Disclaimers on chapter I

This was supposed to be up yesterday but fate seemed to have other plans. Ah well, on with the fic!

Chapter IX

Sitting on a stone bench out in the garden, Kitty involuntarily shuddered again as she tried to imagine what had happened to Kurt before he was brought to the mansion. So far she had pictured him being burned at the stake, driven from his hometown with blazing torches and pitchforks and hung from the gallows; all old fashioned yet somewhat fitting for some strange reason.

"I never figured you to be the one for horror stories Kitty" Jean said from right in front of the girl making her jump.

"Sorry" Kitty said embarrassedly.

"Don't be" Jean said as she sat down beside the girl. "Just try not to broadcast your thoughts worldwide too often"

Kitty looked away. It had been bad enough that Jean had seen what she was thinking, but to realise that she was literally broadcasting her thoughts for all telepaths to see was making her want to hide in her room for the rest of her days.

"So what's troubling you?" Jean asked after a few minutes of silence. "Normally, whenever we meet, you're always going on about either how great your day had been or a certain elf"

Kitty could not believe what she was hearing. Apparently even her big sister thought that she had a crush on Kurt. Yet for some reason, she could not find it in herself to tell her she was wrong.

"Well, it's about Kurt- but not that way about him" Kitty started before telling Jean about what she had heard Miss Munroe say about her favourite blue elf. "And now I can't help but wonder what had happened in his past, but I don't want to ask in case it ruins what we've got"

Jean smiled reassuringly at the young girl beside her. She had seen how close the two of them had became over the week and had actually begun wondering when Kitty would attempt to ask about Kurt's past and get to know him.

"All you can do is ask and hope for the best. Just the same as asking someone you like, out on a date and such" She said before standing up and walking off. "Why don't you ask him tonight? He's got his own room so privacy won't be an issue"

"And if Jube's and Amara tease me when they find out?" Kitty threw back.

~Prank them like you did last time they did~ Jean mentally replied causing Kitty to blush slightly.

*~#~*

Despite it being a warm day, Rogue attempted to wrap herself tighter in the dark green trench coat Kurt had allowed her to keep as she sat on her own on a wooden bench underneath one of the many trees in the mansions garden. Ever since she woke up in her brother of sort's room, she had been plagued with visions of what she did the night before. After quickly changing out of her nightgown into something more casual, as well as taking the trench coat with her, she had snuck outside to where she was now unable to face anyone after what had happened.

"Rogue!"

Rogue jumped when she heard Bobby call out her name from behind the bench. As he came into view, she almost asked why he was cutting class before remembering classes were now finished for the day.

"Hi bobby" She whispered as he sat down beside her. She had been wondering why he and Kitty had not tried to make contact with her earlier than now.

"Rogue, what did you do?" Bobby asked. There was none of his usual charm that Rogue liked about him, just concern and...anger? "They say that you're stealing other mutants' powers"

"No! I borrowed his power" Rogue explained although technically it was actually Kurt who made her borrow Logan's power.

"You never use your power against another mutant" Bobby cut over her almost snarling in the process.

"I had no choice" Rogue replied weakly. "If Kurt didn't do that then-"

"If I were you I'd get myself outta here" Bobby interrupted again.

Rogue was stunned by what he had just said and almost could not bear to ask what he meant. Bobby however elaborated for her regardless.

"The students here are freaked" He explained. "Kurt's truly ashamed of what he's done and Professor Xavier's furious. I don't know what he'll do with you"

Rogue could not speak. Even Kurt was appalled by what had happened despite being the one to comfort her.

"I think it'll be easier on your own"

He was right, it was why Rogue had left her parents house not even twenty four hours after she had put her first boyfriend into a coma. Quickly getting up off the bench, Rogue took one last look at the boy she had fallen in love with before walking at a swift pace to her dorms for what little money she had left before leaving a place she had thought she could call home.

Watching her leave, Bobby smiled rather sinisterly seeing that his first objective had been accomplished. Getting off the bench, he made his way towards the mansion so that when the X-men chased after her he would be in a better position to complete the second half of his mission. Hopefully he would be finished before he arrived unexpectedly at their door. Not once did he notice a girl, perhaps just a year younger than him, stare at him suspiciously from the nearby tree she had phased herself into as she watched the girl who had been sitting on the bench moments ago.

*~#~*

"What are you up to Eric?" Xavier mumbled to himself as he went over the conversation that had occurred yesterday as he and the X-men found out about Logan's unique skeletal structure particularly what Kurt had speculated. "What would bring you to killing a young girl? It's strange"

"Out of the two of them, she is more suitable for Magneto's schemes than him" Scott put in.

"You don't like him" Xavier said straight out of the blue.

A wry grin appeared on Scott's face as he turned to look at his mentor. "How can you tell?" He asked sarcastically.

"Well, I am psychic, you know" Xavier answered without looking at his former pupil as a grin found its way onto his face before disappearing when Logan and Ororo suddenly came through the door to the med lab with troubled thoughts that he could pick up without probing.

"Where is she?" Logan asked bluntly not caring if he was rude.

"Who?" Scott asked before Xavier cut in.

"Rogue" He said softly as he made a quick sweep of mansion and the surrounding grounds with his powers. "She's gone"

Not even minutes later was Xavier, Logan and the whole X-men team gathered before a large vault like door with a blue LED in its centre that was eye level with the Professor. The LED was actually a retinal scanner keyed in to only Xavier's retina pattern due to what lay behind the door was his greatest invention.

"Welcome to Cerebro" He said as he wheeled into, what Logan thought was, the inside of a giant sphere towards a desk in its core and picked up some sort of helmet and placed it over its head. "This device amplifies my power, allowing me to locate mutants across great distances. This is how I'll find Rogue"

Logan's slightly raised eyebrows rose a fraction more when he looked over the edge of the walkway to see that it was not a half-sphere he was in, but a whole-sphere. With the whispers of distant minds echoing around him, Logan could not help but feel that he was in the centre of the Earth itself.

"Why don't you use it to find Magneto instead?" Logan asked as he reached the Professor's location.

"Apparently, he's found a way to shield himself from it" Xavier admitted. "Since he helped me create Cerebro, it's quite impossible to figure out how"

Before he realised it, Logan suddenly found himself outside the chamber due to Jean telekinetically pulling him out of said chamber before the door closed giving Xavier the privacy he needed to concentrate.

"Hey Jean" Logan called out softly to the woman gaining her attention. "You ever...?"

"Used Cerebro?" Jean asked when Logan indicated the closed door with a jerk of the head. She shook her head. "It takes a degree of control and...for someone like me, well..."

"To put it in vords you understand" Kurt suddenly spoke making them all jump as they were not used to him being in sight and silent at the same time. "Anyvon, ozer zan Herr Professor, who uses Cerebro, is liable to come out as a vegetable. I'm betting Jean vill be a tomato"

"Then you'll probably be a blueberry" Logan remarked causing the observers to choke on their laughter whilst Kurt's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Any further banter they wanted to share was stopped when the door to the Cerebro chamber opened and Xavier wheeled out.

"She's at the train station a few miles west of here" He answered the question on everyone's mind.

"I can be zere in less zan a minute" Kurt blurted out and was actually about to prove so before Xavier's next words took away his momentum.

"You can't; your inducer's not fully repaired yet. And I'll need you and Logan to remain here"

"I'm the reason she's run off" Logan protested.

"She's just upset" Ororo said trying to calm Logan down. "She'll be fine once we've explained it to her"

Suddenly finding himself with no more words to say, Logan about faced and headed towards the elevator to the ground levels. He managed to prevent himself from stopping and staring at Kurt when the elf used a well timed collision of the shoulders to place what felt like a key into his hand and continued into the lift. When he saw what was on the key-chain that held the key, he could not help but grin at what the elf had given him.

"Vhy can't I go Professor?" Kurt inquired as Scott and Ororo left the same way Logan did. "Zis is ze perfect opportunity for Magneto to get her"

"Kitty is busy following the person, she thinks, caused Rogue to leave" Xavier explained causing Kurt to stare at the Professor. "You did not think I would not have expected you to ask Kitty to keep a closer eye on Rogue without my knowing, did you?"

At that moment upstairs, Scott was looking at the empty space that had once been where his bike was parked whilst Logan sped off towards the station on said bike.

*~#~*

"When's the last time you saw her?" Roberto asked Bobby as the two of them and John headed down the hallway. They were talking about Rogue's sudden disappearance.

"I was supposed to find and talk to her during lunch" Bobby said which was nearly six hours ago.

As the three of them continued down the hall, a second, identical, Bobby suddenly appeared out of a hidden doorway that went to the underground level. Seeing that the coast was clear, the second Bobby walked back into the passage and towards the door of the Cerebro chamber.

Several seconds later, Kitty suddenly came through the wall of the passage and looked around for the second Bobby. She knew she should have stuck with Rogue but the Bobby she was currently following was not the Bobby she knew so she decided to tail him. Coming onto the main hallway, Kitty barely managed to stop from ploughing head first into Kurt.

"Vhat are you doing here?" He asked both sternly yet softly at the same time.

"I was following Bobby but I lost him" Kitty explained as she looked round for the aforementioned teen.

"I'll look for him down here, you head back upstairs" Kurt instructed.

Kitty nodded and made to do so before a sudden thought struck her. Usually, no matter the situation, Kurt would always managed to find a way of inserting humour into the mix yet just now he was strict and to the point. She was about to turn round and confront him when suddenly Kurt appeared at the other end of the hall in a cloud of sulphur, but she had not heard him teleport away. The Kurt at the end of the hall took one look at her and the Kurt behind her before trying to tell her something before she was struck in the back of the head into unconsciousness.

The moment he saw Kitty get knocked out by the imposter, Kurt charged towards them only to be knocked out when his doppelganger threw some sort of stun grenade at him rendering him unconscious.

#~*~#

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Watch this space (especially on the twenty-fifth for a nice surprise) & peace out