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Scott continued to work his way to Jean. Deflecting blows and jabbing fists, he made a path through the fighting mutants. Jean turned her head to watch him with blank eyes, her beautiful orange hair tumbling down her back. Orange, he decided as his roundhouse kick went into yet another too-young fighter, orange was a good colour for her: A mixture of red and yellow, of pain and hope.
Magneto had turned to watch him as well, a faint smile on his lips. Was his aggression that amusing? Or was it that he was here and fighting, as a human? He wondered briefly how Logan was. The man would have undoubtedly thrown himself into the fighting. Scott hoped he would remember that those they fought against were mostly disillusioned men and women who did not really deserve to be slaughtered. Many of them were horrifically young, some still of school age, no older than those he taught on a daily basis.
Just a few more yards, and maybe he could ask such questions for himself.
Marie stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the television set in front of her. She was in a small bar, waiting for the cure to come to the doctors near her. She been in and spoken to the receptionist. They would be getting it in a few days. She did not have very much money; it had taken all of what she'd saved up to get here, near her parents' home. She hadn't gone to see the yet though: she was still a disappointment. She had enough to sleep in a small hotel room and to get some food, from an overly friendly man who had wanted a whole lot more than a smile off her, and had some away exhausted, weak and penniless.
She wanted their warm embrace now though, a soft smile and a gentle voice to tell her not to worry as she watched the news. Mutants had attacked the pharmaceutical building where the cure was being created. She knew it was Magneto. The man was terrifying and had haunted her sleep for a long time after he tried to use her powers. The professor had always been so sure he was no real threat to them. Merely to humans... she guessed it didn't count if they were defending the humans though.
Not that she could be included in that statement. Instead of fighting, instead of using her ability to help she was here. She was hiding as close as she could to the last place she had called home before the professor had accepted her into his school. His school that was a family... a tear slipped from her eye, her skin would be going blotchy but she didn't care. These people didn't matter, strangers whom she had never really spoken with. She missed Bobby, and Kitty. She missed Logan, who had saved her before; she missed Mr. Summers, who had been struggling with his life. He had lost his mutation. She had always thought it would be such an annoying one to have, unable to see things unless you wore glasses; how did he cope with being in the water, or at night. He had lost his mutation and had lost his sense of identity with it, if what she had managed to squeeze out of Logan was true.
Should she really be so far from her real home, trying to remove something that defined her?
Logan's eyes swept around him, there were fewer people fighting now. They had either been taken down, or had left to avoid being taken down. Adrenaline burned through his veins, a grin working its way onto his lips. He could see another wave of fighters hurrying towards them, but it would be no bother.
He glanced over to Magneto, to Phoenix and to that John kid with a flame. One was bouncing around impatiently, but the other two were stood tall and confident, their eyes fixed on a figure that was slowly moving towards them.
Was that Scott? He wasn't sure he liked that idea, but he had the next group of children flying at him. He took a deep breath, trying to remember if Scott had a colour for strength. He couldn't but he let out a yell all the same, sweeping his claws downwards at a young man with bad skin problems.
Maybe the kid wasn't up there to fight, maybe just for the chance to talk with them. Not that it was likely he fought his way up there for a chat, but at least this option did not result in immediate death.
He growled as someone tore into his back, the pain sharp, but brief. He spun and jabbed his claws forward. A quick glance up and he saw the kid did seem to be trying to talk with them. He felt a growing sense of frustration at the lack of understanding, at the over confidence and of how sure she was that Scott would be hers.
He felt a surge of anger that was purely his own at the thought that she would try take Scott back. She had left him to his grief. It had been Loan who had pulled him back from that, Logan who held him at night, who made sure he ate, it was Logan who made the kids fuck off when Scott was too exhausted to deal with them and too stubborn to admit it. Scott was Logan's and some red-headed freak was not going to change that.
He was certain Scott felt the same. It was Scott who calmed Logan when his anger got the better of him, it was Scott who settled down beside him on an evening; be it to read or simply sit in silence. It was Scott to whom Logan could speak to about any trouble and Scott that had taken his nightmares away. They belonged to each other. She was too late.
He allowed a smug smirk to crawl onto his face and he deflected another attack. He had no doubts about Scott's loyalties and he hoped that Magneto would stop their discussion over whatever dissolving into petty squabbles.
He felt a sharp jab in his mind, as though a sign from somewhere that he had to be moving back, that they were done. He threw a kick and began to move. Glancing about as he did so to check if everyone else was.
She was as stunning as ever, even dressed in more red. He still didn't feel that she ought to wear the colour of his torment, but he could acknowledge it looked good on her.
Magneto stood a pace behind her, no longer truly looking like the leader Scott had always known him to be. The death of the professor had clearly hit him hard. He first looked this man in the eyes. Magneto, except not really. He was missing something... this man was Erik, and he looked to be grieving. In the back of his mind, he could feel the pain. So similar and yet so different to the grief he had felt at the death of Charles Xavier. Closer to the pain he had felt when Jean... he cut that though off. No one wanted to think about their father like that really, especially not when it had ended so tragically.
Erik gave him a nod, before his eyes drifted back to the surprisingly aggressive figure of Jean Grey, of Phoenix, as she called herself now.
"Scott," She whispered, but actual voice carrying across the small distance between them.
"What?" He was unable to make his voice work, but he knew he'd thrown that at her.
"My love. You've drifted so far. Come back to me now." Her large eyes stared at him, and for a brief moment, he was taken in by them.
"I ..." Thoughts of Logan suddenly flooded his mind. The way Logan held him at night, the way he was always there; quiet when his head hurt and quietly muttering about different happenings in the school when the place seemed too empty. Logan was the one whom had pressed a few too many kisses and held him a little too closely for Scott to consider him just a friend anymore. "I can't. You were gone too long."
"No. You are mine." Her beauty seemed to melt her way. Her face seemed almost haggard; her eyes red rimmed, as though she had cried for all the pain she had cause; dark shadows under those once beautiful and an ugly scowl directed at him.
"If I do not belong to myself, if that is not acceptable for you, then I am Logan's. I am part of his pack, and while he has not vocally confirmed it, I am just as sure I am his love. I did love a part of you. I considered you my soul mate, but a soul cannot exist without a heart and like this, I can't see on in you."
He felt exhausted and he felt cruel when he saw her flinch. He noticed Erik's eyes shut, and pained look fall upon his features. Was she projecting this conversation around them? An argument about who he belonged to... he hadn't thought she would want people to know. A small thought in the back of his mind told him it wasn't her projecting. It was the same voice that insisted this woman had once loved him, before her mutation had lost its barriers and eaten away at who she was.
He felt a burst of joy off to his side and followed it with his eyes. There were the kids, running though the violent crowds with a small boy by their side, dressed appropriately in white. They'd let off a flare in a minute, but for now he knew they would most likely succeed.
"Jean," he whispered, having found a voice, "Let me see you."
The woman frowned, her powers starting to whip a wind up around them. He never took his eyes away from hers.
"Jean, please..."
He stepped forward, feeling his skin starting to grate again, feeling it pull away like dust. He stepped closer still and held out a hand.
"Jean..." That voice in his mind had been her, he was sure. He kept eye contact and burrowed his way into the Phoenix's mind.
"Where are you?" There... it was almost a soft pink glow. Pink, a combination of white and red. Innocence lost in pain.
"Scott..." she softly responded. Her eyes broke away from his, to something over his shoulder. However, he could not look away. This was his girl. He may have found another amidst his pain, but she held a place in his heart. "I'm sorry." She breathed.
He frowned. What? A thick sheet of metal flew past him, embedding itself into her body. He yelped. Not again. He caught her as she fell.
"I couldn't... let... her. Scott, so sorry."
"Jean... No..." his voice hitched as he watched the red life pour out of her. "No..."
"Love you..." Little more than a breath, but reinforced with a brush of her mind. She drew in wet breaths that seemed to rattle through her. He felt tears falling, but was unable to wipe them away. As she twitched he threw his mind out. He needed Logan, his source of comfort and strength.
He didn't have her dying in his mind this time, their bond having been broken months ago, but feeling her die in his arms was no less painful.