It's another day. . . .
Beast: "Most irate, to hear Warren describe it. Well, perhaps that's my wording of Warren's description. But all the same."
Storm sighs. "We were trusted directly with the woman's son and have let her down. We must help Branden see reason when we encounter Magneto again."
"Which I'd be willing to wager we will without delay. Given his speech and building up of the Brotherhood, Magneto has certainly returned in true form: with grand plans."
And he's not the only one who, "in true form", has at least one plan in mind....
We return to Cyclops as his captives enter again.
"What have you done with Jean?"
He's asked some variation of this each time they've come to him.
Their answers always mirroring the first: a vague implication and threat - when they answer at all.
He's subjected to other tests in exactly the same fashion as the first: forced down, visor replaced with their contraption, something happening to his body -making him feel weaker and/or ill in some way, an injection, forced to blast, something to his body again -feeling strange/better in some slight way? Eyes forced closed, another injection, an improved yet still-not-normal feel to his body, his head held firm while they remove the contraption -his visor already as close to back on as it can be, then it is, and they leave him alone.
Why do they return his visor to him? He'd questioned to himself why they didn't just keep the contraption on? They want him to see his current, bleak state of existence.
The room isn't soundproofed but he's yet to hear anything like experimentations in other rooms. Then again, if they were conducting more of the same, what would there be to hear? The resounding noise from his came from his blasts. If Jean was here being tested, her telekinesis could result in certain sounds depending what they were having her do, though if they were testing her telepathy...Cyclops couldn't think how they'd even force either one. He didn't want to, either, but he was no stranger to thinking on things he'd prefer he didn't have to. Of course he also had no idea how this facility was set up, so a lack of other sounds meant nothing either way.
Still....By the time they come for Test #4, Cyclops was ready.
"What are you doing to Jean?" he asks, more to keep up pretense, but also in case they might actually divulge something extra.
They don't.
That's it then.
He's gone down on his knees himself to save himself some of the manhandling. Almost time....His visor is removed. They always force his head to bow, but don't tend to restrict it so much otherwise in the beginning as they always do later. He's angled it ever so precisely beneath the hand holding it, it could seem like he's just shifting to the sounds around him now....the "injector" always stands off to the side until their part comes.. ..ahead of the contraption going on is his moment --KKZK-ZHOOOOOOMM!!!!!
It's a gamble --he'd be 100% confident of the shot if he'd been wearing his visor, his blasts having a wilder quality to them unchanneled, but he focuses as well as he can-- the shot ricochets and --before the eyes of the two startled scientists, the shackles are shattered!
Outer Voice: "FOOLS!"
Cyclops instantly rises up against the two now trying to keep him down --he doesn't blast them, they're regular people, but he dispatches them easily in this restricted space while making use of the rest of his senses --he's had to keep aware of the trap door they have him blast through that's already opened; it's not an escape route but a tripping hazard.
His visor recovered he's just turning attention to the door, when--CHOOOOHM
Knocked back into the wall by an orange blast of some kind. "UGHN!"
"PERISH! Deplete him!"
Cyclops starts to aim for Perish but another --CHOOOOHM-- hits his arm back from his visor: "AahH!" Same as he brings up the other. Then he feels it, that strange weakening of his body again....he starts to recover himself, tries to change his positioning in the room so the person outside will need to come in to hit him, but --Cyclops POV: his vision is failing him. This takes him by surprise --and then they do. . . .
. . . ."Fix what he broke," the previously Outer Voice commands, now striding away from the near unconscious form on the floor. "A few simple adjustments won't have that happening again." Despite his apparent displeasure for the whole scene, we see a grin form on his shadowed jaw. Had he wanted to see Cyclops make an attempt to escape?
We're back in the New York area for Magneto's next play....
It's night. After-hours at a grocery store.
Suddenly, access is gained by manipulation of the metal doors. An alarm is set off.
Magneto: "Take only what you reasonably need. Remember, this isn't a destruction excursion."
So the new recruits go in, lead by Pyro, and do just as instructed.
Branden at first is reluctant to steal, but Pyro, grabbing a package of Texas-style bread in front of him, points out: "It's their doing we can't be 'productive members of society'. Gonna' let them starve you, too?" He grabs another package.
The fire-controller seems already to have influence on the fire-starter, and Branden goes for something on another shelf -- by fluke or by nerves, however, fire blows out from his hands. Branden gasps and steps back.
"Whoa! Way to go, Scorch," though Pyro's voice is one of entertainment not critique, as he uses his powers to lift the fire from anywhere it caught, "disobeying Magneto your first time out."
"I wasn't!"
"Doesn't matter." He gives Branden a little show, moving the wisps around in the air, molding the fire into small shapes, rings etc. before bringing them down as regular flames in front of his own hands. He then looks squarely at Branden. "If you ask me, the only one in control of you now is yourself." He moves the flames towards Branden's tight hands, "don't be afraid of it."
Branden's eyes shift between the flames and Pyro's steady gaze. Relaxing his hands, he touches the wisps before closing his fingers around them.
Pyro smiles. Then, at the sound of sirens, he sighs. "Action time's up for us."
So The Brotherhood seem to escape into the night, yet their leader remains -gliding to the roof of the store- for all to see when they arrive --which includes the X-Men (Colossus, Storm and Kitty Pryde A.K.A. Shadowcat), as Magneto had purposely come without his telepathy-blocking helmet.
Shadowcat: "Isn't stealing from a grocery store a little petty for you?"
"Everyone needs to eat, child. Plus it's called making a point." At this, he turns his attention to the homo sapiens, smiling at the arrival of another news crew.
Shadowcat to Colossus: "He's not even looking -Quick, throw me--"
Storm holds out her hand: "No. I want to hear what Magneto has come to say. You two find where the others have gone," it's clear part of her mind is still on recovering Branden.
Magneto: "A few years back, the question was posed of what was stopping a mutant who could walk through walls," he smiles at Shadowcat's departing form, "from walking into the vault of a bank? What is stopping any of us from using our gifts to their fullest height?" He sneers, "I could cripple this city's infrastructure in a day. This is not power I came into only recently. So what is stopping us? Simple, decidedly uncommon sense: what would be the point? Because we can?" he raises his brows, offering up what historically is homo sapiens' answer.
"No. We are superior in all ways." He nods towards the grocery, "inside that building you will not find the shelves ransacked bare. We have taken only what we require for the time being. Because WE know restraint. We know it from you and we know it better than you! You, who cut into the lungs of the earth so that you may breathe easy, filling your shelves with more food than can possibly be consumed before it expires, living on excess while far away from your minds, others starve. You know not how to make use of your gifts. Only to reach for the top of the heap you call the 'next big thing'. Well look at it," he smiles with superiority, "we mutants know how to use our gifts, and we were NOT made to become obsolete!"
At this the time for words is over -- he sends all vehicles careening away. He makes to grab the weapons of the police, but finds he cannot.
"We know who we're dealing with, mutant! There's not a stitch of metal on us!" They start to fire up at him but Magneto is already moving out of their visual field, completely unperturbed as fire now starts their way.
The two nearest police gasp and curse, dropping their specialty plastic guns which have begun melting from two narrow streams of fire coming from Pyro's flame-throwing suit, which he'd put on since leaving the store.
One of the new recruits uses their power to lift up a section of pavement, protecting Pyro from the other officers' bullets.
Colossus, however, charges right through -bullets and all- and grabs the surprised new recruit; both Brotherhood members still protected from any further police assault now by the member of the X-Men.
But the police are saving what's left of their rounds, now observing the mutant-on-mutant scene before them; waiting for their time to move back in.
Pyro turns up his flames and shoots them up in an "X" shape, using his powers then to contort it into two fire serpents he sends around Colossus, toward the police, intent on shifting the X-Man's attention that way, but a sudden strong wind counters the serpents' forward movement, and they soon snuff out altogether as their wielder grows distracted, his flame-throwing suit being disconnected from his body by the phasing Shadowcat. "What?! YOU!" He manages to turn in time to grab her arm, but of course she phases out of his grasp: "Not so hot, actually!"
Colossus, keeping the other Brotherhood member in check with one arm, grabs Pyro with the other when suddenly his whole body is arrested.
We see Magneto is behind this.
Branden (alerting): "Pyro!" Though looking indecisive, the youth doesn't hesitate after his call, shooting out his own fire for Pyro to manipulate.
One of Pyro's hands isn't restrained. We see him begin working his power while we hear Branden again: "Just don't hurt anyone! Get that metal guy to let you go!"
Colossus: "Your fire will do neither to me."
And emphasizing Colossus' statement, this fire, and any more that may come, is extinguished by the rain of Storm, who now sends lightning Magneto's way.
"AHHH!!" His hold on Colossus is dropped.
Shadowcat: "Open your eyes, Branden! Magneto's not the one to side with!"
Storm: "This is not what your mother meant for you."
Branden stares, conflicted, while--
Police: "Quick! Get the collars!" They reach for them on their belts.
But neither X-Men nor Brotherhood are as distracted as the police think.
Storm turns to cast strong winds their way, blowing the collars out of their hands.
Magneto, recovered, commands the vehicles again, this time launching them back towards their would-be drivers. Storm's winds must be directed that way, now, while Colossus, no longer under Magneto's restraint, releases his hold on the Brotherhood members in favour of catching cars.
Shadowcat does her protective-part by phasing anyone out of harm's way.
This, however, proved to be a distraction more than a proper assault, as while the X-Men are focused on the public, The Brotherhood make their escape once more. Magneto using his powers to collect Pyro's suit so the youth can get away unencumbered by it -or so he doesn't decide to heat things back up- and Branden, conflicted though he still is, going along with them. . . .
So from one scene of escape, we return now to one who can not escape: Cyclops.
The "simple adjustments" made to prevent a second attempt are thus: keeping him "depleted" between tests, and shutting off all the lights. Of course they've put fresh shackles on him.
Cyclops can feel they've also stuck something into his arm, around where they always inject.
He was actually relieved the first time they returned for another test. Given his last memory before blacking out then waking up in darkness, was of not being able to see, it was reassuring to found he could as they started him blasting.
But relief was short lived - their latest test of choice seemed set up to answer the question: how long can he continuously blast? They even reengaged the lights for the occasion.
His eyes forced open as they always were for the tests, it doesn't take long before they were aching with the need to blink. He watched as the area he was made to shoot, in other words the place his vision was focused on, grew blurrier.
More of whatever was injected into him, strange sensations ebbing and flowing throughout his body--
--Finally they were ordered to stop to -at least- prevent permanent damage to his eyes.
Then he was left again, in the dark, in a heap....chained as he was he was unable to lie on the floor, but he half-shifted half-fell back against his corner of the room, catching his breath which came abnormally, his heartrate feeling irregular. . .
One thought in his mind, 'Jean. . . .' -no, one thought called out to hers. . . .