Disclaimer –:yawns: I don't own evolution or any of the characters / storylines I steal/will steal...:snores:
Ey yo! Its chapter 11 I hope you like:)
Lance was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling in his room when the Professor's message sounded suddenly in his head, resulting in him nearly falling off.
Would everyone please gather in the planning room
Lance sighed and dragged himself to his feet. A knock came at the door and Betsy walked through.
"You coming or what?" she said
Lance trudged over to the door. Betsy rolled her eyes at him, "God, you look like your going to your own funeral or something"
"Good as" said Lance "A lovely meeting all about me" he finished sarcastically. He was fed up enough as it is, dinner hadn't been the best of events, with most of the older X-men giving him nasty looks. He also hadn't failed to notice the suspicious looks that they sent his way whenever he was talking with Betsy or Tabitha, as if he was corrupting their members.
"Where's Arianna?" he asked Betsy as he opened the door to his sister's room and saw no-one inside.
"Playing with Jamie I think" Betsy replied as they made their way towards the elevator.
"This is gonna suck big time" moaned Lance again
"Yeah it probably will" quipped Betsy. Lance just looked at her "What?"
"Your supposed to say no it won't, you know to make me feel better" Lance said exasperatedly, as they walked along to the planning room they could hear loud voices coming from inside. "Scott it is not your place to decide who is and who isn't worthy of our help" they could hear the Professor saying calmly, as they neared the door.
Lance frowned knowing that they were talking about him, he heard Scott's voice rap out a reply.
"Professor you don't know the guy like I do, you can't trust him! For starters he's a thug!"
Lance and Betsy walked into the room to find everyone else assembled there, half the room immediately realised that Lance was there whilst the other half were watching the oblivious Scott continue his rant.
"Heck there's even more you could add to that, arsonist, thief...even murderer!"
The occupants of the room became so silent in the space of a second as everyone noticed that Lance was present, that you could of heard a pin drop.
Everybody looked at everyone else, wondering what was going to happen. They knew that Lance was at least partly responsible for the fire that had burned down the gym at that soccer match, and the Brotherhood had no qualms about stealing, but...murder?
Lance just stared at Scott with a mixture of hatred and disbelief, 'how did he...?' he thought to himself
Rogue was the first to break the silence, "Scott, no" she breathed, not even realising that she had said it.
Lance turned his gaze from Scott to Rogue, a look of realisation crossed his face. His jaw set, he gave Rogue a dirty look before spinning around on his heel and striding out the, now slightly shaking, room. "It wasn't your place Rogue" he said over his shoulder.
The rumbling stopped and everyone looked at Rogue for a second before she went running out of the room after him. "Lance wait!"
Kitty turned to Scott, angry tears in her eyes "God Scott! There is no need to act like such a total B-I-T-C-H!" she hissed
The Professor sighed "Thank-you Kitty, I think were all a bit too old for spelling out swear words, and Scott in future it would be wise to keep your judgements to yourself." He said harshly
Bobby discreetly nudged Jubilee, "What's a bit-cah?" he whispered "Oh wait...". Jubilee rolled her eyes and smacked Bobby over the head as he got it. She then held her palm out in front of Bobby's face.
Bobby sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a dollar "I know, I know, every time I say something stupid I owe you a dollar."
Jubilee grinned and grabbed her money as Rahne leaned over "So how much money have ye made off him today lass?"
Jubilee pulled a fat wad of one's out her pocket "27 bucks!" she said with flourish as the older students and teachers continued to argue over what had just happened.
Betsy sighed as she watched the argument, she shook her head disapprovingly and got up to walk out the room. Scott noticing this broke off his argument with Kitty and the teachers.
"Where are you going?" he asked sharply
Betsy turned around and looked at him coolly "To see what's up with Lance, problem?"
"Yeah I have a problem" said Scott, he walked up to Betsy and got right in her face "Exactly whose side are you on Psylocke?"
Betsy didn't back down "I, am on the side of my friends, you keep going this way and you wont have any left." She turned and stalked out the room leaving a spluttering Scott.
"I hate to say it Scooter, but you deserved that" said Logan, speaking up for the first time
Scott sighed and threw up his hands "I give up. I mean she's been here one day and she's already consorting with the enemy"
Tabitha stopped filing her nails and rolled her eyes at Scott "Lance isn't the enemy" she said as she blew on her nails and continued filing.
Scott just looked at her, this time joined by several others.
"Ok well at least not today"
x X x
Rogue found Lance sitting on the steps outside the doors of the institute, staring at the sky whilst smoking a cigarette. Rogue was unsure of what to say to him, or even why she had followed him out.
"What do you want?" asked Lance, he had noticed her shadow.
Rogue sighed and took a seat on the stairs next to him. "Ah thought yah gave up smoking."
"Yeah, well now seemed like a perfect time to start again," replied Lance bitingly, taking another puff.
"Look, Lance Ah – Oh my god is that Logan's?" spluttered Rogue, indicating the cigarette
Lance gave a shrug "He wont notice" Rogue was about to contradict him, then she decided that this wasn't the right time.
"Look Lance, Ah didn't say anything to Scott Ah swear, Ah think he was just saying it."
Lance looked at Rogue and scoffed "Yeah right Rogue, all those nifty little memories in your head and you never even felt like sharing one?"
Rogue looked away from him "Yah don't have a clue what's its like Lance, dreaming other people's nightmares, thinking thoughts that aren't yours..." she turned back to face Lance, giving him one of her death glares "But Ah've never told anyone about what happened, so if yah don't' believe me, then that's not mah problem." She got up to leave but then stopped when Lance stood up with her.
"I believe you" he said quietly stamping out the cigarette, he was debating whether or not to say the other thing that was on his mind, then decided to go for it, seeing as he might not get another chance. "By the way thanks."
Rogue looked at him curiously "For what?"
Lance gave her a small grin "For getting your Prof to reinstall our heating and electricity back when Mystique ditched us."
Rogue looked at him surprised "What makes yah think that was meh?"
Lance shrugged and looked away "Who else would it be?"
Rogue looked at Lance for a second and a moment of understanding passed between the two. Rogue decided to say what was on her mind too.
"Lance when y'all and Gambit were talking last night, what did yah mean when yah said that he was 'Rogue-watching', Magneto's not after mah powers again is he...?" she watched in horror as Lance started laughing.
"What the hell..?" asked Rogue, she hadn't said anything funny.
"Sorry" said Lance between laughs "If you want to know what I meant ask the man yourself, he's probably skulking around somewhere" said Lance looking towards the gates to the institute.
Rogue was about to press him further when Betsy came out.
"There you idiots are!" she said happily "I've been looking for you everywhere!" she paused as the Professor telepathically sent her a message.
Elizabeth, could you please ask Lance to return to the meeting, his presence is vital
Will do, Luv Betsy replied
"C'mon you" she said grabbing Lance's arm and dragging him back inside.
"Where we going?" asked Lance apprehensively
"Back to the meeting" replied Betsy, knowing Lance was about to protest she played her trump card "Your not going to let Scott get to you are you?"
Lance scowled "No way, he wants to know if I'm a murderer, I'll show him stupid one eye freak" he muttered
Betsy just shook her head at him despairingly as he continued to mutter obscenities towards Scott, 'Guys' she thought to herself.
They met Jamie and Arianna on the way.
"Hey where are you guys going?" Arianna asked
"Meeting" replied Lance "Wanna come?" he held out a hand for his sister who took it and said "Yup"
The four of them re-entered the Planning Room to the stares of every one else. Scott was sitting at the opposite end of the table, looking far from happy, Ororo shot him a warning look as Lance entered. Jean looked at Arianna then at the Professor.
Lance noticing this answered the unasked question himself as they took seat around the table "She stays, this involves her too"
"But she's too young, won't it be better if-"Jean started but Lance cut her off
"She knows everything anyway, besides, secrets get people hurt" said Lance with a note of finality.
"It's alright Jean, let's just get started shall we?" said the Professor quickly, the last thing they needed was another fight
Arianna stuck her tongue out at Jean. Jean looked around shocked but no-one else had noticed. Arianna gave her one of her best angelic smiles, causing Jean to frown harder.
The Professor waited until Rahne had shoved Sam awake before he continued, making sure that he had everyone's attention.
"Now as you all know, this meeting is about the Hellfire Club. Now Lance, Elizabeth before-"
The Professor was interrupted by Jamie fake-coughing. He sighed then continued "..and Jamie and Arianna of course, before you arrived we had just finished discussing Gage's position in relation to Hellfire." He looked at Logan who stood up and began to take control of the meeting.
"All right, now as it stands we know Hellfire is up to something big, although what exactly we aint sure. But now, we have a new lead" Logan paused and looked at Lance "You got any idea why Hellfire want you?"
Lance shook his head "Not one, If you ask me they aren't involved at all and I just have a pissed off convict on my back"
"But the question remains, why would Hellfire go to the trouble of breaking Gage out of Jail, and then not put him to use by allowing him to pursue you?" pondered Hank
"Maybe they don't know what he's doing" ventured Arianna
Hank nodded, "It is a possibility"
Lance turned to the Professor "Why didn't you just search his mind, and find the information yourself?"
"Because had I read more then his surface thoughts, he may have been alerted to my presence, I am not the only telepath in the world, and having him become conscious of me would mean he would know that were on to him" Replied Xavier "And when I discovered his link with Shaw I knew I was right not to pry into his mind."
Lance looked confused but then Jean answered his unsaid question "Hellfire have a telepath in their midst, a strong one, that's why we don't really have a clue who most of the members are, or what they want because they all have strong mental blocks placed on them."
"A telepath huh?" Lance looked at Xavier and arched an eyebrow "Stronger then you?"
Charles didn't know how to answer without sounding too smug, thankfully Logan interrupted.
"Close enough" said Logan gruffly
"Lance why don't you explain why Gage is after you in the first place, it could give us a lead, how did you even meet him?" asked the Professor
Lance sighed, he had known that this was the true reason for the meeting, his story. 'It's show-time' he told himself sarcastically.
He took a deep breath and then began, after a nod of encouragement from his sister.
"When I was 8, just after Arianna was born, my Dad died, not really sure how to be honest. He was an army guy, so he wasn't around that much. About a month after the funeral, some guy turned up at the doorstep saying he was a friend of my father's-"
"Gage?" asked Logan sharply
Lance nodded.
Rogue walked over to the gates slowly, still trying to figure out why the hell Lance had started laughing at her.
She was just about to push open the gates, when she was attacked by a wave of Kitty's memories.
She grabbed her head in pain, but the memories disappeared as quickly as they had come. Shaking the after images away, she opened her eyes to find herself on the other side of the gate. Before she could ponder what had just happened, a voice came from her right.
"Little late t' go wonderin', Chere"
Rogue span around quickly to face Gambit. "What Ah do is none of yah business, Gumbo"
"Remy jus' be looking out f' y' " he grinned at her cockily, "Nice that y' gave Remy a new nick name though, y' been having words with Monsieur Logan?"
Rogue rolled her eyes at him and decided to get on with it, before she felt like killing the guy.
"Why were yah watching meh?" she asked bluntly. Remy cocked his head to the side and gave her an enquiring look, seeing this Rogue decided to elaborate. "Yesterday, y' all and Lance were talking, he said yah were 'Rogue–watching', why were yah watching meh?"
Gambit smirked at her, and came a few steps closer "Why do y' think Chere?" he asked
Rogue resisted the urge to back away from him and stood her ground "If Magneto and Mystique are cookin' something up yah can tell them tah stuff themselves"
He smirked at her again. Rogue inwardly sighed, why did everyone laugh at her when she stated the obvious? She crossed her arms and glared at the stupid Cajun, "What's so funny Swamp Rat?"
"Magneto don't got nuttin' t' do with it Chere, and who knows where de blue lady is" said Remy, still grinning at her.
"Then why the hell were yah watching me?" exclaimed Rogue
The smirk disappeared off Gambit's face as he moved a few steps closer to her. He slipped his hand into hers and then looked at her intently with his red on black eyes.
"Maybe dis' thief finds y' interesting" he said silkily, before pulling away and walking off, giving her a small wave over his shoulder.
'Interesting? What the hell does that mean" thought Rogue as she watched him walk away. She absentmindedly turned over what he had left in her hand.
It was a card.
The Queen of Hearts
Back in the planning room, Lance was still being pressed for information about Gage.
"What happened after the initial meeting between Gage and you mother?" asked Hank
"I don't know what he said to my mom, but he started living with us, until he said he 'could find another place'. "Lance gave a sarcastic laugh "I didn't trust him from the start, he probably didn't even know my dad. One day I saw him going through mom's stuff. He caught me watching him and then threatened me, saying if I told mom he'd get me."
Lance paused remembering it as if it was yesterday, Gage had hit him so hard he had gone flying across the room. Shaking the unwanted memories out of his mind he continued.
" I backed off, but I was still watching him, I knew he was a crook. He married my mother about a year later - something I was definitely not happy about. When I was ten he was caught trying to steal jewels from a museum and he went into hiding. I finally told mom everything that had been going on, and about him going through her stuff, everything."
Lance ran his hand through his hair nervously, everyone was staring at him while he was talking and it made him uncomfortable. "She packed our stuff up and then we got ready to leave. But then he, Gage came back. Mom told me to take Arianna and go whilst she dealt with him, instead of going to the flat we were moving to like she said I went to the station instead, brought the cops back to the house where Gage was. He realised what I'd done and promised to get even, that's about it" Lance stared at the table surface intently, hoping they wouldn't press him further.
He obviously didn't have any such luck. "I'm not buying it kid there's something you aint sharing" said Logan suspiciously
"Maybe I don't want to share it, because it's none of your business!" snapped Lance
"See Professor I told you he wouldn't be of any help..."Scott began, but was silenced with a look from Ororo. He sighed and then leaned back his in seat.
Lance looked daggers at Scott "If you think Summers, for one second, that I actually want to be here, then you're an even bigger idiot then I know you are" he hissed
"Oh I'm the idiot? Listen Shakedown, I know your up to something and when I find out what you'll be kicked out of here so fast you wont know what hit you." Scott retaliated
"Kick me outta here see if I care! Tell me 'Cyclops'," said Lance, saying Scott's codename as if it was the nastiest thing on earth, "Were you always this anal retentive or is this just a recent development?"
Scott did his goldfish impression again whilst trying to think of a comeback. Logan decided to shut them both up.
"If you two don't quit it I swear I will get mad. We don't want that to happen now.." he extended his claws very slowly "do we boys?"
Lance and Scott both huffed in their seats.
"Good." Logan retracted his claws then turned to Lance, "Listen kid, whatever Hellfire are planning isn't likely to be something good, and we would appreciate it if you did us a favour and told us all that happened between you and Gage, seeing as we're doing you a favour by keeping you and your sister out of harms way."
Everyone looked at Lance expectantly, he sighed and threw up his hands. "Fine, whatever, I'll talk. What do you want to know?"
Logan threw a file across the table. Lance opened it and quickly scanned the contents to see that it was the information they had scored on Gage.
"It say's in there that he killed your mother" said Logan softly "Why?"
Lance closed his eyes, blocking out all the staring faces. "I don't know," he said quietly. He felt his sister's hand slip into his, he gave it a small squeeze before opening his eyes and looking straight at Logan, no expression evident on his face. "When the cops went in they found her body, but I have no idea what happened in the time I was gone"
Logan nodded, sending him a thankful look for answering what he knew must be a tough question. "What happened when he broke out the first time, 6 years ago?"
Lance ran his head through his hair again and resumed staring at the table rather then everyone else, "He used our adoption records to find out whereme and Arianna were. He came to the house basically grabbed me then took off, Tom and Shel' tried to stop him but he used me as a hostage, to keep them away from me."
"He took me to this...I guess you could call it a house and basically ranted about how much I'd screwed everything up for him, blah, blah, blah for about an hour" said Lance dismissively
"Typical stupid villain stuff" added Arianna lightening the sombre mood a little. Lance smiled at his sister, she could always turn a person's mood around in a second.
"He started talking about my Mother and I snapped and I attacked him, eventually he regained his composure and got the upper hand, he pinned me to the wall and tried to psyche me out, telling me how he was going to kill me"
Kitty noticed that Lance was absentmindedly stroking his left palm. She knew the glove hid the 1 inch knife scar which showed exactly how Gage had pinned him to the wall. Lance looked up to see her staring, he held her gaze for second before looking away and continuing, curling his palm into a fist.
"He said he was going to kill me like he killed my mother and something inside of me..." Lance paused for a second thinking of the right word "Burst I guess, my powers activated and next thing I knew someone was pulling me out of a pile of rubble and Gage was being carted back off to Jail. A passerby had heard the sounds of a fight, thinking it was drug dealersor something, she called the police. They said the house had just started shaking when they tried to enter it, then collapsed. Gage survived, obviously, but one of the Police guys, he wasn't so lucky."
A stone-faced Lance looked up to see everyone looking slightly shocked. Seeing the disturbed look on Scott's face made him happy for some reason.
"So you see Summers, you were right all along. I am a murderer. I killed a guy when I was just 12 years old"
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Ciao
Soulstress
