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"Are you OK?" Jean asked Storm.
"Yes. I am fine," she responded with her hand on her forehead.
She was lying, and the red-head knew it. She knew how Storm would lie about how she felt every day. She was selfless. She'd sacrifice her life for her friends in a heartbeat.
"Are you sure you're OK?" she asked again.
"Positive. Do not worry about me, I am just fine," she answered.
Jean just nodded alright and left. Storm waited until she wouldn't see her and nearly collapsed. She was clearly not well, but didn't want anyone to know it.
She left to her room and lay in bed. She closed her eyes slowly and was about to fall asleep, but was interrupted by a siren. She quickly got up and ran to the living room. Something was definitely wrong.
IN THE LIVING ROOM
Jean, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Gambit were already there.
"What is wrong?" she asked the professor agitated.
"Magneto's at it again. Him, and his little friend Toad are destroying a factory, and we've got to stop them," Wolverine answered her.
"What kind of fa –"
"It is unknown. All that is known is that there are people there and you need to save them, understood?" asked the Professor.
"Yes"
"Yeah"
" o'course"
"Oui"
"Ye……….yes"
"You a' right Storm?" Wolverine asked her.
"Do not worry about me my friend, I will be fine. If there was ever anything wrong with me, I would tell you," she lied, once again.
"Of course you will" Jean whispered to herself, but Cyclops was right next to her that he was able to hear her. He just nodded in agreement.
They all got in the Blackbird and headed to the factory.
IN THE FACTORY
"Where's Magneto?" Jean asked whoever was closest to her.
Just then, a piece of metal flew out from one of the rooms.
"I'm guessing he's in there," Cyclops said.
They all headed that way with Wolverine in the lead.
Just as they suspected, Magneto was there, with his friend Toad, but with someone else too, with Sabertooth.
"Your destructive days are over Magneto!" Wolverine told him in assurance.
Magneto turned towards him and said, "Really? After all this time where I could do all I want, you decide to stop me now"
"Yes, but this time, it's for sure"
"Don't count on it, because as you can see, I brought my allies. ALLIES ATTACK!!!!!"
Those words were their cues and once they heard them, they started attacking the X-men.
"Bring it on Sabertooth," Wolverine ordered.
"My pleasure"
He ran towards Wolverine and shoved his claws in him, but he dodged them.
"Nice try" he said and HE shoved his claws on Sabertooth. He growled.
Meanwhile, Both Jean and Storm were fighting Toad, and Cyclops and Gambit were taking Magneto all by themselves.
"You are very pretty my wind rider" he said as he caressed her cheek. She quickly removed his hand, "too bad I'm going to kill you"
"You don't stand a chance against us, Toad," Jean told him.
"Wanna bet," he said and hit Jean with his tongue so hard that she went flying across the room.
"You made a big mistake," Storm told him and her beautiful blue eyes became a snowy white. She rose to the air, and the whole room became very cold. Lightning and thunder and rain and hail were taking over the room, all against Toad!
"Storm!!!!" Cyclops yelled at her, "calm down! You're hurting the people in here!! Calm down!!!"
But it was pointless. She couldn't hear anything because she was furious. Furious at Toad for hurting her friend. Furious at Sabertooth for wanting to kill Wolverine, and furious at Magneto for everything that has happened to the X-men. Everything was his fault and it was time he paid for it. She redirected the hail towards Magneto careful not to hurt her friends in the process.
'Storm, you need to snap out of it. I'm alright, but if you continue this, the people in here won't be fine'
Storm, relieved that her friend was alright, refused to stop the weather. It was revenge. It was all those years of suffering, those months of crying, begging for the professor to be alright. All that misery curled up into a storm.
"This isn't good Cyke. We need to make her realize that what she's doin' is wrong," said Logan.
"Allow me," said Toad with anger and delight at the same time.
The X-men knew that whatever Toad was up to, it wasn't good.
Before Toad got to Storm, Gambit stood in front of him and stopped him," where you tink you're goin' mon ennemi"
"To stop your friend from killing my master, not that she could, but I still want to stop her"
"You can try, but with no success. You first need to get through us!!!" Wolverine told Toad as he stepped in front of him, along with the rest of the X-men.
"Ha, don't make me laugh. When it comes to protecting my master, I would take out anyone. Including her," he said as he pointed to the rage-filled Storm.
As soon as he said that, he flicked his tongue towards her, but didn't succeed anything since she used the wind as her shield and sent Toad flying across the room in the process.
"Look who's laughing now," Wolverine told the now unconscious Toad lying right next to him.
"We need to find out of a way to calm her down or she'll destroy everything in here, including us!!!" Jean told her fellow teammates.
"I know, mon amie, but what can we do? There is nothing we can do that won't hurt Storm" said Gambit.
'Get all of the people out of here safely' Jean told Gambit telepathically
'Oui, mon amie' was his response. He left.
"Then I guess that is a sacrifice that we're going to have to make," said Cyclops confidently.
""What!!!! Are you crazy!! We can't hurt Storm, she's…..she's……she's our friend," Wolverine practically yelled.
"It's either us or her," Cyclops told Wolverine.
As they were discussing that, Sabertooth stood up after Wolverine stabbed him. He walked to where Storm was, climbed the walls, and jumped just to be able to stab Storm in the back. He succeeded.
Storm went crashing to the floor, but just before she hit the floor, Magneto moved one of the poles towards Storm and hit her in the head. As if that wasn't enough, Magneto moved many panels once again towards her and hit her all at once. She hit her left side of her head on the wall. She was now unconscious.
"Storm!!!!" wolverine yelled at the top of her lungs and ran towards her. So did the rest of the X-men.
He pulled Storm towards him, her face on his chest, "Storm, hey Storm!! Wake up!!!! Come on Storm!! Don't do this to me!!!!" yelled Logan.
"Is she alright?!" asked Scott.
"NO!!! She's not! We need to take her to the mansion immediately!!!"
Jean tried to contact her telepathically but there was no answer. This wasn't good.
They headed to the Blackbird and left the people in charge of this terrible incident there. They were too mad to get even with them.
The people from the factory were safely in the Blackbird as were the X-men. Minus one.
SOME MINUTES LATER
"Beast, Beast. It's Wolverine. We have the people here. They're OK, but we have bigger problems, Beast, do you hear me," Wolverine called Beast through the radio.
"[static] I'm here, what is the problem," Beast asked.
"It's Storm, she's……she's… dying, Beast. We'll be there in a few minutes."
AT THE MANSION
"Out of the way!!!! Out of the way!!!" yelled Wolverine since he was carrying the delicate Storm in his arms and heading to the infirmary.
He got to the infirmary and a worried Beast greeted him.
"What happened to her," he asked him looking at her blood-stained hair.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later, but now, PLEASE CURE HER!!!!"
"Alright alright. Put her in the bed," he ordered.
All of the X-men including Wolverine were outside the infirmary following Beast's orders. He checked to see if she had any broken bones or serious injuries. She did. She had a severe concussion.
He opened the door and X-men immediately stood up.
"What's wrong with her? Is she going to be OK?" Wolverine asked right away.
"She…..ummm….she…..-"
"SPIT IT OUT BEAST!!!!" shouted Wolverine.
"She….she has a severe concussion. It….cannot be cured. There is nothing we can do to save her," he said.
Jean broke out crying. Her husband was there to comfort her, but it wasn't enough.
"Are you saying that…..she's going to die," Wolverine asked him
"Yes," he said directly.
"Oh my god," Jean said and almost collapsed, but Scott held her.
They went to seat down.
"I'm sorry Wolverine, but there is nothing that we can do but wait until…. That….happens," he said.
Tears fell from his eyes.
THE NEXT DAY
The whole mansion was quiet as if Storm was the only one able to fill the whole mansion with sound. The mansion would be quiet forever if that were true.
At the infirmary, the only sound you could hear was Storm's heart rate monitor and that sound was slowly fading.
Wolverine was in the infirmary sitting next to Storm just staring at her like if his eyes would make Storm open her eyes. They all knew she wouldn't.
"Why are you doing this to us, to me?" he asked her, like if she would actually answer.
"I love you, Storm. I know you don't love me back and I don't care, but I just had to tell you this before you …….leave us," Wolverine told her, releasing all of his feelings he had hidden deep inside, " I just don't understand why you are leaving so soon. We have so many things to do together like, get married, have children, and be happy. Something I'm not going to be if you depart from us."
Tears fell from Storm's eyes. She was listening to him all along, but she couldn't answer him.
"She's …crying," he told himself, "Beast, Beast!!!"
Beast rushed into the room, "What's going on?"
"She's crying. Can she do that? Is that possible?"
Beast looked at her surprised, but when he looked at the heart rate monitor, he knew she wasn't going to survive.
"She ….I don't know, but she's not….. she's still going to die. Her heart rate is dropping, and ……."
He didn't have to finish that sentence. He knew what was going to come next.
"I'm sorry, Logan," Beast told him putting his hand on Logan's shoulder.
His eyes became watery.
After that, Wolverine fell asleep, his head resting on her bed and holding her hand.
Wolverine was dreaming about Storm, how beautiful she was, how her hair flowed in the wind, how her blue eyes stared at you whenever you were lying. It was wonderful. She was wonderful.
It was such a beautiful dream and it got interrupted by a constant beeping sound. The time had come.
He woke up and after looking at her and the heart rate monitor, he freaked out, "NO! Storm, wake up!! No! Storm, don't do this to us!!!! STORM!!!"
After hearing that scream, all the X-men headed to the infirmary. They knew she had left them.
Jean, Cyclops, and Beast got there and saw Logan holding Storm against his chest, like a little baby.
"She left us," he told them. His eyes showing no emotion at all. It left along with Storm.
Jean and Beast began crying. Cyclops just sat down.
A few moments later, it started raining, almost like if the elements themselves knew that their leader was gone. The rest of the X-men in the mansion knew what had happened, a tragedy.
"She's gone," Wolverine said once again, this time, to himself. The rest were too busy trying to control themselves from crying to even hear him.
"Good-bye, my Storm," he whispered to her ear, "I'll see you eventually."