verynaughtymutant | Oh mother tell your children, not to do what I have done.

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Oh mother tell your children, not to do what I have done.

Cable could be called a great deal of things but he wasn't a coward. He wasn't scared of physical pain, or death, or of what people thought of him or of making the hard choices. He wasn't afraid of anything, really.

So when he opened his eyes to find that the trees and sun of Tabula Rasa had turned into stone dark tunnels and the birdsong replaced by the familiar march of pounding feat, he reacted more with annoyance then fear. This was another trick by his hosts, presumably, and he intended to treat this one just like he treated any other. He would sit patiently in a comfortable seat and wait for it to be over with as little fuss as possible. He'd long since grown tired of other people trying to make him dance on their strings and didn't like to give them the satisfaction of reacting.

It wasn't until he heard the voices that he knew that something was wrong. Around him were soldiers, which wasn't unusual and they were looking at him expectantly, which also wasn't unusual but, in this case, he recognized them. They all wore faces and voices that should have been forgotten over the years but somehow never had been.

"Dayspring," he heard himself being addressed by a name he'd long discarded and realized, vaguely, how much younger he must be, "do you think the Autosystems are still on line?"

And that was when he knew which day it was. And for the first time in a very long time, he was afraid of what came next.

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"There in't another way," Cable said firmly. He wouldn't allow himself to think that there was. If there had been he would have taken it. "Apart from dying."

And then he did turn to look at them, one after the other, a silent question in his gaze.

"Maybe thats it. If I shot you both would you wake up back on Tabula Rasa?"

"No," Rahne said, with a short laugh that was anything but amused, her tone one that brooked no argument. "Not a chance. No way. It's all three of us who were pulled from there, and if brain damage wasn't the solution, killing us sure as hell won't be, either. Not a chance."

Softening a little, almost imperceptibly, she glanced to Zell, though she wasn't expecting backup. He seemed too shaken for that, and rightfully so, given what he'd been put through.

But, Zell did back up Rahne. It was probably a good thing that she had spoken up before him, because Zell wouldn't have stated his opinion as politely as she had. The thought of suffering even more by Cable's hand made him bristle.

"Yeah, no way in hell, Cable."

He cast a warning glare in his direction. If that particular thought was acted upon.... there'd be trouble.

For a moment, Cable toyed with the idea of shooting himself. Now that he had stumbled upon it, the idea that the way to escape was by dying wasn't one he was going to give up easily. It just seemed right if only because it was so counter intuitive to any decent soldier's instincts.

Still, he decided against acting on it, in this loop anyway. They had time to try other options first. All they had was time.

He waited to see what their alternative was.

Rahne was no master planner — conversely, she was more the act first and ask questions later type. Well aware of the time limit, there was no chance for anything drawn out and elaborate, either. They were just going to have to give whatever happened a try. It wasn't like, if it went wrong, it would be permanent; that much, at least, she trusted.

"Is there any way we could surprise them?" she asked somewhat abruptly, gaze pointed as she looked to Cable. "Go in differently than we did before? We know what their moves will be, so we have an advantage. They can't change, but we can."

The plus part of getting worked up over Cable's last idea was that it had dragged Zell into the conversation.

"Right, Rahne. We can win, especially with adding you and me to this group. And, speaking of surprise, aren't they gonna be all over us any moment now?"

The other group had been moving forward, hadn't they?

"It was an ambush," Cable responded, though he had to admit the idea had been troubling him too. "They'll have heard us by now but Stryfe wouldn't want to push forward too fast for fear of running into a trap I set for him. We can't count on him not waiting out the five minutes."

"Still," he turned back to gesture at the men behind him, "Guns up everyone. I want you all ready for anything the Chaos Bringer can throw at us."

"And there's no way for us to attack from the other side of him," he turned back to Rahne, as his men followed his orders. "You can't bodyslide into somewhere you don't know."

A frontal attack seemed the only option and if Cable thought that was doomed, well maybe that wasn't as big a downside as it might have been.

Edited 2010-07-05 13:48 (UTC)

"If we wait until this resets," Rahne said, "we can go right in and not waste any time talking about it. We're the only ones who seem to know that this is happening over and over again, so it gives us a head start. We know what to look for, now, what all their moves are."

Expression softening minutely, she glanced at Zell, eyes full of a sympathy that she wouldn't let herself voice. The look was gone after all of a moment. "And what to avoid. As long as we don't make the same moves we did before, at the very least, we'll have a better shot, and know what else we need to fix."

Rahne seemed to have a bit of sympathy for what he had just gone through. On the one hand, it was annoying because he didn't want to be pitied. But then again, at the same time, he could have used just a bit of pity. So, he didn't react to it.

"I'll hang back and support," he said to allay any worries. He would not be taking down as many enemies, and he wouldn't have the effect of disrupting enemy ranks. But, the 'no brain damage' part was a pretty damn good plus to the new plan. If only that Stryfe guy didn't have that immobilization thing goin' on...

Casting spells wasn't as exciting as fighting. But at least he had the novelty of not having done it in so long.

"Fine," Cable agreed.

"To sum up then, there's three defense platforms just ahead," he ran through their opposition calmly. "Once we engage them, Stryfe will bring his men forward. He has 20 men with him to our 9. They're all armed with Plasma rifles and Stryfe himself is as powerful a telepath and telekinetic as they come. We should aim to disable him first."

He sat down after that, confident that Hope and Tetherblood had him covered should Stryfe prove bolder than he thought.

He glanced up at Rahne as he waited for the loop to reset. It wouldn't be long now.

"I can go on ahead, instead," Rahne said, an addendum to Zell's statement. If she changed forms, she'd be able to get a hell of a lot more done, too, and she was pretty sure they wouldn't be expecting that. "We work past the others, get them out of the way as fast as possible, so we can go right for him. As soon as this starts over, we go."

For someone who'd never technically been a leader before, who wasn't big on planning, it came easily now, in a time of crisis. Cable was the only one who really knew what was going on here, but she had no problem taking the reins.

Zell didn't know exactly why Rahne would get much further than he did, but he wasn't about to second-guess her.

The surroundings shifted, and it all reset once again. Zell deposited the gun alongside the wall this time and got ready.

"I'll do my best to cover you guys with spells, but I don't have much of a range."

He did his best to push all thoughts of the previous battle out of his mind. He couldn't afford to freak out. This one might be for real. In any case, it would feel real.

"Watch out for the autosystems," Cable told Tetherblood before he could say anything. "There should be three armed platforms just ahead. Pump some Plasma, people!"

And he and his men drew their guns and advanced into the oncoming fire of the platforms. He targeted one and then another and waited for Stryfe to show himself. If the noise of returning fire wouldn't force his hand than nothing would.

Rahne fired until she couldn't anymore, until the utter control of it was enough to drive her absolutely @3%$ing insane, and she shifted, then, a hell of a lot more capable as a wolf, as she'd predicted. Part of it was selfish — if she was right and this worked, then she wouldn't get a chance at it again for a long time, possibly ever — but she knew herself, too, and she wasn't a shooter. If they were going to win this, and they had to, she had to give it all she could, and deal with the consequences or the guilt later.

Keeping her word, she pushed ahead, so far unstopped. This wasn't senseless when they had a goal, and when she believed so firmly that they were on the side of the right, whatever the conflict was in the first place.

Zell felt incredibly repressed standing behind the front line just casting spells. Fighting was so much better, and so much more effective.

"Fire!"

Flames erupted around the nearest enemy, and he went down. The soldiers around him were taking hits, so he started healing them.

"Cure!"

White lights swirled around the soldier nearest him and healed him.

"Cure!"

Lame.

Zell's healing efforts had meant that Cable's men didn't take a casuality destroying the last of the defense platforms. Nor were they surprised to see Rahne change into wolf form and slip ahead. Mutants and shapeshifters were old hat to them.

"Hope, Dawnslik," Cable gestured at his two best female soldiers, "keep her covered."

"Em-Sizz the line," he raised his voice to command the three soldiers grouped up on the far side, shielding Zell, and they started firing into the darkness in response. Tetherblood, being the only soldier without orders, dropped next to him as the enemy started charging forward and Cable took the opportunity to gesture at Stryfe's unmistakable form. "He's ours, T-Blood."

Once the enemy had seen that Can Chosen were prepared, Tyler and Frisco would both doubtlessly be kept in reserve until the first fury of their assault waned but Stryfe would always be on the front lines himself. He was no more a coward than Cable was. Cable and his friend fired as one but Stryfe raised his hand and the plasma hit an invisible shield and faded away.

""You'll die here false face," his clone gloated and Cable could hear the voice echo around his mind as well as he was hit by the full force of Stryfe's power and he fell to his knees.

Beside him Tetherblood seized up and collapsed and it was all Cable could do to reach out with his own, much weaker, power and send one of Stryfe's men flying.

He was outmatched and he knew it but it meant that the most dangerous of their enemies wasn't paying any attention at all to Rahne.

It was easy, too easy, to get lost in animal instinct, to let control slip away until all that mattered was warm flesh tearing beneath her claws, but Rahne had learned her lesson well. She'd seen what she was capable of, and had been living with the guilt of it for almost a year now. Maybe in this case it was self-defense, but she wouldn't make the same mistakes again. Tempting though it was to give in to the nature of the beast, she couldn't let herself, not entirely.

Which was the only thing that allowed her to notice the opening she'd been given, and she wasn't about to waste a moment. Immediately, after taking care of the last of the soldiers in her way, she pounced, teeth dragging against skin, the familiar, metallic tang of blood filling her mouth. This was it, what they had been working for, she could feel it, all the way down to her bones. The end, she was sure, would justify the means. All it wouldn't justify was the part of her that liked it.

Rahne was really, uh, um, yeah. Geeze! Man, it was a good thing she was on their side! Zell wished he could've been out there too.

One of Cable's soldiers that he had healed now got a few blasts and fell over unconscious, probably dying. Zell reached out to his connection to Alexander, lifted a hand, and wordlessly filled him with light energy. The soldier immediately stood up, fully restored.

That, at least, wasn't completely lame. But still, he knew he'd be more effective out there in the battle.

It only took a moment for Rahne to have Stryfe on the ground, her teeth sunk into his throat, and Cable felt the crushing pressure on him suddenly disappear.

He slowly rose to his feet and tried to make out what was happening in the chaos around him. It wasn't going great for the ghosts of Clan Chosen. Tetherblood was still passed out on the ground, Hope was also down and bleeding and Dawnslik was dead, if he was any judge. The problem was, even with Stryfe neutralized, the enemy still had the numerical advantage and were keeping Zell and his three bodyguards pinned down. Four of the bolder ones were even advancing, guns drawn, on where Rahne was grappling with their leader. It was clear the only reason they weren't shooting was they weren't sure Stryfe wouldn't survive this and so they wanted to be sure they wouldn't hit him.

Best not to let them get any closer then, Cable thought, as he charged forward, shooting one of them down, before throwing himself to the floor to dodge any reply. The other three should have turned their attention back to him at that point but they didn't, they kept heedlessly advancing on Rahne. Puzzled, Cable rose back to his feet to take another shot, when suddenly he felt the distinctive stab of pain of a telepathic assault. Of course. He'd forgotten about Frisco.

The real Frisco had died years ago, of course. It hadn't been a pleasant death. One would have though that would be the end of it: it was foolish to hate a dead man.

But when he looked up to see him there, mad and naked, the familiar hate over took him and for a moment he forget himself and pushed at him with all the force of his telekineses, so that he flew up into the air before landing back on the floor, bleeding but still giggling. Cable on the other hand, felt worse than ever. He'd forgotten how weak he'd been at this point, when the virus was at its strongest and he had to use most of his powers just to hold himself together.

The result was when the blow came from behind, Cable wasn't ready for it. He fell to the ground and rolled over long enough to see the face of his son and the barrel of his rifle. And then there was a shot and he saw nothing at all.

The advances hadn't gone entirely unnoticed to Rahne, but the adrenaline of a fight after so long left her unafraid of all of it, certain that once she'd taken out this bastard, she could take care of the rest of them, too. Theirs may have been the weaker force, but that didn't have to determine the outcome. She wouldn't let it.

Watching the action, aware all the while of what was happening around her, she smiled to herself as the man landed on the ground, only to have that smile instantly fade when Cable fell. She'd been wrong, she knew in that instant — not about what they had to do, because this had been their most successful attempt thus far, but about this being the one that would get them out of this trap and back to the island. Her stomach turning, she spit out blood, not her own, and shouted, "Cable!"

It was all she had time for before the world changed around them once more.

Zell and the small group of soldiers he was with had been giving ground to the advancing enemy. There were still just too many. He had seen Cable go down and knew Rahne couldn't have been doing real great either. They were directly under one of the blasted defense platforms when a few stray blasts sent the broken mechanism and a lot of debris downward.

Unlike the soldiers he was with, Zell was able to run and leap out of the way, to prevent getting crushed. However, he found himself pinned face-down under a large piece of rock. That's when he felt the barrel of the gun at his temple.

He froze, shaking in terror. It was just like it had been in the Galbadian prison! And no Squall to save him this time. The fact that time would most likely reset was no consolation whatsoever as Zell faced that moment before death. He was dead before he could shout out.

But, time did reset. Zell had a very disturbed look on his face as he flung the gun in his hands far back down the cavern. He leaned with both hands against the wall and shut his eyes tight. He told himself that no matter how real it had felt, it had NOT been real.

He reset his junctions and slammed a combat-gloved fist into the wall, and made a surprisingly large, hot, smoldering hole in the rock.

That had been hardly been the first time Cable had thought he'd died and turned out to be wrong. But he had been hoping to wake up in a different place, this time. He'd convinced himself this was a trap you could only escape by losing. Another tack, then.

""Dayspring, do you think the Autosystems are still on line?"

Cable ignored both Tetherblood and Zell and focused on Rahne. She was the one who was doing the best at keeping her head in the game.

"Too many casualties. I've created training programs like this before, we haven't just got to win but win well."

He'd created them for Rahne and the other New Mutants, as a matter of fact.

"That time we lost four or five before I died. In real life we lost one soldier and Stryfe's brain washed hostage. I would bet that we need to do this with no casualties. It's just cruel enough to be plausible."

The message was clear. They were telling him that he hadn't done a good enough job here. That he could have saved Tyler if he'd just been smart enough. Once they were out of here, he'd allow himself to get angry about that. Right now he couldn't afford to think of it.

"So this is how we do it. I'll get my men to stay behind us. Zell can clear the autosystems with his magic. Then we'll do what we did last time only, instead of hitting Stryfe, once he's distracted you grab his hostage and bring him back here. He's the big blond one who shot me last time. Then we can all bodyslide out. That work?"

As composed as she'd been before, Rahne found it far more difficult to maintain now, her hands balling into fists at her sides to keep them from shaking. What she had done had been for the greater good, but she hadn't even known she'd still had it in her, only to have those impulses come back entirely natural, not requiring any deal of thought at all. Perhaps that was the point, that she wasn't thinking. Either way, it was too reminiscent of what had happened before she arrived, her stomach turning though there was no visible aftermath.

She would keep it together anyway.

"Attack like before, but steer clear of Stryfe," she repeated, nodding once to show she understood, expression flat, emotionless. "Go for the one who killed you, but — ye want me to keep him alive?" Whatever Cable's reason for it, she was sure it had to be a good one, the use of the word hostage too deliberate for anything else. Still, she had to be sure, knowing that her own instinct would have been completely different. She exhaled heavily, maintaining eye contact. "I'd say this sounds worth a try, aye."

"Yeah, fine. I can do that. Just have your men stay back for a bit so we don't accidentally fry anyone on our side."

'We' meaning himself and Ifrit, but he didn't explain that part. Zell was pissed off at this whole experience now and was very glad to have a part where he could go destroy something without any innocents in the way. He hadn't lost his head, though. He had a plan and would prepare himself.

He stepped out in front of the entire group and cast.

"Protect!"

A fine blue line formed in front of him and rotated into a hemisphere in front of him. This would help him avoid direct hits by the platforms. He dashed forward towards his targets and let the others close in behind him.

The platforms opened fire, and he dodged as he started reaching out across to his most familiar junction. Zell and Ifrit were closely bonded, and the summoning would only take a short time. His words were drowned out by the platforms blasting at him except for the final one.

"Hellfire! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttR_peMz2D0)"

Zell disappeared and a long-horned fire spirit appeared amidst a column of flames. Ifrit rose up on a massive meteor that he pulled from the earth. With a roar, Ifrit slammed the meteor hard into the area of the platforms. The platforms were all destroyed.

Ifrit, the meteor, and flames all disappeared as Zell rematerialized.

"Oh yeah, baby! That felt good."

"Alive, yes," Cable told Rahne, in as gentle a voice as he could muster. "Stryfe deserved to die but that one is brainwashed. Which means he's not responsible for his actions. I believe I've discussed that with you, before."

Cable wasn't a sensitive man at the best of time but he could put two and two together if he put the effort into thinking about it.

"Which reminds me, Zell," he told the other man as he stood in the rubble of the autosystems. "Try and hit Frisco with a spell if you can. He's the one who's bald and naked. You take him down, you'll break the telepathic control and make Rahne's task easier."

Stryfe had always been able to shield him and his men from Cable's telepathy but he figured Zell's spell was destructive enough that they had a little while before Stryfe's men would charge forward.

"Okay, men. The Chaos Bringer is just ahead and I believe he has my son with him," he told his troops and waited for that to sink in. "Tetherblood, take those three men and stay here and guard my rear. Hope, come with me and Rahne here will bring you nephew to you. The moment you get him, you bodyslide us all out, understood?"

Dawnslik was the youngest of his men and the most eager to prove herself. That was why, when this really happened, she had got ahead of the group and got captured. He had to prevent that from happening this time.

"Dawnslik, you watch my back. I don't want Tyler coming back an orphan."

They nodded their understanding and Cable charged on quickly through the rubble.

He even shouted "I'm coming for you Stryfe!" as loud as he could on the basis that there was no need for subtlety.

And he was rewarded by the sight of familiar figures emerging from the tunnel ahead of him and he threw everything he had at them. He fired his gun and reached out with his power until Stryfe stepped in and brought him crashing down to his knees again.

Oh mother tell your children, not to do what I have done.

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