Haroun 2015

Originally posted on x_project.

"Come on, people, move it!" Haroun shouted as his team scrambled back to the transportal that led back to Muir Island. Nate would kill him for dropping this many wounded on his lap, but he'd get over it. Eventually. Hopefully. The list of places it was safe to fall back to was dropping rapidly, and Muir had resources that few other places did. One of his squad - a fresh-faced physical augment stumbled and faceplanted on the ground, and Haroun rushed out from behind cover to drag the boy back. Like most with enhanced physiologies, he weighed a _ton_. Haroun put his legs into it, and tossed the boy through the portal. One of his kids on the other side would sort him out, he was sure of it.

This was supposed to be a quick in-and-out, trashing a Genetic Processing station, slip a present into their datastream, and then rabbit before anyone knew they were coming. Unfortunately, the Other Side's security was tightening, and they had their own mindbenders and precogs to keep an eye on things. One of them must have tipped them off, because what was supposed to be a quick hit was turning into a slogging match. His teleporter - a little girl that never failed to remind him of Clarice, despite not being purple, swallowed heavily and looked around.

"Come on, keep it together. Hold it open a little while longer. As soon as second squad is out, we're outta here." he said, diving for cover before a killbot could decapitate him with superheated plasma. He raised his gun and splashed the bogie with a well-placed shot. Forge's hardware was still the good shit, even if the kid couldn't - wouldn't - take part directly. Haroun missed the days of the X-Men - smooth team-work, near-bottomless cash resources, and secure headquarters. But the X-Men had bought the Big Lie, believed the administration's solemn promises that mutant registration was inevitable, necessary. He was really getting too old to keep doing this, but so long as his people were being cataloged, identified, scanned, and deployed against their will, he'd keep fighting.

No matter what the others thought. They could have their happy lives, their families. He had a gun and a mission.

It would have to do.