Slavery9

Slavery, Deliverance and Faith: Part 9

By Dyce

Creed bit absently into a muffin. Baked goods weren't
his preference, but food was food, and he hadn't been
eating regularly the last few days. "She's good," he
said approvingly. "Heads right for the nearest
food-source every time."

Logan snorted, obviously unimpressed by Annie's
incredible cunning and amazing grasp of practicalities
like finding food. "They stopped here for a while,"
he said, looking around the small, untidy room with
its coffeemaker and small fridge and basket of stale
muffins. "We move fast, we can still catch them."

Creed nodded, and they slipped back out of the room.
They'd had to pause for a while before they could pick
up the trail again, but Annie was taking the others
pretty much straight upwards. They weren't going the
right way to get to the elevator Creed and Logan had
used, but there could be another. They were moving
straight, without backtracking, and he was picking up
traces of other scents that presumably Annie was
following. It was a good plan - basic, but presumably
anyone who'd gotten down here would know how to get
back up to the surface. He let out a pleased grunt.
She was... impressive. A cub that a man could take a
certain pride in.

Logan gave him an irritated look from down around
elbow height. "You having fun?" he demanded acidly.
"This yer idea of a good time?"

"Don't be stupid," Creed growled. "But they're doin'
good. They're out of the cells, and they might even
make the surface without help. They might have their
powers, they might not, but they ain't helpless."

The runt nodded, looking a little less irritated.
Presumably he was at least man enough to appreciate
that his own adopted cub was making a break for
freedom instead of sobbing and whining in her cage
like a weakling. Creed sniffed. Annie smelled fine.
The others smelled scared, but Marie, Clarice, and at
least one of the boys had a determined edge to the
fear. They were coping.

* * *

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

Annie blinked big yellow eyes innocently. "What?"

"Now they're going to know where we are!" Geordi
yelled. He was panicking, and he hated it. This
wasn't like in the books. He didn't like it, and he
wanted to go home.

"They already knew where we were," Annie pointed out.
"Down here. They don't know who it is pushed the
buttons, it could have been one of theirs."

Geordi was in no mood for annoying little girls who
used stupid logic. Girl or not, kid or not, he'd have
taken a swing at the little monster if he hadn't seen
what she did to those guards. "They're going to send
more guards down!"

"So?" She blinked again and did that nasty, chilling,
fangy smile. "They're not very good guards. They
don't even have tasers or tranq guns or razornets or
*anything*."

"Annie, if you kill any more guards, I'm telling Mr
Summers," Marie said with firm uncertainty. "I mean
it."

Annie pouted, sticking her lip out mutinously.
"They're trying to kill US," she said defensively.

"No they're not, they're trying to recapture us. You
can.... tie them up or something." Marie relieved
Annie of the gun she was swinging negligently from one
small hand. "Annie, listen, you promised Mr Summers
you'd do your best to use non-lethal methods while
you're at the school."

"We're not AT the school," Annie pointed out.

"You know what I mean!" Marie's hands were shaking a
little. She was pretty, Geordi realized with some
surprise. She had nice eyes. "No more killing! You
*behave*, you hear me?"

"Yes," Annie said with suspicious meekness. "No lethal
force unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Right... no! No lethal force ever!" Brown eyes and
yellow locked for a long moment, then Marie sighed.
"Just.... do your best, okay?"

Annie held the look for a moment more, and then she
sighed. "Okay. Broken limbs and concussions."

"Important limbs?" Jonny suggested, looking up with a
grim expression. "Compound fractures?"

"If there's any of them you know personally, point
them out," Annie offered. "Mr Summers never said I
wasn't allowed to kneecap people."

There was a ding, and she looked up. "Okay. Elevator
about to arrive. Yay."

Marie gulped a little. "Not that I'm at all scared or
anything but... maybe we should stand just around the
corner instead of right in the firing line?"

Annie blinked at her. "Well, if you want to, but I
don't see why-"

Marie kept her grip on Clarice's hand and risked life
and limb just a little, grabbing Annie by one small,
pointed ear and dragging her bodily around the corner
just as the doors started to open. Kyle was right
behind her, pushing Geordi along and towing Jonny.
"Now shush!" she hissed as quietly as she could.

There were guards in the elevator. Soldiers, rather -
she heard boots and the distinctive little sounds of
weapons clutched in nervous hands. Great. There were
soldiers, and they were armed, and they were
*prepared* now. Maybe if the escapees just stayed
really really quiet and-

Annie pulled out of Marie's grip and bounded around
the corner with a high-pitched growl. "Death... I
mean, kneecapping to the oppressors!" she yelled, and
Marie heard the complex noises involved in one person
charging many armed people. There were the gasps, the
nervous clicking of safeties coming off, the sudden
crunch of bone(probably a knee or elbow), the tiny
moment of silence when several heavily armed men
realize that the small, fast-moving target is in
between them now and can't be shot at...

Marie sighed and pushed Clarice at Jonny. They both
stared at her with big, scared little-kid eyes, and
she waved a finger sternly at them. "You two STAY
HERE," she whispered sternly. "And be quiet." She
didn't even have to look at Kyle to know that he
nodded, and followed her as she slid around the
corner. They had to help out, if they could, and at
least distract one or two of the guards from Annie.

She didn't bother looking at Geordi, either. If he
wanted to help, fine. If he was still busy
panicking... well, he was a wimp. No great loss.

She took a deep breath, tried to remember the training
Mr Summers had patiently drummed into her, and picked
her target. He was taller than most of the others,
but not very muscular, by the look of him. Marie was
used to opponents who were bigger than she was, and
this one didn't look *too* tough. Kick him in the
kidneys to get his attention, right, kick him in the
knee while he's turning around, duck the punch, swing
at him, get arm grabbed, apply knee A to groin B...

Off to her left, Kyle was doing his level best to maul
a short, mean-eyed man still clutching his gun
lovingly. And using it as a club. Kyle was pretty
well armed by nature, but he was weak and slow from
extensive confinement. She'd have to go help him as
soon as her guy went down.

Which only left Annie with about twelve or fifteen
guys to handle...

* * *

"We're getting close," Logan murmured quietly. They'd
fallen instinctively into stealth mode, padding
silently through the halls, peeking around corners and
listening constantly for any sounds of life.

This was freaky, there was just no other word for it.
He hated Sabretooth. It was a nice, solid sort of
feeling. He hated Sabretooth. He knew he did, it was
right up there in the front of his mind in big shiny
writing saying WE HATE SABRETOOTH HE'S A BAD BAD
MAN...

He just didn't, when he got as far as actually
thinking about it, know *why*. As far as he knew,
he'd first met the man after being hurled headfirst
out of his camper. Which had then exploded, taking all
his belongings with it. And then the next time they'd
met it had been on the Statue of Liberty with the
fighting and the... yes, well, all right, he did have
a perfectly rational basis for hating the man. But
he'd hated him before that, when all he had on his
mind was a moderately broken camper. He'd seen the
enormous blond figure, heard the growl, and the little
'I HATE HIM!' flag had popped up, just like that.

Well, yes, that happened a lot TOO, but that wasn't
the POINT.

The point was that they worked well together. They
worked together like they'd done it before. They knew
each other's patterns, could interpret each other's
silent hand-signals, found themselves falling into a
back-to-back position when they thought they heard
someone coming. It was weird. And freaky. And it
implied that the hackle-raising hatred and resentment
came from a time before his memory-loss, that the two
of them had a History. Probably a bad one.

And just to make everything just that bit more
confusing, they were getting along kind of well.

He shook his head, feeling a headache starting. He
just wasn't put together right for extensive
introspection. Meditation wasn't the same thing.
Dropping all the thoughts out of his head and just
*being* was like rolling off a log for Logan.
Extensive thinking about STUFF made his head hurt.

"You hear that?" Creed murmured, easy for Logan,
standing close to him, to hear but in the soft,
relaxed monotone that didn't carry two feet.

Logan cocked his head and listened. He'd heard
something, like a little 'ding!' that might be nothing
more than a lonesome computer working away by itself,
or some sort of timer of some kind, or a-

"Death... I mean, kneecapping to the oppressors!" came
a faint shout. A familiar shout. A shout that
demanded attention under any and all circumstances.

The two men didn't even have to look at each other
before they took off running. Creed was just ahead,
but even though he was a much faster runner than Logan
- the adamantium weighed him down, making him work
harder for every stride - but Creed didn't outdistance
him. Getting split up at this point would be a Bad
Idea, and they both knew it, so Creed loped along,
making Logan work to keep up but not leaving him in
the metaphorical dust.

After minutes that seemed like hours, they reached the
scene of the battle, and Logan sucked in a harsh
breath. The fight was messy and unbalanced, a
confusion of shouted orders and shrill cries of
defiance. Marie was handling herself okay, he noticed
with relief. She'd picked a target out and was
methodically pounding on him, staying out of reach,
acting cagy, then when she got a chance hitting as
hard as she was physically able. If the guy was
lucky, he'd wind up with a lot of broken bones. If he
wasn't, he'd have internal injuries as well. Most
people held back a little on their punches and kicks,
fearful of hurting themselves or of hitting 'too'
hard. Marie had spent enough time training with him
to know better than that. But she wasn't fighting
very fast, favouring an injured arm, and if their
opponents had been organized they could have taken her
down.

Fortunately, they weren't organized. They were
confused and afraid, flailing around in an effort to
beat their attackers without actually getting close.
Annie was in the thick of the fight, of course,
flailing around with all the considerable strength
that ultra-dense bone and muscle provided. She was
doing okay, too, but she was too inexperienced. As
soon as four or five of them attacked her at once,
she'd go down and go down hard.

And then Creed let out a sharp hissing noise, and
Logan followed his eyes to a skinny blond kid who had
the greyish pallor of long confinement away from the
sun and was moving with the awkwardness that came from
the same source. A skinny blond kid who looked like
something out of a cheap werewolf movie, with heavy
eyebrow-ridges, claws, and dental equipment that'd
shame a small bear. Oh, hell, ANOTHER one?

The elevator behind them opened, spilling out more
men, more serious-looking this time, armed with the
high-tech cattle-prods so beloved by these assholes.
That broke the moment of assessment, and Logan heard a
feral growl in eerie stereo as he and Creed bounded
into the fight.

The fight was like any fight - way too fast and
sporadically painful and winding up in his memory as a
series of almost random images. A yelling face coming
up to meet his fist in a spray of blood; Marie
screaming as one of Them hit her in the injured arm,
then kicking him in the groin so hard that something
made a horrible squashing noise; the scrawny blond
kid, pulling up his feet and kicking the way a cat
does, gouging at someone's stomach with clawed toes;
Annie yowling as someone stamped on her hand with an
audible crunch, more in outrage than in pain; Creed
hurling someone at the wall so hard that the body left
a blood-trail as it slid down to the floor; the butt
of a gun coming at his face so fast he almost didn't
dodge it in time.

And then it was over. They were the only ones still
standing. Well, Annie and Marie were both kneeling on
the floor - Marie digging through the apparent
commander's pockets, Annie whimpering and clutching
her purpling hand. Probably broken. He spared a
moment of sympathy for the kid - her powers obviously
hadn't kicked in again yet, and she was clearly
experiencing her first not-instantly-healing injury.
But Creed was looking at it, so he went and squatted
beside Marie. "Got anything?"

"Card." Marie held it up. "Looks like it's a key.
Should get us through at least a few doors."

He smiled a little. "Good girl," he said approvingly.
She'd remembered what he'd taught her, gone through
the pockets without flinching to find anything that
might be of use to them. There was a knife, too,
which she pocketed, and he approved of that too. He
didn't like to think of her being taken unarmed again.

He heard something and turned. "Wha..." He trailed
off. He stared.

Annie had said something about 'just knowing' when
she'd first seen her father at the train-station.
Jean had made interested noises about Primal Instincts
and Racial Memory. Logan hadn't really believed it,
since Annie looked enough like Sabretooth and knew
enough about him that straight recognition was
perfectly feasible.

He hadn't known about this. Hadn't even suspected.
But he knew, as sure as he knew the sun rose in the
east and plants grew with their roots down, that the
tall, surly looking boy who'd stepped out of a
corridor was his blood, his kin, flesh of his flesh.
There could be no doubt of it at all. His very bones
ached with certainty.

The boy scowled, his handsome face creasing and his
teeth showing in a sneer. "Hi, Dad," he said in a
harsh, contemptuous tone. "Miss me?"

* * *

Annie couldn't help whimpering a little as she
straightened out her squashed hand, using the other to
pull the fingers back into alignment. It hurt a LOT,
and it wasn't getting better. Pain didn't bother her
so much when she could feel the broken parts knitting
back together and the warm tingle of infection being
defeated before it could even set in, but this just
sat there broken and it HURT. She held it up to her
father, sniffling a little. "It's staying broken!"

"I know," he said, in the soft, grumbly voice that was
the gentlest he ever sounded. "Yer healing factor
ain't working yet, and it hurts more'n yer used to."
He rubbed her back awkwardly. "I'll wrap it up for
ya. It'll stop hurting sooner or later."

"'kay," Annie agreed, sniffling again. It had been
nearly three whole minutes already and it didn't feel
like the hurt would EVER go away. Nothing had ever
hurt so much for so long, not even back at the
Facility during the Testing.

She struggled to keep from whimpering for the next
thirty seconds or so, trying desperately to think of
something, anything, besides her hand... then Geordi
spoke and she forgot the pain completely, staring with
wide open eyes and mouth. "You're his KID?" she
squeaked.

"Yeah," Geordi agreed, lip curling unpleasantly.
"Unfortunately."

There was a long moment of silence. Logan looked like
he'd been kicked in the stomach. Marie was staring.
Daddy was positively gaping. So was Clarice. Kyle
and Jonny were looking puzzled, but they weren't
really up to speed on everything. After she got her
jaw back under control, Annie posed the most pressing
question. "How can you be WOLVERINE'S kid? You're a
WUSS!" The silence turned icy, and suddenly everyone
was glaring at her. "What?"

"Annie, if you can't be tactful, shut up," Marie said
flatly.

"If I did that I'd never say anything at all ever,"
Annie said defensively. She looked at her dad for
support. "Even YOU don't think Wolverine's a wuss.
Just, you know, short and stupid."

He made a small, explosive noise between a growl and a
laugh. "Yeah. Pretty much. Now shut up and keep yer
nose out of it."

Annie subsided, grumbling a little as he started to
bandage her hand, and watched Geordi and Logan sizing
each other up. They didn't look happy. Annie could
not, offhand, recall seeing anyone as not-happy
looking as those two, except possibly Roberto after
she'd nearly chewed his finger off - his fault, of
course, if he hadn't wanted her to bite him he
shouldn't have tried to hit her in the mouth while
said mouth was open - and she wished she knew why.
She'd been happy to see HER dad. Wary, of course,
because he was a brain-washed testosterone-crazed
attention-seeking serial killer, but she'd still been
happy. He was family, after all.

After a long couple of minutes of glaring, Geordi
ostentatiously turned his back and headed over to the
elevator. "Shouldn't we get going?" he said
irritably. "Before they send down another batch?"

"Yeah," Logan agreed slowly, still looking stunned.
"Yeah, we should keep moving."

Sabretooth nodded, tying off the strip of cannibalized
t-shirt he was using to wrap Annie's hand. "The
faster the better," he agreed. He stood up, and headed
over to Clarice, who was still hanging onto Jonny's
hand. "C'mon, squirt," he said in his mock-irritated
voice, hoisting her up and sitting her on his hip as
if she was a toddler. He grabbed Annie's uninjured
hand with his spare one and herded them all towards
the metal doors. "Okay, all o' ya, into the elevator,
move it..."

Annie saw Logan boggling a little at her dad, and
grinned. That'd take his mind off his ungrateful
offspring.

* * *

There was an ambush, of course, but Marie had filched
a gas grenade from the guy she'd been searching, along
with his knife, his key-card, and his wallet. She
handled it as if she were a pro, letting Annie listen
to how fast they were moving and hit the emergency
stop before more than a foot or so of the elevator had
topped the floor. Creed and Logan popped both sets of
doors, Marie heaved the grenade through the small
opening where they overlapped, they let the doors
close again for a few minutes, then movement of the
elevator resumed, they were out and stepping over
fallen bodies, badda bing badda boom ambush averted.
Logan was extremely impressed, and so paternally proud
that he felt like he might pop. So was everyone else
except Geordi, whose attitude had gotten even worse.

But they were still stuck with three more people than
they'd expected, and with no real plan as to what came
next. "Steal a ride?" Creed grunted, jerking his
head in the vague direction of the small garage they'd
found early on.

"Nuh. Gotta be bugged," Logan said, shaking his head,
his eyes constantly on the move as they pounded up the
stairs to the next level. "Back to the jeep?"

"It was three days run even f'r us," Creed pointed
out. He had Clarice back on his hip, her arms tight
around his neck and her face hidden in his shoulder.
That just looked so damn weird that Logan tried not to
look at all, in case his brain exploded.

"Got a better plan?" he asked, absently poking the tip
of one claw through a door. There was a frightened
squeak from inside and he grinned humourlessly.

"I still say we steal a ride." Creed muttered. "So
they track us. Big deal."

They were up at ground level, about to go through the
front door, marching out into what was probably
another ambush... but Logan wasn't too worried. He
was pretty sure he could handle anything these guys
could throw at him. He stepped through the door,
cautiously keeping Marie behind him."I guess so. But
we gotta... we gotta..." He trailed off, gaping worse
than he had when the asshole brat had made his
pronouncement. Beside him, Creed was doing the same
thing. Annie was giggling.

The clearing was full of rubble. Trussed-up guards
had been neatly stacked off to one side. In the
middle was the X-Men's fancy-ass plane, and standing
in front of it, his arms folded, his chin out, his
uniform shiny and perfect... was Cyclops. Clean and
fresh and looking like a cartoon hero, smiling that
incredibly smug, self-satisfied grin. "Hi, folks," he
said in that obscenely friendly, trustworthy voice.

Logan gaped. He twitched. He seethed with
uncontrollable, unventable rage. That... that... that
ASSHOLE! How had he found them? When had he found
them? What was he doing there, bunging up Logan's
rescue? That JERK! Goddamnit he was too mad to even
SWEAR properly he was going to KILL the little creep
he was gonna...

Scott's smile widened a carefully calculated fraction
of an inch. "Need a ride?" he asked sweetly, piling
perfectly timed insult on top of blatantly deliberate
injury.

Logan just stared at him helplessly. That... that...
augh!

* * *

Nina Allejandro picked herself cautiously up off the
floor, rubbing her neck gingerly. That had been
Sabretooth. He looked a lot bigger in person.

Well, so much for the current projects. The subjects
were gone, a lot of important pieces of lab were
broken, and if they had a single guard left she'd be
very much surprised. She wasn't even sure if any of
the techs had made it, let alone the real scientists.

Oh, well. She had the credentials to find other work.
She shuddered, standing up slowly. She definitely
would not... despite comic-book propaganda... attempt
to Get Her Revenge. God, no. She never wanted to see
either of those smelly, terrifying men ever again.
She was a scientist, after all. Manual labour like
washing test tubes and getting a hideous revenge was
for lesser beings.

Besides. She'd heard the government was getting into
some juicy research on mutants. It'd be nice to be
official for a change.