2012-12-16 Dungeons of Latveria Part 1

How much time did the team have before their window of opportunity was closed? There was no way to tell, it all hinged upon how long their allies on the battlefront beyond could keep Doctor Doom and his machinations of war distracted. Even then, no one could know with absolute certainty how much time they would be granted to conduct the herculean task of freeing Doom's prisoners. Every second that passed would dictate the fate of those victims they had come here to save. Every second was precious.

When at last the portal was closed, the team split into groups, hoping to cover as much ground as possible before the proverbial hammer fell. Splitting up was an idea that made Shift nervous, for when faced against Victor Von Doom, strength comes only in numbers. There are cuts on his face, at least where it is exposed beneath the mask he wears, a battle scar from his victory against one of the tyrant's DoomBots. There are cuts on his exposed knuckles where he'd put his rage against the door of a cell, but that door had been rendered into pieces by the psionic blade of Psylocke.

As Betsy emerges from the cell with Carol slung over her shoulder, the brevity of their reunification strikes him at once. He'd had time to recover, to regain his strength and health, to seek out the assistance of others much wiser than him and with far more resources. However, for Betsy, she'd had time to suffer countless hours under what was undoubtedly the same type of psychological terror Doom had inflicted upon them all. How many times had she watched the recording of him, beleaguered and filled with narcotics, weakened in both mind and body? How many times had she been forced to watch him pulling the trigger, seeming to end her life? To commit the only type of betrayal that was constituted of absolute finality?

The sight of his friend struggling to carry the unconscious Danvers pulls him back from the momentary lapse in control, long before it manages to register on his exposed mouth. What look is given to his eyes remains safely concealed behind the mask as he steps forward, reaching for Carol. "I'll take her," breathes the Ghanaian, his voice still strong and strength long remaining in his body. "We must keep moving."

From the side comes a weary sigh, "This ranks right up there among the list of places I never wanted to return to." Domino's got her carbine held in one hand with the sling taut around her shoulder, keeping her off-hand free for every other purpose. Things might seem like polar opposites between the other two, by comparison after she had left this place the first time around she had taken on jobs and gotten hammered a lot. The mercenary's core has noticably hardened, but compared to the others? She's had it easy.

"Betsy, is that really you?" The question is almost superficial by now, Dom had felt the mind reader within her thoughts. She knew Psylocke is alive and kicking inside of Doomstadt with the rest. To finally lay eyes upon her once more, it's what brings everything back together into a coherent whole. "Wolverine's right, you -do- look like hell." The good news is that they didn't all risk everything in coming back here to search for a dead woman. The bad news, they still have to escape from this hellish place.

At least she hasn't yet taken a scratch. Only down a few rounds and one pistol that had been destined for Shift's permanent possession. She's doing surprisingly well so far.

It's said that actions speak louder than words. Sometimes that's true...

And at other times, actions are just *easier*.

Psylocke's businesslike manner has nothing to do with the consummate grace by which she's traversed the psychological perils of her imprisonment, nor the lack of accompanying issues raised between she and her friends and teammates. Her final command telepathically made, the kunoichi is quick to move off through the upward-snaking dungeon corridors because to do literally anything else would force her to face the demons she's been fighting since long before Blink unleashed her from Doom's bonds. The rescue team is left to coordinate in her wake, as she moves with all the speed and precision she can muster, telekinetic blade wielded as much like a shield as a weapon. She's simply too busy for words, pleasant and otherwise.

As the reality of her situation strikes Shift, it's not long struck her. That moment came when she first stepped through the umpteenth smoking doorway, beholding in the cell yet another form that should not be; inhabited by a soul and a mind she failed to sense even with her heightened telepathic capabilities, so dim and unrecognizable it had become. Like most of the other prisoners-- a shadow of a person, or in this case a half-shadow. The alien half indiscernable. Immediately a lump rose in her throat, her breath catching and the hard, cold edge lost.

It's all she can do to restore it, and take heavy, stumbling steps from the cell. Carol Danvers, while well-formed, is not a small woman; and even after the ill effects of her own tenure in the dungeon, she's far from a lightweight. Betsy is struggling immediately, grimace pronounced in its frustrated desperation as she forces the mask back into place. "Nobody," she echoes herself and the third, rolling mantra, "Gets left behind." Herself included. She just has to...

Keep moving.

There's a jolt from the sweat-stained, bloodied and broken kunoichi when dark-skinned hands reach out toward her, interrupting the singular bullet-train progression of her thoughts. For the third time she's forced to painfully assess reality, to meet the circumstance on terms she's been utterly devoted to avoiding. Clarice forced her eyes open by necessity, and now Kwabena does it through some deeply pragmatic form of empathy. When she had control, she could face him, behold his visage and hear his voice without faltering-- after all, by her reckoning he was the one who'd suffered. She's merely endured the after-effects of her own failure. Now that the tables are turned, now that her body is finally failing beneath the weight of another, she can no longer look down from on high. Confident in being aloof. Her teeth grit until enamel screams.

"No, I..." She begins to speak before realizing she can't, and it's with absolute surrender that she allows him to take the burden. But her posture slumps rather than rises, knees weakening and shoulders refusing to stay up, for a precious instant that undoes her. "Nobody," she murmurs with a sudden, frantic air of panic, both hands driving toward the floor before her as she falls. One arm makes it first, a quivering palm catching hard stone, scraping away the dried blood left behind by her fingernails. The wound reopens and worsens, emitting another blackish gout into the gloom. It's pain she barely feels as she takes several, heaving breaths.

It's another voice that drags her away from the descending curtain, the veil of her tangled, dirty hair brushed aside by the failed hand as she tips her head aside and her face upward, peering past the purple mess to find a familiar, patch-eyed face.

"Heh," it's a weak little syllable, an attempt at laughter that ranks among the very lowest. Lips smeared crimson over unhealthy, pallid flesh pull into a crooked would-be grin. "Don't look... too bad, yourself." The words are unexpected, catty banter turning into the nearest to a compliment she's publicly paid the mercenary. That useless grin closes, becoming a smile that's nigh-on serene; the first sign of anything approaching pleasure she's displayed in weeks. And then Betsy promptly falls flat over her folding arm, faceplanting roughly into the dungeon floor. It's probably just as well her nose was already broken.

Indeed, Domino asks the question that has been bothering Shift. 'Is that really you?' Without some kind of cold, hard proof, it would be difficult to tell. The woman Shift had murdered looked like Betsy, spoke like her, even smelled like her. How far could their enemy's deception go? Could he even go so far as to simulate her telepathic prowess? There is a moment where Shift looks sideways toward Psylocke, wondering the same thing. However, he quickly dismissed it. What would they do, leave her behind? Play twenty questions? They had little choice but to accept that it truly was her, and pray that she wouldn't turn out to be some holographic figment of their imaginations.

"It's her," offers Kwabena in answer to Domino's hopefully rhetorical question. However, soon he's distracted with managing those prisoners that they have set free. The collars are easily broken, for what ever power controls them has, by design or stroke of luck, been disabled. One by one Shift ushers the prisoners out into the hallways in the wake of Psylocke's slashing of their cell doors, choosing which ones are the strongest to help muster and care for those who have become weakened. His words are like those of a commander, a tone unlike anything either of his compatriots have ever witnessed, and though they are stern, there is a touch of empathy reserved for each person that they rescue, as if telling them in spirit that they will be alright, even if that was more a fools hope than certainty.

When at last Psylocke has relieved Carol to him, Kwabena briefly struggles under her weight. Lips peel back to show gritting teeth, but in short order a crackling sound emerges from beneath the mutant's form-fitting costume, the fabric of which seems to mimic the hardening of his skin. That manipulation of his own flesh strengthens him in due form, and with a single thrust of his legs and upper body, he has Carol draped over his shoulders with hands holding her arms and legs to keep her stable.

Shift is about to move along when Betsy falls, causing him to stop in his tracks. He spins about, eyes widened with concern beneath the mask, but there's little he can do with an unconscious super-hero-Colonel on his shoulders. With a grunt, he drops to one knee, and gently lays her down against the dungeon wall. "Hold up," he issues.

"We're no good if we move too fast. Logan and de othah's will keep moving. Dom, do you have any water?" He tips his head toward Psylocke indicatively.

Yep, there she is. Aaand there she goes. Domino's mood only goes right back to its darkened corner, a place which she hadn't been to in quite some time until after landing within this part of the castle the first time around. No one has passed through here without being changed, and everyone's changed differently from the other. She's very nearly killed Shift on an occasion or two, very nearly shot at Blink a moment ago, and very nearly gotten -herself- killed on a few more occasions. She's not the cautious creature she had once been, now leaning towards the flat-out reckless. Yet, for as much as she pushes herself and the greater the risks she's been taking, one thing has always remained true.

She survives.

Her powers have taken up the slack, kept pace with her every step of the way. After having escaped from Doom's grasp, she's barely been touched. It's enough to leave a part of her feeling absolutely guilty, now looking at her former 'boss' lying in a pool of her own blood upon the cold, unforgiving stone floor. Here is what remains of something that had been beautiful, strong and confident. What price did Dom have to pay? Perhaps the only thing which shoved her into a dark place is the knowledge that her allies had to endure their own fates and she couldn't do anything to prevent it.

She also broke her third rule of survival. Never get close to anyone. One little slip is all that it took. One giant wake-up call later and she's closed herself off. Because of these two, -especially- because of these two, she's forced herself to change once more. Conscience or not, she's a killer who steals all of the good luck for herself. Those around her tend to draw the shortest straws imaginable.

Dropping to a knee beside the mind-reader, Domino slings the carbine and pulls out a tiny bottle about the size and shape of a battery, twisting the cap free and dropping a single pill out. Soon added to it is a small canteen, though it's not water contained within. Both are held down for Betsy. "It'll space your head, be flying too high to care about the pain." Her biggest concern is getting Psylocke on her feet, moving under her own power as much as possible. Hide the agony for now, it can be handled once they're all out of this country.

Hindsight provides this tableau with almost too much irony; that the graceful, composed creature whose passionate convictions led the original group into this palatial hellhole is now prone and pathetic, unable even to execute the one, single-minded purpose to which she can bear to put herself, while those whose torments she has watched endlessly - and even taken upon herself, believing her will suitably strong - look on from above. Were she possessed of enough remaining rationality to adequately reason, Betsy would find it more bitter still that she believed these two - and Blink, and Carol - were the price she had paid for failure.

But there's sweetness there, too, isn't there? If they've become stronger, if they can now carry her... she told Von Doom that she was functionally worthless, that her surviving friends wouldn't come back because they didn't *need* her. Blink, Kwabena and Domino prove her resoundingly correct in the one estimation; though it's the other that stirs first her need to get up, to defy her physical state once more. The offer of assistance enables her. It's not something she's proud of. Where other girls dreamed of being rescued from castles by brave knights, Betsy always envisioned the opposite-- she flew the plane, she stormed the walls, she won the epic duel against the vicious tyrant. Just accepting what she is, what she's become, takes an effort that body and brain both conspire to tell her she's incapable of.

"S'not the pain," she blearily protests, swallowing back a tremendous wave of nausea as she struggles to force Kwannon's form back off the ground. Separating her soul from her body helps, perversely; and she moves, dust-specked blood trickling from her chin, down her throat as she eases back onto her knees. One violet eye is closed, masked by stinging strands of hair, a fresh cut upon her brow gushing ichor into the lash-shielded socket. "It's..."

A hand rises, shaking, to accept the pill, and another takes the canteen. She goes through these ministrations before speaking further, a hiss emitted after she swallows, along with another, full-body shudder that sets her teeth to momentary rattling.

"You." Her single-eyed gaze finds Domino's, that optic wide and frank until with another internal battle it flicks to Kwabena. Instantly darkening with shame and fear. It's a curious reversal; the warmth she exhibits toward the mercenary, coupled with a vast distance between she and the Ghanaian. "And... you." It even tells in the intonation of her speech; she hasn't got the control to make it otherwise, now. "All of you. Shouldn't have come back. D--" She pauses, mouth closing abruptly and throat palpitating as her body threatens to refuse the pill and the accompanying, heady liquid. She's forced to swallow it anew. "Deserved... this."

A hand sweeps vaguely around and down, indicating both she and the dank dungeon. Her eye lingers back to Domino, glistening briefly before she work of hardening completes once more. Tears are held back, but she can do nothing about the bitter, downturned rictus of her mouth.

"Y'should have left me here." Her glance slips to Shift, and quickly back. "T'die."

Satisfied that Carol will be safe for the time being, Kwabena spares a momentary glance toward those they have rescued so far. His commanding words seem to have done their work, for those who have the strength to stand and care for the others have taken cue by the trio's pause, and have moved to check on those who sit and lie in pause, only to briefly look over toward their would be heroes as they care for their fallen comrade.

Moving across the way, Shift kneels down before Psylocke, watching her from behind his mask with a sense of grief that he just can't keep from trickling into his hardened soul. His skin relaxes its tension just so, for he simply can't help but let the mutation running through his body from responding to his slackened spirit. Lips are pressed into a thin line as she tries to compose her words, for he just can't help but be stricken by her anguish.

The Ghanaian reaches up to his face, slipping fingers beneath the flexible hood and drawing it down from his head, letting it flop against his chest. More cuts and lacerations are revealed, with one particularly nasty one stretching from his ear and down his cheek, along with some other cuts and scratches upon his bald head. The grief in his eyes, however, quickly transforms when its taken by defiance at her last words. Meaningful words, with a look directed briefly to him before speaking of her own death.

"Stop what you ah doing," breathes Shift, while reaching with a glove-stained hand to find hers again. "None of us deserved da hell we were put t'rough," he urges. "We came for de right reasons, now we leave for de right reasons, togethah." His fingers tighten around hers, for while he has had the time to wrestle with his own guilt, there's hardly been time for her to do so, not in the way that would be best for her.

Shift's eyes squint slightly upon noticing how she refrains from looking at him, which only seeks to confirm that she saw his act. The recordings. Looking away, Shift seeks Domino's own eyes, for to share a look with her. Anger. Vengeance. Something the mercenary would understand. He may not have the power to erase life from Victor Von Doom's body, perhaps none of them could, but the could take his prisoners and strike a blow to his ego. There would be consequences. They would have to look over their shoulders, perhaps for the rest of their lives. Domino would understand that.

After a moment, he looks back toward Betsy, though his words are for the mercenary. "How long until de drug strengthens her?"

"Merc training 101," Domino starts in while tucking the canteen back into hiding. The motions are automatic, her attention fully riveted onto Psylocke. What comes next is a small first-aid kit, normally not carried upon her person but brought specifically for this mission. "Never lose sight of yourself."

The case is popped open, a pre-treated piece of cloth pulled out of a sealed package. She's not the most gentle person in the world but she moves swiftly and efficiently, pulling Betsy's hair to the side in order to disinfect the gash upon her face. "Plenty of time to beat yourself up over this later. I'll even help if you want. This is the time to pull yourself together and cling to those fragmented pieces. Find a way, I'd rather not have to slap it back into you." That, and Logan would probably hack her arm off if he found out about it.

Presumably, they can also talk about the change in leadership later, too. Domino offered to lead the Shadow team. The mission is still ongoing. She still has a job to do. Psylocke may have led them all here. The mercenary is going to lead them all back out. "Soon enough," she assures Shift while passing that cold, icy blue stare his way for an extended glance. If he needs a rock to stand upon in these troubled waters, Domino can prove to be one hell of a boulder. Starting the last job may have left her with some reservations. Those have all been left far behind. It's more than proving a point to Doom, it's about all of their survival.

These are not the kinds of people one backs into a corner.

With that stare yet holding true, she asks Shift "How you holding up, kid?"

Fallen. The word barely begins to describe Psylocke in this moment, laid bare in the depths of a profound weakness, all that self-confidence not precisely gone - but repurposed, turned against herself. It's why she needed to shut off, to push herself into purposeful activity, lest she remain focused on the inward battle and simply give up. Blink's earlier words still resonate, but alone they aren't quite enough-- serving to remind Betsy of what a disservice she now performs to those who'd help her. Who are helping her. Knowing how ugly her compulsions are doesn't help just yet, when she's incapable of preventing them.

But the tool provided by the mauve-skinned mutant at least enforces the point, gifting firm foundation beneath the heart-aching guilt that descends and spreads like electric wildfire at Kwabena's touch. She can't resist it, but perhaps she would if she could; she's certainly not *prepared*, pressing further into Domino's rough ministrations as if to escape. It sets a cringe to her features, the other eye closing tight enough to finally dislodge a single, hot tear. With a snarl she flicks it from her cheek, fingertips scathing across the merc's extended arm in the process. And then Betsy feels trapped. She feels scared. It's taken time to discover where the apparently fearless, headstrong kunoichi finds her deepest terror; but here it is.

Her greatest enemy is herself. Her failure. And now, hemmed in like this, trapped between two people who care - and despite Domino's demeanour, she's seen the measure of the woman more times than be counted over the weeks of her imprisonment - she has no option but to face that. Without her exhausted powers, without even the prideful, beautiful countenance that normally stares back at her from the mirror. As Shift's fingers only tighten, hers fall dangerously limp, what little colour remained in olivine flesh fading to a deathly pallour...

And there, at the heart of everything and nothing, she again sees the truth that Blink forced her to face. Of the repeated mantra. Of all three, bound together and driven to their logical conclusion; it's less a revelation than it is the final attempt by clawing, shaking fingers to grasp at the most evasive of straws. It's the shortest straw of them all. The knowledge that one's self both matters most of all and least. She doesn't have the luxury of languishing, nor of being left behind. She doesn't *get* to feel. It's different to becoming granite, to becoming the eternal cliff that endures, though it's not a million miles removed.

Tomorrow, she can deal with the guilt and the shame. Tomorrow she can fall down and die. It's a harder lesson to learn without the crutch of telepathy, or the threat of a cell surrounding her. A harder lesson to learn when faced with her greatest failure.

How many times has she been called selfish? Three, four times? She still believes it's something that all must inherently be - a part of survival, of evolution - but only now does she grasp the full power of her own words, her own convictions. Her selfish desire is to be somewhere where she can curl up and lament this whole mess. Where she can work out what to do next, if anything. And right now reaching that means putting aside absolutely everything. Being a dumb animal, relentlessly single-minded, thinking of only one thing because it *can't* think otherwise. It's not even tricking the mind, when there's only two possible choices...

Sit, and fail. Or stand and try.

"You're right."

It's precisely what she said to Blink in the confines of her cell, over another open wound, just a little further from the illusive sanctuary of the outer world. But it takes more than one hammer blow to drive in a nail, and this time Psylocke pulls no rabbit from her hat; she doesn't have any tricks *left*, nothing up her sleeve and nothing in her non-existent pockets. All she has is the stubborn fact of her humanity, and a body that - left to its own devices - wants to do literally anything but die. She doesn't need the drug to get this far. It's with no more than a grunt and a sigh, and a flexion of tortured, diminished muscles, that the X-Woman stands at last, wobbling just slightly as she opens both eyes wide, and nods.

"Let's go."

Sometimes, actions are easier.

To answer Domino, Shift takes a moment to crack his neck from side to side. He was surprisingly resilient, one of the many benefits of having a body that would naturally do anything to avoid lethal damage. He'd been damned lucky not to have encountered any of the plasma weapons employed by the Doom Bots; we all know how that goes. He'd be a bit less man than he was before, literally.

"All in one piece," he answers. "Remind me to thank Richards latah." Indeed, his motions have not slowed, nor has his resolved once appeared shaken, and it's apparent in his eyes. His time may come, but for now, he remained one of the strong ones. Still, this would be the most difficult leg of their journey. No longer were they a band of strong, well armed and equipped would-be heroes. Now, they had to care for the numerous disheveled and damaged.

Why does he tighten his fingers? Because he'd faced his own demons, had to understand and accept that he'd been a murderer. A betrayer. Manipulated into doing so by the hands and machinations of a madman, fine, but still, the ability to kill ones closest of allies doesn't linger inside the soul of any person. It was proven to him that he was capable of doing it, and he'd had to wrestle with that. That's why he holds on to her hand and doesn't let go, for this is the part of him that he wants to embrace. Not the murderer.

For now, the murderer sleeps.

Only once she has stood does Kwabena let go. He takes a single moment to watch her until she has steadied herself, then decisively reaches to pull the hood back up over his face, once again concealing the most of his wounds and his eyes, only to leave lips drawn into a firm line. The time has come to stuff the murderer farther away into a tiny box deep in his soul; time to let the caged tiger sleep before his would-be master comes to torment and abuse him into some form of being tamed. Time to lead, in his own way.

Turning away, Shift walks back over toward the gathering of freed prisoners. "Alright people. Rest time is ovah. I need everyone who is strong to look aftah da weak. We are short on time, but if we move fast and with purpose, we -will- make it out of here alive." He takes a moment or two to inspect them all, searching each one's eyes for signs of crippling fear or hesitation. He sees it in a number of them; to them he looks upon with more purpose, before drawing upon the feelings that have served to make him a walking weapon.

Body hardened beyond that of steel for all of them to see, Shift turns around and kneels down, positioning Carol's limp form over his shoulders before rising with a single grunt and projected ease. "Let's move," he offers, trusting Domino to look after Psylocke while he looks after the prisoners.

What are the chances of becoming both the voice of doubt and the very lynchpin for a group of individuals? Domino's been in this role before. Her conscience brings doubt, second-guesses countless jobs and actions. Her resolve becomes the glue which welds the group together and keeps them strong, regardless if she agrees with what they're doing. It doesn't happen all of the time, but with the right group, the right bit of luck and, perhaps, the right celestial alignment... It is possible to be a walking contradiction.

She almost didn't come back here. Almost got into a fight with another mutant, willing to forge onward and help clean up the mess she had been a part of creating. The only validation Dom needs is now getting back to her feet, looking like she lost a fight with the world's largest garbage disposal but still ready to press onward. Atta girl. Dom's former team would have been proud. Maybe some of them are still alive out there, too.

"Need a weapon, Veev?" Sure, Psylocke's great at bringing her own weapons to the party, but that's on a -good- day, when she -hasn't- been near-completely broken. Sometimes, there is no substitution for cold, forged steel. Like the fourteen inch sawbacked machete strapped across the alabaster-skinned woman's back, the contoured handle protruding over the back of her right shoulder. It's no sword, but it's far better than nothing. "Either way, don't try to be a hero. We're here -for- you, not to let you do the heavy lifting. You push yourself too hard I'll tranq you where you stand and drag you out of here myself."

Forgiving Kwabena for the bullet was never going to be the hard part; the demon he wrestles is one that Psylocke has come to terms with before. Death isn't a nice, clean business-- being able and willing to kill means being prepared to do so on any terms, at zero notice. Morality is but an overlay to the act of so-called 'murder'. It's never what enables the killing stroke. A mistake so many millions have made, and will continue to make; how many soldiers and would-be anti-heroes have condemned themselves to misery by striking a blow without readiness?

Instead, Betsy recoils from his touch and looks away from his eyes because she knows what she cost him by simply *being*. She told Doom that she'd manipulated them; all of them, Kwabena and Domino, Blink and Carol, as part of her nature as a human being. Friendship is manipulation. Allegiance even moreso, where something like this operation is concerned. How could she not be manipulating them? It's part of the price one pays for authority, accepting the consequences for each and every subordinate onto oneself. But like Domino, in this case it became too close...

The kunoichi cared far, far too much. Victor Von Doom saw it. Used it.

"A weapon," she echoes distantly, her gaze gaining the same elevated depth resonant in her tone as she looks toward the gathering of prisoners, flexing her fingertips where they still tingle from Kwabena's touch. She barely noticed him disengage, sees him now on very different terms. Violet eyes shift to the hilt emergent from the mercenary's shoulder, and the telepath reaches out until her fingers coil now around the cold, comforting weight. "I am a weapon." An admission which does nothing to stop her hauling the blade free over the other woman's cranium, spinning it to spiral the curved end away from her neck. Pulling her arm back, she lets the machete settle in a firm, practiced grip. It's not a sword, no. It's not her style...

But it doesn't need to be. She doesn't need *style*. She needs to survive.

"And this time you're wrong, Domino." A smile touches her lips, fleetingly lending deeper humanity to the taut face of an animal evading death. "You're all here for yourselves. This doesn't work if we spend our time worrying for each other, as individuals; I agree that we go together," her gaze finds Shift with that, lingering on his transformed limbs, before finally striving upward to meet his eyes-- if he meets hers. "But as a unit, we work as one. One goal. One mind. Nobody's looking out for everybody else. All we do--"

Suddenly she sucks in a breath, flipping the extended weapon end over end, the businesslike blade failing to catch the dim light or gleam dramatically. It simply flips and lands, with a heavy slap, back in her hand. She clenches it tight enough to whiten her knuckles.

"Is survive."

It's spoken more softly than might be expected, a lowering of the gaze telling the story far better than her words do; she's aware it's a simplification, that so much more will occur, that she may even seem to betray her own certainty in this. But it's the philosophy she needs to keep moving, to get through. One lives, and they all live. Nobody left behind.

"Goes for you all," she directs to the prisoners thronging the corridor, drawing herself up with fresh confidence as the beast finds what it needs and clings to it as only a wild thing can. "Everybody pushes hard when they *have* to, because they must, but everything you do, you do to survive. No sacrifice. No guilt. No regret. No uncertainty. All you need to do is live for one more day, and you have your entire life ahead of you. Nothing else matters."

As rousing speeches go, it's hardly a classic.

It's not only Shift who pays heed to Psylocke's dialogue, for the rest of the prisoners cannot help but look on as Domino shares her weapon with Psylocke, and Psylocke shares her own view on what is taking place in these dark dungeons. He does, indeed, meet her gaze, though his eyes remain hidden behind the partly reflective surface that shields his eyes. The thin line of his lips curls into the slightest of grins, though there is a vicious touch to it, not only in the way his hardened skin seems to crack and pop, but in the almost feral way their edges have turned upward.

"You heard de woman," echoes the Ghanaian. He doesn't need to say anything further, instead turning to trod toward the next cell door with Carol's unconscious body still draped over his shoulders. One hand comes free from holding her legs up right, and a fist harder than reinforced iron smashes through the control mechanism keeping that cell door locked. The metal and stone gets smashed inward, yielding to his mutated fist, and he lugs it open with a heave of his body before catching Carol's legs once more, righting them against his neck before motioning for the unshackled prisoner inside to come out and join them. "Time to go home," he says to her, a teenage girl who may not have had a proper meal in days.