046. Deception

She was in Madagascar. He was in New York. Just how was that supposed to be fair? Sabretooth dug his claws into the wooden frame, and heaved against it, unmooring the door with a satisfying crack-snap. Pyro arched a brow slightly, but didn't say anything. If it was one thing you didn't do, you didn't agitate the feral on purpose. He'd learned the hard way to stand back and let him work out his aggressions. The low-throaty growl that echoed through the room was a direct indication of just how much Sabretooth wanted to tear something apart.

Certainly this lab would be perfect pickings.

Sabretooth desperately wanted to pick up some trace of Essex, and he wanted it for all the wrong reasons. Not because it was his latest job, to track down the mutant that had kidnapped and practically tortured two innocent girls, but because one of those girls had been Kylie. He was here because of her. Because of the fear in her eyes when she named this place as his, when she told Magneto that this lab was Essex's first attempt at manufacturing his biological warhead.

He was there, because, dammit everything, she mattered. And he desperately wanted her not to.

He wanted resistance, right now. He wanted someone to kill. Someone to concentrate on that wasn't half a world away. As he and Pyro split up through the lab, Sabretooth kept only a minimum of attention dedicated to the Australian. Pyro was capable of defending himself.

The first room of the lab seemed to be deserted. Models of genetic structure hung from the ceiling, and vast bank of three dozen microscopes lined one long wall. Drawings that made no sense to him were pinned up to a corkboard.

"'Ey!" Pyro's voice drifted to him from the far side of the room. "Found a door 'ere!"

Staying noiseless on the balls of his feet, Sabretooth drew up beside Pyro and snarled wordlessly in his ear. The flame-thrower was being needlessly noisy. After Pyro got the message, in a quick blossom of fear-smell, he backed away from the door in question. It was windowless, and displayed the classic Authorized Personnel Only sign. A keypad to the right of the door led him to believe this was probably the room they wanted. Flexing his fingers, Sabretooth set his claws to the wall, and brutally, noisily and savagely tore the keypad away from the door.

With a hiss, and a thunk, the door depressurized, and the locking mechanism gave way. Sabretooth pushed the door open, and gestured Pyro through.

"Why, 'Tooth, ye've never been so kind." Pyro snickered softly. "Th' girl's rubbin' off on ye."

Pyro ducked through the door before Sabretooth had his equilibrium back. The girl. Was the effect that noticeable? Did he really act differently because of her? Sabretooth was still trying to figure out what Pyro had meant by that when he heard a yelp from within, and a frightened cry. As he passed through the door, a backdraft of heat and the stench of burning flesh hit him moments before the screaming reached his ears.

So this place wasn't so abandoned after all.

Sabretooth found Pyro toward the back of the lab, beyond beakers and test tubes and lines of rubber and glass. His victim was flailing, screaming, burning, crashing into everything around him, doing the job of destroying the work and progress for them. Pyro was giggling manically as the man tried to drop and roll, but Pyro's control never let the flames wane. Sabretooth furrowed his brow as the man knocked over a cabinet, and the contents clattered over the floor.

Gas masks?

He pulled his eyes away from the burning, and surveyed the rest of the room. There on the wall, pinned up to a corkboard much like the drawings in the previous room, were the images of Kylie's cell, the incomplete formula on the wall written in her blood. He twitched, fingers convulsively clenching into a fist, so he could feel his talons bury into his palm. Then all in one moment, his control slipped.

The feral roar of fury ripped from his throat, as he grabbed the nearest lab bench and ripped it right from the floor, toppling the contents, the carefully titrated chemicals, and the dripping liquids right onto the floor. Pyro made himself small against the far wall, and just watched the carnage unleashed. His own victim had stopped being entertaining; the technician was just lying on the floor burning now, not running, not screaming. Nope. Sabretooth's poor attempt to lie to himself about his own feelings was far more interesting to watch.