During breaks, a skeleton household usually occupied Xavier's School for the Gifted -- Professor Xavier himself and few other strays who didn't have a place to go when school was out. The house was rarely dark, though -- and it NEVER was completely silent.
Rogue and Gambit left the X-Men's home base for a fun vacation at the beach a few days ago. They split the price for the tickets and had gone down to South America where it was warm in the winter. Now they were home again and no one was answering the door. There were no lights on in the mansion, and no one was stirring.
"Somethin's wrong, Remy," Rogue worried, her Mississippi drawl thickening with her concern.
Her boyfriend threw her a sardonic look. "Mais…mebbe de ot'rs jus' went t' get somet'in' fer lunch," he suggested, putting down the bags in his hands.
Rogue just looked at him.
Remy LeBeau dropped the unconcerned façade a little and went through his pockets looking for the house key. He frowned when he didn't come up with it after a few minutes. Rogue sighed, put down the bags she was carrying, and handed him her key.
He flashed her a sheepish smile. "Remy nevah uses 'is, so Ah fergot it, me."
Rogue crossed her arms over her chest. "Just get the door open, Cajun."
Remy curtailed any sarcastic remarks that came to mind – she really sounded worried – and put the key in the lock. The minute metal touched metal, a loud sizzling noise filled the air between Remy and the door. The hair on the back of Remy's neck stood on end as a small shock passed from the key to his hand. The key fell loose from tingling fingers.
With a startled curse, he pulled his hand back and grabbed Rogue's arm with it. "Booby trap!" he yelped.
Rogue reacted immediately, twisting so she was gripping his free arm and was between him and the door. Once her invulnerable body shielded the other mutant, she took to air at top speed, heading away from the door.
They were only feet away from the door with it exploded, knocking them from the air and propelling them a few more feet. They hit the ground hard, Rogue on top of Remy in the vague hope of protecting him somewhat from the flying debris. Slightly disoriented by their crash, he didn't try to get up until after the wood, metal, and stone fragments stopped falling.
He stirred. "Ah t'ink it's okay t' let me up now, petite."
Rogue untangled herself from him, rolling on the ground beside him to lie on her back. She felt like she needed to catch her breath from the suddenness of that explosion before she got to her feet. Remy seemed to feel the same, for although he sat up, he didn't try to stand.
"Nice call about the booby trap." Rogue's voice sounded muffled in the cloud of ash.
Remy waved an arm in front of their faces to clear the fog. "Likewise. Don' let nobody mock yer instincts, chere, dey're fahn."
Rogue grimaced and finally pulled herself into a standing position. Just because she was invulnerable didn't mean that she had enjoyed being knocked down from the air like that. Besides, the worry that had been nagging at her before the explosion was now eating at her with a new vigor. "Somehow that ain't really comfortin' right now, sugah. Ah suppose we can rule out the idea of everyone goin' out t' eat."
"Dat's a fair assessment," Remy agreed, standing as well. With the swiftness of the master thief that he was, he pulled some playing cards from his duster. Although he didn't charge them yet, he kept them hidden and easily accessible in his hand and slightly up his sleeve.
That was always a bad sign that Remy expected someone unfriendly to be in the general vicinity.
At times like this Rogue wished she wasn't able to read Gambit so well. She sighed, tossed her skunk-striped auburn hair out of her green eyes, and decided that being an X-Men stunk. She couldn't even have a normal vacation with her boyfriend without coming home to a battle situation.
"Ah'll take point," she told Remy, heading toward what had once been the front of the X-Men's mansion.
This was going to be the beginning of a very bad day. She could just feel it in her bones.
Luthro could feel his body trembling with the charged power his body received from biting the mutants. They would make great vampires.
It might be a good idea, though, to keep the helpless until I have completely brainwashed them, he realized, I can't have them taking over my project before I have complete control.
They were wonderful weapons for the New Vampires, but they could be just as powerful if used against them. He bit the clawed one again to insure his unconsciousness. That one would be most difficult and most likely to snap the others out of their possession. Yes, best to wait awhile before using them. If he used them at all. He was toying with the idea of just destroying them so they couldn't ruin his plans.
Yes, that's the way to go.
Before he could act upon this idea, he was knocked half way against the room as another body slammed into his. His vision darkened, but quickly returned to normal.
He looked up, angered. Perhaps the clawed one had woken up after all.
Instead he saw a slender young woman with white-striped auburn hair and angry green eyes. The fact that she was floating in the air with her hands on her hips not only emphasized her displeasure, but also told him that some of the other mutants had just returned home.
"I wish," he growled, "that you people would just work with me instead of fighting me at every turn."
She obviously didn't know what in the world he was talking about, but just as obviously didn't care. "Is that how ya react when people tell ya no, sugah?" she snapped, waving an arm to take in her unconscious friends, "Who the heck are ya, anyway?"
Luthro mentally went through the list of the X-Men's members that he had taken pains to memorize before coming here. He toyed calling for backup, but decided to just play this by ear. "Ahh," he said, hitting upon who she was, "You must be Rogue."
Her green eyes narrowed. "That don't tell me who you are, sugah."
He levitated himself so that they were at eye level, unobtrusively bringing himself closer to her. "I am Luthro."
"No closer, sugah," Rogue warned.
He stopped, but she still watched him closely. "Luthro, huh?" she said, "That don't tell me much, sugah. Ah suggest ya start talkin'. Ah'm in a bad mood, and Ah kinda lahk hittin' thangs when Ah'm mad."
He wondered if she had someone watching her back. In the long run, it didn't really matter – whoever was with her couldn't possibly pose much of a problem for him – but it annoyed him that he couldn't place who else was missing here from the X-Men staff list.
He shrugged, buying some time. "I'm a vampire. I want to make more vampires. Is that simple enough for you?"
"Takin' care o' th' top enemies first, huh?" she needled.
"Actually," he said sweetly, "The Avengers and the Fantastic Four were top priority. The X-Men were only third in line. Or fifth, if you count the fact that I took care of Spiderman and Daredevil before your group."
"Nice to know we're in the top ten of threats to bad guys at the very least," she drawled.
"I'm surprised you should look at it that way," he remarked, "The top ten are all going down. I already have the top four. Number five is not going to be that much of a problem."
Before she could respond, he sped up from floating still to super fast, slamming into her. To her credit, she reacted fast – just not fast enough. The two grappled for the upper hand, but although she was super-strong, he was even stronger. He put his mouth against her neck and bit.
Nothing happened. He couldn't break through her skin with his teeth, and too late he remembered her absorbing abilities. Strangely enough, her leech-like powers weren't working on him, and she stared at him, startled, forgetting to struggle for a moment. He recovered from his surprise first, deciding to strangle her with his superior strength before she got his hands off her throat.
He applied pressure in the right spot and she flailed, hitting hard in an effort to get free. He anticipated every shot and blocked it from hitting somewhere vulnerable. Her punches were becoming weaker as she lost her breath, and he knew that it would only be a matter of minutes before she was dead.
Luthro smiled at her. "Goodbye, my dear; nice fighting you."
She glared wordlessly. Just then, fire seemed to smack him in the back, and an explosion hit him in the chest. He gasped in pain from the back and front attack, and though it didn't harm him physically, it startled him enough to make him release his grip on Rogue. She twisted free and fell to the ground, gasping for air.
Luthro ignored her momentarily, wheeling around in search for his unseen attacker.
The young man's strange red eyes stared him down through strands of his auburn hair. A glowing red card was in one hand, and before the stunned vampire could think to react, the unlikely weapon was hurled at his chest again, exploding as it made contact.
Gambit! Luthro cursed himself mentally, as he reeled from the attack, That was who else was missing!
Luckily, unlike Rogue, Gambit was merely human in everything except his ability to make any inanimate object a bomb. The Cajun thief might be able to hold him off for a little while, but once he was out of ammo, he would be completely vulnerable to Luthro's attack.
Gambit tossed another bomb, simultaneously drawing another card into his hand. "Rogue?" he called in concern.
"Ah'm fahn," Rogue wheezed, "Don' let 'im, near ya, Remy; he's a vampire."
I'll take care of you later, Luthro thought gloomily towards Rogue, At this point, your partner is more of a threat.
It would be truly embarrassing if after taking out three large groups of earth's mightiest heroes and nearly the invulnerable Rogue herself, Luthro should be taken down by the much more vulnerable Cajun thief.
The vampire swerved so that Gambit's next missile missed, and then rocketed toward him, zigzagging so that none of Remy's weapons made contact.
He was almost upon the Cajun when Rogue flew into him again, knocking him off course. Gasping for breath, he only managed to stop his momentum from the punch after smacking through several walls. Through the Luthro-shaped holes before him, he could see and hear Rogue coming, and although he could not do the same for Remy, the vampire had no doubt that the thief was on his way as well.
Time for a strategic retreat, he decided, mentally triggering the transport device that would take those he had bitten to his hidden base. In the other room, though no one was there to see it, the unconscious X-Men disappeared.
I'll take care of Rogue and Gambit some other time. They shall pay for my indignity and injuries.
With a pained grimace, he touched the side where Rogue had punched him. He would actually have a bruise there tomorrow; he was certain of it. With false cheer he called out: "Nicely done, my dear Rogue. Unfortunately, I must leave now with the rest of your team. I'm sure it will please you that you and your friend have moved up to threat number one. Cheerio."
He called for his own transport, and right in front of Rogue's started face, he disappeared.
Rogue gaped at where the vampire had been a moment before. "Since when have vampires been able t' do that?"
Remy stepped out of the shadows behind her, his bo-staff loosely at ready in his hand. She hadn't known he was there, but to her credit, she didn't jump. "Ah t'ink we've got trouble, me," he said, solemnly.
Rogue looked at him. "An' guess what, sugah, it's jus' you an' me against him. In case ya didn't hear, he took the rest o' the team wit' him and already took down th' other superheroes around town."
Remy grimaced and leaned against his bo-staff. "Oh, yeah. We definitely got trouble."
