Off The Chain

Posted on Sun Apr 30th, 2023 @ 11:48am by Scott Summers & Patrick Manco & Bobby Drake & Shinobi Shaw & Aurora Summers
Edited on on Tue Feb 6th, 2024 @ 7:11am

3,473 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 2: Northern X-Posure
Location: Department H Facility | Canadian Wilderness
Timeline: August 6th, 1990

At first the escape seemed all too easy. By Dr. Heather's lead, Scott and Jace wheeled Myfanwy's gurney onto an elevator that ascended multiple floors. However, it stopped in short order. Heather held the door release button to speak privately for a moment.

"Any elevator that goes from the detention level to the ground floor sets off an alarm," she exclaimed. "We will have to make it through the medical ward to another elevator if we want to get through undetected."

Jace shrugged. "Round and round the mulberry bush..."

Scott gave a stoic nod but said nothing. Be silent now would encourage silence in a moment when it they would need every edge they could get in order to pass by undetected.

Moving along with a swift but nonchalant stride, Dr. Heather guided them through a hallway into a wider ward that had several open examination areas interspersed between locked rooms that dotted the walls leading to the alternate elevators on the far end of the ward.

"What about all them?" asked Scott with just enough volume to be heard.

"They are under observation for something else," replied Dr. Heather, moving her lips as little as possible like a ventriloquist. "Nothing I can do for now."

It was a casual glance, a gesture meant to offset the tunnel vision that Scott held on the ever nearing elevators. But that glance caught hold of something very important, a sight he had only beheld in his dreams of late. On the overhead monitoring screen which displayed a bird's eye view of the holding room, he saw a familiar face, one that he counted as family and would be able to pick out from a crowd on a rainy day.

"Bobby?" Scott whispered aloud.

Immediately he abandoned the gurney, leaving it and Myfanwy to Jace to push on after Dr. Heather. She did not immediately notice from her forward position and kept on walking.

Jace saw some quick movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked his head in that direction. They were supposed to be keeping a low profile to make it through the ward. But if they'd been noticed... No, they hadn't been - as far as he was aware - but Cy was gone. "Um, anyone notice where our other doctor went?"

TAG MYFANWY

Scott was halfway to the locked door before anyone challenged him. "Excuse me, what are you--"

But the closer Scott got to the display, the more sure he became. He chopped the orderly in the throat without slowing down. The man grabbed his trachea and fell to his knees, gurgling for air that wouldn't come.

"Bobby! Get back from the door!"

With no further warning, Scott tore away his janky sunglasses and let rip with two blazing beams of unbridled kinetic energy that sizzled the air in the friction of their passing. There was little left of the solid door, but what was slammed through the far wall into the granite bedrock surrounding the medical ward level.

There was a young lady in the room with Bobby hooked up to similar wires and tubes as he was, but Scott paid her no mind at first. He was all eyes for his old friend and teammate.

"Bobby! BOBBY! Wake up!" Scott gently slapped the younger X-Man on the face to rouse him from his stupor.

Aurora stirred, opening her eyes to see someone trying to wake the young man with her. It gave her the strength she’d needed to fight the cocktail of drugs coursing through her body. “He doesn’t... remember who he... is.” She shook her head trying to keep her head clear. “Unhook me...please!”

Though her words went into Scott's ears, his mind had taken on a singular focus and held room for little else. "Bobby! Where's Jean! Is Jean here somewhere? Bobby, wake up!"

Aurora fought against the drugs as annoyance set in at bring ignored. “Hey!! He... he can’t help you! He doesn’t even remember his own name!!” Her annoyance turned to anger as her body temperature started to rise, only this time her body was surrounded by a brief more controlled halo of fire. Which in itself melted the straps holding her down.

When Bobby failed to respond immediately, Scott turned to the other occupant and stopped cold. Her resemblance...

"Jean?"

But as soon as he'd said it, Scott knew it wasn't her. The resemblance was there, sure, though only in passing. "Are you a mutant? Are there any other mutants?"

Aurora calmed down, this Jean was obviously someone he was looking for. "I think he said there are others" she sat gingerly up off the now smouldering bed, sliding her feet down to the floor she used the bed to stabilise herself. "You ... You're not frightened of me?"

"You saw my entrance, right?" Scott gave a wry chuckle. "Bobby has a trick similar to yours, except he does it with ice."

"Your friend his name is Bobby?" She motioned towards Bobby. "He tried to help me, he can't remember his name so I don't think he'll be of much use to you."

Scott looked over his shoulder to the twisted opening where the locked door had been. "I'm with some others and we're breaking out of here. Have you seen anyone else?"

Aurora shook her head. “No, just the inside of this room. They use the drugs to keep us quiet, but when I get angry...” she paused. “I do what you just saw, it’s new so I don’t normally control it like that. Last time I torched the room! Bobby I don’t think he remembers what he can do. I would try to get into his head, but my powers... I don’t know how to use them like that.”

Jace poked his head in the door that had been blasted off. Yep, Cyclops lived up to the rumors. "Yo doc, we got a timeline to keep." He looked around the room and at the other two people. "If this is a family reunion, I guess I can push a gurney myself. But we need to go. No doubt someone heard your entrance."

Aurora looked around. “He’s right, my abilities aren’t fully up to strength yet but I can hear them.” She tapped her head. “I... can’t leave Bobby, he tried to help me it’s only fair I return the favour.”

"Freeze!"

While they had been talking, the medical wing filled up with armed guards who held them all at gunpoint.

"Bobby, this would be a great time for you to snap out of it!" Scott said through gritted teeth.

From where she stood Aurora could feel her body temperature rising, she couldn’t afford to lose control if she did she’d kill or injure those trying to help. If she was ever to learn control she had to try and focus her fire powers, the rise in adrenaline seemed to set off her flames, so she tried to focus on controlling her emotional response. Instead she focussed on drawing the attention away from them, using her telepathic abilities to create the illusion of whispers and voices coming from the corridor to draw attention away.

"Great," said Jace, still in his doctor's coat. Despite the gruffy, unkempt look of his youth, he had to at least try something. And Doogie something-or-other had been popular for a while. "I'm Doctor Adams. This one is still waking up. Can't you people get the dosage correct? And this one," he said gesturing to Cyclops, "he's demanding I lead them out of here. My keycard barely accesses the labs and these rooms! And he refuses to understand that! Don't just stand there! Do something!"

The lead guard talked into his collar mic. "Epsilon 2-1, eyes on tango mark 6 inside the wire."

"Copy, 2-1. Remand all tangos to detention level."

"That's a go," said the lead guard before he tightened his grip on his weapon. "Move along," he ordered the mutants.

"About time," he said. Jace wasn't sure if they would even go for his ruse, but if they did, all the better. He stepped off to the side and away from Cyclops and the others. "You heard the man, move along." If it worked, he planned to follow behind the guards and then make his move. But that was a pretty damned big if.

Aurora calmed herself down she couldn’t, and wouldn’t purposely put anyone in danger. She nodded and started to move, hoping there was some sort of plan afoot.

"All of you," ordered the lead guard who frowned behind his faceplate.

Their cover was blown. Scott knew that. There was no telling what would happen if they got detained again. Separated at best, likely under armed guard, and this Doctor Heather would be unlikely to help them. Field decisions were often made on the edge of a knife, and once committed there could be no going back.

"Get down!" Scott yelled. He lunged forward to put his friends behind him and pulled his glasses free.

A full crimson arc tore through the guards and cut through the wall. There was nothing left of their attackers except for the commingled ash of flesh, bone, and building materials that floated through the vast expanse that used to be the administrative area of the medical ward. An alarm sounded distantly which common sense and experience suggested might be facility-wide.

Though he was able to ground himself, Scott had found himself pushed backward a few inches. Full blasts were difficult to control. "Anybody hurt?" he asked as he put his glasses back on. Despite being benched as team leader, some habits were hard to break. Assessing the group was one of them.

“Erm... I’m okay” Aurora looked at Scott in astonishment, she’d never seen anything like that before. “That was amazing! Do you all have abilities as strong as that?” She looked around. “Never mind, tell me later! We need to get the hell out of here!”

Jace's little ploy didn't work. But when Cyclops yelled, he immediately hit the floor out of instinct. If someone on the street yelled 'get down,' you didn't start gettin' jiggy. You hit the concrete. Jace raised his head at the new girl's comment. "Daaamn. You live up to the hype, Cy. But she's right, it's time to bounce." He grabbed one end of the gurney with the other mutant on it.

"I can see you stupid X-Men don't know how to lay low," said a voice over the intercom. It was Patrick. The Maestro. "So be it. I'm going to make my exit a dramatic one. Enjoy the distraction. Nobody else useful here anyway."

"What could he possibly--" Scott began to say.

The distant alarms took on a more shrill tone as their cadence increased in tempo. Very distantly, the words: "ALERT: WENDIGO CONTAINMENT BREACH. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. ALERT: WENDIGO CONTAINMENT BREACH. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY..."

"Wendigo containment breach..." repeated Scott. "What's a wendigo?"

“You’re a mutant, Don’t you read!?” Aurora looked at the others. “A Wendigo is a supernatural being that will devour flesh! We have to get the hell out of here!! Ohh and don’t let them touch you, one bite or scratch and you will become one!”

Scott arched his eyebrow at her. Supernatural? Right. "It's more likely to be a project codename for something very natural and terrible," he replied. "But I'd rather we not find out."

"She isn't wrong," said Heather, the doctor who had finally come back out of hiding. "The Wendigo is a plague in the remote tundra, one the Director has used to conduct live combat trials. It's... it's monstrous."

“Then we need to get the hell out of here before they catch up!” Aurora looked at the others. “I can’t control what happens to me, if I have to use my abilities I could end up killing you all.”

The sound of Maestro's voice wasn't too comforting right now. Earlier, he'd welcomed it. But now it was a herald for something horrible. Then the alarms sounded...the ones in the building and the ones in the room.

"Live combat trials? That's what you call the torment he put us through?" said Jace. He turned toward the excited one, "The one Maestro and I fought never bothered to turn the other captive mutants. It just ripped them apart and ate them. I think. We didn't hang around long enough to find out. At any rate," he said, facing Scott and Heather, "murderous rage monsters, yes. Invincible, no. I ghosted through it and carried it's brain out it's back. Squishy."

At that moment, though, the sound of claws scraping against steel and stone filled the air. A long howl pierced the air, soon followed by a guttural cry.

"WEN-DI-GO!!!"

Aurora heard the howl, it made her skin crawl. “We don’t have time to dilly dally about! Let’s get the hell out of here!!”

"Copy that!" Scott shouted. "Jace? You said you've seen these things before. Take point and scout ahead. Aurora, if you can walk, help Bobby and Myfanwy along." He nodded toward the sleeping girl on the gurney. "I'll carry her if needed, but for now I've got guard duty."

Aurora looked the sleeping girl. “I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to wake her, but I may be able to get through to Bobby. I can try anyway.”

It would be ideal if Bobby could snap out of it because they could sure use Iceman right about now, but obviously Bobby had been through the grinder one way or another. Scott couldn't help but swell with pity for his friend and hope the others weren't around here. He looked at Heather last. "Are you still with us?"

At first Heather looked hesitant, panicked as she was at the drastic turn of events. "What choice do I have?" she retorted. "In for a penny, in for a pound."

"Good enough." Scott nodded. "Jace, go see if the coast is clear."

Jace nodded and decreased his density, or ghosted as he was apt to call it. He walked out through the hole in the wall and looked both directions up and down the hallway. He could still hear the grating sounds of claws and shivered. It seemed to be coming from the north end. At least this building didn't echo like the combat arena and crawl spaces. He walked through some walls and random rooms and scouted the opposite direction before returning to Scott. "Sounds like it's coming from the north end," he said. "And I haven't seen anything in the opposite direction. But then again, Maestro probably released all of them. Can't promise we won't run in to one."

“I’m not sure if Bobby will be any good to you” Aurora looked towards Scott. “He doesn’t know who he is, let alone what his mutation is.” She gently gave Bobby a shake. “Bobby... Bobby can you hear me?”

Before Bobby could answer, though, a snarling mass of white fur and fangs threw itself against the opening to the ruined expanse that used to be the medical wing. On pure reflex, Scott unleashed another optic blast that sent it flying back.

"We need to move, people!" he shouted before unleashing a second blast.

Aurora cursed, she couldn’t carry Bobby out of there in an unconscious state. “I need help moving Bobby! I’m not leaving him here!!”

Letting out a groan, Bobby managed to keep his feet under him by his own strength. Dazed and confused was an understatement. But through sheer grit, he stumbled forward next to Scott.

"Cyke...lops..."

A frigid hand stung Scott's shoulder with bitter cold. "Bobby?"

There were more words, but they were unintelligible. Bobby gave up trying to talk and instead just let out a roar. It contained the rage of the past few months, most of which were spent in various states of consciousness other than fully waking. His fists were blurred with a wintry glow as Bobby's ice powers blueshifted the light around him.

"Everybody back!" Scott shouted. He had only seen this a number of times and it was always dangerous.

An explosion of thermal inversion shook the entire complex. The cold snap encased Bobby within a rock solid block of ice. Beyond him, the Wendigos were frozen as well. Frosty bits of moisture fluttered like ash in the air as ambient heat got sucked out of everything and everyone.

"Jace, scan the perimeter and see if Bobby left us a way out," Scott said. "Dr. Hudson, check Myfanwy's vitals. Aurora, see if you can help me get Bobby free."

Jace nodded and headed through the walls to scan the perimeter as Scott had instructed.

Aurora nodded. “I... might have a quick way. I suggest you stand back, I’ve never done this before.” She closed her eyes focussing on negative times of her life, just enough to give her an emotional push to fire up her thermal powers. Opening her eyes she focused a smaller, more controlled amount of heat against the block of ice encasing Bobby.

The snap freeze was still pulling heat. Rather than melt, the ice boiled and flash froze almost simultaneously, sending jagged shards of frozen ice in the direction of the previous steam jets.

"What the hell, Bobby?!" Scott shouted. "Power down or we won't be able to get you out!"

Whether Bobby could speak, move, or even hear was unknown. Scott let out a sigh and looked around as he processed the situation. There had to be options. He wasn't leaving his friend. He just wasn't.

“Is there something you could place him on? To wheel him out of here?” Aurora was having a thought but whether it would work she didn’t know. “I might be able to lift him clear of the floor, but only a little.”

Jace came running back in, out of breath. He leaned over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He then held up a finger and took a few more breaths. "Seems...seems like he did just that...leave us a way out. Through the hole, to the right, a few more turns here and there, and we should be good."

"All right then..." Scott looked back to Dr. Hudson who had confirmed Myfanwy was all right. For some reason, her ethereal form was not in sight which was potentially concerning. "Aurora, I will attempt to blast the bottom out from Bobby's ice block. If you can grab him, then do so. Hit him with whatever it takes... his power seems to be on overdrive so he can probably take it."

Aurora shook her head. “I... I can’t, I can only use my full fire abilities when I’m angry and I can’t control them. I could kill him, I could kill all of you!”

"I'm not leaving him," Scott said. "And I don't think any of us are getting out alone. Either we work together or we die. You made it this far, Aurora. Get us home."

Aurora nodded. “Then I suggest you stand back...” she closed her eyes and recalled all the bad things, it worked a treat to make her emotions rise. Her body was engulfed with flames before she opened her eyes, then focussed everything she had on Bobby.

The entire room became engulfed in the same blueshifting light that surrounded Bobby's ice block, as the heat sink effect prevented even steam from forming in the epic thermodynamic clash between Aurora's blazing inferno and Bobby's spectroscopic hard-freeze. Even the bedrock began rumbling as if unsure of whether it should be transmitting or absorbing heat.

"I think we'd better start heading toward that exit," Doctor Heather said to Jace and the others.

Aurora was expelling energy at an alarming rate, it wasn’t long before the fire dimmed. As it did so she crumpled to her knees before dropping to the floor exhausted.

"I agree," said Jace as he watched fire girl fall to the floor. "Time to blow this popsicle stand."

It would seem Bobby agreed, at least unconsciously. The frozen block that had encased him melted away under the clash of fire and ice, leaving him to slump to the ground next to Aurora.

"I think we can get to the emergency lift from here," said Doctor Heather. "It's off the books in the event of a security breach."

Scott nodded. "All right. Everyone who can walk helps someone who can't. Let's get to that lift!"

For once, it seemed Lady Luck was smiling on them.

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