((Continued from Freedom Isn't Free))

There were sounds that filtered through her ears that were likely to give her nightmares. Clawing. Scraping. Screaming. Was it worse or better that her eyes were blind in the dark?

SLAM.

Worse.

Ghost opened her eyes and there was all kinds of chaos. Fire. A flurry of birds. SLAM. It took her a long while to realize that some people were not only not-dead, but they were still up. And those people were using their abilities.

There was something... important about that.

And then someone broke through the metal doors. It was quite sudden. Even he seemed surprised. And red. He stumbled forward some over a body. So many bodies. Ghost thought he would stumble right over her.

So she ghosted.

Venus stumbled his mouth closed tight and his nose trying every bit to not take a deep breathe in, but the fact was, he'd saved the ones that were fighting, as much of a menagerie they were. He reached up grabbing a shower head and ripped it from the wall throwing it with wreckless abandon into the door with the guards on the other side of it. the pair came off their hinges came off and that might have done a decent bit of good for everyone, else.

Venus's rage got the better of him guiding the panicked mutants towards their goal. "KILL THEM!" he pointed toward the group of Romanian bigots. and the mutants who could move did move, but as for him he just let out his breath. Venus tilted over landing on his knees. He could have swore there was a woman here before. His eyes came unfocused as he took a deep breathe. his mind wanted to freak out along with the others as he attempted to avoid his death. but then what was the point... they were all so beautiful too.

The door was opened, shadows revealed.

Standing or sitting
playing with advances
toys of the grown-ups
they keep playing
their music
dying

And he was still in hiding, on the outside, had not yet dared to enter the confines of dread that lay beyond the metal frame, had not yet found the strength maybe, or just wanted to stand guard where the hulking red figure had breached all obstructions, obstacles. Except for the fact, that something was moving now, steps, heavy boots falling on the concrete floor in rapid sucession, falling again and again, raindrops falling down. The corridor was small, the shadows only so much help. His knife was in the ready, even though he stood at the very darkest point between two red emergency lights, which were trying to banish the shadows around both the door that had been broken and further down the corridor, where it made a turn to the left, with their red gloom.

The people on the inside, faintly visible to him as a rolling mass of shadows through the light, they were in danger now, more then ever before, for if the coming was really what he thought it was, their situation might change into something of unfortunate strategical value. Flanked by guards in the doorway, the only way out through their well gunned ranks, nothing he would permit to happen, not this happening on this very evening. He held his breath in anticipation of the coming, and indeed there were two men with their flickering shadows through the red lights, clothes becoming dark, his gaze lay on them, cold as ice, a viper prepared, to strike its target from the shadows - if only it came near enough. His hand holding the knife was slightly sweaty, he could feel the oil of his perspiration clinging to his skin. His heart was pounding. Just a few steps more, before they would be history. He counted them, breath still held tightly in his burning lungs, heart pounding ever to new heights, while his mind was looking at them, the looking glass of his eyes not magnifying but slowing down. Just two more steps. And two families would be without fathers. Just two more steps and they were near enough. Just one more step and... they exhibited a most unusual behavior.

They stared at the open door. He stared at them from the shadow. He could see their faces now. Clearly. They stared and turned in panicked unison, both grasping for air, covering their faces, a rasping choir dissonance of running. And a dark shadow following, even through the light, the red one, for in their eyes the timemancer had seen the light of madness. They would not look back. These men were running for their lives. And their actions told then, that it would be much wiser to hold his breath until they had reached their destination.

Only that his heart was pounding. Lungs burning already. The need was overwhelming. The need to breathe. The need to feel the poison run through his veins, sweet poison, coursing ever more toward destruction, the cycles of his cells disrupted, hatred falling snowflakes from the sky, circling down towards disruption. Frost over emotions glittered, refracting hatred, fire of his heart. Rushing now, his steps falling loudly in line, primordial animals bashing against the walls of ice erected in his head in need, steps falling in line as he heard a bashing sound, loudly resounding, bouncing off the walls, ever amplified with new passings, not only steps but minds, with theirs, he turned around the corner, was controlled again, as time stopped. He saw a picture painted. His chest constricting ever more, tightly, with the seconds, heart beating ever more loudly, iron casings holding barely, stopping at his will and by his power, leaving only a dull memory of things that would soon return, too soon, too soon return to normal operations. He turned around the corner and his world stopped, as the parts of a picture, shards of very different times, they came together. A collage was born, shards of past and present cutting through, cutting through his memories. He watched, as a pain in his heart unfolded, in the red light, where the two who had just turned around the corner frantically tried now, trying with hands stopped in absurd positions, limbs bent into paining pictures, hands had once in flying haste, tried to cover their heads in something taken from a black locker, whose metal door was bearing markings now of where it had hit the wall. All stopped now. Like him. And unlike him. Something that was black in color. Black like his knife, still resting in his hand, the plastic handle.

He saw a picture he had seen years ago. The moving shadows, the tow men with their breaths contained. He saw what no child was meant to see, lest he understand the dread that had been. Unspeakable. Dread of all creation, doom and bane. They were but campfires. Fires burning, now long past.

Gas masks. Crystal windows to a world of death, plastic covers for the guilty faces, a rendering of devils. Frozen in time. It leaped forward. With him. He was time. Something had broken.

Two quick steps the German took, two quick movements, precision in their very nature (a thing that could not necessarily be said about his victims) and their efforts stopped by his, tendons cut, so small the effort. Ice had taken over now, had long ago. The hurt was still there.

He did not breathe, as he stepped around their bodies, still standing, arms hanging useless by their sides now. Ever useless, as he had cur through all, that would move them, severing what was there to hold. Standing, dreading; he removed their masks, so small the effort, hands remembered still the movements, taught to them so long ago. Eyes remembered still the horror. Horror in their eyes. Shown to them.... just now. Bodies moving in the shadows. After all these years, after all the time through which he had lived, he had found now, that people still had the capabilities to amaze him. To make him stop and think, to make him wonder. He stood and looked at these young soldiers faces. These hardened faces. And he was amazed that the human form could contain so much evil, such pure bred hatred. People still had the ability to amaze him. Not a good thing by itself. Not after this much time.

And he opened his eyes/
And he saw their world/
Their eyes were dry/
Empty hands/
The sun was shining/
Gripping/
A last embrace/
A mother and children/
Heaven falling/
A last embrace/
And he cried for them/


Before the two useless men in their mid thirties maybe, staring wide eyed, stupified, surprised, at their doom, stood a youth in black, white and slightly greenish colored his face now, obscured by their instrument, the other hanging by his side, as did the knife on the other. Hanging shoulders. His blue eyes, they shone through the windows, shone like two sapphires, looked at them as he took the first breath to subdue the pain in his lungs, the filter making protest noises. His eyes, they seemed to to function properly. The world was swimming. He stood before two relatively young men. And he saw they were evil. And they looked at the mere child that had killed them alive. And they looked at each other. And they were afraid of the terrible face that they saw.

An immortal was crying. Was in pain.

Not anywhere, anytime.

Just not here. Not now.

His heart was not pounding. His chest was not hurting. Breathing was difficult. And there was a terrible silence as he looked at the men. A drop falling from the tip of the tanto. Flowers blossoming. Not here. Never would they here again. His heart was aching.

He looked at he two guards. And he was crying. And his eyes remained dry. No tears…. Not here. They were an insult. Looked one last time and spoke in their dirty tongue, tounges befouled by their very existence, tasting rotten. He gave them one last word on their way. A precious gift. Lillies. “Goodbye.” And he did not kill them. They were dead. Had been since he struck then with his knife and they took deep tastes of pain. A breath, a deep one, filled fith desperation. Breathed in deeply whatever it was that poisoned the air here, poisoned thoughts become reality.

A staccato of steps, rushing noises, thick air resisting movements, he moved as quickly as his legs might take him, the black plastic bag for faces still in his left hand. He moved as he could and wanted to go faster yet. Much faster. Just a few steps till he was there. Just such few steps. And he feared that he might be too late already. What if?

He burst into the chamber.

Monstro gulped her down, shouted her partially out again and then heaved a giant swallow of air down into his lungs. Ghost had never been breathed before. Whatever held her together had always been too much to swallow. Now just about half of her was inside and half of her out.

She was spreading out.

Gulp.

What was she supposed to do? He had a powerful set of lungs and her brain has gone into idle mode. Well, maybe it was shock mode. Shouldn't she be doing something? Besides getting slurped up like aerial spaghetti?

Gulp.

It was a little late in the game to be panicking, but it suddenly occurred to Ghost that she was being breathed. Air that was breathed was processed. Though the body. And then if she was still a person after she was used up, she'd get spit out again.

Gulp.

Ghost closed her eyes and hugged herself. She was Maya. She was Ghost. She was a person. She was not to be used in the body's molecular processes. If she could rock back and forth, she would be.

It was warm and moist. She was radiating out from a central point. How could she hold herself together?

Venus heaved in what he thought would be his last but the air that he breathed in was fresh and clean a little bit coo...it seemed like it was cleaner than it was a moment ago...since when could he breathe in poisonous gas and be ok? they used knockout gas on them in the labs all the time and Abyss went out like a light...

Venus took a deep breath testing the air. The proof was all around him on the ground, a tragedy. He stumbled forward still not quite believing what was going on, he should be dead like the rest. He was going to kill the guards in charge of this. He walked forward with purpose when a second man burst into the room. He looked him over. no, he wasn't a guard he had a wild look on his face a captured animal set free?

"Who are you? if your a guard come to kill another mutant, come and get it." his body rumble its threat, sincerity would be what broke the Man who stood between him and saving a mutant life. broken like Venus's heart for seeing all this useless death.

The mask over his face reduced his field of vision greatly. It also made breathing, the act of drawing in air through the filter with its many chemical filled membranes, seperating out the bad molecules from the good ones, the oxygen, the nitrogen, a rather taxing activity. And an audious one. One that tasted like biting into a piece of toilet cleaner. And not the one that smelled like citrus and lasted for 14 days minimum. Every breath sent ripples down his airways. They ended somewhere on the height of his heart. The tight plastic fit also managed to make sweat pop out of every pore there was on his head. In other words: He as severely discomforted by the thing on his face, though he was absolutely sure, that its presence was a necessity. The other parts of him? They had hidden themselves somewhere safe for the time being. Behind the masks were broken fragments of a mirror. Shining darkly in the sunlight of the moon. And they had once all belonged together. Before the advent of the universe there had been.... nothing. And then....

By the bodies on the floor. Dead.... They were not moving after all. Not even breathing. they're all dead...

Except for the giant red one in the middle of it all.
How could they ever?
He was standing. And moving. And there was a lessening. An opening.
How could anyone ever?
Partial aid. He dared not call it relief. Not even in his mind.

And he was quite literally shaken into this world again, zooming in on this room, by a voice so unlike anything he wanted to hear at this time.

This is a time of awakening. The dragons sleeping. And they roar.

So his voice rang out from under the mask. One of them still held in his one hand, his black dragons fang in the other. His stance shifted into a slightly crouched position, one arm raised. The arm raised. The one. And it held something black. And it was not the mask. Before the advent there was nothing. Had been nothing. And then the dragon opened his mouth.

BOOM.

His own expansion of super heated gas into an Bose-Einstein Condensate was somewhat smaller. A lot smaller really. But temperatures were dropping equally fast.
“First: If I had come to kill, you would have never seen it coming. Second: If you take any action against me, I will not bother with making the repercussions non-lethal.”

Not that he had not seen enough death already. But... he was still alive. Still. And he would bear witness to this. And here it was. Witness winter. An explosion. Some hate needed cooling here. Some feelings need suppression here. Someone needed living here.

She was spreading thin and thinner. How far would she go before she was nothing? How long before she was drained dry? Eventually she found her limit, the limit of the body. She could spread no further because there was no where else to go. She wasn't spread as thin as she had ever gone, some of those places were a tight squeeze, but none of them were in perpetual motion.

She was used to disorientation. Just not this particular brand. First gas, then respiration, now ventriculation. Like being in a washing machine or a dryer, she went around and around. When ghosted, she always got her bearings by finding the ground or a reference point that was familiar. Her new prison rumbled around her, through her. It was just hard to take it all when he was shouting like that...

“First: If I had come to kill, you would have never seen it coming. Second: If you take any action against me, I will not bother with making the repercussions non-lethal.”

The voice was familiar. The fact that she was imprisoned alongside that voice, even more so. She was still confused about what happened at the school that day.

"Martin." The voice was soft and came from no where in particular. He was a great point of reference, if only she could sense him. "Help." The more the monster breathed, the less her senses became. The less chance she would have to figure out which way was up and which way was out.

The response Venus received was cold, murderous, it fit the surroundings. He easily could have been a guard or a mutant, the fact that he was threatening a big red mutant made him think, that whatever he man was, he was stupid. "Answer the question, are you one of them, or are you one of us?" His rumbling response and purposeful step forward was interrupted abruptly by a quiet voice that spoke from no where.He was careful to step in the few spots that didn't have a mutant's corpse in it.

first the mask and now the disembodied voice, this gas chamber which he didn't think could get any worse was taking generous leaps and bounds into the realm of twisted and creepy.

Venus stopped and took up a lot less threatening stance. Martin, the man before him? possibly. if one of the fallen in the room was still hanging on to life somehow and asking for this man's help, he was probably a fellow prisoner.

As of he needed a further complication he heard a wailing cry that was definitely the shout of one of his brothers. It came from ahead, He couldn't loose any of his brothers here. but he thought he might have to deal with this little creepy looking Martin before he moved on, not to mention the invisible female.

Calm. Control. Be calm. Exert control. Over yourself. Over the surroundings. Martin had a lot of trouble keeping his emotions from getting out of hand. A lot of trouble keeping calm as it was. And the over sized lump of red meat was not making things easier on him. He was young. That was probably it. Or so the part of him that was still working quite well tried to calm the other bits that were working not so well in the meantime. The knife was still held in a readied position to strike at first sign of aggression. Much too young to know which people to mess with and which not to. A quality that was rarely found in those under the age of 30. And even in the ones above it was distinguishing. From the rest of them. The murderers maybe. Or just the average. The median of society. The point that was found by gathering all the people and comparing their madness against each other in hopes of finding common ground. The one thing that he was not. So in the midst of death and destruction his voice rose, once again through the filter of his mask, voicing an opinion, a statement.

“I'm one of the people you will never want to....”

He was cut short by a voice, that he knew. Somehow he knew that he knew her. And from somewhere in his fragmented memories he even pulled a name to that voice. He had been in prison with her once. That really helped in remembering. The unpleasant memories seemed to stick the most to any kind of continuum. “Ghost?” His first voicing of her name, the vocalization on her existence in this room, it was silent, quiet, almost nonexistent, before his mind started working again. “Ghost?” This time the voice was louder. The knife sank, as his eyes, and necessarily, thanks to buddy mask, started searching the ground for anything that might be twitching. Only to be taken back up immediately, before even so much as a few tangled limbs had been scanned. Ghost had been able to become just that, hadn't she?

His hand was raised and something black made its way towards the head of the red giant. Muscles was really lucky today. It was not the knife. It was the mask. But would he be able to see that in this lighting?

One of them. One of us. What did it matter? Martin moved closer and held something toward her. That mattered even less. He said her name. He was Martin. Kind and gentle Martin who had been her help and safety before.

And he was not standing on the ceiling.

She tried to focus on his legs, focus on the ground and how this body's legs connected to that same ground. The ground. The ground. It didn't matter if she was pumped up and down. The ground was there. Right there. And that was Martin.

"What are you two doing? We have to get out of here!" That was easy to say. But much harder to do. Because she was stuck. And swirling. But at least Martin was not on the ceiling.

The frustration was building. Which way was out?

The black object flew at his head and the only agile part of his body smacked at the mask and smashed the item to pieces, bits of the after math flying into his red flesh. Venus wasn't pleased but a voice that paralleled the voice of a killer only moments ago vocalized from the same male, seemed to be the lost counterpart to the confident killer. Venus was about ready to kill the fool human when he realized that the name and recognition of the name was too familiar, if he was a guard he was too fond of at least one of the freaks in a pin.




Venus nodded his head to the disembodied voice that he couldn't help feeling like was coming from within, such an odd power this one had.. He would spare the violent fool, but only at the request of the aberration, the moniker of ghost was a bit too familiar, the fact that the spoke in English aggravated the familiarity as well, Oh dear, he recognized the name and reminisced momentarily of the quiet curves of one of the enemy.

He nodded his head toward the hall way signifying to the male that the dispute was over, in his mind at least. As he approached the hall he heard a Terribly loud bellow, it was one of his brothers and it came from the opposite direction than the one he had approached from. He didn't like the odds of what awaited him. in the Courtyard.

"That sound is was brother." the tone of pain was obvious.