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A Bone to Pick: Sarah and Noriko - Marauder Tunnels (Backdated to 3/31/16)
The fight goes down, and Sarah and Noriko manage to rescue the kids. They're greeted by Callisto, after the fights, who issues some threats, but little else. Sarah finds herself momentarily without a home or family once more, but Noriko is quick to offer an invitation that Sarah reluctantly accepts.
Sarah approached the Marauders lookouts, keeping a nonchalant look about her. Her bone club and knife were hidden in the large front pocket of her hoodie, where her hands were tucked.
"You're here, where's the money?" One of the five Marauder goons, this one dressed in a yellow hoodie, asked.
Sarah didn't waste any time getting down to business. She lashed out with the club, catching the teenager gangster in the side of the head, whipping his jaw to the side, his eyes rolling up as he went limp. One down, four to go.
"Shit!" one of them shouted, louder than the other profanities that rose to the stagnant air of the deep tunnels.
It didn't take long for the others to spring into action, though. One had a knife, another had a length of chain, and a third had a heavy pipe wrench. The last one was out of Sarah's notice, and that one was coming toward her back with a baseball bat that was wrapped in barbed wire, ready to strike.
There had been a time when Noriko had been wary of using her electricity on humans. It was part of what she had fucked up when she had last met Callisto, and she had no intention of repeating that mistake. She had practiced for this very purpose, and she was confident that the discharge she sent into one of the kids - the one about to come at Marrow from the back - would not give him any lasting damage. She was in control.
She stopped as soon as they dropped, and supersped away, leaving the kid with the knife to slash at empty air when she lunged for Noriko.
The other two went for Marrow; and she grinned, as the one lashed at her with the length of chain. She held up her knife, letting the chain wrap around the blade, and she deflected the pipe wrench with her club. She twisted, and with the momentum, smacked her club against the chain-guy's head, sending him toppling over. Pipe-wrench guy, though, was a bit faster than she'd estimated. He clocked her against the head, himself, and she felt a brief moment of disorientation as her field of vision abruptly shifted, but she came back up with a snarl, blood leaking down the side of her face.
Spitefully, she cut him across the face, slashing just under his eyes and across his nose, before reversing and coming back with the pommel of the bone knife to smack him square in the jaw, collapsing into his fellow ganger. Blood trickled down the side of her face, and she glared at the remaining one, the one with the knife, who seemed to be reconsidering his choice to join in on the attack.
"Shit, shit!" he hissed, glancing around warily, looking for a route to escape.
Noriko supersped right beside him, and he whirled around in surprise as the sizzle of electricity faded. A quick flurry of moves and the knife was on the floor, and he joined it next, dropping to his knees as she twisted his wrist behind his back. She kicked the knife away.
"How many with the kids?" she asked, and exerted a little pressure on his wrist. Incentive to answer.
"Shit, shit! J-just two, just two!" the thug stammered out. "Fucking mutie freaks! Arclight's gonna have Callisto's fuckin' head over this, once she and Riptide tear you to fucking bits!" he spat, his bravado returning once he remembered who he was with.
Marrow approached him, knife pointed at his nose. "You fucked with the wrong gang," she said, blood smeared down the side of her face. "You better run back to whatever hole you crawled out of and stay there until this is all over. Or I'll string you up with your own guts." Whether or not she was serious, she certainly sounded convincing enough. Especially with the bone knife's point nearly resting on his nose.
Noriko let him go and stepped back, watching as he scrambled to his feet and ran away without a look back at his fallen friends. She sighed. "So we're going up against two mutants. Arclight's probably the one who can create earthquakes." She was the only female mutant Marauder the X-Men knew about, anyway. "I'll focus on the other one." Noriko had no idea which one 'Riptide' might be, so she might as well go for the unknown. The unknown was always more dangerous.
What the hell was Scott doing.
"Got it," Sarah said, already hurrying through the area the thugs had been guarding. If either Riptide or Arclight heard the fight, the kids might already be dead. Sarah wasn't sure she could handle that. So she was going to make sure it didn't happen.
Noriko cursed under her breath when Marrow took off at a run. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Scott's whispered in her mind, This is why you don't go out with civilians. Noriko could overtake her and stop her, but not without risking attracting attention, and if they were going to do that (not like Marrow was giving her a choice), then she would rather be focused on their two remaining opponents than on the one girl supposed to be on her side.
She lit up and supersped ahead, pausing for a split second once she could make out a few huddled figures cowering in a corner of the tunnels, and the man and woman standing in front of them. She took the situation in at a glance, then got going again, barreling into the guy at way less than her maximum speed, since the goal wasn't to kill him, just knock him out. Possibly bruise some ribs.
Noriko hit Riptide by surprise, as evidenced by his yelp of surprise and pain as she collided into him. Arclight, who hadn't engaged with Marrow yet, snarled. "Fuck this," she spat, slamming her hands into the nearby wall, tremors rocking the tunnels. She was standing near the kids, all of whom were tied up. Marrow charged at the earthquake-making mutant, but noticed the ceiling start to break apart. "Surge! Out, now!" she shouted, hoping that Surge had the sense to hear and listen. Marrow, on the other hand, stood protectively over the kids, while Arclight started to make a break for it, hoping to put the collapsing roof between her and her assailants.
Where was a good teke when you needed one? But Noriko didn't take the time to think when the floor began to shake, and the roof to crumble. She lit up again and easily caught up with Arclight, barreling into her the same way she had into her colleague, putting her out of commission for the time being so that she couldn't make this worse than it already was.
Arclight was a good bit tougher than her companion, and shouted incoherently in anger when Noriko ran into her. She hit the ground, and her fists did as well, forcefully, shaking the smaller side-tunnel she'd landed in. "Riptide! Get in here!" she shouted, her injured companion already making a break for the passage that she was trying to collapse.
Marrow couldn't give two shits about the two escaping gangsters. Bone knife in hand, she started sawing through the ropes holding the kids together, when she heard the ceiling above her start to give way. The tunnel Arclight and Riptide were escaping through was already starting to collapse, and the ceiling above Marrow soon followed. She pushed the kids together as best she could, holding them all and bending over, a dome of bone erupting from her back, spreading out in all directions around them, as the first chunks of concrete and old stone started to fall.
Noriko landed on top of Arclight, and cursed under her breath when the tunnel shook. Sometimes, she really wished she could tell more about the physiology of whoever she was fighting - not to the point of wishing she had Midnighter's mutation, though. Hers was bad enough. But she'd learned to control it, and she lit up again, still on top of Arclight, effectively serving as a human tazer to put her out of commission, amping it up until it was high enough even for Arclight's tougher constitution.
She reabsorbed the electricity just in time to get stabbed by a bone knife in the shoulder, shouting in surprised pain as it embedded itself in her muscle.
Riptide was more focused on getting the hell out of there rather than getting back at Surge for the injury; his pride wasn't worth a whole damn tunnel falling on his head, and he hoped this one would have enough sense of survival that she wouldn't do something stupid. Riptide ran up behind Surge and grabbed the bone knife he'd thrown at her and twisted it, trying to pry her off of Arclight so that he could grab her and run. She'd been nabbed once, and he didn't plan on letting her get nabbed again. Especially when they were doing something like this under Creed's nose.
Marrow grunted underneath of the bone of dome she was making as more of the tunnel above her began to fall and impact upon it, and the smaller section of tunnel was beginning to cave in as well.
The twist of the knife in her wound and the jolt of pain that came with it left Noriko little choice as to how to proceed. The electricity arced around her again, throwing Riptide off, his hand convulsed tight around the knife. Her shout of pain had been lost to the sound of rubble falling more and more quickly, and Noriko zoomed back over to the kids, impressed with the way Marrow had been sheltering them. Moments like this always had her wish that her superspeed did not involve electricity, so that she could safely carry people.
"Can you keep this up as you run for it?" Noriko shouted over the noise of the collapse. Her shoulder was pulsing with blunt pain, but she ignored it, focused on the kids for now - with one eye on the Marauders down the tunnel.
Riptide had recovered quickly from the shock, and was dragging Arclight down the tunnel, away from the group, as the tunnel they were going in to collapsed. Marrow couldn't see it, but she could hear it. Whether or not Riptide and Arclight got buried in the rubble, she didn't care. As long as the kids were safe. Hunched and bent as she was, running wasn't going to be easy for Marrow, and there was still the small matter of the kids being tied up. She still had her arms out, and part of the dome was growing from her arms, and so moving them was out of the question, too.
There was only one thing she could do. Surge didn't seem to have a knife, and so the hilt of one started to grow out of Marrow's wrist, in Surge's direction, the blade forming and following behind it. "Grab the bone knife. Cut the kids free, and we'll see what we can do," she said, struggling against the thuds of concrete and stone onto the dome above them.
Noriko grabbed the knife, trying not to think of it as prying a piece of Marrow off, and got to her knees under the platform to quickly cut through the kids' zipties. "Come on, guys, we're gonna have to make a run for it," she warned them, infusing her words with confidence to inspire it in them. "You all feel up to it?"
Marrow closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pleasant tingle in her spine from the pain of the knife coming out, but she still had a grin on her lips. This had turned out way more exciting than she'd imagined at first.
Time and a place, she remembered. The kids, quiet, all nodded to Surge, getting up. Marrow did her best to keep the dome as high as she could, but she was still hunched over. "Come on, kids, let's move!" she grunted, her words brooking no argument as she started to move toward the exit, or at least away from the cave-in. One foot in front of another, was how it went, and the kids did a good job keeping pace. Uneventfully, they made it out of the collapsing room before it caved in completely, safe and sound.
One foot in front of another, and Noriko helped her out as much as she could, bending over by her side and keeping an arm around her waist. She only let go once they reached another tunnel, one that seemed stable enough. "You guys okay?" she asked the kids, looking around and hoping they weren't about to get ambushed by more Marauders.
Once they were clear, Marrow released the bone dome from her back and her arms, the bone shield clattered to the floor, the woven slats of bone falling apart without Marrow's own bone structure to keep it together. "Never a dull moment with you, huh?" Marrow asked, grinning, as she straightened up. Her hoodie was destroyed by the creation of the bone shield, and it slipped off of her, revealing a white, stained t-shirt that had a newly-formed split up the back. Her pink hair was unkempt and fully visible, now, and it was clear just how wiry and thin her build was.
The kids all looked fine, and one was about to respond, when a voice all too familiar to both Surge and Marrow came from further down the corridor.
"If there's one thing I really, really hate, it's when people go behind my back." Callisto's voice echoed down the tunnel. She came into view only because a few flashlights turned on around her, held by more of her gang. She didn't look happy at all to see either Surge or Marrow. "You got five seconds to give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you both."
"How about we just saved your kids?" Surge retorted, moving in front of the kids, and Marrow. She hadn't seen Callisto again since she had killed Philip, and there was a hardness to her voice and her eyes now, when facing her, that hadn't been there before.
She could even have given Callisto a second good reason - Noriko wouldn't hesitate, this time - but she thought it best not to escalate things if she could help it.
But there was no way she was letting Calli kill anyone else.
"I was going to take care of that myself," Callisto spat back. "And do it my way. The people who did this, are they dead? I don't see any corpses. I don't do things halfway, Surge. And here you are, turning one of my own against me," she said, gesturing to Marrow.
"This was my idea," Marrow said, defensively.
That seemed to genuinely take Callisto by surprise, and she scowled in fury. "You ungrateful bitch," she spat. "I take you in, I keep you safe, I give you a home, more than you've ever had in your life, and this is what you do? Go behind my back, Fucking betray me?"
"There's no betrayal in rescuing your kids!" Noriko shouted, stepping forward to make sure Callisto would focus on her, and not Marrow. "You would've been too late. We made it in time. They're safe. I say that's a happy ending, and agreeing with that's in everyone's best interest."
"I was comin' in force to put them all down," Callisto argued. "I still had a few minutes 'till the deadline."
"You never told me you even planned on coming!" Marrow argued.
"It's called trust, you stupid cunt!" Callisto spat. "What if one of you was an insider for the Marauders, huh? I couldn't let word get back, or they'd kill them. Now come over here. A few of you, get them back to our camp," she said, beckoning the kids over. They didn't hesitated to obey, though one spared a passing glance to Marrow.
"As for you two? You saved my kids, and spared me the trouble. This time, we leave it. Next time I see you though, Surge, I'll leave you bleeding out in a gutter," Callisto warned.
Marrow sighed in a bit of relief, and went to move forward. Callisto held up a hand in a halting gesture. "Don't even think about coming back home, Marrow," Callisto said, flatly.
Marrow's expression was one of pure shock. "You're out. You picked your side when you went and asked Surge for help." She motioned for her people to start heading back. "Next time I see you? I'll saw your damn head off, if that's what it takes to kill you."
"You ever touch her, I'll be coming for you," Noriko muttered, too low for anyone but Callisto and her enhanced senses to pick up on. "Don't even think about it," she added before Callisto could make an angry move, electricity crackling around her gauntlets.
Surge had underestimated Marrow's hearing ability, but she didn't let the fact that she'd heard show. She just kept herself tense. Could she fight Callisto, if it came down to it? The woman was like the best, biggest sister she'd never had. She'd kept her safe. Kept her fed. Kept her clothed. Hell, she even kept the boys away. How could she turn on that?
Callisto just sneered at Surge. "Whatever. Say hello to your dead boyfriend for me. I should sniff out his grave so I can go take a piss on it. Next time we meet, Surge, you ain't gettin' off this easy. Remember that," she said, as she turned to leave.
Surge watched her go, hands curled into metal fists, and only relaxed when she was out of sight. "Guess I won't be," she murmured under her breath, although the last thing she wanted was having to actually harm Callisto. Probably because part of her wanted to, so much, for what she'd done to Philip.
She turned back to Marrow, face tight from the lancing pain in her shoulder. "Whatever she says, you did right. Those kids are alive thanks to you."
"Yeah." Marrow replied, lowering her gaze somewhat. "I know. I get it. I just... that was my home, y'know? Now I gotta go to a shelter, or something..." The police would probably find her, and they'd finally solve that missing persons case that was still probably around with her name on it. If she even gave her real name.
"Guess I need to go figure out where my next meal's comin' from."
"You could come back with me," Noriko offered without missing a beat. She felt confident that the headmasters would have made that same offer. "Whatever bullshit story Callisto's been spinning about the school, it's a good place."
She gave it an honest thought. Surge had gone. And here she'd just kicked ass alongside her. And yeah, that was pretty hot. Marrow had to admit it. "You think I'd do okay there? I mean, I haven't been to school in... a long time," she said, unable to really remember the last classroom she'd set foot in. "Been out here since I was eleven."
"I managed," Surge pointed out. "Caught up with everything I was behind on. I'm graduating this year. And I'm not the only one."
Another moment of honest thought. She had a few options. Street living was one, but without backup? She'd be either dead, or doing things less-than-desirable to make a living within just a matter of months.
She couldn't help but sigh. "Yeah, okay," Marrow said, shaking her head. "Fine. I'll give it a try. Guess I get to see more of you." She grinned. "Can't say I mind that. C'mon. Let's go let your school nurse get you patched up, okay?" Marrow didn't have a serious grasp of injuries on others, sometimes; her healing factor made almost anything irrelevant, in terms of injury.
Surge had an inkling she might actually go to Faiza on this one; she didn't feel like having to sit out training for a while. She used her good arm to get her phone out of her opposite pocket. "I'll call back Scott, see where they're at."
Sarah approached the Marauders lookouts, keeping a nonchalant look about her. Her bone club and knife were hidden in the large front pocket of her hoodie, where her hands were tucked.
"You're here, where's the money?" One of the five Marauder goons, this one dressed in a yellow hoodie, asked.
Sarah didn't waste any time getting down to business. She lashed out with the club, catching the teenager gangster in the side of the head, whipping his jaw to the side, his eyes rolling up as he went limp. One down, four to go.
"Shit!" one of them shouted, louder than the other profanities that rose to the stagnant air of the deep tunnels.
It didn't take long for the others to spring into action, though. One had a knife, another had a length of chain, and a third had a heavy pipe wrench. The last one was out of Sarah's notice, and that one was coming toward her back with a baseball bat that was wrapped in barbed wire, ready to strike.
There had been a time when Noriko had been wary of using her electricity on humans. It was part of what she had fucked up when she had last met Callisto, and she had no intention of repeating that mistake. She had practiced for this very purpose, and she was confident that the discharge she sent into one of the kids - the one about to come at Marrow from the back - would not give him any lasting damage. She was in control.
She stopped as soon as they dropped, and supersped away, leaving the kid with the knife to slash at empty air when she lunged for Noriko.
The other two went for Marrow; and she grinned, as the one lashed at her with the length of chain. She held up her knife, letting the chain wrap around the blade, and she deflected the pipe wrench with her club. She twisted, and with the momentum, smacked her club against the chain-guy's head, sending him toppling over. Pipe-wrench guy, though, was a bit faster than she'd estimated. He clocked her against the head, himself, and she felt a brief moment of disorientation as her field of vision abruptly shifted, but she came back up with a snarl, blood leaking down the side of her face.
Spitefully, she cut him across the face, slashing just under his eyes and across his nose, before reversing and coming back with the pommel of the bone knife to smack him square in the jaw, collapsing into his fellow ganger. Blood trickled down the side of her face, and she glared at the remaining one, the one with the knife, who seemed to be reconsidering his choice to join in on the attack.
"Shit, shit!" he hissed, glancing around warily, looking for a route to escape.
Noriko supersped right beside him, and he whirled around in surprise as the sizzle of electricity faded. A quick flurry of moves and the knife was on the floor, and he joined it next, dropping to his knees as she twisted his wrist behind his back. She kicked the knife away.
"How many with the kids?" she asked, and exerted a little pressure on his wrist. Incentive to answer.
"Shit, shit! J-just two, just two!" the thug stammered out. "Fucking mutie freaks! Arclight's gonna have Callisto's fuckin' head over this, once she and Riptide tear you to fucking bits!" he spat, his bravado returning once he remembered who he was with.
Marrow approached him, knife pointed at his nose. "You fucked with the wrong gang," she said, blood smeared down the side of her face. "You better run back to whatever hole you crawled out of and stay there until this is all over. Or I'll string you up with your own guts." Whether or not she was serious, she certainly sounded convincing enough. Especially with the bone knife's point nearly resting on his nose.
Noriko let him go and stepped back, watching as he scrambled to his feet and ran away without a look back at his fallen friends. She sighed. "So we're going up against two mutants. Arclight's probably the one who can create earthquakes." She was the only female mutant Marauder the X-Men knew about, anyway. "I'll focus on the other one." Noriko had no idea which one 'Riptide' might be, so she might as well go for the unknown. The unknown was always more dangerous.
What the hell was Scott doing.
"Got it," Sarah said, already hurrying through the area the thugs had been guarding. If either Riptide or Arclight heard the fight, the kids might already be dead. Sarah wasn't sure she could handle that. So she was going to make sure it didn't happen.
Noriko cursed under her breath when Marrow took off at a run. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Scott's whispered in her mind, This is why you don't go out with civilians. Noriko could overtake her and stop her, but not without risking attracting attention, and if they were going to do that (not like Marrow was giving her a choice), then she would rather be focused on their two remaining opponents than on the one girl supposed to be on her side.
She lit up and supersped ahead, pausing for a split second once she could make out a few huddled figures cowering in a corner of the tunnels, and the man and woman standing in front of them. She took the situation in at a glance, then got going again, barreling into the guy at way less than her maximum speed, since the goal wasn't to kill him, just knock him out. Possibly bruise some ribs.
Noriko hit Riptide by surprise, as evidenced by his yelp of surprise and pain as she collided into him. Arclight, who hadn't engaged with Marrow yet, snarled. "Fuck this," she spat, slamming her hands into the nearby wall, tremors rocking the tunnels. She was standing near the kids, all of whom were tied up. Marrow charged at the earthquake-making mutant, but noticed the ceiling start to break apart. "Surge! Out, now!" she shouted, hoping that Surge had the sense to hear and listen. Marrow, on the other hand, stood protectively over the kids, while Arclight started to make a break for it, hoping to put the collapsing roof between her and her assailants.
Where was a good teke when you needed one? But Noriko didn't take the time to think when the floor began to shake, and the roof to crumble. She lit up again and easily caught up with Arclight, barreling into her the same way she had into her colleague, putting her out of commission for the time being so that she couldn't make this worse than it already was.
Arclight was a good bit tougher than her companion, and shouted incoherently in anger when Noriko ran into her. She hit the ground, and her fists did as well, forcefully, shaking the smaller side-tunnel she'd landed in. "Riptide! Get in here!" she shouted, her injured companion already making a break for the passage that she was trying to collapse.
Marrow couldn't give two shits about the two escaping gangsters. Bone knife in hand, she started sawing through the ropes holding the kids together, when she heard the ceiling above her start to give way. The tunnel Arclight and Riptide were escaping through was already starting to collapse, and the ceiling above Marrow soon followed. She pushed the kids together as best she could, holding them all and bending over, a dome of bone erupting from her back, spreading out in all directions around them, as the first chunks of concrete and old stone started to fall.
Noriko landed on top of Arclight, and cursed under her breath when the tunnel shook. Sometimes, she really wished she could tell more about the physiology of whoever she was fighting - not to the point of wishing she had Midnighter's mutation, though. Hers was bad enough. But she'd learned to control it, and she lit up again, still on top of Arclight, effectively serving as a human tazer to put her out of commission, amping it up until it was high enough even for Arclight's tougher constitution.
She reabsorbed the electricity just in time to get stabbed by a bone knife in the shoulder, shouting in surprised pain as it embedded itself in her muscle.
Riptide was more focused on getting the hell out of there rather than getting back at Surge for the injury; his pride wasn't worth a whole damn tunnel falling on his head, and he hoped this one would have enough sense of survival that she wouldn't do something stupid. Riptide ran up behind Surge and grabbed the bone knife he'd thrown at her and twisted it, trying to pry her off of Arclight so that he could grab her and run. She'd been nabbed once, and he didn't plan on letting her get nabbed again. Especially when they were doing something like this under Creed's nose.
Marrow grunted underneath of the bone of dome she was making as more of the tunnel above her began to fall and impact upon it, and the smaller section of tunnel was beginning to cave in as well.
The twist of the knife in her wound and the jolt of pain that came with it left Noriko little choice as to how to proceed. The electricity arced around her again, throwing Riptide off, his hand convulsed tight around the knife. Her shout of pain had been lost to the sound of rubble falling more and more quickly, and Noriko zoomed back over to the kids, impressed with the way Marrow had been sheltering them. Moments like this always had her wish that her superspeed did not involve electricity, so that she could safely carry people.
"Can you keep this up as you run for it?" Noriko shouted over the noise of the collapse. Her shoulder was pulsing with blunt pain, but she ignored it, focused on the kids for now - with one eye on the Marauders down the tunnel.
Riptide had recovered quickly from the shock, and was dragging Arclight down the tunnel, away from the group, as the tunnel they were going in to collapsed. Marrow couldn't see it, but she could hear it. Whether or not Riptide and Arclight got buried in the rubble, she didn't care. As long as the kids were safe. Hunched and bent as she was, running wasn't going to be easy for Marrow, and there was still the small matter of the kids being tied up. She still had her arms out, and part of the dome was growing from her arms, and so moving them was out of the question, too.
There was only one thing she could do. Surge didn't seem to have a knife, and so the hilt of one started to grow out of Marrow's wrist, in Surge's direction, the blade forming and following behind it. "Grab the bone knife. Cut the kids free, and we'll see what we can do," she said, struggling against the thuds of concrete and stone onto the dome above them.
Noriko grabbed the knife, trying not to think of it as prying a piece of Marrow off, and got to her knees under the platform to quickly cut through the kids' zipties. "Come on, guys, we're gonna have to make a run for it," she warned them, infusing her words with confidence to inspire it in them. "You all feel up to it?"
Marrow closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pleasant tingle in her spine from the pain of the knife coming out, but she still had a grin on her lips. This had turned out way more exciting than she'd imagined at first.
Time and a place, she remembered. The kids, quiet, all nodded to Surge, getting up. Marrow did her best to keep the dome as high as she could, but she was still hunched over. "Come on, kids, let's move!" she grunted, her words brooking no argument as she started to move toward the exit, or at least away from the cave-in. One foot in front of another, was how it went, and the kids did a good job keeping pace. Uneventfully, they made it out of the collapsing room before it caved in completely, safe and sound.
One foot in front of another, and Noriko helped her out as much as she could, bending over by her side and keeping an arm around her waist. She only let go once they reached another tunnel, one that seemed stable enough. "You guys okay?" she asked the kids, looking around and hoping they weren't about to get ambushed by more Marauders.
Once they were clear, Marrow released the bone dome from her back and her arms, the bone shield clattered to the floor, the woven slats of bone falling apart without Marrow's own bone structure to keep it together. "Never a dull moment with you, huh?" Marrow asked, grinning, as she straightened up. Her hoodie was destroyed by the creation of the bone shield, and it slipped off of her, revealing a white, stained t-shirt that had a newly-formed split up the back. Her pink hair was unkempt and fully visible, now, and it was clear just how wiry and thin her build was.
The kids all looked fine, and one was about to respond, when a voice all too familiar to both Surge and Marrow came from further down the corridor.
"If there's one thing I really, really hate, it's when people go behind my back." Callisto's voice echoed down the tunnel. She came into view only because a few flashlights turned on around her, held by more of her gang. She didn't look happy at all to see either Surge or Marrow. "You got five seconds to give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you both."
"How about we just saved your kids?" Surge retorted, moving in front of the kids, and Marrow. She hadn't seen Callisto again since she had killed Philip, and there was a hardness to her voice and her eyes now, when facing her, that hadn't been there before.
She could even have given Callisto a second good reason - Noriko wouldn't hesitate, this time - but she thought it best not to escalate things if she could help it.
But there was no way she was letting Calli kill anyone else.
"I was going to take care of that myself," Callisto spat back. "And do it my way. The people who did this, are they dead? I don't see any corpses. I don't do things halfway, Surge. And here you are, turning one of my own against me," she said, gesturing to Marrow.
"This was my idea," Marrow said, defensively.
That seemed to genuinely take Callisto by surprise, and she scowled in fury. "You ungrateful bitch," she spat. "I take you in, I keep you safe, I give you a home, more than you've ever had in your life, and this is what you do? Go behind my back, Fucking betray me?"
"There's no betrayal in rescuing your kids!" Noriko shouted, stepping forward to make sure Callisto would focus on her, and not Marrow. "You would've been too late. We made it in time. They're safe. I say that's a happy ending, and agreeing with that's in everyone's best interest."
"I was comin' in force to put them all down," Callisto argued. "I still had a few minutes 'till the deadline."
"You never told me you even planned on coming!" Marrow argued.
"It's called trust, you stupid cunt!" Callisto spat. "What if one of you was an insider for the Marauders, huh? I couldn't let word get back, or they'd kill them. Now come over here. A few of you, get them back to our camp," she said, beckoning the kids over. They didn't hesitated to obey, though one spared a passing glance to Marrow.
"As for you two? You saved my kids, and spared me the trouble. This time, we leave it. Next time I see you though, Surge, I'll leave you bleeding out in a gutter," Callisto warned.
Marrow sighed in a bit of relief, and went to move forward. Callisto held up a hand in a halting gesture. "Don't even think about coming back home, Marrow," Callisto said, flatly.
Marrow's expression was one of pure shock. "You're out. You picked your side when you went and asked Surge for help." She motioned for her people to start heading back. "Next time I see you? I'll saw your damn head off, if that's what it takes to kill you."
"You ever touch her, I'll be coming for you," Noriko muttered, too low for anyone but Callisto and her enhanced senses to pick up on. "Don't even think about it," she added before Callisto could make an angry move, electricity crackling around her gauntlets.
Surge had underestimated Marrow's hearing ability, but she didn't let the fact that she'd heard show. She just kept herself tense. Could she fight Callisto, if it came down to it? The woman was like the best, biggest sister she'd never had. She'd kept her safe. Kept her fed. Kept her clothed. Hell, she even kept the boys away. How could she turn on that?
Callisto just sneered at Surge. "Whatever. Say hello to your dead boyfriend for me. I should sniff out his grave so I can go take a piss on it. Next time we meet, Surge, you ain't gettin' off this easy. Remember that," she said, as she turned to leave.
Surge watched her go, hands curled into metal fists, and only relaxed when she was out of sight. "Guess I won't be," she murmured under her breath, although the last thing she wanted was having to actually harm Callisto. Probably because part of her wanted to, so much, for what she'd done to Philip.
She turned back to Marrow, face tight from the lancing pain in her shoulder. "Whatever she says, you did right. Those kids are alive thanks to you."
"Yeah." Marrow replied, lowering her gaze somewhat. "I know. I get it. I just... that was my home, y'know? Now I gotta go to a shelter, or something..." The police would probably find her, and they'd finally solve that missing persons case that was still probably around with her name on it. If she even gave her real name.
"Guess I need to go figure out where my next meal's comin' from."
"You could come back with me," Noriko offered without missing a beat. She felt confident that the headmasters would have made that same offer. "Whatever bullshit story Callisto's been spinning about the school, it's a good place."
She gave it an honest thought. Surge had gone. And here she'd just kicked ass alongside her. And yeah, that was pretty hot. Marrow had to admit it. "You think I'd do okay there? I mean, I haven't been to school in... a long time," she said, unable to really remember the last classroom she'd set foot in. "Been out here since I was eleven."
"I managed," Surge pointed out. "Caught up with everything I was behind on. I'm graduating this year. And I'm not the only one."
Another moment of honest thought. She had a few options. Street living was one, but without backup? She'd be either dead, or doing things less-than-desirable to make a living within just a matter of months.
She couldn't help but sigh. "Yeah, okay," Marrow said, shaking her head. "Fine. I'll give it a try. Guess I get to see more of you." She grinned. "Can't say I mind that. C'mon. Let's go let your school nurse get you patched up, okay?" Marrow didn't have a serious grasp of injuries on others, sometimes; her healing factor made almost anything irrelevant, in terms of injury.
Surge had an inkling she might actually go to Faiza on this one; she didn't feel like having to sit out training for a while. She used her good arm to get her phone out of her opposite pocket. "I'll call back Scott, see where they're at."
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