Chapter Eight

- ,.,-

It started raining about twenty minutes into Logan's trudge northwards, as he was listing parts of the country that might see this kind of weather at this time of year. The temperatures around New York had dropped suddenly as autumn had hit, but there hadn't been much rain, or any predicted at least. It had been raining here for days – the earth smelt of water and late season rot, and somewhere on the breeze was the scent of snow and ice. He was debating time travel, when he got a whiff of exhaust fumes. Following his nose, he broke into a run.

He met the road at a massive sign for a truck stop on his left, and beyond it a road sign that gave him a good idea of where he was. It was showing 100 km to Sutton, 130 to Palmer and 200 to Anchorage. He was in Alaska, and miles from any kind of habitation.

"Fuck." he sighed to himself. He trudged down the road towards the truck stop, feeling dusk creeping up on him as the temperatures dropped suddenly and lights appeared on the far distant horizon. He had to count himself lucky he'd found the road – there weren't too many of those around this place. He started to pat himself down for a cigar, only to realise that he was still in uniform. He grimaced – this was going to be uncomfortable. He wasn't carrying any cash, or any cigars and he was dressed in mostly yellow spandex. He pushed the mask off his face roughly and let it dangle from the neck of his suit with nowhere else to put it. He eyed the inside of the stop as he walked up to the ramshackle old hut of a building. It was wall to wall smoke, truckers and bikers. He grit his teeth.

He marched in with a look on his face that dared anyone to comment on his state of dress. Twenty pairs of eyes turned his way and a rough snigger started in one corner. The bartender leant forwards over the bar, a burly man with intimidating arms.

"You lost? No fancy dress parties 'round here." he grunted at the smaller man.

Logan scowled, biting out his reply. "Gimme a beer and a Cohiba."

"You got pockets in that get-up, friend?"

"No, but I got these…" Logan popped his claws and rammed them into the bar. "And a whole lotta need for a cigar… friend." He grinned menacingly, and felt the patrons of the bar take a step forwards in unison. He frowned. That wasn't what he'd been expecting.

"Get outta my bar before my friends ask you to leave, mutie." The man growled possessively, leaning forwards over the bar as if proving he wasn't scared of the blades. "The shack for your lot is 30K west. Back on your bike, before the trouble starts."

Logan snorted, but withdrew his claws. If Sabretooth was still nearby, the guys at a mutant-serving bar would probably know who he was, if not where. Might even be working with him. Temptation to work of the frustration of an aborted fight not-withstanding, he wanted to get the hell out of Alaska.

He stormed back outside and eyed the row of bikes. Looking up into the pitch-black sky and smelling rain, he spotted a new biker pulling into the parking lot. He grinned. Two minutes later he was racing west on his newly acquired bike.

He really needed a beer.

Hell, he really needed a whole lotta beer.

- ,.,-

"Fuck." The sharp expletive made Warren look up from his paper and scowl. It had just taken him an hour to walk to the nearest shop to pick up his paper. He'd only just gotten his breath back and stopped his heart hammering in his ears, he *was* going to read his paper in peace.

A tap turned on in the kitchen, and Warren rolled his eyes. The Professor had taken the report they'd compiled on preparations for the school and disappeared into his office. That left him and Remy killing time around the mansion until the others got back. It sounded like LeBeau was having trouble scrounging up lunch.

Realising with a sigh of annoyance that he'd completely lost track of the article he'd been reading, he threw the paper aside and decided to go and make a coffee. He could make sure the Cajun wasn't bleeding to death or trying to burn the house down while he was there. He ignored the head-rush as he stood up, knowing he'd pushed himself by walking into town. He felt vaguely sick, but felt justified in blaming that on the medication as he straightened and walked out into the hall.

Remy, he found as he stepped into the kitchen, was chopping enough vegetables to feed a small army. He glanced over his shoulder, as Warren stepped through the door, and it was such an unconscious gesture that Warren felt bereft for a second, before flat brown contacts passed over him without focusing.

"Y' wan' somet'in', Wings?" Remy spoke up, turning back to his task.

"What are you doing?" he asked, stepping in to look over Remy's shoulder.

"Makin' gumbo." Remy grinned, sounding highly proud of himself.

"Seriously?"

"'M' tastebuds been dyin' from all dis bland food. Need some *spice*, neh?"

"Your taste buds are long dead, LeBeau. I remember what happened last time you made this stuff."

"Ain' never seen d'Ice-man go so red." Remy sniggered, pulling a huge saucepan across the work surface and piling the vegetables into it.

'And you won't again.' wandered through Warren's mind, but he kept it to himself.

"Dis a calmer version, promise." Remy continued.

"Have you cooked since… y'know… recently?" Warren rolled his eyes at his own discomfort, moving to fill the kettle. "You haven't been eating with us."

"Dey gave us lessons. Dat's patronisin' shit, I tell y'."

"What were you swearing about?"

Remy's smile became a scowl. "Dropped de knife." Remy waved it in his direction. "Bastard t' find."

"And you…" Warren stopped, looking up as the PA spat out the two-tone call to the War Room.

"'S'at f' us?" Remy asked, baffled.

"There were two teams out, and they can only just have got back. There's only the professor and they don't need the alarm for him." Warren shrugged. "Might as well go find out."

- ,.,-

The difference between antagonising a room full of baselines and antagonising a room full of mutants was the predictability. Baselines might point guns at you, threaten with knives and fists, but here it could be anything from teleportation to being ripped limb from limb. He'd tried that, and it stung. To say he was a little more careful when he stepped into another smoky bar, just as full of low-lifes and drunks as the last, was an understatement.

This one looked a little more ramshackle, as bars tended to when their patrons could throw people through the ceiling when they got into a fight. It wasn't busy, but he still pulled a decent crowd when he walked through the door. He growled at the nearest one, a man with all-blue eyes and webbing between his fingers, and watched as he scuttled to the back of the room with a squeak.

He marched up to the bar and scowled at the woman behind it.

"'m lookin' fer Victor Creed. Ya seen him 'round here?"

"Don't get many costumes through here." the woman smirked. "'S not very subtle. You lookin' fer information, you buy it like everyone else."

Logan growled, but backed down. He didn't want to know what tricks she had up her sleeve to be so blasé. A narrowed pair of eyes at the back of the bar caught his eye and Logan headed over to find out what he knew. He sat down in front of a man with alien looking skin - nothing he could immediately put his finger on, but it wasn't normal. He smelt odd, too clean to be human. At least not the normal kind. The mutant cringed away at his stare.

"Tell me what ya know." he said levelly, taking a mouthful of the other man's beer.

- ,.,-

Scott looked up when Remy and Warren appeared in the doorway. Noting Warren's palor, he glanced over at Hank to make sure he'd seen it too before continuing. Warren, watching this silent exchange over his good health, scowled and stormed to his usual seat.

Ororo and Bobby came in last, Ororo catching Remy's wrist as she passed him in the door and leading him awkwardly to the free chair beside her own.

Scott scanned the room, acknowledging everyone and registering the ever-diminishing number of active X-men present.

"I wanted everyone present for this briefing, because I think we're going to need all minds on this problem. To quickly reiterate for everyone who wasn't in the briefing the other day:

"Creed was, until today, attacking uninhabited structures and property, and leaving before anyone could respond. There are a couple of incidences where he has travelled faster than is normal from one sighting to the next, but we had and still have no leads on how he's managing it. This morning he attacked an inhabited building. He was distracted enough that we got there before he'd left, but we still don't know how he travelled. He appeared nearly one hundred miles away less than twenty minutes later. Wolverine engaged him and they both disappeared. They were not in the immediate area, and Wolverine's communicator wasn't - and still isn't - working, suggesting they're out of range of any of the relay stations."

"Or that whoever Creed is working for has taken it off him." Bobby pointed out.

"What'ya mean by 'disappeared'?" Remy asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"They vanished into thin air. I watched them. There was no distortion, no noise. Nothing to suggest what happened."

"Do we think it's mutant?" Warren asked.

"Honestly? We have nothing to go on here. I'm not going to make unsubstantiated guesses. What we can say is that whatever or whoever is holding Creed's reins, he's starting to lose control. And now Logan is with them."

"So we wait for Wolverine to get out of there and contact us." Warren suggested. "He'll have far more information than we do now."

"Seriously? Dat's y' plan?" Remy frowned.

"Since when did the Wolverine need a rescue party?" Warren replied, exasperated. "Most of the time, he's better off without us storming in there and getting in the way."

"He has told us so more than once." Ororo added.

"I'd still like to know where he is." Scott put in, seeing Remy's expression darken.

"It may be possible to optimise the scanning region using the equipment onboard the blackbirds." Hank put in. "If we are in the air, then we can extend the range considerably."

"Would you need both birds?" Scott quizzed him, understanding what he had planned.

"It'd be faster with both in the air." Bobby answered for Hank.

"Okay, do it. But take a full team in one, just in case Creed crops up again. If he's started causing more than cosmetic damage, then we need to be able to respond."

The room started to empty and Remy side-stepped Ororo's arm, headed for the door.

"Hey, LeBeau. How long before dinner's ready?" Warren called. Scott glanced back, and was sure he could see Remy pale.

"Jeannie can finish it, I'm not hungry." he mumbled, before disappearing up the stairs.

- ,.,-

The streets were clearing for the night, lights in shops going out, car parks emptying. The people were changing too, becoming rowdier, more gaudily painted, more exotically dressed.

She felt comfortable here, more at ease with the people of the night. The mood was different; lively and free. No one knew her here. No one had known her for months now, but she was never lonely in the night.

Tonight, she wasn't just walking for the company. There was a meeting to be had. It had been so long since she last spoke to anyone that she worried she might have forgotten how. The house was on the corner - hollow eyes of windows looking out onto the emptying streets forlornly. She thought this house suited how she felt very nicely.

The man, who opened the door, looked the same as he had the last time she saw him. He wore a suit and his hair was slicked back in what she thought of as a very southern fashion. Despite that, his accent suggested his origins were far from the Americas.

She thought the suit looked alien on him. She'd seen what he looked like underneath, of course. She told him so, and he laughed with his head thrown back, like in the movies. She was just glad she could remember how to talk.

He asked, predictably, if she managed to make that phone call. She blushed and admitted she hadn't – wasn't sure she could. His cool presence calmed her, and she believed him when he told her she was being irrational. She promised she'll try again and he patted her on the head patronisingly.

When she left later, feeling a little violated and so much less comfortable about herself than she had earlier in the night, she resolved that it must happen soon.

After all, she was starting to show.

- ,.,-

"Remy?" The room was dark and warm, comforting as Ororo stepped inside.

"'Lo Stormy." A pale face appeared in the darkness, reflecting moonlight from the huge windows, where he perched on the 'sill.

"You will desist with that nickname immediately, do you understand?" she chuckled.

"No news yet." Remy didn't bother to ask, he knew. There was a brief nod, and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ororo saw Remy drop his head back down onto his knees, hiding his face from the moon with a fall of hair and dropping back into the shadows. She took a seat on the chair and watched Remy as he wrapped himself in an aura of 'not-here'. It was like watching someone disappear; her mind slowly forgot what it was focusing on and slid out into the next distraction.

There was a flicker out in the garden and she was watching the bats rough and tumble over an insect in the night. She wondered what it would be like, observing in motion alone – whether the shapes would be more vivid against the cold night backdrop than the soft-edged shadows she could see in the dark.

"Who told Scott?" she asked the ever deepening shadow. There was a snort of laughter and the shadow resolved again.

"Who doesn't know anymore? 'Cept maybe Wings, t'ink I mighta heard a lil' more about it, if he'd caught on. He ain' one for keepin' to his self."

"Don't write him off, Remy. He'll wake up to this eventually." she sighed. "Please don't disappear. This has not been easy on you, I know, but don't disappear."

- ,.,-

The moment Creed set foot in the compound, he could feel the anger. It was simmering in the air like a living thing and he wanted nothing more than to crawl away. But he didn't. He'd been told to come back and report, so he had. Calm warmth spread through him at the thought of obedience, and he walked up to the office building braced against the malevolent atmosphere.

The office was on the top floor, and he ran up the chill metallic stairway without hesitating. He had no idea what was on the other floors of this massive building, and he had no interest in finding out.

There were lots of offices on the top floor - the eighth - but only one was occupied. Just outside was a small desk with a phone and a computer, and a girl sat there. She had lime green hair, and piercings through every body part visible, and possibly more besides. She glanced up at him with a look that said she didn't approve of him at all, and smirked.

"He's busy. You'll have to wait." she pointed at a seat that was obviously too small for Creed's frame.

"He said I had to come straight back." Creed whined, pleading.

"You made him mad. That means you have to wait." she grinned vindictively.

Showing all his teeth, Creed growled. "I'll wait."

It was nearly twenty minutes before he was let into the office, and the girl looked disappointed that her game had been spoiled as she waved him through. She stepped in just behind Creed's huge frame, leaning around him to see the suited man at the desk.

"Coffee?" she offered. He didn't look up from the ledger on his desk, but at his brusque nod she scuttled out, grinning widely.

Creed cringed back as he glanced up, as if barely interested in the other man in his office.

"So..." There were so many levels of anger in that word that Creed took another step back. "What happened? I left you with very specific orders. I trusted you to fulfil them."

"I was at both sites. I left both…"

"NO fighting, NO confrontations, NO ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS." the suited man was on his feet, face red, both hands on the ledger in front of him as if he were about to throw it across the room.

"I couldn't help that *they* turned up." Creed replied sullenly, eyes fixed to the floor.

"You know that's not what I mean."

"I just needed to…" Creed glanced up, judging. "to break free for a bit."

"What exactly did you have planned?" came the hissed reply.

"All I wanted was…" Creed trailed off.

"No really, I'm interested." he sat back down, gesturing for him to go on. "Tell me why that was such a brilliant idea…"

"It was only once… and no one got hurt."

"Do you think I give you these orders on a whim?" he asked lightly. "Do you think there is no master plan?"

Creed shook his head earnestly.

"You get one more chance. If you mess up again, I'll find someone else. Now go away. I'll get the next locations to you soon."

Dismissed, Creed darted from the room, ignoring the secretary's giggles as he went.