity of dank moisture. "Take it."
Warren reached for it and worked his way up to his feet. There wasn't any warning that the battle began, so he had nothing but his reflexes to defend from the first attack. "I suppose it's too much to expect you to fight fair," he snapped with gritted teeth.
"You're in my world now, baby bird," Callisto spat. She countered Warren's block and took a shallow slice from his forearm. "Not for long, though."
The wicked grin on her face brought a sneer from Warren. She was quick and strong, he'd give her that. But so was he, and he had reach. Even though his wings felt almost paralyzed, likely from whatever the little mutant had done to him, Warren knew if nothing else they would help protect his vitals.
"When I kill you, Callisto, I want you to remember in your final moments that you could have ended this at any time." Warren raised his hands high, holding the knife in a reverse grip as if to block. He knew enough about knife fighting to stay out of one. Summers would've been the better combatant here, if he were honest, but that wasn't how it went down. Somebody had to do something before someone else got killed.
Callisto cackled at the taunt as if it were absurd. "You're right about one thing," she said. "The end is near."
With the last word, she lunged forward with a straight stab. Rather than follow through, Callisto shuffled her feet sideways into a kick that Warren sidestepped with ease. The motion had put Callisto well inside his guard, though, which was exactly what she wanted. Dropping to one knee, Callisto dragged her knife across Warren's knee, slashed upward over his thigh, and attempted to stab his armpit.
Had it not been for the fold of his wings, Warren would've lost a hamstring and suffered arterial bleeding from his thigh and underarm. As it was, he still lost a few feathers and his right wing turned scarlet from the slashes it had taken from his defensive position. He'd gotten lucky there. Even if his luck held out, Callisto would still cut him to ribbons unless he took the fight to her.
"Those who can, do." Warren advanced with an overhand slash that didn't breach Callisto's defenses. Her hand tracked along with his but she didn't bother parrying. She wouldn't be goaded into an unnecessary action. "Those who can't, lead."
It was a dig against Summers as much as Callisto, but right now Warren needed to bring all he had to the fight. If Cyclops hadn't gotten himself captured and Jean along with him, none of them would even be in this situation. But his taunt had the desired effect.
"I'll cut that smirk right off your pretty face!" Callisto sneered as she advanced with a cross stab that bypassed Warren's guard.
Warren was ready. While he had been anticipating a more direct attack, Callisto had still attacked from the side he'd expected. Her eyepatch made her favor attacking his right side where he was wounded, so he had already shifted his weight left which made for an easy pivot. His left wing wasn't strong enough for flight, but it still made for a distraction when he slung it over her face while trapping her knife arm in both of his hands. He shifted his weight again, stood to full height, and wrenched Callisto's arm out of its socket. A sickening snap announced the dislocation for all to hear.
The maneuver made Callisto howl in pain, but it soon turned to frothing rage. "You son of a bitch!" Spittle flew from her mouth. "I'll kill every one of them in front of you and save you for last!"
Switching her knife to her offhand, Callisto tried to cut Warren's throat. He backed off to avoid the fatal slice but lost another hunk of his right wing to her follow-through.
"Die! Die! Fucking die!" Callisto came at him in a flurry of windmill slashing that Warren couldn't totally dodge. Another gash against his arm was the price for grabbing her good arm, which put them in a position of sneering into each other's faces.
Callisto snarled deep enough to summon a shoulder charge that caught the taller young man in the solar plexus. Briefly stunned, Warren stumbled backward and took a knee to keep from falling altogether.
Seizing the opportunity, Callisto lunged forward with her knife held overhead for a downward stab that would be fatal should it land anywhere in Warren's torso. For a moment, it looked like Warren would be too slow. The strike to his chest and his bleeding wounds could have taken the strength out of him, stealing his vigor and preventing him from reacting fast enough to keep from being slain. Callisto's lone eye was wroth with adrenaline-fueled rage as her knife came down.
At the last moment, Warren looked up. A solemn grimness sat on his golden brow. The wings he had draped about himself for protection unfurled before him and swept apart. Callisto's knife caught the left wing and opened it up even deeper than the right. His smaller feathers turned pink from the blood that dripped from the scarlet wounds that openly gushed.
But it was his arms that stole the show. They had stretched forth and met Callisto in mid-charge. Both hands gripped the handle of his own knife where it had plunged into Callisto's midsection clear to the hilt. She gasped at the realization of what had happened, then let out a scream as Warren pulled the knife several inches north, piercing her diaphragm and cutting into her sternum.
"You first!" Warren shouted before he twisted the knife. A grisly smacking noise from the tearing of flesh and ligament from bone was the final death knell.
Callisto tried to speak. No words would form from her lips. Blood began to trickle from her mouth before she dropped to her knees and fell to one side, collapsed in a dying heap.
"I've won!" Warren shouted. He raised the bloody knife over his head. "I claim leadership! Release my friends now! So help me, if you don't..."
Before he finished, the young green mutant in the beanie cap came forward. "Leech helps! Leech follows the leader!"
Bobby felt a tingle of cold before it dissipated into a familiar hum that beckoned for him to call the frost. "Yes!" Turning back to ice form, Bobby pushed himself out of the pit and slid a figure eight pattern through the assembled Morlocks, freezing as many into place as possible before coming to a stop at Lorna. "Are you okay?" He placed a soothing hand over the burns Callisto had sunk into her arm.
“Like, what happened?” Lorna blinked back into consciousness, her light green eyes becoming focused again. “Why is my hair in four French braids?”
She looked down at her arm that Bobby was nursing, a sudden look of horror on her face. “And why does my arm look like Freddie Kruger’s face!?”
"I'll explain later," Bobby said. "We gotta get out of here before something even weirder happens!"
Meanwhile, Scott was out of his chair in a heartbeat, his blasts blowing apart the seat and the restraints along with it. He closed his eyelids and looked where Jean had last been seen.
"Jean, be my eyes!" he called out, eyes clenched tight as a child having a night terror.
Jean gasped as her powers returned to her, a rush of thoughts and emotions overwhelmed her but at the same time it was a welcomed sensation. Tempering the voices to a whisper she did as Scott had asked, a mental picture of the room and all people in it filled his thoughts, giving him sight without sight.
~* ‘Bring him his visor!’ *~ Jean demanded of every Morlock. A mental picture of the yellow visor that had been ripped from his face.
A few skittered away, looking for the item in question.
Jean slowly stood while clutching her broken arm to her chest. Her telekinesis helped hold it still but it remained painful. Ignoring her lightheadedness and the chill that had crept in, she made her way to the edge of the pit.
“Warren!” She gasped at the grizzly sight at the bottom of the pit. There was so much blood that Jean couldn’t tell who it belonged to but Warren’s damaged wing was his most obvious injury.
“Someone get him out of there!” Jean openly pleaded to the room before her eyes returned to the pit and the gore-covered body of Callisto.
Jean looked as if she might cry over the sight of her dead body. Callisto had tortured and planned to kill all of them. She was corrupted and insane but she was also a victim of the terrible cruelty that this world provided. Callisto had cared for The Morlocks in her own distorted way, she had created a refuge for those who had needed one. A strange desire to protect and defend had fueled her awful actions. Jean’s heart broke from seeing Callisto’s life taken from her because there had been some good inside of her.
“Take her out too…” Jean’s voice was heavy with emotion and the tears she struggled to fight back. “Please.”
Hank’s face had turned from angry to confused. Once the power blocking mutant withdrew his powers, he felt his mind start to work again. He had never once considered that his intelligence was part of his mutation and the realization that it was disturbed him. Was that why he had been unable to think of anything while they attempted to force him to fight his friend? Was that why all he could do in the tunnels was to snarl and swipe at everything? The idea that he was completely and totally strange closed in on him and he automatically withdrew mentally from the situation.
After Scott's visor was returned to him, he removed his belt and offered it to Jean. "Bite down." When she'd done so, he appraised her arm as gently as possible in order to identify the precise location of the break. "I'm sorry, this is really going to..." Without finishing his sentence, he set the fracture. "... hurt."
Jean made a choking sound due to the scream that stuck in her throat thanks to the wave of pain induced nausea that made her wretch and gag. While the pain was blinding at first there was some relief as it faded.
Despite his return to a world of red hues, Scott could tell she was paler than usual. Her skin was cold and clammy and Jean seemed to be dulled and struggling.
~* ‘Scott, I don’t feel good.’ *~ She admitted it to him mentally, too afraid to voice her genuine concern out loud. Her medical condition adding another strain to this mission.
The Morlocks lifted Callisto's limp body out of the pit and laid her down at Warren's feet. One of them was an old man with a flowing silvery beard wrapped in rags beneath a dirty duster. His hands hovered over Callisto's pale face for a moment. Eyes closed as if listening to an invisible symphony, his brow began to furrow. "She lives," he said at length. "But barely."
Placing his hands over her near eviscerated abdomen, the old man's concentration peaked to the point of near convulsion. After a moment, Callisto twitched and took in a gasp that made her body choke and gag. It passed and then she laid still, her chest slowly rising and falling.
"Rest..." said the old healer as he slowly dropped himself down to the ground next to her. "She needs rest."
"So do you," Scott said. He looked around at the crowd of Morlocks who had not fled. Change was in the winds (or whatever passed for wind down here). Everyone could feel it. Their leader had been defeated by an outsider. What did that mean for the rest of them? Scott cleared his voice and raised it to the point of shouting.
"I came to you with the offer of assistance. That offer still stands! The X-Men fight for the rights of mutants everywhere and that includes all of you! Today we fought to release you from that!" He pointed a condemning figure at Callisto. "But our mission hasn't changed. We can't solve all of your problems, at least night immediately. But we will do our part to make sure nobody has to be tortured in these tunnels ever again!" He looked at Warren. "Angel has claimed his right of leadership. He is now your leader. Will you rise above the fear and hatred of Callisto? Will you accept our offer of friendship and aid?"
The Morlocks stood in stunned silence as they listened to what Cyclops was offering but not a single one of them responded. Instead all their eyes turned to Warren, awaiting his direction.
Warren realized what they wanted from him. Squaring his shoulders and standing up straighter, he addressed them with the same vibrato and confidence that he might have used in a boardroom of shareholders.
“The life of crime and deception The Morlocks have conducted themselves with is over. I understand that this is your home and where you feel safe, but the means by which you survive are going to change. You will adopt honest skills and trades to support your community. I understand that this change will take time, so the X-Men will offer their assistance until you are self-sustaining. The use of torture and abuse as a form of punishment administered by a tyrannical leader is also ending, trials and council will be used as a form of justice.”
Warren looked down at the wheezing and pained Callisto before he continued.
“And you, my dear, will be my executor. You shall ensure my requests are upheld and honored and should I find out that you regressed to your old, evil ways… I’ll finish what I started.”
Warren’s steel blue eyes returned to the crowd of Morlocks who now shuffled and whispered over the directions he provided.
“Rest and come to terms with the changes to your lifestyle. I’ll be back in three days time to deliver further instructions and the X-Men will come with me. If any of you wish to challenge my authority, say it now.”
Silence filled the old sewer tunnel as a dozen eyes merely stared at Warren. “That’s what I thought… Cyclops?”
Giving Warren a nod, Scott said, "I assume the Blackbird is nearby. Iceman, take Beast, Polaris, Havok, and Marvel Girl on ahead. Angel and I will finish here and follow on foot."
Bobby took Lorna by the hand, as she was the closest to her. "Ready for another ride?" he asked, giving her a wink. "You did pretty good before."
“For sure!” she said with an enthusiastic smile. Lorna briefly looked down at the hand he was holding and Bobby watched her cheeks turn pink. “Your ice slides remind me of surfing.” She tucked a strand of neon green hair behind her ear before looking up at him once more. “I really like surfing.” Bobby got the impression that she wasn’t really talking about surfing anymore.
"Just you wait, doll thang," Bobby said with a dopey grin. "You ain't seen nothing yet!"
Havok was about to open his mouth, to interject and say something to spaz-attack Bobby when Jean interrupted his train of thought.
“Alex…” Jean said in small voice. “Can I lean on you while we walk back? I’m not feeling so hot.”
Alex looked over at Jean, she didn’t look good at all. “Oh shit, yeah Jean, of course.” He offered his arm to her, his opportunity to say something to Lorna gone.
Hank, however, hadn’t been paying attention. His mind was only just now beginning to tell him what had happened and what it meant and he found it disturbing. Realizing everyone was heading out, he automatically turned to follow, not really paying much attention to where he was going excepting, of course, making sure the others were ahead of him.
Warren folded his arms across his chest and watched as The Morlocks disbanded. He briefly glanced at the tunnel the First Class had exited through and then at Scott.
“You should check on her,” Warren offered a moment later. “Hank and I can fly us home.” Jean had been a topic of contention between the two that had resulted in busted lips and black eyes on more than one occasion. Their competition and conflict over her affection soon became an allegory for leadership of the X-Men. Warren had been bitter about the loss of both of them for a long time and it soured a lot of their interactions. But recently, Warren had seemed to be coming to terms with the way things were and attempting to make amends.
“She needs you.” This admission was an acknowledgment of Scott’s relationship with Jean and of his role as leader of the X-Men. “I can finish up here, you can trust me.”
Scott considered that for a long moment, weighing the options, hidden meanings, possible consequences. In the end, he extended Warren a handshake. "Thank you." He glanced down at Warren's wounds, then at the old man who had brought Callisto back from the brink of death. "Healer, if you've got anything left, see to your new leader."
The old Healer got up with a nod and made his approach to Warren, waving his hands about as if Warren were a crystal ball.
"I'll leave you to it." Scott smirked and turned to follow the ice trail up the tunnel.
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