CHAPTER 159: BREAK THE CHAINS
The Hellfire base was a fortress dressed in steel and arrogance. Wide halls, marble floors, the scent of money and gun oil. The alarms echoed, red lights painting the corridors bloody.
Jean led the strike team like a queen on a warpath. Cyclops flanked her, visor humming with suppressed fire. Dazzler brought up the rear, nerves showing in the stiff way she held her shoulders. Nightcrawler clutched Kitty's arm and teleported her into the shadows of a side corridor.
"Remember," Cyclops ordered, voice sharp over the chaos, "we're here to free our people, not level the place."
Jean smirked faintly, her eyes still glowing. "Speak for yourself."
Scott frowned but didn't bite. Not now.
---
The air in the sublevel was thick with electricity — literally. Cages hummed, glowing faintly with mutant power inhibitors. Inside, Colossus knelt in human form, fists bloody from punching the unbreakable barrier. Thunderbird leaned back against the wall, scowling at nothing. And Logan sat on his haunches, like a wolf in a too-small trap, staring with those yellow eyes that never stopped calculating.
Chains, collars, inhibitors — didn't matter. He was waiting.
And then she came. A girl barely thirteen, trembling but determined, slipping straight through the wall like a ghost.
Kitty's heart thudded in her ears. 'They're looking at me. Oh God, they're all looking at me.'
Thunderbird barked, "Kid? Who the hell—"
"Quiet," Logan snapped, eyes narrowing. His nose twitched. "It's the Pryde kid. I caught your scent earlier." His lip curled in what almost passed for a grin. "Took you long enough, half-pint."
Kitty blurted, "I—I didn't know which cage to open, Storm's not here and—"
"Forget 'Ro. Start with mine." Logan stood, claws twitching beneath his skin. "Quickly."
Kitty pressed her hands against the bars. Her atoms slipped through, tingling, a shiver of nausea running down her spine as she phased past the inhibitor field. She reached the lock from inside. The mechanism fell apart like mist under her touch.
Logan shoved the door open and stepped out, rolling his shoulders. The collar sparked, biting his neck, but his healing factor chewed through the damage faster than the inhibitor could bite. He growled low in his throat.
Then two guards came barreling in with stun rifles raised.
Kitty froze, paralyzed.
"Down, kid."
Logan moved like lightning. Three claws snikt out, glinting silver. He slashed one rifle in half, spun, and drove his shoulder into the second man, sending him crashing into the bars. Electricity flared — the poor bastard convulsed and went limp.
Logan sheathed one claw, leaving two extended. He turned to Kitty. "You did good. Now keep movin'."
Kitty swallowed hard. "I thought… I thought you were gonna kill them."
Logan's eyes softened for just a moment. "'F I wanted 'em dead, they'd be dead. But you don't need that in your head, kid. Not tonight."
Behind them, Colossus bellowed, "Free us!" Kitty nodded and turned to his cage.
---
Elsewhere, Storm sat bound in a chair of psychic light, sweat beading on her brow. Emma Frost lounged across from her, all poise and diamond-hard smirk.
"You could make this easier," Emma purred. "One whisper, one secret, and I'll end this little interrogation."
Storm spat on the floor. "Do what you will. I will not betray my family."
Emma's eyes narrowed. Her hand pressed to her temple. The psychic pressure spiked — Storm's mind was a thunderstorm under siege.
"You'll break," Emma said coolly. "They all break."
The doors blew inward. Metal shrieked as telekinetic force ripped it off the hinges.
Jean Grey stood framed in the debris, hair fanning out in unseen winds, eyes burning gold.
"Try me," she said.
Emma's smirk faltered.
The two women locked gazes. The air between them crackled with invisible fire.
Storm's lips curled upward in the faintest smile. 'At last.'
---
Back in the sublevel…
Kitty freed Colossus. The Russian exploded into steel form, towering over her like a silver giant. "You are brave little one," he rumbled, clapping her shoulder so hard she almost fell over.
Thunderbird cracked his knuckles. "About time. Let's smash our way out."
Logan sniffed the air, every muscle coiled. "Not yet. Emma's upstairs. Jean's with her."
Colossus frowned. "And that means?"
Logan's eyes gleamed. "That means this place is about to become rubble."
---
And upstairs, Emma and Jean were circling, like two predators in silk and fire, each waiting for the other to make the first lethal strike.