E-mail: Abbadon_13@yahoo.com
I don't own the X-Men. Marvel Comics does......yaddyaddayadda.
The TV was blaring in the entertainment room. Kitty was watching her favorite show and eating ice cream, relishing in the creamy texture. She was just about to take another bite of the confection when she saw the silent alarm light go on and heard the front door blow open. Expecting an attack, she dropped her spoon into her bowl with a clatter and ran out into the hall.
"SCOTT! JEAN! LOGAN! THE ALARM!"
Logan was already running up the stairs ahead of her, his claws glinting in the flourescent lights of the stairwell. His senses were reeling. "Kitten, stay back!" he barked, his nostrils flaring, catching a dreadfully familiar scent. "Oh, he's a dead man....."he trailed off, climbing the stairs at a cat-like gait, two at a time.
He reached the top of the stairs and saw the owner of the unique smell. Magneto was standing in the main hall, red-faced, but not from anger, his jaw set in determination. He was looking around desperately for anyone, and then he saw Logan, and he backed up a step in spite of himself. Logan was seething, his foot-long, adamantium laced maulers bared. He knew that Logan wanted him dead.
"Refrigerator Magnet Bastard," Logan spat, "Did you come here to take my metal again? You'll have a hell of a time gettin' it this time!"
Logan, Stop!: The professor commanded telepathically: He did not come to fight! I sense an urgency, something is wrong, he really needs....:
He was cut off. "Auschwitz." Magnus panted, the color of his face still a breathless red. He gulped, panted, "Auschwitz and Birkenau. The Nazis....The death camps, Oh, lord. They're taking mutants in Germany to the death camps...!"
Scott and Jean appeared, alerted by the professor and Kitty's cries. They stood and watched Magnus pant, and lean against the wall coughing, exhausted, emotional. Jean saw and felt his need, his sadness, and saw the hopeless look in his eyes.
Magnus struggled to recover. "Please, for God's sake....help me save them."
Scott swallowed hard, a muscle in his jaw jumped. He heard Jean's presence in his head: I think he's genuine, Scott. He's really serious. He came for help. He flew all the way here.....to find us.
Scott made the decision, "Jean, go get the team... we're going to have to make a trip to Poland."
* * * *
"Rogue, Storm, Gambit, and Wol-- maybe not Wolverine... Scratch that. Rogue, Storm, Gambit, and Magneto, we're going to need you to get the prisoners out of there. You're Team A.. Jean, Kitty, Wolverine, and I will try to break down the operation from the inside. We'll be Team B," Cyclops briefed.
"Do any of you speak German?" Magnus asked.
"Well, um, I took some in high school....but.." Cyclops was puzzled, but the professor interviened: I will translate for you via Jean. Do not worry.:
Kitty was eerily silent. She stood by Logan, fingering her golden necklace: a Star of David. She finally spoke up, "I've studied the Holocaust. Birkenau and Auschwitz are only about four miles apart. We can cover both of them, can't we?"
Jean could tell how bothered Kitty was. As a Jew, Kitty had probably heard the horror stories of the Auschwitz camps. Especially about the crematorium, where nearly 4, 750 people were incinerated per day. She looked also at Magnus, who was once Eric Lensherr, a Jewish-raised man who survived the horror of the Holocaust. It was painful to look at the proud man's face now: he looked so frightened and vulnerable...he was once again facing the monster that haunted his dreams almost every night. She wondered what he had seen. She quietly slipped into his mind..........
* She could see the stone wall of the barracks at his death camp, and the toothy grins of middle aged men, all looking far older than they really were and far more skeletal. Distantly a man a German shout could be heard, and then a gunshot. Magnus' memory blurred again, this time, to the last time he saw his mother and sister, being lead away into the "showers" by the Nazis to be killed by the gas chambers and then cremated. His mother had mouthed, " I love you" to him as she disappeared into the white-washed building. His sister was crying as she followed behind, holding her mother's hand.....*
Jean could not watch further. She had already invaded this man's private thoughts and memories, and she did not wish to see any more. The banking of the Blackbird was enough to jar her to her senses. They were coming in for a landing in the hills near a killing machine.
* * * * *
Cracow, Poland.
Logan wrinkled his nose as the stench of death assailed him. The very prairie was covered with the smell, sometimes old and well established, steeped into the ground, sometimes there was a new stench, lingering in the air. He went with the team as they snuck up onto the rusted gates of Auschwitz, the main camp. He saw Magneto gulp as he read the German in the wrought-iron gate: "Arbeit Macht Frei."
"Work Liberates," Magnus translated. "Another Nazi lie--no one left this camp free."
"SHHHHh!" Rogue hissed, "I hear someone comin!"
A guard was making his rounds. As he approached the gate, Logan unsheathed his claws and caught them in the guard's collar through the bars of the gate. He yanked him towards the gate, forcing the frightened man's face into the rusted, once black iron.
"Tell your boss "hello" for me..........." Logan forcefully punched his lights out. "Or maybe I should leave a message." He ripped open the lock on the gate, "Come on."
Jean, Cyclops, and Kitty stepped through, followed by Rouge, Gambit, Storm, then Magneto, who tried to keep his distance from Logan. Cyclops watched as Team A departed to the custody camps where the prisoners were held, Gambit and Storm were already stalking silently over to a barrack. Rogue and Magneto hovered behind, quiet and alert, watching for a guard.
Kitty looked confused, she didn't know her way around. Jean looked equally clueless.
"I think that they're in that old industrial plant," said Logan. "Watch it, though, cause I have a feeling that someone's watching us."
Kitty volunteered to check in the nearby buildings for officers, Cyclops assented, and she phased through several buildings, finding only unarmed workers in most of the offices. All were wearing a particular black uniform with a new version of the Swastika on the breast pocket. Finally, she moved into an officer's quarters in the back of the office, and saw a heavily armed officer occupying a study chair. She quickly phased back through the wall and caught up with Logan.
"You just came out of an officer's quarters. Was anyone home?" Logan asked.
"Yeah, and we better be awfully quiet," Kitty whispered. She surveyed the landscape as her mind suddenly tugged thoughts out of the back of her mind, 'How did Logan know that was an officer's quarters? And how was he so sure that the Nazis were in the industrial plant?'
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