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The Mutant Wars 8 Prisoners of War
by Scorpio
Robert Drake looked up with a combination of dread and curiosity when the door
to his cell opened. The lights in the hall were blindingly bright, but he got a
brief glimpse of green clad soldiers carrying specialized anti-mutant weapons
before someone was shoved into his cell.
His fellow mutant was a big heavily muscled man with long blonde hair tangled in
snarls. That was all he could really tell before he'd been pushed to the ground.
The guards laughed cruelly and slammed the door shut again. The thunk of the
lock engaging was depressingly loud and the dim lighting of the cell washed
everything in shadows once again. God, how he hated this place.
"Hey man. You okay?"
His voice was still painfully hoarse and scratchy from earlier in the day when
he'd screamed himself mute from the pain of minor surgery without benefit of
painkillers. A growling groan was his only reply before the man slowly pushed
himself over onto his back and laid there panting.
Like Bobby, the other prisoner was dressed in thin medical scrubs the sickly
yellow color of a school bus with fluorescent orange reflector strips running
down the seams. Bobby could only guess that the tacky color scheme was to make
sure running and hiding from their captors would be difficult. The scrubs would
stand out in any environment.
Also like Bobby, the guy's shirt had been screen printed with his prisoner ID #
on both front and back. The back of both their shirts also had a smaller printed
code on it that Bobby'd come to learn meant a mutant was scheduled for
termination if they couldn't be convinced to cooperate with the military to hunt
down their fellow mutants.
Bobby had a heavy power suppression collar around his neck, but the new guy was
trussed up even worse. His collar also came with a mouth and jaw covering muzzle
and a pair of metal gloves over his hands. Odd.
Curious, Bobby slowly shifted closer to the other mutant. It wasn't easy,
because he'd been in for `routine testing' earlier and he was still hurting bad.
When he was close enough to see the man's face clearly in the dim light, Bobby
peered down…and then hissed in surprise.
"Sabertooth!"
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Bobby crawled away until his back hit the
wall of the cell. He couldn't believe they'd locked him up with Victor Creed!
Even collared, muzzled, and half dead; the man was a vicious killer.
With a groan that spoke eloquently of a pounding headache, Sabertooth twitched
once, twice, and then pushed himself up into a sitting position.
"Ugh! That cattle prod fuckin' hurt."
Despite wanting to be quiet and inconspicuous, Bobby's inner smart-alec couldn't
help but snort at that.
Sabertooth's head swung around and he glared blurry eyed at Bobby from over the
rim of his muzzle. Then he took a deep breath of air in through his nose in an
animal-like snuffle. Bobby had a brief moment to realize that Sabertooth was
scenting him the way Logan would.
"Ah hell. That you Drake?"
Bobby huffed out a sarcastic and bitter laugh.
"Yeah. Lovely to see you too, Creed."
They glared at each other for a long moment and then Sabertooth looked around at
the cell, his shackles and sighed.
"Fuck."
Bobby rolled his eyes and pressed a hand a little tighter to his newest
stitches. They ached.
"Eloquent as always, ya big potty-mouth."
Creed growled at him from under his muzzle and after a moment Bobby sighed and
nodded.
"But this time, I agree with you."
Sabertooth huffed out a breath that was half anger and half amusement and pushed
himself to his feet. Bobby reached up with one hand to scrub at his face before
running his hand up through his hair. He eyed the printed code under
Sabertooth's prisoner ID and bit his lip.
MIL / F-REGEN / TASS
It was slightly different then Bobby's. His read: MIL / ICE-EL / TASS
It was a code that the soldiers and scientists used to identify a mutant by
sight. Not the mutant's name since they cared little for that, but their powers
and abilities.
Bobby's code meant; a mutant with Military application, Ice Elemental, and
finally, Terminate After Scientific Study of his genetic structure.
"Uh," Bobby began, but then he trailed off.
How do you tell a guy that he's been scheduled for death? Even if that guy is
Victor Creed.
Sabertooth looked over at him and his bushy eyebrows lowered in a way that let
Bobby know the guy was scowling even if the muzzle hid half of his face.
"What, Icecube? Spit it the hell out!"
Bobby flinched back at the rage. One had reached up to press his stitches again
at the movement, but the other reached up to tug on his power suppression collar
by reflex.
"It's just the code." He shrugged helplessly, "The one printed on the back of
your shirt, I mean."
There was a brief pause and finally Sabertooth sighed. "What about it?"
Bobby glanced away. Then he decided it wasn't safe to not be watching the insane
feral's every move and looked back.
"Do you know what it says? What it all means?" Bobby asked. He hoped Creed
already knew, and then he wouldn't have to explain.
There was another pause. This one was longer and more uncomfortable. Finally
Sabertooth shrugged one large shoulder and shook his shaggy head.
"Naw. I was pretty outta it when they dragged me in here."
Swallowing hard, Bobby nodded and then lifted a hand up to twirl his pointer
finger in the air.
"Turn around."
One of Sabertooth's eyebrows rose up and Bobby was sure it was half in amusement
and half in suspicion. Sabertooth didn't move an inch; he just stared down at
Bobby.
Huffing out a sigh of exasperation, Bobby threw both his hands into the air.
"Geeze! I just want to read the code printed on the back of your shirt. It's not
like I'm gonna attack you." He blinked and smirked. "Or ogle your ass."
Sabertooth growled out a laugh at that.
"Don't get your panties in a twist, kid."
Then he turned around so that Bobby had an excellent view of his broad back and
the words printed on it.
"Damn," Bobby sighed. "I was hoping I read it wrong earlier."
Sabertooth stilled briefly.
"What's it say?"
"MIL slash F dash REGEN slash TASS."
Sabertooth snorted and turned his head to glare over his shoulder at Bobby.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
Sighing, Bobby reached up and absently tugged on his collar again.
"MIL is code for `Military Application'. I got that too. Basically, they'll try
to brainwash you into hunting down other mutants. They want to turn you into a
living weapon."
Sabertooth barked a laugh and made a gesture forcibly vague because of the
gloves over his hands.
"Newsflash, Icy my boy. I already am a living weapon."
Bobby nodded in easy agreement with that statement. It was true, after all.
"Yeah, but you're also your own man. You're a freelance mercenary and you pick
and choose your own assignments and jobs, right?"
Sabertooth shrugged and nodded. "So?"
"So, they want to wipe out your free will. They'll aim you at their choice of
targets and pull your trigger. You won't get any say in it at all."
Sabertooth let out a bitter huff that wasn't quite a sigh.
"Weapon X; take two."
A long pause and then Bobby slumped against the wall of their cell.
"Yeah."
"And the rest of the code?"
Bobby tugged at his collar again and shrugged.
"F-REGEN most likely means Feral mutant with Regeneration abilities. My second
code is ICE-EL and I know it stands for Ice Elemental."
Sabertooth nodded and turned back around.
"Makes sense. And the last bit? What was it? Something like TSS or TASS."
Bobby sighed and facepalmed.
"Yeah. TASS. I got that one too. It stands for `Terminate After Scientific
Study'. We're considered too dangerous to live. So, whether we cooperate with
the military or not doesn't matter, we're both scheduled for eventual
execution."
Bobby shrugged.
"It's just a matter of when."
Sabertooth stilled for a moment and then dropped his head forward to rest on his
chest.
"Fuck. I was right. This really is a new version of the Weapon X program."
It was silent for a long while as they both fumed in frustrated anger and fear.
Finally, Sabertooth's head snapped back up and he glared at Bobby.
"When I get outta here, and I will get out, I'm gonna gut all those soldier boys
and string `em up by their still steaming entrails."
Bobby pulled an `eww' face and cringed.
"Lovely visual image there, Creed."
Sabertooth barked out a laugh while Bobby shuddered. Then the big mutant stepped
back against the far wall of the cell and slid down into a crouch.
"So…where the hell are we? And who else is here?"
Bobby smirked, but the amusement in his expression never reached his eyes. He
absently tugged at his collar again.
"Welcome to the Nez Perce Mutant Rehabilitation Center. Or, as I like to call
it; that damn hellhole. We're in the Idaho Mountains with the Salmon River to
the northeast and the Snake River to the southwest."
Bobby sighed and ran his hands up into his hair and tugged at it lightly.
"As for who's here; lot's a folks. I've personally seen Havoc, Forge, Maddrox
and even Deadpool. I've heard rumors that Polaris and Mystique are in the
women's section, but I haven't seen them to say for sure."
Sabertooth stilled, his eyes focusing tightly on Bobby with chilling intensity.
"Raven's here?"
Bobby shook his head and shrugged helplessly.
"I hope not, but that's what the rumor mill says."
They both lapsed into silence and Bobby wondered how they had captured the other
mutant, but he didn't ask. Instead, he just sat there and silently prayed that
the team would figure out where he was and show up to kick ass and take names.
He was tired and sore and cranky. He wasn't looking forward to sharing a cell
with Sabertooth and he really didn't want to spend more time with the scientists
being experimented on.
He just wanted to go home and leave this nightmare behind.
end