Chapter 10: Stryker Attacks
Late that night Buffy came instantly, totally awake, one part of her mind automatically cataloging everything around her while her active consciousness came up to speed.
She was in her dorm room at Xavier's. It was night. The lights were out, except for right around the two girls, and they were no longer alone. Two men, one looming over her, the other over Rogue. Both wearing combat gear, full commando rig with night-vision goggles and laser sights on their weapons. The laser was what she'd reacted to.
Both men were bringing their pistols up to shoot.
Silently Buffy kicked up at speeds the man over her didn't suspect and hit him hard sending him flying back. She grabbed him before he was out of her reach throwing him into the other man. She grabbed Rogue and ran out of the room.
"Buffy talk to me," Rogue said.
"You know, I haven't learned to control it like that." Buffy said, in the months since she had first arrived she had only managed to reduce how frequent her cognitive visions came. But when she was stressed they came more readily than she would have preferred.
"It's ok Buffy," said Rogue as they slid into the secret passage as she brushed her friend's hair comfortingly. She was still amazed she could actually touch Buffy without her imprinting.
The assault force, knew they'd lost the element of surprise. No more time for subtlety. Time to shift into overdrive and apply brute force, to take down the kids before they could muster sufficient wits to resist.
When Buffy and Rogue knew the hall was clear they came out of the secret passage and started a search for other students to get them out. They had found three girls almost immediately. One of the girls was terrified, of course, huddled in a heap, face gleaming with silent tears in the random splashes of brilliance thrown by the circling helicopters and their damn spot lamps. Rogue found herself wishing, fervently, for some powers more appropriate to the name she'd chosen for herself, Rogue—something akin to Scott's eye beams, or Jean's telekinesis, or Ororo's command of the weather, or even Buffy's Slayer abilities. Even though she knew she was probably a Slayer, she couldn't touch the kids or even the soldiers for fear of them imprinting.
"Come on, honey," Buffy said, in her best baby-sitter voice, projecting a strength and calm she didn't have as she gathered the girl to her breast, taking care to always keep a layer of clothes between her own skin and the girl's.
Rogue and Buffy were glad now that one of the first things they had done together was memorize the network of hidden passages that honeycombed both the mansion itself and the grounds. At the time they were just staying in character; after all, a girl has to know how to slip away unnoticed for a night of private fun, even if she never found the opportunity to try. Now that work was paying off with interest, the passages enabling them to elude pursuit and scoot their share of students to safety.
"In you go, girls," Buffy told them, "just like Storm taught us, okay?"
The girl in Buffy's arms was clinging like a limpet, whimpering now along with her tears. Buffy was her lifeline, and she couldn't bear to be parted. Rogue looked to Buffy, they didn't have time for this. They were too close to one of the upper floor's big bay windows. The longer they stayed, the greater the chance of being spotted when one of the helicopters did a flyby and trained it's million-candlepower lamp into the house.
"Aren't you two coming?" the other girl asked. She was a Scots redhead of barely thirteen named Rahne Sinclair.
"We have to find someone first," Rogue told her. With a winning Highlander grin, Rahne pried the other girl's hands loose from Buffy's neck, offering reassurances of her own as she led the way into the passage.
"When you come out of the tunnels," Buffy told them both, "run straight to the first house you find. Tell them there was a fire. Tell them to contact your folks. Whatever you do, though, you don't tell anyone you're a mutant. Okay?"
The girl nodded uncomprehendingly, but Rahne knew the score. She'd take care of her classmate just fine. Buffy leaned forward to brush a wisp of hair from the younger girl's face. In return, she got a brave attempt at a smile.
"Okay," the girl said.
"You'll be fine," Buffy told her, and closed the secret panel behind them.
Quickly they scooted the length of the hallway. The walls and floor, the very air, were trembling again as the helicopters made another run on the mansion. They had to find cover before they were nailed themselves.
Through the infernal din, suddenly, unexpectedly, they heard a familiar voice, someone both Buffy and Rogue thought would be long gone from the mansion by now.
"Rogue," called John. "Buffy."
"Rogue!" bellowed Bobby, determined to make himself heard. "Buffy!"
"Bobby," Rogue cried, startled to realize how out-and-out delighted she sounded to see Bobby safe and free. John had to make do with just a nod of greeting.
"There anyone else?" Buffy asked.
"I'm not sure," Bobby replied.
"Petey Pureheart was looking after a crowd of kids," John said. "Outside of them, nada. Bad guys galore."
"Where's Logan?" Rogue demanded. "He was supposed to be looking after us!"
Bobby's face twisted. "What happened?" Buffy said, grabbing Bobby by the shirtfront. "Where is he?"
Bobby didn't need to be asked twice. "He was downstairs," he told her.
"This way," Rogue told them, intending to lead them back toward the secret passage.
Before they could move, an exterior lamp turned the hall brighter than noonday. They saw two shapes vaguely outlined in the glare, hanging outside the window. Immediately John grabbed Buffy as Bobby grabbed Rogue, and they all tumbled around the corner in a heap as an explosion shattered the leaded glass to bits, spraying the corridor with splinters and debris. Right behind the blast came the soldiers, targeting lasers tracing lines through the smoke, fingers ready on the triggers. Each door they passed got the same treatment: shotgun blasts to the hinges followed by a shot from a battering ram to punch it open, a couple of stun grenades to incapacitate anyone inside, sustained bursts from submachine guns to finish the job. Each room took only seconds to clear, and they did the job with murderous, methodical precision.
Rogue noticed the glint in Buffy's eyes. "Buffy," she said as Buffy looked at her and in the moment she had said Buffy's name the glint was gone. She knew she and Buffy had a connection but she still didn't understand how that connection allowed her to pull Buffy back from going into Slayer mode. Nor did she know why it allowed her to be able to touch Buffy. But she was glad at that moment that it was there.
Without a another word, the four young mutants decided that they didn't want to find out what would happen if they were found. When the soldiers reached the corner, the kids were long gone.
The mansion was crawling with troops, and from the sounds they heard all around, they quickly realized that nobody was using tranquilizer guns anymore. The bad guys were shooting bullets now, and they weren't being stingy with their ammunition.
Abruptly, Rogue stopped in her tracks, so suddenly the others slammed into her from behind. Harsh words were formed, but none were spoken. The sight before them wouldn't allow it. She was standing amid a pile of bodies, all soldiers.
"Logan was here," John commented unnecessarily.
"This is old news," Bobby said, reaching for Rogue. "We can't stay here, Rogue, we're sitting ducks. We keep running after him like this, we'll just get ourselves in trouble."
Rogue didn't reply, she didn't move a muscle as Buffy edged forward to look her in the face and then her eyes followed Rogue's gaze as she stared down at her chest. It was covered in green dots. Buffy and Rogue looked up, following the beams of light to their source, and found a team of soldiers in the far doorway, weapons leveled.
They never got a chance to fire. Logan saw to that. He was on the gallery above them, and with a primal scream that was so much more animal than human, he dropped on them like the wrath of God unleashed, arms held wide, claws extended.
The soldiers didn't stand a chance. Bobby couldn't watch. Rogue and Buffy wouldn't turn away. Something tweaked the girl's attention as their eyes flicked to the side, and they caught a glimpse of a smile on John's face and a glint in his eye. The same kind of glint that Buffy had when she was on the verge of switching into Slayer mode. They knew John was enjoying this that he wanted a piece of it for himself.
A brace of lights hit the entrance from outside and above, pinning Logan in their beams as the helicopters responded to frantic calls for help down below. They didn't wait for orders, they wouldn't have cared anyway; the moment their guns came to bear, they opened fire, pockmarking the lawn with craters and shattering the stone entrance to the mansion to powder. But their target wasn't there anymore.
"Go," Logan told the kids, pushing them deep into the house. "Go, go, go!"
John found the nearest escape passage, opened the door, then he and Bobby went leaping through at once. Rogue and Buffy held back. They called out his name.
"Keep going," he told them, and shunted them none too gently over the threshold.
"Logan," Buffy and Rogue pleaded as he shut the door in their faces. And they were glad.
Buffy and Rogue stood unmoving in the entrance to the secret passage, bitterly ashamed of the surge of emotion that had swept through them as Logan closed the door. He'd been a stand-up guy for both of them from the start, and this was how they repaid him, by being happy that he stayed behind. Rogue and Buffy looked at each other ashamed of how they had felt in that instance.
Hands grabbed both Buffy and Rogue's arms and the girls shook them off.
"Wait," Rogue told the boys, who couldn't believe their ears. "You've got to do something."
"Damn straight," John said hurriedly. "Run like hell while we've got the chance!"
"They're going to kill him!" Buffy said.
That argument fell on totally deaf ears. Both boys had seen Logan in action. Neither believed such an outcome remotely possible.
"Yeah, right." John scoffed for emphasis. "He can handle himself, Rogue, Buffy. Let's book!"
"Bobby," Rogue pleaded, "please! They're going to kill him."
All Bobby knew was that Logan was the scariest creature he'd ever encountered. He also saw the way Rogue and Buffy looked at Logan, spoke of him, cared for him, and he hated him for holding the place in Rogue's heart and to a small degree in Buffy's as well.
Bobby looked to Buffy, "Can you?" He was one of a very few people Buffy had confided what her mutation was.
Buffy shook her head. "I can't see on command, Bobby. I wish right now I could but I can't. I don't have that much control over it yet," she said as Bobby sighed.
"See what?" John asked.
"The future, the past and on rare occasions the present, or more precisely not exactly the present but like five seconds into the future." Buffy stated matter-of-factly as Bobby moved towards the door. "My mutation is cognitive."
Outside Logan blinked, wondering what was wrong with the air. A mist was forming between him and the soldiers, the temperature plunging so rapidly that one breath was normal, the next gusting a cloud of icy condensation as a wall of gleaming ice divided the hallway from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, forming a protective bulwark between the Logan and the soldiers.
Logan considered using his claws. No matter how thick the wall, he could speedily turn it into ice cubes. But first he had to deal with the damn kids.
The look on his face caused John to take a reflexive, cautionary step backward and made Bobby thankful he was inside the passage, his hands held flat against the wall to generate and sustain his ice field. Neither Buffy nor Rogue flinched.
Rogue met him eye to eye with a will as stubborn as his own. "Logan," she said. "Come on."
"Do as you're told, girl. Get outta here. I'll be fine." Logan said in a tone and manner that had always gotten instant results. Rogue returned both in equal measure.
"But we won't." Rogue said, then more quietly, "Please!"
Buffy stepped in front of Logan and he saw the glint in her eyes. "You will get in that passage or I will throw you in bodily," she said.
Logan looked at Buffy and some instinct told him that she meant every word of it, and that she could likely do it. He thought for a moment and then followed them into the passage.
John led the way, even though both Logan and Buffy could see a lot better in the dark. The boys wouldn't admit it aloud, but both of them preferred having Logan between them and the bad guys.
At the first junction, John went left.
"John, no," Bobby called after him.
"This is where Petey and the others went," said John
"I've got a better idea. This way," replied Bobby
The other direction ended at the garage. Like everything else about the mansion, there was a public space and a private one. Upstairs, in a carriage house set a little apart from the main buildings, was the usual group of SUVs and vans, plus the professor's vintage Rolls-Royce. The basement held a far more eclectic and personal assortment of vehicles, including Scott's collection of bikes. Some looked normal, others were as wildly modified and revolutionary in conception and design as the Blackbird.
The choice for tonight was a sports car, blindingly quick but so well-crafted and balanced that it could handle the local roads—which were narrow and wickedly winding—as though it were traveling on rails. The confines would be cramped, but it would carry them all.
John dropped into the driver's seat with the announcement, "I'm driving."
Logan yanked him clear as though he weighed nothing. "In your dreams, smart-ass," he growled. "Boys in the back. Buffy and Rogue in front with me."
"This is Scotty's car," Buffy said, mostly to herself.
"Oh, yeah?" Logan didn't sound impressed, but actually he was.
"We'll need keys." Bobby said.
"I know where they are." Buffy said as she walked over to a locker and inputted a combination into the keypad. She picked up a set of keys and walked back and handed them to Logan as they got in. "Scotty has been teaching me to drive."