To Save a Rogue
By:
C.D. Lamarr
Chapter VI
Zaaap!
"Oooooooh!"
"Lights out……Sugar bear!'
Flash! Flash!
Ugggh—one of these days……..ooooh……….
Rogue withdraws her hand!
As Pietro with a parting uuugh for good measure, feinted dead
away and went back to the floor with a crash that scattered debris
that had been kicked up in the scuffle!
"Betcha you say that to all the girls Honey!"
His head lolled to one side!
"Hey what about me", drawled Pete aka Zero-G with an impish grin
as he levitated back down to the shop floor again? He'd stuck Pietro's
feet to the floor like a magnet—Rogue had done the rest.
"Aw shucks sweetie", Rogue replied grinning as she placed her
glove back on, "You know I owe ya big time! Never coulda got him 'f you
hadn't snatched the rug out from under em when you did!"
"Yeah well", says the boy with a shrug, "I do what I can!"
"Trust you fer that!"
"Uh-oh!"
"Now what?"
"Over in the park! Nighty's in trouble!"
And for sure Night Crawler was in a rather distressing situation!
In his eagerness to aid Shadow Cat he'd ported accidentally right into
Blob's hand. And having it wrapped round his throat wasn't the most
pleasant experience he could think of! Pinned, breathless, unable to
summon enough concentration to jump himself free he hung like a limp doll
within the big man's grasp!
Rogue and Z-G after exchanging glances were in motion in an
instant as with a grimace Rogue removed her glove once more and said:
"Looks like I'm about ta feel really big and stupid 'f ya know what I
mean!"
"Ugh", groaned Z-G, "Better you than me!"
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Cackling maliciously, Hot-streak drove back the X-Men and scattered them from before him! A flooding down pour of flame hotter than a blast furnace spirals from above like coils and heat seekers that hit with the force of battering rams! Cars went up in blossoms of fire and smoke, poles and power lines sizzled and crackled under the Elemental's power—sending a black out wave across block after block of city blanketing Soho and the surrounding streets in darkness as the sun sank lower in the horizon!
Mystique—going hand to hand with Wolverine—exulted in her victory! At last—she had assembled a team of Mutants worthy of challenging Charles Xavier's—perhaps even better! They were certainly proving themselves a worthy foe! Soon the Brotherhood of Mutants would be more than a match for Xavier's wimps!
And they called themselves X-Men!
Already Cyclops lay somewhere in an unconscious heap along with Spyke, Berserker, and Ice Man! Berserker in his eagerness to nail Pietro had zapped Cyclops and had in turn been nailed by one of Ice Man's artic blast whenever he'd aimed at Quick Silver and missed, after which Pietro had settled him—pathetic!
Now if they could just take out the others—Phoenix, Zero G, the new Mutants Electros and Brainac—not to mention this maniac she was having to keep at bay, everything would be going according to plan!
The Brotherhood sallied forth—power pouring forth from their united assault!
The X-Men gave way before them and fell back!
Now to the untrained observer, Wolverine might seem nothing more than a mindless creature of rage but there was purpose in that brain of his that few people other than Xavier understood! He could be a formidable strategist whenever he took a notion and apparently a good actor! He'd taken quite a thrashing from Mystique and really seemed to be reeling from the effects of it! But Mystique wasn't fooled by the act!
He backed away from her—retreated when she attacked but it was for the sole purpose of getting her to follow in order to angle the tide of the struggle away from the more heavily populated Square to inside the park which had cleared of patrons almost the instant the clash started.
Mystique let him get away with it—this time—because for once it coincided with her own purpose.
He'd fallen back, she came after him!
She had to in order to keep near him—in order for her plan to work!
Inside the Park Wolverine turned to close with her and Mystique comes to meet him! Hands shooting out impossibly fast she countered every move—taking care to keep those claws at bay! She dodged left then right as she backed away from them and then turning quickly about she blocks another incoming strike! Then she came in with him back to back, delivered a sharp elbow—a shot to the rib cage that pulled a grunt from him and then whirled round completing the circle with a round house kick that sent the Feral flying hard into a park bench which collapses under the impact!
She darted after him!
But now that they had moved away from the Square the tide of the battle began gradually to shift! Mystique grimaced as Jean suddenly went air borne and delivered a TK blast that drove Hot Streak out of the sky! Her telepathy temporarily disengaged his thoughts from his flames and he instantly lost the power of locomotion that had kept him aloft and plunged downward! He hit the ground in a bone wrenching jolt and slide! Then Shadow Cat, who'd been watching for just such an opportunity, loomed up suddenly from underneath the ground and dragged him down!
Mystique flinched with anger!
But she restrained herself from interfering!
She couldn't—not if her plans were to work!
She had to get Wolverine close enough to Rogue in order to execute her scheme…………………..and it had to look like an accident!
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
It all happened so quickly it was as the work of an instant—of a flash of time!
And it had happened almost immediately after Night Crawler had been snatched from his tender mercies! Blob had been so busy trying to shake—with a good deal of satisfaction—the life out of the Teleporter he never saw it coming until it was too late!
He shook—Kurt gasped for breath—and he shook some more! And while to Kurt it was probably the single most terrible experience he'd ever had, to Blob it was a famous piece of good fun and he rattled him back and forth so hard his teeth clanged together inside his head!
Pinned, breathless—it was all Nighty could do to remain conscious—let alone summon the concentration to jump—as Blob with a malicious snort gave him a shake and a squeeze for good measure!
Delighted to have an X-Man about the throat he never noticed that beneath him the earth's gravitational pull suddenly shifted so much so that when he went to give Kurt another good shake—he couldn't!
"Wha--
He tried again—no good!
"What the--
And then he couldn't move at all!
Zero-G's mutant ability enabled him to manipulate the gravity in any given area and whenever he focused on multiple objects his maneuvering could be almost as effective as Jean's telekinesis. He could erase gravity at will causing a person's feet to fly right out from under him, creating the sensation of weightlessness that exists in outer space or he could do the opposite: He could make a ninety-eight pound man move like he weighed five hundred. Under Xavier's training his range was beginning to increase; however, for the present his power was limited to the here and the now.
His knowledge of earth's gravity and what could be done with it gave him enough understanding into the nature of Blob's power to know that the big man was somehow able to tap into earth's gravity in order to root himself like a tree to the ground—thus his name the immoveable.
Which is exactly what Z-G was hoping he would do!
And when he did it he merely amplified the intensity!
Even for a man of his tonnage Freddy Dukes' movements came with surprising rapidity and momentum. Whenever he massed himself on the other hand he could stop moving objects four times his size—but this came with a price: His movements were greatly hampered by the sudden shift in mass!
But then Z-G didn't want him move!
Rogue certainly didn't.
Of course she could have caught him easily—she had Pietro's power and Lance's for that matter. But for a big man Blob could move with surprising speed and was an astonishing jumper and could leap away without warning in order to dodge any danger his bulk couldn't handle! Even using the powers she'd just borrowed she'd probably still have to end up grappling with the big brute hand to hand before she could bring him down! She'd save that for when she had no other choice, but for now this was by far less troublesome.
He tried to move away—and nothing happened!
And now that he couldn't Shadow Cat was able to phase quickly up from the ground, pull Night Crawler—who was pretty much out cold—free of his grasp, cutting up all his enjoyment and making him madder by the second!
It was when he tried moving again that the comprehension of what was happening gradually darted across him!
"What??"
He glared up at Zero-G and immediately tried breaking the hold the boy had established over his body! But try as he might his body refused to comply! He might be the immovable but at this moment his reputation—not to mention his power were both working against him!
When that didn't work he tried a little blasphemy mingled with threats that ranged from doing something to body cavities to something about every bone in Zero-G's body once he got his hands on him or something like that! Needless to say Z-G was unimpressed and kept on ramping up the gravity beneath him, increasing its strength and density so that his fury knew no bounds!
Then—he saw Rogue!
Now there were few things—precious few—that could succeed in frightening the immovable. But among the select few Rogue's touch ranked top of the list! He could stop a car moving at top speed, a tractor trailer—even a train come to that without breaking a sweat.
With few exceptions he was one of the toughest Mutants in the whole of New York—no physical punishment that he wasn't prepared to take. But there was absolutely nothing that could steel him against the effects of Rogue's power whenever she touched him!
But ironically the worst part wasn't the actual experience itself (and that was bad)! It was the memories of it afterwards! Patients in surgery who've accidentally woke before the procedure was done could possibly speak of feeling less agony!
His whole world went white in an instant!