"Jubilee! GET DOWN!"
All three hundred pounds of muscle and adamantium barreled into me as Wolverine knocked me to the ground just in time to take the assault rifle fire that was sprayed at me. His growl was ferocious as he rolled off of me and my world spun round more than once as he rolled us both, then bodily picked me up, and vaulted us behind an overturned table for the very little amount of cover it would provide.
The two Advocates continued to fire on us without pause, doing a great job of pacing themselves so that one could still shoot while the other reloaded. Wolverine was taking on more bullets than the table which had passed on from being a table to splintered bits of wood and plastic.
A wet and somewhat sticky sensation overcame my body as I realized that Wolverine was oozing blood out faster than he could heal and this iron scent invaded the rosy smell as his blood covered me.
Later on I'll realize I had gone into a sort of battle-shock. Almost the opposite of Wolverine's beserker rages where all thought flees from his enraged mind and the animal takes up residence. I was numb of all emotions, rage included, and able to act without feeling. It was like Jubilation Lee had left the building and I was just a shadow of myself. A cold, battle-ready shadow of myself.
Without looking, I tossed several small fireworks up into the air, creating flash-bombs that assaulted the Advocates senses as they were rendered blind and deaf. With his heightened senses, they affected Logan even more than the enemy, but he also recovered faster and it gave his body a few seconds to catch up with the gunshot wounds.
I grabbed some better cover behind several desks that were clumped together so that Wolverine didn't have to concentrate on protecting me so much and focused all my attention on the rosy girl's murderers. They had opted for retreat and were scrambling towards the door I had just kicked in. Course, I would too if the man I had just unloaded several clips into was climbing to his feet sounding like a rabid Rottweiler from hell. They didn't even see me in the corner.
Time slowed down again like when I first saw the girl and a part of me didn't even realize what was happening. Didn't even realize that I was the one doing it. Sweat formed on my brow as the air started to super-heat around me and shimmer in waves like when viewing the distant horizon of a desert.
Logan felt the energies in the room building around me and turned away from the Advocates to face me, a look of dawning shock on his face. I coldly disregarded the expression on my boyfriend's face as I continued to feed the hungary plasma globules. I wanted these men dead. Deader than dead. I wanted them obliterated.
The burning orbs grew in in size as Wolverine turned back toward the doomed Advocates, claws bared. He lunged at them, faster than a wild predator, aiming very clearly for the back of their heads as they tried to retreat from the room.
He was directly in my line of fire.
Then everything, Wolverine included, disappeared in flash of too-bright light as my power exploded outward, forceful enough to create a shock wave. The explosion took out everything in front of me--everything. The room itself started to collapse around me due to it suddenly lacking giant portions of wall and support beams. Then the floor buckled under my feet, lurched, and gave out, swallowing me whole as I fell through.
As I descended, the scent of roses disappeared.
****
I felt like the memories weren't my own. Maybe something like what Rogue must feel. They were in my head but they weren't mine. I knew it all took place just seconds ago, but I felt entirely separated from the events as I took stock of my condition. I felt bruised all over, but the armor in my uniform had protected me from most of the damage, and I realize there must be a gash on my forehead right above my left eye because it's stinging distantly and blood's dripping down my face.
I tried to pick myself up, but I was surrounded by so much rubble, there was just no where for me to go. I was lucky the only thing that landed on me was a single desk. I reached for my communicator only to find it broken, then mentally reached for Emma, finding telepathic silence.
Suddenly, there was the sound of plaster and wood groaning and scraping against each other and Rogue was before me like a floating angel decked out in combat gear, saving me from my own destruction.
"What in the hell happened up there, Jubilee?!"
And then I snapped back into myself.
I panicked.
"LOGAN! Logan was up there! He was up there and he got caught in the blast and then the building came down and ohmigod LOGAN!"
I start flailing, trying to climb up the rubble, back up to the next floor where I last saw Wolverine even as the wreckage continued to slide back down on fallen bits of floor. "LOGAN! He's up there!"
"Awright, sugar, just calm down now," Rogue floated towards me, then effortlessly took my weight as she levitated us up through the hole and I looked around frantically for Wolvie, realizing that I was starting to hyperventilate.
Rogue sat me down on a piece of wall like a child as the world blurred behind my tears and I quickly lost the ability to speak as uncontrollable sobs wracked my body, bringing several bruised ribs to attention.
Her intercom was still intact. "Hey, Cyclops, I've got Jubilee and she's okay. We're on what's left of the third floor and we're tryin' to locate Wolverine. Did Emma get the Blackbird off okay before the roof caved in?"
"Affirmative. She'll swing back around to pick us up when we're regrouped. Let me know when you find Wolverine."
Rogue then turned to me again. "Okay, Jubilee, it's Wolverine, sweetie--he's gonna be fine. Now where did the blast come from?"
"M-m-me. I-I d-did it."
Rogue's face falls slack as she takes in the carnage around her as if for the first time.
"I always knew you packed a powerful punch, gal, but I didn't think think you were one for such extensive property damage..." her voice trails off as her eye catches sight of something in the area where the blast was focused. Something that resembled a crisped human limb.
She left me where I was and made her way towards what proved to be the body of one of the Advocates I was intent on murdering. She dug him out gingerly, picking up pieces of the building like they were feather-light pillows until he was fully uncovered and revealed to be nothing more than a burnt corpse. I watched her methodically work her way through the area, unable to move from the spot she had planted me at. She quickly revealed the second Advocate's body in her efforts and then we both heard a pain-filled groan emanate from somewhere in between us.
The sound granted me movement.
I flung myself towards it. "Rogue!"
"I heard it, girl," She flies towards me and lifts what my small arms are incapable of to reveal the Wolverine buried within.
The best thing I can say about his state is that his torso was intact...his limbs though...his arms and legs were bare adamantium in whole sections where my plasma had burned away chunks of skin and muscle entirely.
He was, quite simply, a mutilated mess of a man. And I had done it to him.
I lunged for him, crying desperately, trying futilely to pull him out and Rogue almost had to bodily toss me away from him. I was of no practical use to her or him and I'm pretty sure she was talking to me, saying something about how he'd heal, just let her get him out of the building and on the Blackbird but I didn't have the mental capacity to understand her words.
In a few seconds she had him cleared of the rubble, and I tried to move toward him again, only to find Remy holding me back, cursing violently in French. Suddenly there were more people all around us, walking carefully as the floor started to creak ominously, threatening to collapse the rest of the way in. It was the group Gambit and Iceman had gone in to retrieve.
Gambit flung me around to face him, grabbing my shoulder hard. "Jubilee! Snap out of it, petite! We gotta get dese folk outta hear before the damn floor caves in!"
"But, Logan..."
Remy's red on black eyes looked like they belonged to the devil himself. "He's come back from much worse, chere! Other people need us more."
"That's fer damn sure," Wolverine rasped from behind me. I turn to face him like an idiot. He was awake and standing on his own feet again, albeit heavily leaning against Rogue. I could literally see muscle grow and knit itself back together, covering up the unnatural silver color of his adamantium bones as his healing factor compensated for the devastating injuries.
No amount of Gambit's strength could keep me from going to him this time. "Oh, God, Logan, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry! I didn't mean--" He cuts me off with a hard, feral kiss and I can taste blood on my tongue and I swear I'm going crazy because I can smell the roses again even after all the destruction that's decimated the area.
He breaks the kiss, takes stock of his surroundings like a pro, then turns back to Rogue. "Call in Summers and Frost. Looks like everyone's accounted for. I think it's far past time we get the hell outta here."
He throws a protective arm around me and we hold each other up, me an emotional wreck, him still recovering physically. Rogue moves forward to start her own special brand of airlifting the survivors out of there and into the hovering Blackbird and I realize Bobby's standing off to the corner, holding up an injured Lex with one hand and utilizing his other to create an icy network of super dense ice in an effort to keep the building intact. Her face is obscured in the shadows of the building, her eyes glowing a hard yellow.
"Lex!"
"Remember how we said we'd never go to a meeting like this? Like it was asking for trouble?"
"Yeah," I rasp, my throat sore from crying.
"We really fucking called that one, eh?"
I smile faintly. "Don't you hate it when we're right?"
****
They had everyone loaded onto the Blackbird in short order. All the seats went to the wounded and Hank and Rogue were going from person to person applying first aid while we headed towards the mansion at full speed. That left Logan and I standing in the back of the plane. Cyclops should have called in Angel's team for transport at the very least, but we were going for a hasty a retreat. They were going to have a lot more explaining to do than they had originally anticipated and it looked like the Professor was going to become a generous donator to my University.
Logan and I stood silently, side by side. He had healed completely by this point--even his body hair had grown back--but I could tell he was on the verge of crashing hard. I kept close to him, but was so wracked with guilt I could hardly stand to look at him. Could hardly believe what I had unleashed back at the school.
Having seen to everyone else, Hank made his way over to me, intent on checking me over since I was the one teammate to sustain injuries other than my self-healing boyfriend. Blowing up a building while you're in it and then falling through the floor does that to a girl.
His question was innocent and his tone was soft, as he asked me, "Jubilation, just how much of this blood is your own?"
I stared at him blankly, then looked down at my body, realizing I was covered in the viscous, stickyness of it. It was all over me. Images flashed before my eyes, the dead pink girl, the crisped bodies of the Advocates, Wolverine's burning and bleeding wounds. Nausea overwhelmed me and I immediately became the second person to puke on this particular mission.
Lucky me, Hank is a forgiving person.
Dizziness overcame me, and Logan was there to support my weight as I reeled backwards, and Rogue was suddenly there with a towel to my face and Hank was ignoring the mess I'd made of the front of his uniform and muttering about concussions under his breath as he attempted to shine a bright light into my eyes.
I pushed back the second wave of nausea, moaning miserably.
"Killed them--I killed them..."
"What did she say?" Hank asked with puzzled alarm.
"Oh, God, oh no..." Rogue, who had been the one to uncover the dead bodies, whispered.
"No you didn't darlin'. No you didn't." Wolverine's voice was firm, confident, as strong as his arms were around me.
"Logan, what is she talking about?" Hank queried.
Logan ignored him, leaning towards me til I could feel his breath on my neck. "They were dead before your blast hit them, I swear to God they were, Jubilee. You did not kill them."
I turned to look into his steel-hard blue eyes, feeling tears fall down my cheeks again.
"I didn't?" I said in a very small voice.
"You didn't," he confirmed.
The scene played before my eyes again. Logan looking at me with shock on his hardened face. Wolverine lunging at the Advocates like a mad thing with deadly intent right before they all disappeared in my blast. Had he really been that fast? Had he really reached them before I did?
"You...?"
"Claws to the brain before we all went down. They died instantly."
I leaned back into his powerful bulk, feeling relief for the first time since Cyclops had barreled into Wolverine's room. I curled into a ball with his arms around me, crying out all the tension, guilt, and grief. He supported my weight, stable as a rock. This man was willing to take on the responsibility of murdering for me, was capable of forgiving me my intent to kill and my ability to render him a broken man from grievous wounds. Even when I was in a cold, killing rage he'd go to all means, including taking on my very own powerful explosion, to protect me.
Logan saved me from myself that day.