Disclaimer: I do not in any way own or have legal rights over x-men or anything slightly associated with x-men sorry. Wish I did though; make my life a lot happier! Lol
A/N: Okay I know I should be working on my other million stories but this one just popped into my head one day at work and I couldn't stop writing it out until it was finished. Also I have another story but I refuse to put that one up until all the other one's are finished. So I hope you enjoy this one and will review like always.
---Also this is pairing I have never done before so I know a few people out there love this pairing. If you have any ideas or think something's should be changed to help enhance the story it would be extremely helpful! Thank you.
I braced myself against the long wooden banister. Tears threatening to rise and spill over my tired eyes as I clung helpless to the wooden staircase.
It's only been a few hours since I left that slaughterhouse. But I can still smell death as it lingers like a ghost on my skin. I can still feel the cold, rigid ness of the victim's limbs as we slowly moved each body from their own person hells. But what I hate the most is that I can almost hear their silent screams echoing throughout the hallways, like a whisper on the wind.
It follows each and every one of us like a dark secret that will never be told and will hopefully never be remembered. I've never been more horrified then I was during those long hours. It was supposed to be a simple mission. But I guess that's how all the bad ones start out, simple.
Scott and I were supposed to just infiltrate the medical facility, check it out and leave. Period, that's it. Nothing else. Be back by five, just in time for the Stars versus the Red Wings game.
But it took us only a moment to realize the once overly productive medical facility was now completely abandon. But what they left behind was something I will never forget.
Room after room, cell after cell, all filled with dead, mutant bodies. Women, men and yes-even children lined each of these death chambers. Every age, every race, every social standing. It didn't matter who you were or where you were from. The only connection these people had was the fact that they were mutants.
Immediately we called for back up. Bobby, Kitty, Hank and Pete answered our call for help. Bobby and Kitty would be coming by two large medical trucks. Hank and Pete would be arriving in our newest aircraft, the Black Hawk. Something he bought after Liberty Island, a smaller more versatile contraption that could carry up to four people for medical emergencies only.
It took them nearly thirty minutes to reach us on the out skirts of New York.
The rancid smell of decomposing flesh made my stomach churn and my eyes water as the putrid flesh continued to decay around us. Scott and I started then, the long and extensive search for any survivors. Both knowing the likely hood of finding one against the hundreds dead seemed a very thin hope.
"I just don't understand." I eventually had to say to Scott after fifteen minutes of silence.
"Who really would?" he responded as we discovered the basement that in actuality was a massive holding cell room.
Each black iron cell was tiny, holding up to maybe five people in each, all cramped and all presumed dead. Men, women and children clung helplessly to lifeless bodies of what we believed to be loved ones as death soon took them with no mercy.
"Oh God," I said to my self as I covered my mouth with a gloved hand as we turned on the bright overhead lights.
"Didn't you know?" Scott said to me eerily, "There is no God here."
I looked over at him and suddenly realized his hatred for this forsaken place. Remembering a time when Scott was locked away in a tiny cell as a child as Sinister did ungodly things to his small body. Knowing at this moment he was feeling the fear each child felt as they were left in the dark only able to listen to the sounds of the dying as death slowly took them from hell. A fear the mighty Cyclopes once felt himself years ago.
"Ah! There you are," came the sophisticated voice of Dr. Hank McCoy as he came down the metal staircase leading to the tiny holding cells, Pete close behind him carrying a few of Hank's medical supplies.
"Good, you are all here," Scott told Hank and Pete as the settled the bags onto the cement floor.
"Yes and Iceman and Shadowcat are at the moment checking the perimeter in case there was in fact any survivors. We believe that maybe a few might have escaped and are hopefully hiding just outside the fencing," Hank reported to us as he and Pete began to unload the medical supplies.
"What should we do first?" I asked Cyclopes as I looked about me, the sea of bodies seeming overwhelming at the time.
"Beast, you and Colossus will set up a medical facility here and will start checking the bodies and labeling them. That way when I have Shadowcat run the computers we will be able to find out who all these people are finally. Their families should know," Scott, said ominously as he used his laser beam eyes to open the first of the many cells.
We pulled out the first two bodies, identical twin males. The boys had silver-gray hair and brilliant blue eyes that lost their sparkle along with their lives days ago. However the next two victims were ten times worse than the boys. A mother clutching her dead child to her breast, both obvious mutants. The mother a purple skinned mutant, her son, purple haired with silver-gray hair and brilliant blue eyes. Just like the twin boys.
"Who do you suppose is the father?" I asked Hank curious about the lost lives before me.
"I won't know till I have taken blood samples of the four and run the DNA against one another," He told me as he checked over the young child, "However it is obvious how the child died even if his skin is purple. By the small fabric particles lodged in his throat, it is safe to assume that the mother suffocated him."
"And the mother?" I asked with inquisitive question.
"Blow to the back of her head," He said to me as he turned her over and showed me the bloody spot on the back of the woman's dark chocolate hair.
"I believe that one of the twins here, probably which ever one fathered her child. For this isn't a blow of hatred and rage like we will see with a few other patients as we move along. It is one of hesitance and quickness. If you see here," He said pointing again to the back of the head, "she was hit only once in the back of the head and the blow was fast and quick. She did not feel a thing."
I just stared at the tightly closed eyes of the woman before me, curious as to whom she was and might have been as Hank tagged and numbered her toe and wrote down a few quick notes of identification.
I turned back to my work as Hank set the small family aside and called up to Pete on the radio to pick them up and take them to the truck.
It was only an hour later when we heard the faint crackle of Hank's radio come to life. Bobby's rushed voice was heard as he called for help.
"Yes Iceman what is the problem?" Hank asked over the small hand held radio.
"Shadowcat has found…" his voice trailed off and we all stared at the radio in captivated silence.
"Iceman?" Hank called into the radio.
"Sorry Beast just trying to calm Shadowcat down, she's in hysterics. She found a mass grave," Bobby finished with the click of the radio. We continued to stare at Hank as we let the reality of what Bobby had just said sit in.
More Bodies? Will this never end? Who would do this?
These questions and more ran through our minds as Cyclopes reached over for the small two way radio.
"Start the unburial process, line them up so that when we get done down here we can tag them and load them up," Scott's leader-like voice rang despondently across the metal and cement walls.
It took us four hours to remove each body from the basement and the many rooms, tagging each one and photographing them for evidence. But it wasn't until we sent Pete to the morgue with the first load of bodies that we found him.
He had his own personally cell, well more like a cage. He was barely breathing but alive. His chest heaving heavily with each raspy gasps for air. His mutation we figured was the only thing keeping him alive all this time.
Scott and I had rushed to him in seconds. Scott opening the door at a run and me lurching it open with everything I had as we entered the tiny cell.
"HANK!" I screamed as I laid his fragile head upon my lap with delicate care. Tears streamed down my dirty cheeks, leaving thin trails behind as they fell upon his skeletal face.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God," I murmured to myself as I rocked back and forth with his head in my lap.
Moments later Hank arrived and shoved Scott aside as he checked his vitals.
"Please let him make it," I prayed as Hank continued to check him somewhat unbelievable at what he was seeing.
"Rogue your going to have to help Cyclopes carry him to the Black Hawk," Hank said to me as he injected him with an IV, "he needs immediate attention. Cyclopes call Colossus and tell him to prep the Black Hawk and I'll page Storm and have her prep the medical lab."
"Colossus prep the Black Hawk we found a survivor," I heard Scott say into the small compact radio with a rushed heart rate at what this meant.
"Storm we found one please have the med lab ready for us in thirty minutes this patient will need our immediate attention," Hank's poised and controlled voice told her.
"Alright ready Rogue?" Hank asked as Cyclopes came over to me and bent down to help me lift the light body of the once masculine man.
We both heaved and lifted him easily and carefully carried him towards the small Black Hawk. Once we arrived above ground and finally got to see the rows and rows of dead bodies I felt myself go weak in the knees until I heard Scott's commanding voice.
"Do not look," he said in a voice only I could hear. I nodded in understanding and kept my focus on the small black jet before me.
Pete quickly relieved me of my burden as I loaded myself into the jet and helped pull the body up with me. Hank himself was already strapped in and ready to go as he quickly shut the hatch to the jet and took off with a lurch.
As we finally leveled off I held the saline solution and watched as his eyes slowly opened and closed in and out of delirium.
"It is alright your safe now," I whispered so only he could hear. But I am pretty sure Hank heard me and personally I didn't care.
When we arrived in the mansion the Professor and Ororo were stationed on the loading dock waiting our return. We landed much more smoothly than we took off and I was personally thankful for that. My stomach still in knots at the earlier scene I had witnessed.
"Professor," I said as we placed him carefully on the gurney.
"Was he the only survivor?" the Professor asked as we started to wheel the corpse-like body onto the lift that would take us up to the upper levels of the mansion.
"Unfortunately yes. I believe it'll be best to continue this discussion and our next plan of action after our patient is settled though," Hank said to Charles as if they where old friends. The Professor simply nodded as he watched us load onto the lift.
"But Charles, isn't that…" But before she could finish her question the Professor answered her.
"Yes Ororo I am afraid that Victor "Sabertooth" Creed is now a resident of the mansion," he clarified as the both re-entered the mansion.
"The Wolverine will not take this very well," Storm told Charles as they followed Hank and I into the medical lab.
"No I do not believe he will."
A/N: Okay so a good first chapter? I hope so. I never do these types of pairings. So any ideas would be extremely helpful like I said earlier. I also hope this was long enough. So please review and tell me what you think.