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Leech spots the men from Weapon X first, prowling around the St. Croix estate. “Artie, hide,” he says, clumsy hands shoving the other boy toward Nicole’s walk-in closet. “Twins too. Hurry!” Nicole and Claudette look up from their books, confused, but Leech is frantic. He ushers them in behind Artie and slams the door, ignoring Artie’s stricken expression and the psionic question mark he projects.
He will protect his friends.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Weapon X was only there for one mutant.
And they find him.
When Leech wakes up, he can’t move his arms or legs. Can’t even talk. He tries and almost chokes on the tube attached to his mouth. He is restrained, attached to some huge machine that looms up behind him like the hull of a ship. His wide eyes search the room, desperate for some sign of where he is or what’s going on. It looks like some sort of lab. He spots a couple of men working below him. They look like the people who grabbed him from the St. Croix house.
If they notice he’s awake, none of them says anything. It’s like they don’t even think of him, like he’s a tool. A bullet in a gun. Aside from double-checking that the gun is loaded, they don’t see him, don’t think of him.
He’s never felt so lonely or so scared.
Artie’s going to bore a hole into the St. Croix living room floor with the ferocity of his pacing. The patriarch of the family, Carter St. Croix, watches him with rising impatience as Artie projects a series of images— Leech, armored strangers, some kind of weapon. He’s so desperate to communicate, so frazzled, that tears are streaming out of his huge eyes.
“We’ll find him,” Nicole tells Artie, trying to calm him. “We’ll find Leech. We— we’ll call the X-Men.”
Artie shakes his head. It’s not that he doesn’t believe her sincerity or intent. It’s that he doesn’t see how the X-Men can help. He sees the people who took his best friend, but he doesn’t know where they are or what they’re planning.
Finally, Artie decides he needs more than vague impressions of the attackers. He needs more information. He needs Leech.
With all the skill he learned from Jean Grey and Emma Frost, he reaches out with his mind, seeking a familiar presence. Seeking his best friend.
Leech spends a lot of time thinking while he is held captive, caught and cuffed. Food and water get pumped through the tube in his mouth, and no one ever says a word to him, and he tries to keep his mind busy just to stop himself from crying around the clock.
He thinks about X-Factor, and his childhood. Growing up in the sewers wasn’t actually awful, except that Annalee called him “monster” and he was cold all the time. It wasn’t until he found Power Pack and X-Factor— and Artie— that things started looking up.
There are no windows in the room where he’s being held, no clocks that he can see. He keeps track of time by how many times they feed him. After 22 feedings, something changes. The machine he is trapped to whirrs to life, draining him of energy. It hurts , like a vacuum suctioning away every cell in his body, like he is being squeezed dry. He screams, the sound muffled around the feeding tube.
When the pain finally stops, Leech tries to focus, tries to listen to what the men below him are saying. He learns that the device he is attached to is called the MPC— Mutant Power Cannon. He learns they are amplifying his power and using it to dampen the powers of other mutants.
When he was with X-Factor, he used his power siphoning to help people. Used it to keep Bobby Drake from icing over, used it to keep Rictor from trembling. Now these strangers are using him to hurt other mutants.
When the men from Weapon X leave him alone that night— at least, he thinks it’s night— Leech finds himself thinking about Rictor again. Rictor— along with Skids, Boom Boom and Rusty— was one of the older kids X-Factor rescued. When his earthquake powers got out of control, Leech would sit with him, help him stay calm, help him get control.
Rictor never shook so much as when he was thinking or talking about The Right, the anti-mutant organization that captured him and used him to try and destroy San Francisco. He was hung up just like this, Leech realizes, unable to move his hands or his head, trapped, tortured.
And Rictor was okay. Leech remembers that part, that Rictor survived the Right, that X-Factor saved him. He got out.
So maybe Leech can get out too.
Artie likes Claudette. She’s like him— she doesn’t talk, not with words. But he understands her fine, learns how her hand-flapping and her posture works like his pictures. Claudette says a lot, just not with words.
Now, she’s saying that she’s angry. Strangers broke into her home and took away her friend. Across the room, Nicole is explaining Leech's abduction to her big sister Monet in rapid French. When she’s done, Monet looks over at Artie, eyes wide. “Leech is gone?”
Artie nods, not bothering to stifle the tears streaming down his face. It’s been over a week since Leech was taken, and he hasn’t gone a day without crying. Wherever he is, Leech is too far away for Artie’s mindlink to reach him, and Artie can only imagine how he must be feeling— scared, alone, traumatized.
“We’re going to get him back,” Monet says, smoothing Nicole’s hair, looking like she hardly believes her own words. She turns to Claudette and Artie. “I promise you, we’re going to get him back.”
Leech learns soon enough that the MPC was only the start of it.
They move him outside at one point, strap him to a big satellite that overlooks a huge, fenced-in compound. Leech watches as every day, more mutants are brought in, scared kids like him and adults too. Some of them are obviously mutants— a blue boy with two big slugs, a pale-white boy with twin black spots over his eyes. Others look normal enough, but they’re obviously mutants.
And they can’t use their powers, can’t fight back. Because of Leech.
He stops hoping he will be rescued, starts hoping that somehow, this dread machine will drain him dry and his power will stop working. He trained for years to pull his power dampening aura in close, and now it’s like it doesn’t matter.
Hemingway and Marrow used him like this, once upon a time, captured him and used his power dampener to incapacitate Ms. Frost. She’d kicked him, knocked him out for a chance to save both of them. At the time, he resented it.
Now he wishes there were someone to stop him , someone to knock him out or shut him down so everyone else might have a chance.
He stops hoping he will be rescued, and starts just longing for all of this to stop .
When Emma Frost answers the X-mansion door, she isn’t expecting to see two of her old students there on the step. Artie stands just in front of Monet, who has her hands on her hips. “Leech has been captured,” Monet explains. “We need Cerebra.”
She doesn’t wait for Emma to say anything, just barges in, with Artie marching resolutely in front of her. “Oh,” Monet adds as a scruffy-looking young man follows behind them. “And this is Rictor. He’s on X-Corp with me.”
They walk down the hallways of the mansion, Emma’s heels clacking against the floor. Finally she says, “You’re sure Leech has been taken?”
In answer, Artie projects a visual recreation of the kidnapping— the strangers with their guns, Leech’s look of terror. Emma leads them to Cerebra and sits at the console, lowering the helmet over her head.
Monet, Artie and Rictor watch the display, seeing all the little lights flicker on, then fade as Emma tries to focus on one particular signature. The four of them are silent, waiting, but Emma can’t get a lock on Leech. “I’m sorry,” she says finally, honestly sounding it. Leech was once her pupil. “With his particular powerset… I think he’s able to resist my telepathy. I can’t locate him.”
Monet opens her mouth, ready to spout off, but Artie tugs on her sleeve, shakes his head. Projects an image. It’s himself, wearing the Cerebra helmet.
“No, darling,” Emma starts, ready to tell him that, though his powers are psionic in nature, he’s no telepath and wouldn’t be able to access Cerebra. But Rictor pipes up.
“Why not?” he shrugs, looking from Artie to the helmet. “He an’ Leech almost have a… whatayacallit? A psychic rapport. Maybe that means Artie can find Leech better than you can.”
“He. Is. Not. A. Telepath,” Emma says sternly, glaring at Rictor. “We’d have better luck if you put the damn helmet on.”
“Alright, listen—”
“Ric,” Monet says, warning in her tone. “Emma, look, just… let Artie try. Okay? Please.” Monet St. Croix doesn’t say please a lot. But Leech was sent to her family estate to be safe. In a way, she feels responsible.
Emma struggles with herself before ultimately relenting. “Fine,” she says. “Take your best shot.”
Artie’s not much younger than the majority of students at the Institute, but he’s small for his age. Once he clambers up into the seat, his legs hang an inch or so above the floor. Monet helps him put the helmet over his over-large head. Then, she joins Rictor and Emma in watching the display.
At first, it’s blank.
Then pinpoints of light start flaring to life. Mostly people Artie has a connection to— they see Nicole and Claudette in Monaco, Jubilee and Angelo in California, Tabitha somewhere in Nevada.
Artie shuts his eyes, reaches out with his mind, his hands curling into fists in his lap. He thinks about Leech— his kindness, his skittishness, his generosity. The things that make him Leech . Artie focuses, focuses, and then— there .
One brilliant point of light shows up on the map in Alberta, Canada.
Leech sputters awake when he feels the familiar presence in his mind. “Artie?” he tries to speak, but the tube stays clamped firmly against his mouth. Still, somehow, his best friend hears him. Leech doesn’t know how Artie’s managed to link to him… and right now he doesn’t care. For the first time in so long, so many feedings he’s lost count, he isn’t alone.
Artie uses the mindlink to share with him a quick burst of images— Ms. Frost, Monet, Rictor. Artie wearing a big silver helmet that Leech recognizes as a new version of Cerebro. And then more— because Artie must sense his terror, his hopelessness. So he shares more images— his own worried expression, the two of them hugging, the blacktop where they used to play basketball with Franklin, their room at St. Simons.
Finally remembering what hope feels like again, Leech cries. He tries to tell Artie everything— the cannon, the satellite, the terrible images he’s seen as he watches the concentration camp. There are things he can’t communicate, though. Like how helpless he feels. Like the way the machine pulls at him until he thinks he might just stop existing. Like the feeling that, deep down, he is responsible for people being hurt, dying, and he can’t do anything about it.
Artie sends him an image of himself, Monet, Rictor and Ms. Frost, all springing to action. Coming to get him.
The last image he sends Leech is a heart.
When the Blackbird lands in Alberta, Artie’s off the jet almost before it touches the ground. Monet tries to pull him back but Rictor races on ahead, too, leaving Emma to pull up the rear. Getting in the Weapon X compound isn’t difficult with Ric’s vibe-quakes, and Emma makes short work of the guards, clearing a path for Monet and Artie to race through the facility.
They’re so close. Artie can feel Leech now, without needing Cerebra’s help. He sees the satellite, uses the mindlink he shares with Leech to lead Monet, Emma and Rictor through the horror-show of the camp. And then… suddenly, the connection fizzles.
Rictor stops shaking the earth, and Emma’s psipowers short out as well. “It’s Leech,” Monet says, looking around wildly. “Whatever they’re using him for…”
They see him before they can reach him.
Artie’s mouth gasps in a silent scream and he points. Leech is suspended up high, wired into a satellite that’s neutralizing their powers. The guards stationed just below the satellite spot them and point their guns down, and Emma can’t do anything to stop them.
“Down!” Ric yells, grabbing Emma and Artie and ducking out of the line of fire. Monet sprints to the side of the tower and slips into the building. She may not have powers, but she can still kick and punch.
Rictor bursts in with Emma and Artie in tow, carrying two guns he managed to grab from the guards Emma took out before Leech’s dampener started affecting them. “Here,” he says, tossing one to Monet.
When the guards in front of him started firing on Artie, Leech’s vision went white. Despite everything he’d been through for the past… he doesn’t even know how long it’s been… this is the worst. Watching the men who captured him target Artie and being helpless to stop them.
Worse— he knows that if it weren’t for him, Emma and Rictor would be able to fight back. Monet would be able to withstand the bullets. Artie… Artie wouldn’t be in danger.
Artie is in danger now and it’s all his fault, and that’s the worst of all of it.
Leech tries to keep track of the fight. There are more gunshots, but Rictor and Monet seem to have gotten their hands on some weapons. Guards get knocked down, taken out. There’s so much fighting and loud noises and Leech’s heart is hammering.
“It’s gotta be one of these buttons,” Rictor says, mashing all of them. None of them can use their powers, but at least, for the moment, they don’t have any more guards after them. Lights on top of the tower flick on and off as Rictor presses different buttons and then finally, finally, the satellite lowers and the restraints pop open. Leech falls.
“Whoa,” Monet yells, running to catch him. She manages to get both arms around him, clutching him close. He’s emaciated, weak and naked. Emma yanks off her cape and wraps it around him like a blanket. Artie reaches up, his hand grasping at Leech’s, trying to see him, make sure he’s okay.
“Let’s go,” Emma says, putting a hand on Artie’s shoulder. “We need to get out of here.” She’ll tell Scott, when they get back, about this horrible place. She’ll come back with reinforcements. This isn’t an evacuation, though. They’re here to get in, get Leech, and get out. The rest will come later.
Monet carries Leech back to the Blackbird, his weight like a doll in her hands. Artie sticks close to her, with Rictor and Emma hurrying along with them. Emma drops into the pilot’s seat and takes them off the ground as fast as she can.
Rictor buckles in, watching Artie hover worriedly around Monet and Leech. “Hey, strap yourself in,” he says, tugging Artie toward him. Artie’s panic has him sending out too many conflicting images— Leech, the camp, the guns, the Blackbird. “He’s gonna be fine, Artie. C’mere.” He helps the younger boy buckle in, watching as Monet does the same. She’s still clinging to Leech, who’s nowhere near strong enough to sit upright like the rest of them.
Emma gets them in the air before Weapon X can get their operation together enough to realize what’s just happened. No one comes after them. And finally, finally, they start heading back toward Westchester.
When Artie stops hyperventilating, he projects an image of himself holding Leech instead of Monet. “Alright,” Monet sighs, passing the small green mutant over to his best friend. “Just… be careful. Remember, he’s weak.”
Artie takes Leech into his arms, clutching him against his chest. Leech has always been a little taller than him, but now he seems so small, so frail. Artie’s eyes well up as he looks down at how battered and broken his best friend looks. But he’s safe. They’re back together.
Right now, that’s all that matters.
It’s all a blur— the rescue that’s too good to be true, the mad dash to the jet. Leech is barely sure of what’s happening until he realizes who’s holding him. “Artie…” he croaks. Frog, that’s what they used to call him, used to say he looked like a frog.
Despite everything, Artie smiles, a great big watery grin. Away from the satellite, Leech can control his dampening field better, can keep it tight around him, enough to see Artie projecting an image of the two of them hugging. Back together again.
“Leech… sorry,” Leech says, thinking about all the people he’s hurt, thinking about how he wasn’t enough to stop Weapon X from using him. Artie shakes his head.
“You got nothin’ to apologize for,” Rictor says from beside them. “S’like it was with me, an’ The Right. But we’re okay now, Leech. Everything’s okay.”
Leech trusts Rictor, but he still looks to Artie for confirmation that their old friend is telling the truth. Artie nods, and then he reaches out with their mindlink.
Leech has always understood Artie in a way few others ever did. Because it’s not just that he talks in pictures. He talks in ideas, in visual concepts. He talks in feelings.
Right now, he’s saying a lot of feelings and concepts. He’s saying safety, protection, friendship, love, family, comfort.
It’s all Leech has ever needed to hear.