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Scene Eleven
Bamf! Bamf! Kurt took Blaze by the shoulders and instantly they were gone again. There was a scream of a charged playing card. Vixen had to dive to the floor, covering her head. A resounding thud sounded as the card hit the wall behind Ilehana and exploded. Kurt deposited a shaky Blaze further up the stairs where Gambit waited.
"Here," said Kurt, "I'll get rid of Vixen." Bamf! He ported back down to ground level and took a firm grip on Vixen's collar. Bamf!
"Ooh, wobble…" Blaze giggled, unable to stand upright. The force of Ilehana's wrath might not have struck home entirely, thanks to Kurt's intervention, but it was enough to leave her near hysterical. Gambit caught her by the waist and pulled her close to support her. It took her a few seconds to work out who had hold of her. "Hello."
"Bonjour Petite," Gambit replied with a weak smile.
"I'm sorry Rem," Blaze shook her head, wide-eyed and sorrowful. "I thought you'd betrayed us, but you hadn't. You saved me from her, again. And I…"
"Shush," Gambit told her, putting a finger firmly on her lips. "I don't wanna hear it Chere." And he didn't, he really didn't want to talk to her about the betrayal she had already committed. "You okay?"
"I'm okay," Blaze confirmed, tangling her fingers in the collar of his coat and dropping her eyes shyly. "I'm better than okay."
"Bien," said Gambit, and he meant it. Kurt chose that moment to teleport back into the building.
"I ditched her about a kilometre away," Nightcrawler told them. "It won't take her long to come back. We need to catch up to the others!" Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed both X-Men by the arm and all three were teleported back to Magneto's side.
Whilst Blaze had been sparring with Vixen, Magneto and the others had made it to the uppermost floor of the tower block. Here the staircase opened out onto a mezzanine that spanned three walls. The walls were glass, offering panoramic views over Bayville (when Storm's fog was not surrounding the building). Steel railings guarded the edge of the mezzanine that opened up to show the floor below. The fourth wall was solid metal, containing a double door in its centre that sat flush to the surface. The door had no obvious locking or release mechanisms and there was no control panel. The metal had a dull glow that seemed to pulse in the moonlight. Magneto raised his hand and touched the surface.
"Adamantium," he murmured appreciatively, stroking the metal like he might stroke a cat. Kurt found himself listening for the metal's purr.
"Is it magnetic?" Rogue whispered to Kurt, who nodded. Magneto took his hand away. Raising both arms towards the door, he took hold with his powers and started to pull. Nothing happened. Magneto frowned, briefly lowering his arms as he considered the problem.
"I think the magic word is the elvish for 'friend'," Storm teased Eric gently. He shot her a wry smile, whilst Blaze piped up with the answer.
"The room inside is a vacuum, so it has negative pressure. If you can make a breach the pressure will equalise and you won't have to pull so hard."
"I am glad that Ilehana did not defeat you," Magneto told the girl haughtily. "Or else we may have been stood here a long time." Blaze took the chastisement with a shrug, confident Magneto would have worked it out on his own eventually. Armed with that knowledge Magneto tried a different tactic. He used his power to push through the adamantium like a needle through cloth. There was a hiss as the metal relented and a hole appeared through the centre of one of the doors. Air rushed through the hole, filling the room inside and eradicating the vacuum. Without waiting Magneto took hold of the doors again and opened them with minimal effort.
In contrast to the rest of the building, the room inside the box was blindingly bright. White strip lights in the ceiling reflected off the white ceramic tiles that covered walls and floor. The dull hum of a generator buzzed behind the walls. The X-Men winced, squinting until their eyes grew accustomed to the sudden change in brightness. When their vision cleared, they saw a room five metres square and in the centre stood a huge glass tube over one metre in diameter. The tube was standing on a plinth containing numerous consoles and buttons. Green fluid almost filled the tube, which disappeared into the ceiling. Inside the tube, suspended in the fluid and plugged into various snaking black cables, hung the weapon they had come for. Weapon X.
"Weapon X is a man?" Storm gasped, going to examine the captive. His dark hair spun like seaweed in the gently undulating liquid. His eyes were closed and he was as unresponsive as if he was dead. Only the bubbles that sometimes escaped from the air fed mask that covered his nose and mouth showed that he breathed. He was naked except for a pair of shorts, whilst from the backs of each of his hands sprouted three adamantium claws.
"No," Magneto spoke coolly. "Anything that was human has been driven from the weapon a long time ago. The only emotion that remains is rage. SHIELD brought him to Bayville in the hope that the very threat of his presence would bring peace. The same thing has been tried before, and it rarely does anything except accelerate the path to war…"
Magneto's speech was cut short by a sudden incursion of noise. The X-Men turned to look behind them. A sleek black helicopter rose to hover just outside the windows. Its rotors churning up the air like a hurricane. Masked, armed men leant out of the side of the 'copter and fired weapons at the glass. Grapping hooks punched through, tangling on the mezzanine railing. Zip wires were deployed and the armed men kicked their way through. The shattered glass tinkled down the building. The gust of wind from the churning rotors nearly sucked the X-Men off their feet. Gambit's coat, Magneto's cloak and the girls' hair billowed wildly in the gale.
"SHIELD!" screeched Rogue above the din.
"Worse!" Gambit pointed out, "It's Jacobi!"
The armed men crouched on the mezzanine, targeting the X-Men with laser-sighted semi-automatic guns. Another man left the helicopter, using the zip wire to slide across into the building. As soon as he landed, someone in the 'copter released the zip wires and the helicopter climbed steeply. The wind subsided as the newcomer stood up. Alessandro Jacobi brushed down his smart suit absently, and then turned his attention to the renegade mutants in front of him.
"Blaze," Jacobi ordered. The fire elemental obediently left the Weapon X chamber and crossed to her boss' side. Kurt and Storm cried out wordlessly in dismay, but Gambit just shook his head and looked away. He'd known this would happen. Magneto was also not shocked, but Rogue was angry and she wanted Blaze to know it, "Traitor! Ah hope you rot in Hell for this!"
"I'm not a traitor," Blaze said softly, but no one cared what she thought.
"I'm surprised that 'copter could take your weight Jacobi," Gambit taunted the older man. "Never mind the zip wire, eh? Ever t'ought of tryin' a diet, or maybe some exercise?"
"Step aside Gambit," Jacobi told the mutant in a bored voice. "Do tell your associates why they should stand down. Honestly, I give you a simple message to pass along and you can't even manage that."
"What message?" Magneto growled.
"He got your daughters," Gambit belatedly admitted to Storm and Magneto. "Blaze sold us out."
"Alessandro," Storm tried to plead with her husband. "Please, don't hurt the girls, I beg you…"
"I'm disappointed in you Ororo," Jacobi said. "You had everything you could possibly need or even dream of as my wife. Yet this is how you repay me? The girls are mine now, you won't see them again." Storm baulked as she stared in terror at Jacobi. He frightened and dominated her. She did not know how she had ever found the courage to go against him like this.
"Leave her alone!" Rogue stepped in front of Storm and tugged off her gloves. There was a clicking noise as the armed men cocked their weapons and the red dots of the laser sights danced briefly before coming to rest on the X-Men again.
"You Homo sapiens and your guns," Magneto drawled. He lifted a hand to disarm the men. Instead he found himself flying backwards through the room to strike the wall behind him. One of the armed men stood up and threw off his black mask. It was Paradox.
"What are the chances?" Jacobi chuckled. "This adamantium shell runs under the tiles, all around the room you are in. By using your powers you appear to have stuck yourself to it. Magneto, you are as hopeless today as you have ever been."
"No!" cried Gambit, lurching forward to avenge his friend. There was a crack as one of Jacobi's men fired his weapon at the Cajun. Gambit barely had time to register his mistake before a weight hit his chest and sent him tumbling backwards. His head struck the tiled floor, his eyes shutting as pain reverberated in his skull. The other X-Men froze, holding up their hands in surrender. Jacobi smiled. Weapon X was his.
Lying on the floor with stars dancing about his head, it took Gambit a handful of seconds to realise that his chest did not hurt. There was no pain from the bullet, only a dead weight lying across him. He opened his eyes and rolled over, pushing the weight out of the way. To his amazement and horror the dead weight that had hit him was Blaze. She had leapt in front of him, taking the bullet that would have killed him. A lump grew in his throat as he pulled her towards him, cradling her unresisting form. She'd saved him but at what cost to herself? He brushed back a curl from her brow, looking for any sign of life. It was then that Blaze opened her eyes and winked at him.
Blaze could have laughed aloud at the surprise on Gambit's face, but that would have given the game away. She had not been in any real danger because her biker's leathers were reinforced with bulletproof Kevlar. Knowing Jacobi's plans for the evening she had thought it prudent. Now everything was coming together nicely. Still she needed a distraction if she was going to bring her plans to fruition and live to tell the tale.
A distraction was imminent. As Jacobi ordered the remaining X-Men to back up against the wall, there was a keening cry from outside the broken window. A massive black shape loomed, the silhouette of a swooping eagle owl. Ilehana-as-Owl soared through the broken window and perched on the mezzanine railing. Instantly she morphed into a seven metre long Burmese python. Wrapping a loop of her torso through the railing, she lashed out with her tail and neck. The snake twined her body about tow of Jacobi's minions and began squeezing the life out of them.
Paradox dared not interfere with Vixen or he risked losing his hold on Magneto. Jacobi himself was driven back by a blast of wind. Released from her sharpshooter's sights, Storm called up a gale that whipped around the two rooms. It sucked two more of Jacobi's men out of the broken window and deafened everyone with its howl. Kurt bamfed and the bullet meant for him hit the far wall harmlessly. Nightcrawler reappeared and grabbed Rogue's hand. They vanished, reappearing behind Paradox. Rogue took off her glove and reached out to touch Paradox, but one of Jacobi's remaining minions shot at them and Kurt had to teleport them to safety…
As soon as Vixen had appeared and the kafuffle began, Blaze made her move. She used Gambit as a human shield, hiding her actions from anyone who might want to stop her. When the bullet had struck her, she and Gambit had landed next to the great glass tank containing Weapon X. Now she rolled over and put her hand to the metal panels at the base of the control station. Using her powers she melted the panel, making it soft so she could tug it off and throw it away. Underneath was a mass of green circuit boards and yellow and red wiring. Blaze hesitated, comparing the wiring with the schematics she had memorised back at the Town Hall.
"Need a hand?" Gambit asked her. He was sitting close to her, offering a pair of wire cutters he had produced from his coat pocket. Blaze glanced at him to make sure he understood what she was about to do.
"You should make a run for it now," she told him. "There's no going back once I've done this."
"We'll run together Petite," Gambit told her grimly. Blaze didn't argue. Just as the fight behind them was getting really out of hand she made her final roll of the dice. She cut a single wire and all Hell broke loose.