driftfleet | [Action]

[Leia's hands ball into fists as she watches Kitty reach into Logan's head. It's a horrifying sight, unlike anything she's witnessed before, and it feels wrong. She wants to shout at Kitty to stop, they'll find another way.

She grits her teeth until it feels like they might crack, standing ramrod straight and waiting. And it's all for nothing.]

How are you feeling?

[To Logan, with no small amount of concern in her eyes.]

[Kitty takes a few deep breaths, just trying to get herself fully under control again. It doesn't seem like it's affecting her anymore, but it definitely got her insides all worked up in the process. She folds her arms cross her chest, feeling ridiculous for how hard something so simple was to do. And then it didn't even work. Why?]

Maybe it functions on magic instead of technology? [Or a mixture? But she falls quiet, wanting to hear what Logan has to say. He doesn't seem like he's doing much better.]

[He eyes Laura, wordlessly signalling his approval for her preparations to intervene. The last thing he wanted to do was to actually hurt her - but at least she was made to come back from that. Her willingness to sacrifice was a point of pride.

He slid his claw back into his hand and rested his bare palm against the back of his neck.]

Same as before, only annoyed. Magic or otherwise, phasing ain't doing nothing. So let's try takin' it out. [A pause and he looks to Laura again.] We're gonna need the restraints, though.

[The chains had been left outside, but he and Laura had brought them just in case something like this happened. If he was restrained, then there should be no reason why they couldn't proceed.]

[Laura hesitated at that half-instruction. She new he wanted her to go get the chains, yet she didn't really want to. She had agreed to do this, but agreeing to a theoretical and actually doing it were very different.]

[Still, after a moment of studying him, she just nodded and turned, stepping past Kitty and back out into the corridor, returning a moment later with the pile of metal chains.]

[This is going to be a harder round than the last one, and the last one wasn't exactly easy to sit through. Leia sets her jaw as Laura brings in the chains; when the girl gets close, she holds out a hand, as though to take some from her.]

Want some help?

You felt it too, didn't you? [The fear. Stranger to think of it coming from him than her. She just watches Laura and Leia, ready to help with the chains if needed. She could always fuse them into the wall with her power for some extra security.]

[Tightly locked chains hadn't stopped him before, but people tended to underestimate what he was willing to do with his claws and to his own body. Laura wouldn't though. He stayed seated until he was nice and secure. He even made sure he had good and tested it.]

I felt it. It'll be worse now. So I don't want any of ya backin' down, no matter how much of a fuss I kick up. Understood?

[Laura was going to refuse the offer of assistance, but she'd been getting reminded so often about how she couldn't do everything alone, so after a moment she just nodded.]

[She was quite thorough at hooking up the chains though, picking joints and making sure he couldn't turn his wrist enough to reach them with his claws. Lessons from her childhood, about what to do if she ever caught him, were flaring up in her mind, useful but unwanted.]

[When it was finished, she stepped back from the chains and Logan, studying him for a long moment. She wanted to ask him if he was sure, if there was some other way, but she didn't. She knew what he wanted her to do.]

Okay.

[Was her answer to his request, and she lifted a hand, letting one of her claws slide out, ignoring the faint twitch of pain that always accompanied it. She didn't step forward, though, not just yet...]

[Leia helps with the chains, but without such detailed knowledge of Logan's abilities, she can't do much more than assist. Laura clearly has plans for how best to chain the man up.

And then she steps back, nodding her agreement to Logan's request and hoping she won't regret it. Her gaze strays to Laura's claw soon after, and she can't seem to drag her eyes away.]

[Kitty stays close so if something does go wrong and she needs to phase someone out of harm's way she can. She knows they can all take care of themselves, but no one here wants to be fighting each other so simply being intangible for a moment is a nice way to avoid that.] Understood.

[Kitty glances over to Leia to see how she's taking all the mutant high jinks. She gives her a nod. Meant to be reassuring, but she know the strain of this activity first hand now.]

[He tries to stretch himself and wiggle out of the chains. It's no use, though. Laura is good. Sometimes a little too good. This isn't the sort of thing he wanted to subject her to. Not while she was still on her path to searching for her own humanity. Shame there was no one else.

He looked to Leia, the only stranger in this bunch.]

Ya might wanna look away. This ain't gonna be pretty.

Don't worry about me.

[She's seen horrible things before. This is just one more. One that has her gritting her teeth against that lingering chill of trepidation, but that's beside the point. Leia's not about to back down if she can help it.]

[Laura notices Leia eyeing her claw, but says nothing. She's used to being stared at, honestly. As the room seems to settle she finally steps forward, her eyes on Logan's face, mouth turned slightly down. She didn't want to do this, and as she got closer that feeling grew stronger. But was it because of what she needed to do, or because of the implant in her telling her she didn't want to?]

[Or too much of both, maybe? She flexed her fingers several times, unconsciously working up the nerve before she finally brought her hand up next to Logan's skin, the tip of her claw pressing against it. She thought maybe she should say something, but what? It wasn't as though this would be remotely the worst thing Logan had ever felt. Was her hand shaking? A little...but did it matter, she wasn't trying to be precise...]

[With gritted teeth, ignoring the compulsion, she shifted forward, shoving the metal into wolverine, digging for the implant. Blood was immediately all over her hand and arm but she ignored it. She was breathing fast though, and her other hand was clenched into a ball. Suddenly there was an intense ringing in her ears. She could do this. She could do this...]

[Logan wasn't the kind of man to show fear. He had seen a hundred battlefields and been through hell and back and visited death's door too many times to count. He'd felt fear in those times, but he was always able to work through it and find himself on the other side of it.

This was different though. Even before she began to cut, he felt the apprehension gnawing at him. It was pure instinct when the distinctive snikt marked the emergence of his claws. Yet he was bound too tightly to actually free himself, though he certainly tried. When she began to cut into his flesh, he reacted like a wild beast, Precision was meaningless just now. He was rocking dangerously in his chair, his teeth gnashing violently. He must have bit something in his mouth, because blood began to ooze from either corner of his lips.

Logan wasn't doing much thinking just then. Somewhere inside he knew this was irrational, but this was as close to his berserker state he got without actually being in a battle. He should have been able to reel himself back off, but his augment was signalling every single fight or flight instinct in him and the sum of it meant doing every single thing he could do to try and break free and kill his attacker.

The dangerous thing was, with the way his chains seemed to buckle and crack from his efforts, he might just succeed.]

[Not a good situation. As if the fear that comes with the thing wasn't enough Laura's got to deal with him jerking around too. There's too much blood to even clearly see what kind of progress or damage they're making right now. Kitty can hear the chains straining under the pressure. She glances over at Leia to give her a "be ready" look. Hopefully that translates.]

We need that out now. [Because it's the only thing that's going to keep him from breaking those chains at this point. She can grab and phase Laura if that happens though. She's ready for it.]

Logan, hold it together!

[Leia catches Kitty's eye and nods. Her feet have already shifted into a defensive stance beneath her, knees bending, and her face is white and drawn. The blaster is in her hands before she thinks about it; lacking any real Force training, it's her best defense against the man straining to escape his bonds at this point. For all her skills in hand-to-hand combat, Logan's strength and near-animalistic rage would almost certainly overpower her.

At Laura, she snaps:] Do it!

[Before we can all regret this more than we do.]

[Laura growled at that command, low and animalistic and angry, because she was trying to, damn it. She was fighting every impulse she had to stop, to pull her hand away, to flee the room in a blind panic in order to do it. But she was!]

[She could feel muscle giving way beneath her claws, felt the shrill squeal of metal on metal as the tip of her blade hit the metal edges of Logan's bones, the shiver that ran up her arm at the sensation, almost like nails on a chalkboard. Then there was a hitch, and a shift as muscle parted and her claw hit...something else. Something foreign and hard.]

[The implant.]

[For a split second, through the fear, she felt...triumph? Victory? And terror in sudden, excruciating waves, almost more than she could push aside. But she did, pressing the claw forward more, feeling it slid along the outside of the device, something else gave, it might have come loose...]

[Then suddenly there was a shock, like she'd pushed through something she wasn't supposed to, and her entire body jerked at the fear spasm, and she made a noise that was mostly a surprised exhale, perfectly still for two, maybe three seconds...]

[And then she silently collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.]

[Do it.

There was a moment where Logan was lost to reason and was replaced only with cold hot rage. Flight was never an option for him when it came to simply instinct. The berserker in him knew that he couldn't die. And that moment came like flipping a switch the moment Laura's claw touched his augment. He wasn't Logan anymore. He was the Wolverine. A mad vicious beast only out for blood.

While Laura hit the ground, he snarled and spat and cursed and rattled at his chains. His claws were out but the chains his hands bound and outward so that they could not be turned back on his restraints. But although they had been tested against his strength, they hadn't been tested against this where he tapped into an adrenaline and ferocity not easily tapped into. So when the first link snapped, there was scarcely seconds before his claws were tearing through the steel and Logan was free.

Laura was on the ground and ignored. That left Kitty and Leia - but in truth he only saw the weapon. The other was ignored and he charged, seeing not a face but rather a body to kill. In a fight like this, he could typically tell friend from foe. Leia was an unknown though - just a woman with the bad sense to have a weapon trained on him. So he charged ignoring any risk of harm to himself. His right fist and three razor sharp adamantium claws were directed right towards the center of her.]

[Kitty sees Laura buckling before the chains do and she grabs for the girl. She's surprisingly light, but Kitty's thoughts aren't really on why she has the claws but not the full adamantium skeleton at the moment. She's guiding Laura to the ground with few better options when she hears the sound of metal snapping.

Her head jerks up and he's moving too fast. She's already too late, but she's jumping to her feet without a weapon other than herself.] LOGAN, STOP!

[Eyes huge, Leia squeezes the trigger of the blaster as soon as she hears the steel give way. If the bolt of energy does anything to Logan, though, it's not evident to Leia, and by the time she's firing it again, her arms have already been knocked askew by him.

His claws connect a fraction of a second before his fist. They slice into her flesh easily, so smoothly that she feels the punch before anything else. It's after the breath's knocked out of her and she's reeling backward that she realizes her gut is burning.

There's no time to look, so she doesn't. She's too busy trying to fire a third blaster bolt before Logan can tear her limb from limb.]

[The first blaster bolt took him in the shoulder and rolled off his left shoulder, exposing burned and smoldering skin. In his rage, he didn't even feel it. The second one took him in the chest, but that only cost him an extra second.

By the time his claws are drenched in blood, he's already ready go for the throat. The final blast takes him in his left hand before it can make contact, scorching enough of his hand that the tip of three fingers are nothing but metal bones. He hisses and wrenches his right hand out of her and reels it back for a grazing cut designed to sever her head from her shoulders.

In all of it, he never hears Kitty.]

[He may not hear Kitty, but he's about to feel her as she grabs a clump of his hair. Not the safest thing for Kitty, but in this case it does mean he won't be able to touch Leia anymore. She wastes no time dropping him through the floor.] Cut me and I get to see if you really can regrow limbs.

[It's not a thing she wants, but she'll do it if she needs to, and if anyone could survive it, Logan could. She's focused on him right now, but she can tell Leia is still moving at least. Still a live. That's something. In Marina she saw the woman throw around a few tables and chairs with her mind when she was angry. Maybe the adamantium and momentum made it too much for her here or maybe they didn't have the same powers or same control. A question for a time when they aren't all in immediate danger.]

[He was halfway sunk through the floor, but he was still intangible and so his wild clawing was more like useless flailing. She'd caught him by surprise and had succeeded in driving the upper half of his head through the ground, turning his vision to only darkness. For all that he might have experienced a half hundred unique things, this was still unique enough that he didn't truly know how to respond.

But he heard her. And that part of Logan that was always there to be able to subtly guide his berserker state knew her as friend and not foe. Where Leia had been a stranger, Kitty's face was one ingrained in his memory - even if it was a different version of her.

It did not calm him, though he didn't immediately start trying to free himself. Instead he remained in place breathing labored, difficult breaths. Her blaster fire had been deep enough to impact his lungs and it was no easy thing breathing through them in their current state. He spat up blood even as the damage inside him was being repaired. The darkness was calming him, though every so often he would struggle yet never went so far as to actually try to throw her off him.]

[Leia staggers back another step once she sees Kitty grab Logan, glancing down a moment at the ragged red holes he left in her shirt. She's been hit with blaster fire before--set to stun, unlike Logan and his shining finger bones--but she can't remember having been stabbed in a fight. And certainly not stabbed like this.

She wants to shout at Kitty, but the burning sensation is twisting into something searing, spreading out in licks of pain from her stomach. If she didn't think it would make things worse, she'd curl in on herself, her arms around her torso. As it is, her legs are wobbling more and more beneath her, but she'll be damned if she's going to collapse.]

[Is this where she sings a lullaby to him or something? Jean would just get inside his mind and soothe it, but she's fresh out of Jeans at the moment. She can't hold him down there forever and bringing him back up to solid doesn't feel like the best plan at the moment either.]

Logan, no one wants to hurt you. You're safe. [Ish. You know, other than the current imminent peril.] We're all friends here. Leia might not be sending you a gift basket anytime soon, but you can work on that if you just go back to being you now.

[She doesn't chance a glance to Leia, but it's not because she's not worried.]

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