Chapter 10 Stolen Victory
Storm was feeling better. Just flying, the air rushing past her seemed to energize her. She enjoyed the cool breeze and although she still had to be cautious in case Magneto or any of his goons were still around, she still was able to take somewhat of a break from it all. Put her mind into slight rest mode.
Finally arriving where they had the jet camouflaged. Storm landed swiftly on the ground. She pressed a button on her uniform. The hologram that made the X-jet blend into the scenery shimmered and then disappeared all together.
The jet reappeared. But not in the same condition Storm had last seen it in. This aircraft was now damaged. It's door was hanging off of it at a weird angle, as if some energy weapon or small explosion had blasted it off.
She looked quickly around her and her eyes focused on something white sticking out from some rubble. Storm made her way closer, leaned down and picked up the object. Wiping the dirt of it that it had acquired she looked at it. It was a half of an Ace of spades, which looked like it had been slightly burned, it was blackened around the edges.
The card perplexed her, but for some reason she felt it was important so she pocketed it. Then Putting her self on guard she silently flew up to the now wide open jet. She peered in, but she had the feeling whoever had done the damage was long gone.
She was right. She was alone.
After stepping inside she looked around her trying to figure out what the saboteur was after. Nothing physical seemed to be missing.
She contacted Cyclops through her communicator. After he said he was on his way with an injured Rogue, they broke communication and she suddenly knew what Magneto had been after... why he had set the whole fight between the X-men and Brotherhood up.
She made her way over to the computer, it took a couple minutes, but she found that she was right. Dread spread through her body. The Professor wasn't going to be happy. His file that contained info on every mutant he had ever found with Cerebro had been copied.
How did they manage to break the decryption? she asked herself. And then the answer came to her. Mystique.
Fighting the urge to call up the Professor right then and there she made her self busy by getting one of the medical cots ready for Rogue. About 10 minutes passed before they showed up. It took a little doing to get everyone on board due to the now destroyed door but they somehow managed. After getting the unconscious Rogue fastened into the cot's harness they made their way up front, each sat down in a chair. She couldn't help but notice how tired everyone looked and knew she appeared the same.
"Wait a minute, where is Wolverine?" Storm couldn't believe she didn't notice sooner that one of her teammates was missing.
"He's gone." Cyclops answered, a deep frown on his face.
"Gone?" Storm couldn't believe what she was hearing, let alone the lack of an explanation.
"Yea, he vanished in one of those portal things." Iceman said soberly, while rubbing his temples from an apparent headache.
"How do we get him back?" Storm asked, the stress making it's way into her voice. She took a couple long breaths and tried to calm down.
"I don't know Ororo, hopefully the professor will be able to help us." Cyclops answered her calmly. although his mouth which was set in a grim line gave away his true emotions.
"So can this crate still fly?" Iceman asked his eyes on the damaged door. His mouth twisted into a frown.
"Well, I can probably weld the door back on which should be good enough to get us home where it can be properly repaired." Cyclops turned extra serious with his next question. "Was anything taken?"
"Yes," Ororo answered her face downcast. "They copied cerebro's files."
"I thought we had tight security." Iceman said confused.
"We do, I helped install it myself," Cyclops shook his head "This shouldn't be possible!" He started to check the computer himself. Storm knew it wasn't because he didn't trust her but because he had to see first hand.
"Obviously it is, and now Magneto has a list of all the known mutants in the world." Storm said quietly, watching as his face became darker with anger.
"Why would Magneto want it?" Iceman asked of them.
"Probably to recruit more mutants into his brotherhood" Storm offered, all the while hoping she was wrong. She didn't like the thought of Magneto increasing in power, or his numbers of followers multiplying. He was a force enough to deal with all by himself.
Cyclops jumped up out of his chair after he was through with the computer.
"Rogue gets injured, Wolverine disappears and to top it off our jet has been damaged and files stolen." Cyclops sighed loudly his exasperation making itself evident in his voice. "Don't think we won this one folks!"
He walked away from them and jumped outside the jet to repair it.
"What do we do now?" Iceman asked softly. His looked at her with a mixture of grief, anxiety and bewilderment.
"We get back home, and try to rectify the situation..." Storm turned around and started to prep the jet "If we can."