1490/A Sinister Plot: I Was Working In My Lab One Night

A Sinister Plot: I Was Working In My Lab One Night
Date of Scene:	03 May 2020
Location:	An Abandoned Hospital in an Unknown Location
Synopsis:	Awakening. Doctor Nathaniel Essex has brought them together for a project... one that promises to be likely fatal.
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, Julian Keller, Gabby Kinney, Roberto da Costa, Henry McCoy

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Emma Frost has posed:
Cold white industrial tile flooring spreads throughout the laboratory. And it is a laboratory, any one with half a brain can see it. The main room is circular, with the tile floor sloped every so slightly towards an eight inch metal drain grate in the very center, visible under the wheels and risers of the hospital bed almost directly above it. The bed has no pillow, no covering save the pitiful 'mattress' and its pristine sheet, though a set of restraints hang from the bars of the side rails, swaying slightly as if they are dancing in expectation. A second, similar hospital bed languishes nearby, pulled aside for cleaning.

The formerly pristine cover is splattered with blood, the red marks drying to an iron-filled brown. There is, to the discerning eye, slight dents in the railing where the restraints hang. The bed has been dismissed for now, waiting to be renewed before being used again. Dirty equipment, needing cleaned and sanitized. Such is how things are in a laboratory.

A trio of carts built for computer equipment surround the clean bed, though, each with their own screens and keyboards. In a high tech world of touchscreens and virtual reality displays, the clunky CRTs look almost like a joke, their green and white text a throwback to an older, simpler time. A small surgeon's cart with a variety of scalpels, clamps, spreaders and even a few less surgical tools like pliers and snips are only a short roll away from the computers. There are other pieces of equipment that might be recognizable to those of a medical bent: older models, but they check out: electrocardiogram machine, a ventilator, what might be an old electroconvulsive therapy machine... and of course tall hanging racks for IVs.

Surrounding the large, circular room are a dozen 8 foot wide force fields leading into cells, each of them identical save for their occupants. There are three large, heavy steel doors spaced equidistant around the room and between the cells, leading to places unknown. The doors are solid, save for the smallest of windows at the top, which only show darkness beyond.

The lab is brightly lit. Too brightly, perhaps. Not a single place to hide, not a shadow to be seen. The overheads are glaring down on any within the lab, with a pair of additional, focused lights much like those above a dentist's chair, hanging above the bed in the center.

The room is not empty of people, no. A man sits on a rolling stool at one of the computers, pale and sallow skin almost glowing in the eerie green light of the screen. He wears a spotless white lab coat, black boots and pants visible beneath it, black eyes glittering as he types. His dark hair is neat and perfectly combed back, and in the center of his forehead a single red gem gleams, flicking like fire in the reflection of the screen.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost awakens. It's a slow thing, disorienting, confusing. It's almost like waking up blinded, or deafened. Since she was a preteen, she had always been surrounded by the low mental buzz of other people's thoughts, like the background noise of a busy bar.

Nothing.

Is she even awake? Where is she? Emma stretches out an arm, her wrist hitting a cold metal railing on the side of the uncomfortable bed she's laying on. Blinking, she sits up, looking around.

Concrete walls. She's in a hospital bed, in a hospital gown. And she's cold. There's a thin blanket, almost no thicker than a sheet, bunched at the foot of the bed. She grabs it and tugs it around herself as she looks around, dazed. The front of the room is open, at least it seems, leading out into what looks to her to be a larger hospital room-- maybe an operating room? HOw would she know, she's no doctor... and behind her is a heavy, slightly rusted metal door that is heavily shut.

She reaches up to hold her head in her hands. It's like something is broken, missing. And the disorientation keeps her from moving out of the bed yet as she tries to collect her bearings with one her primary senses disabled. Because of this, it takes her a moment to feel the heft of the collar at her throat. Her fingers run across it in confusion. Without a mirror, she cannot see it, but she can feel the smooth metals and plastics that make it up, and the lack of a clear way to take it off.

Between that and her missing telepathy, its enough to send an icy dagger of terror into Emma's soul. Where is she? What's happening? THe last she remembered was getting in a cab to head to the airport...

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller wakes up groggy. At first, he assumes it's just a hangover - his last memories were of clubbing, taking pictures and video with his phone. A phone that definitely isn't under his pillow. That makes him open his eyes, sitting up a bit and shaking his head.

"What the hell?" he mutters aloud, looking at his surroundings. Was this a hospital? Had he been in accident? He didn't feel injured, except there was something weird on his neck.

He lays fingers on the collar and his blood runs a little bit cold. Yeah, that's not good. He tries to use his mind to flex his poewr, snap it off, but...nothing. Nothing at all.

"Oh shit," he says, looking around quickly, trying to get a sense of it, "Hey! What the fuck's going on?!?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Cold. Not chilly - cold. The cold of A/C run too high in a effort to keep body tempratures down purposefully made colder yet by the chemical smell of a sterile environment and the stiff-scratchy feel of a too-thin gown beneath a too-thin sheet. An all too familiar thing for Gabby to wake to. She didn't want to wake to this. She'd had such a pleasant dream. Such a warm dream full of laughter, and friends, and family. Not *this*. Not again.

The smallest figure in the numerous cells barely shifts beneath her sheet as she draws a deep breath. There was no enhanced senses here, but that didn't mean she couldn't get a better smell of the place. It was the same, yet just enough different. A different sterilizing chemical, likely just a different brand than what she grew up around. So... Not Alchemax. Yet. The same.

Before she can fully rouse she hears a familiar voice from that dream of freedom. It's this that causes her to finally sit up in the bed with one hand reaching out automatically to grasp the handrail on the side to help pull herself up. The weight of the collar is felt then causing her to reach up with her free hand with a frown.

"Julian?" She calls out even though she knows it's him. Hard to miss that particular surge of anger in his voice. "Yeah, we're in a lab." Now she does glance around, and out past that slight haze of an energy barrier with a frown.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
The cold hits Roberto before he opens his eyes, though when he does he finds something mingling with the cold he feels, disorientation, where was he? What happened? The last thing he remembered was taking Steph to the Hyperloop station after Warren's party and then-

He clutches the thin scratchy blanket to himself. "Here," he says aloud. "Wherever here is."

Looking around he starts to feel panic mingling with the cold and the disorientation. He sits up, absently reaching for his powers to warm him up a bit while he looks around. They're not there. That wellspring of energy at the core of him is unreachable. The panic begins to rise as he reaches for it harder. Still gone.

He curses in Portugese and vaults off the bed, He opens his mouth to shout for help, but he stops himself. Instead making himself breathe like he was taught at the school. Relax, get centred, think.

He goes to the door and gives it a try first, then on to the forcefield peering through at the grim sight beyond. This was not good.

Hearing Gabby and Julian. "Hey, it's Roberto," he calls out. "Any of you guys know what's going on here?"

Henry McCoy has posed:
Cold. That was a sensation Henry rarely had to consider, what with the thick fur which normally covered his frame. But here he was, cold. His eyes slowly opened, peering up at the blank ceiling. Not his home. Not his room. Nothing he'd ever seen before. The man sits up with a start, trying to make sense of this. There's a gasp, an audible gasp, as his eyes first see his arms. Bare, human arms. Fingers move up to his face, carefully, almost as if he fears burning them somehow. When he finds no fur, his eyes widen. "Good lord." He whispers, turning to look around the room now.

A blank cell with an open wall. Still no clues as to what happened, or where he was. Fingers had trailed over the collar in passing - ignoring it for the revelation of being normal. They travel back there again, recognizing the design, if not the intent. As he tries to puzzle everything together, he spots a familiar face.

Sinister.

There is no time to call an alarm, no time to think. If he's distracted, it is possible to get the drop on him. Muscles tense, the man still in amazing shape. And then he's dashing at the opening, looking to dive tackle the bastard who was calmly working at the computer.

Only to smash into the forcefield with a crack, bloodying his nose. Shaking off the stars, he pounds at the invisible barrier. "You! YOU! SET US FREE!"

Emma Frost has posed:
The doctor doesn't even look up from his computer, even as a hue and cry is raised from the various cells. For it's not just voices that the Xavier's folks may recognize crying out in fear and anger, but at least 3 or 4 others as well from other cells.

Even as Hank smashes into the forcefield, the doctor doesn't even seem to bother noticing. A few more taps of the keyboard. He rubs his chin in thought. "Mm, yes. It seems my patients are waking up. Most of them, at least."

It is not a cape that flows behind him as he moves to his feet, but somehow the lab coat fluttering as he moves is more sinister than even a tattered cape might be. He stands, arms folded behind his back, idly regarding the cells around him and their contents, turning slowly to make eye contact with them all in turn.

"Good morning." It might be morning. It doesn't really matter when you can't see the sun, or a clock. "I am Doctor Essex, and I'm afraid you are all part of my latest experiment. I understand you may all be feeling a bit disoriented from your arrival. Please understand that your comfort is of absolutely no interest to me."

He is quiet a few more moments, observing those in their cells. He cocks his head to the side, as if in thought. "I will, however, offer what minor apology I might for what you are about to endure. It will be... excruciating. But it is for the greater good." He pauses. "And if you don't believe me, then you can believe that I will make the best use of your sacrifice for my own ends. This is for science, so please, be honest."

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma curls up on her bed, staring in disbelief at the sight outside her cell. When she hears familiar voices, however, she replies, "Julian? Roberto? Is that you?" She can't feel their familiar 'presence', the tinge of arrogance mixed with anger that is Julian, the jocular confidence that is Roberto. The other voices, she can't quite place, but those two she knows from years of running in the same social circles.

She stumbles out of the hospital bed, tripping over the thin sheet as she does, hitting the concrete floor with a hard thud. It hurts. Going to leave bruises. But she scrambles upright and moves towards their voices, and the forcefield.

Only to catch Sinister's gaze as he looks over his victims, and shiver, shrinking back. Without her telepathy, what defense does she have? She can't just make him decide to go away, like she's always done.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller comes to the edge of the forcefield, stopping just short of it, "Gabby?!" he calls out, hearing her first and then the others afterward, including the enraged voice of Dr. McCoy, even if that isn't as immediately familiar as the others.

He's about to respond further when Sinister speaks, interrupting any thought of what he was saying until his fists are clenched.

"You can't possibly get away with this absurdity. We will be inevitably rescued. You would do better to free us now and flee before you're found," he swallows heavily. "You...you can't do this!"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Dr. McCoy?" That was a familiar voice, too, as well as, "Hi Emma! Be careful, this place isn't comfy." In fact this was, well, rather like her original 'home' as it were. With a sigh she scooches off the bed to land on her feet before turning back to the bed. Even as the others begin to yell and protest and demand their removal. Even as Sinister gives his speech.

"Funny how the greater good doesn't ever help anyone but the person doing the tests," she snarks back a bit with irritation. She was doing her best to remain calm. She really was. But she was isolated from others who were losing their cool, who she would want to NOT be in this situaiton either... And to top it off?

She tugs the blanket off the bed and folds it in half before draping it over herself. Turning to look out at Essex she clucks her tongue a single time with a shake of her head before turning to head to the back of the cell where that toilet was.

Only to plop herself down on it, and release the edge of the blanket so it rolls down around herself AND the toilet to offer some privacy. Some. This was clearly not her first rodeo in such a situation.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto had figured his dad was paranoid when he sent him to 'kidnapping training' but then he was the son of a billionaire in Brazil of all places, it was a genuine threat. Unfortunately all of that training had been focused more on 'what if someone kidnaps you for ransom' not 'what if you're kidnapped by an insane and homicidal mad scientist so most of that training was blown right out of the water right now. Roberto struggled to get through what was left. 'Keep mentally active', 'keep physically active', establish rapport with your captors and figure out what they want.

Sadly nothing about punching things until your anger and fear goes away, because Roberto wanted to do that so bad his hands were balled into fists and trembling, but the rapport thing...

Roberto steps up to the force field, "So what's the experiment?" he asks. "I mean might as well know what we're being sacrificed for."

Henry McCoy has posed:
There's no getting around the anger that Hank has right now. Children, his students are in danger! Fists pound at the forcefield to no avail. Palms press to the energy field, the man moving to the edges to trace along the seam. Weakness. There has to be a weakness - any other option is disregarded for now.

"Don't tell him anything. Nothing." He says to the others, peering out to see if the others are easily spottable. "This man is insane."

I mean, it had to be said, right? "No ethics, no morals, no redemption. He is a scientist of the most foul sort."

Emma Frost has posed:
"You may be discovering that you currently find yourself bereft of your powers and abilities as granted to you by your X-Gene." Dr. Essex glances to Roberto in particular as he answers. "That is because I have long posited that extreme duress is required in order to manifest secondary, perhaps even tertiary mutations. Of course, it is easier to inflict that duress when you are in a less than able state, hmm?"

He chuckles at Dr. McCoy. "Ethics and morality are the shackles that fools and simpletons bind themselves with." He smiles, though it isn't pleasant. "Imagine what you might have done without fettering yourself so, Doctor McCoy. Ah. If only I have found you sooner. Imagine what we could have accomplished with you working by my side..."

Emma Frost has posed:
Touching the collar at her throat, Emma continues to back away from the forcefield, and as she hits the foot of the bed, moves aside and continues to back further away until her back is against the hard steel door in the back of the cell. "Torture?" she manages. She's had similar training to Roberto in that sense, and she's no idiot. For all Essex's flowery words, that's what he's promising.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller didn't have any training about that, not because no one would try to kidnap him, but simply because his parents didn't care enough to bother. Julian knew better than to claim his father would have him rescued. It would take his parents months to even realize he'd gone missing. His only hope was the X-men.

With Emma and Hank alike there, he took a step back and sat on the edge of the bed. In way, it was a relief - they were the adults, the teachers, the responsible ones. They would handle things. If they needed his help, they'd say so, although what possible use he could be without his powers, he had no idea. If the key to getting out was using social media or a derisive and cutting remark...well, even the latter could be better done by Emma.

"It's going to be okay," he calls over to Gabby. "I don't know how. But it will be. Can you...do you feel any pain?" he asks. He wouldn't normally worry about her being tortured, but...

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney just sits on the toilet hunched over with her chin resting on her fisted hand as she listens to the exchanges. It allows her time to examine her surroundings fully while hopefully being ignored for the most part. Essex seemed far more interested in chatting with Dr. McCoy after all. And poor Emma and Roberto and Julian.

The door was solid she could tell. The ceiling was too. No chance in popping any drop ceilings to escape. The energy field... Well, Dr. McCoy was already proving THAT was solid though she might test how it fairs with liquids later.

After running through all the things she could think of to offer ways to escape, or potential weapons, she turns her attention back to the 'conversation' going on.

"It's okay, Emma, it'll be okay," she offers out to the panicked woman knowing all too well how frightening this was. That tense lump in the pit of her stomach had returned. At Julian's own reassurance and question her head jerks up, "I'm fine, Julian. I'm not injured," she assures. "Just can't remember what happened."

Henry McCoy has posed:
The doctor shakes his head. "You are nothing. You are a void of useless information, tainted by the means you collect. You are a failure of a scientist." He hears everything from the other man, the words stinging so much internally. Secondary mutations, it rings so close to the serum he had created which turned him into the blue Beast he is.... was.

"When they come for us, there will be no safe haven for you, Sinister. No hole deep enough to hide in." Hank growls.

Emma Frost has posed:
One of the doors into the operating theatre creaks open, and, for those from Xavier's, a familiar tall, slim form steps into the room, dressed in a form-fitting black bodysuit with a familiar visor across his eyes.

"Doctor. You asked for me?" Very... familiar.

Essex looks over to his assistant and nods. "Ah, excellent. Let us begin with patient Four." He leans over to his computer. "Ah. Florakinesis. An utterly useless ability in most cases, but perhaps we will find something of more value as your powers grow."

The slim man in the bodysuit nods once, sharply, stepping to one of the cells forcefields and tapping a few buttons, the forcefield disappating. The person inside begins pleading in a high pitched voice as he steps inside. In moments, he is literally dragging a struggling young woman roughly Emma's age out of the cell, manhandling her onto the hospital bed. She fights fairly hard, though mostly ineffectively. At one point, she manages to jerk her arm away from him before he can apply the restraints.

Essex frowns. He cocks his head, and the woman's arm seems to be slammed down for the restraint by an unseen force. The assistant nods gratefully for the help, and once she is clipped down, steps away, standing nearby.

She struggles.

Essex shakes his head. "What is the nature of fear?" he asks, almost to himself. He takes a scalpel off the surgeons tray. "Why were we created with the capacity to know pain?" He holds up a single finger. "To learn."

He cuts. There is a sharp splurt of blood, and terrified scream.

"Suction, please," the good doctor advises his assistant, before returning to his bloody work. "This is simple, you know. Sharp pain. Life leaving the body. Set a line, please, 17." The assistant puts down the small tool he had been using to clear off the bulk of the blood, reaching over for the kit to set an IV in the patient's arm. She whimpers as he does, but is too frozen to fight as hard as she had been.

The assistant hangs an IV of a light blue liquid at the head of the operating bed, clicking the line into place. The liquid begins hitting her veins, and she shrieks again.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller lays back on the bed. "That's...that's good," he says back to Gabby. He laces his fingers across his belly, absorbing what's going on. They've been kidnapped. They're going to be experimented on. Tortured. And, while he does believe they'll be rescued in time, time is a very relative concept and there's a big difference between being rescued this afternoon and being rescued in a month. There might not be much of them left in a month.

The screaming and squealing from the current patient causes him to roll over in his bed, hiding his face against the wall. Not very heroic, maybe, but Julian didn't feel very heroic right now. He felt like a victim. So he might as well act like one. And if there are tears, well, they're silent enough and nobody's going to hear any of it above the other noises...

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney knew who Scott was though she hadn't ever seen him in that outfit before. It was hard to miss that visor though. The funky red glass stuff. The stupid voice. That jaw. Even if she wasn't as familiar with Scott as she was with Alex, there's a familial resemblance there that makes her pause with eyes narrowed. "Son of a..." Fuck. Fucking fucker. FUCKING ASSFUCKINGFUCKER.

It's all screamed in her mind rather than out loud: The lesson to remain quiet in the lab was still there in spite of everything. Stay quiet, listen, find an opening. If there isn't one yet, wait for it.

"Hey... Hey! You're doing some shitty scientific theory here!" She calls out as she finally gets up from the toilet which was thankfully unused. It just made a good chair. "Even I know that and I'm a kid. You're supposed to have controls, variables... This isn't science you're doing! You just want to hurt people and have an excuse for it!"

Roberto da Costa has posed:
When "17" walks into the room Roberto feels hope blossom in his heart only to wilt when that familiar face does Sinister's bidding. Was that what was in store for them then? Servitude after torture and experimentation? Roberto had to swallow down the sick feeling that rises at the back of his throat.

A feeling that rises all the more as the woman on the table starts to scream. "Hey!" Roberto shouts pounding on the force field, "Hey! Scott! Scott! Wake the hell up and blast this asshole! You got to save that girl man, you got to!" he continues to hammer on the shield.

Henry McCoy has posed:
Henry's emotions are so much easier to read now - no fur obscuring the facial givaways. His face pales, spotting Scott and seeing his actions. "We rescued him before, we will do it again." He growls, renewing his hammering of fists on the force field. There is pain in his eyes, though the source isn't the soreness in his hands. It's the helplessness - the inability to help another. The fact that he's locked in, while a woman suffers.

Emma Frost has posed:
"Hm. A interesting reaction." Essex puts down the bloody scalpel. He reaches over, increasing the flow of the strange liquid. He reaches down beneath the bottom of the computer cart, and sets a pot with a vining rose plant on the surgeons cart next to him.

"It's right there," he coos. "Your salvation. You can do it. Make it grow, make it strangle us. Save yourself."

The young woman's eyes widen, and she looks at the plant like one would look at water after a week in the desert. Frantically, she tries and uses her powers on it, the whites of her eyes tinging a pale blue.

Just...

    ...just....

        ...just one little....

She screams again, and begins sobbing. "I can't, I can't, I can't."

The assistant snarls at her. "Try HARDER." That same voice, the same commanding voice, but with no pity in it.

Essex only smiles at the barked order. "Yes, my dear. You need only push past the restriction of the collar, and you'll be free."

She writhes on the operating bed, blood trickling to the floor, staring at the plant as if it is her only savior. "Please..." it's not clear if she is pleading with Essex or the potted plant. "Just..."

She begins seizing.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma lets out a strangled cry as she watches the scene in horror. She knew that face, though not as well, of course, as she knew the face of his younger brother. What was this? Had all of this been some kind of trick all along? Kids from the school-- she knew some of their voices. Had he been some kind of viper, even hiding his true designs from Jean?

She didn't know. She couldn't know, because she couldn't just TURN HIS MIND INTO A WASTELAND like she desperately wanted to do to them both.

<<Tut tut,>> the doctor's voice echoes in her own skull. <<Those thoughts are not very kind ones, little one.>>

She sinks to the floor. She had nothing to respond with, not even righteous indignation at him daring to teep into her own soveriegn mind.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller curls up, fetal style, his knees tucked up against his chest. He knows this kind of man all too well, this imperial, smug, self-satisfied man. Convinced of his own genius, his own righteousness. No reasoning or pleading will work on him. They only reward him, a sadist's treasure in the gathered tears of the broken. Julian might cry, yes, he might feel despair.

But he'll be damned if he gives that son of a bitch an ounce of the satisfaction that will come from his screams. He resolves that, whatever he goes through, whatever he suffers, he will suffer silently. He might break, yes. But he's going to try and the moment his collar is broken or overloaded or undone, he will wrap his poewr around Essex's head and he will crush and crush and crush with all his telekinetic might.

But he can't. Not yet. So he waits and hides within his head and tries not to see and not to think, just like he always used to when his father had been drinking and his mother was passed out and everything in the world was JULIAN's fault. Just the way it had been when he grew up.

Yes, he knew Sinister's type very well.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney lifts a hand to rest against that invisible barrier feeling the press of it against her fingertips. The cheerful disposition has faded to the far more jaded expression she used to wear when dealing with such things. She had no sisters around to cheer up this time. Just... just friends, having to go through this. At least she was familiar with it to some extent. She could survive. Could they?

Could that girl on the table?

"Just stop it."

Henry McCoy has posed:
He wasn't a medical doctor, not by degree. But Hank still felt the need to uphold the Hippocratic Oath - still felt the pain of the woman. "Stop, Essex. Stop. You are killing her." He growls, eyes darting to the woman, ignoring the doctor and Scott for the moment.

Scott... that... there had to be an explanation. He wouldn't do this, not after being rescued from Essex. Perhaps he was being mind controlled? Forced into this? There had to be a reason.

Emma Frost has posed:
The girl continues seizing, blood spilling faster from her rapid pulse, her shaking body. Her eyes don't close, the whites rapidly becoming more blue.

She stops moving.

Her eyes don't close.

Essex snorts. "Such a pity." He grabs a syringe and draws up a hefty amount of her remaining blood. "I'll have to compare it, but I think it might be... lacking." He lays the syringe on the table, turning away, a bored expression on his face.

"Take it away and dispose of it."

The assistant nods. "Yes, Doctor." He unstraps the body, roughly yanking out the IV line, the plastic tubing dripping on the floor as he grabs the woman's body, slinging it over his shoulder, then moves out of the room through the door he came in.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma bites her knuckles, trying not to scream, not to draw attention to herself. She's never seen someone die before.

Sure, she's intellectually aware of the concept. But in reality? No. Never.

Roberto pounds a fist once, helplessly, on the force field. He watches Scott leave. It has to be mind control. And if this doctor can mind control Scott Summers? Is anyone safe? Of all the X-Men that weren't telepaths themselves, he seems like the one with the most training in resisting that sort of thing.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian calls out, not to Essex, but the others. "He doesn't care. Isn't it obvious he doesn't care? We wouldn't be here if we did..." He glimpses 'Cyclops' out of the corner of his eye, but doesn't trust it. Doesn't trust anything. He might not even really be here. He might be trapped in virtual reality or drugged out of his mind.

He might not even be him.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney watches. She makes herself watch. She makes herself remember every twitch every movement every line of that girl's face. Even as her eyes begin to water and tear from the helpless rage and pain she feels for the loss of life. Another one added to the list she kept in the back of her head carefully under wraps so she didn't end up like Laura. Like Logan. Too much rage and not enough life.

"I know," she responds quietly to Julian as she finally turns to glance away when the girl is taken out. There was nothing left to memorize at this point. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop caring. Someone has to."

Henry McCoy has posed:
His forehead presses to the forcefield, fist still thumping against it slowly. He has no words, no jokes or puns to fling at the situation. His mind is a-whirl with thoughts - escape, revenge, protecting his friends. And again, his mind races back to Scott and his role in this. A flash of anger and a growl, though much less bestial than is normal from him.

"Once we're free, Essex. You are going to pay."