Of Jealousy and Love ch 14
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Around 4 o'clock, they finally landed the blackbird in an open clearing in an upstate Washington forest.
Thankfully the rest of the trip went smoothly, (nose diving dip free), and everyone was ok. It was now time to continue on with the mission and search for Magneto and his clan, in efforts to free the California governor.
"Are you sure these are the coordinates?" Logan asked once getting off the jet and looking around. There was nothing but trees, dirt and bushes surrounding them.
"This is what the professor gave us" Storm replied.
"Great" John but in, stepping off the jet and onto the ground. "Why did Magneto have to chose a freaking forest for his lair location?"
"Why did he have to chose a freaking cold forest for his lair location?" Bobby added. "It's got to be a good 20 degrees colder here than New York gets in the Winter." He said while hugging himself for warmth. "And it's summer"
"That's only cause' we're near the mountains" Jubilee informed. "I bet you the rest of the state is smothering in heat"
"Alright well, cold or warm whether, we've got a job to do so let's move out" Scott ordered.
Closing the door to the blackbird and putting it in stealth mode, Scott began leading the way in their search for Magneto.
"Look for any sort of strange opening or secret pathways" he ordered.
"Or look for anyone" Storm added.
As they padded through the forest, searching for any hints that might lead them to their destination, Jean did an over all mental scan to see if she could sense any other thoughts in the area but two thoughts in particular caught her attention and distracted her from finding anyone else.
It was Rogue and Scott, thinking about each other as usual, and as they did so, memories of the two cuddling, kissing and playing their little flirty games were appearing as well and it was making her sick.
She still believed that their relationship was wrong and she couldn't believe that they were thinking about each other in a time like this.
"Hey" came Storm's voice, interrupting the red head from any further jealousy.
"Ya, huh?" Jean asked.
"Could you do a mental scan, see if anyone's in the area?" she asked the telepath.
"I already did. I can't find anything. He must be wearing that stupid helmet of his" Ok so, truth be told, she was so focused on fuming over Scott and Rogue to look hard enough but, they didn't need to know that.
"Well there has to be someone else with him." Scott said. "You didn't get anything?" he asked.
"I said, no" Jean retorted as if she was still 16, giving Scott a look that said, "shut-up and drop it".
Scott only sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Well why don't we try to…………."
"This should fix this little problem, right here, right now" Jean thought to herself, ignoring whatever it was Scott was going to say next and turning her attention to Rogue.
Again the immoral side of Jean was taking over as she again used her telekinesis to subtly move a small branch that was lying in Rogue's path right in front of her, causing the poor girl to trip and fall.
"Whoa" came Rogue's startled reply, as she came tumbling to the ground and Jean inwardly laughed.
"Rogue, are you alright?" Scott asked, rushing to her side to help her up.
"Oh, sweetheart, are you ok?" came Storm's concern as well. It wasn't like Rogue to be so clumsy.
"Ya, ya, I'm fine, I'm fine" Rogue said, getting back up with the assistance of Scott. "That branch just popped out of nowhere" she said dusting herself off a bit.
"Popped out of nowhere huh?" Scott thought to himself. He had a pretty good idea who was behind this. Branches never just pop out of nowhere; especially when it concerned someone as graceful as Rogue. "Are you sure you're ok?" he asked aloud.
"Ya I'm fine" she said giving him a reassuring smile. "It was nothing. I was just to busy looking to notice it."
Scott sighed. "Alright well, be a little more careful next time" he said, giving her a reassuring rub on the back.
"Duly noted" she said with a smile.
"Alright guys, let's keep looking until we……………"
"Hey what's that!" Jubilee cried, pointing towards a red glaring streamer in the sky.
Had it been broad daylight, the signal would have been easily missed but since the sky was tinged gray, it was fairly noticeable as it soared it's way across the sky.
The group paused for a moment, watching it in all it's red glory while trying to figure out just what it was. It seemed to have no clear destination as it wavered back a forth and did a few loop-de-loops, and yet it didn't burst into a mist of colorful smoke like a flare of a firecracker might do.
"Just what the hell is that?" Logan pondered aloud, sheathing his claws out for any sort of need-be protection, and standing close to Jean for her well being as well.
Watching the red flare intently, Scott was a little more focused than the others, trying to find the source of this unidentified object. There was something fishy about a red flare being thrown up into the sky in the middle of the woods and dancing about in the way it did and it didn't help any that these particular woods were the holding place of Magneto and crew.
Trailing the line of smoke to its origin, Scott noticed that it was short ranged and hadn't been launched from very far and his accusations immediately went to Magneto. In all likelihood this was a trick from one of his henchmen to distract them in order to make their attack.
Suspicions being proven correct, Scott's eyes widened in horror from under his shades as he watched the red flare begin making it's descend downward toward the team followed by a good twenty or thirty more, being following from its original launch location.
"They're explosives!" Scott cried. "Get out of range!"
Immediately, the team took off to find a spot to take cover, dodging a few of the explosives as they came in contact with the ground, blowing up dirt and forming small craters in the earth.
There was a small gathering of oversized rocks, not to far from their path and the team made their way over, Storm, Logan, and Jean managing to form somewhat of a protective circle around the younger ones and guide them to the save spot while Scott took the time to stop and fire at some of the explosives, setting them off in the air.
Bobby and John helped as well, freezing them and setting them on fire, but when they tried to do so they were only met with harsh orders from Scott to keep moving.
Running, warding off mini-bombs and keeping an eye on the kids all at the same time proved to be more than exhausting, but apparently it that wasn't enough; an army of mutants began pouring in chasing after them.
The bombs stopped flying by now, but it went without saying that now it was battle time.
Finally the group reached the clutter of rocks and after glancing back to see the mutant clad gaining on them, they hastily gave the teens their orders.
"Stay here, we'll handle this" Storm said, glancing from the advancing henchmen to the X-men trainees.
"What!" John cried. "But we can help you, we've had training!" he said.
"Not enough training" Jean said. "Stay here" she added firmly.
They couldn't protest any longer as they mutants had already gotten close enough to begin their attack and the X-men had no choice but to take them on, leaving the younger ones to watch from their spot on the rocks.
There was a brief pause in the air as X-men and henchmen squared off, glancing and sizing each other up and down, making their judgments about their opponents.
"I take it you're the X-men" one of the girls in the group said, balling her glove clad hands into fists and smirking, cracking her neck side to side.
"What's it to ya" Logan said, following suit.
"We've been asked by Magneto to take care of you. He can't be bothered with light weight" she said, clearly insulting them and their fighting abilities.
"We'll just see about that" Scott said.
"Logan you go to the left, Scott go for the right, Storm and I will advance in the middle got it?" Jean instructed telepathically and there was a brief exchange of glances of confirmation between them.
A warrior cry was heard by one of the henchmen on the opposing side followed by "Attack!" before the mini-battle engaged.
The smooth talker, who introduced them as Magneto's henchmen went for Jean and was clearly a hundred times faster than the average person and sped in the red head's direction, sending her an unsuspecting blow to the face.
After chopping off the ears of some elf looking creature, Logan was clearly angered by this woman hurting his own woman, and he therefore slashed her on the back leaving her to cry in pain and seethe at Logan. Wringing her arm back to strike him in the face as well, Logan's reactions oddly enough worked faster than hers and he stabbed her in the shoulder before she got the chance, pushing her to side.
"You alright Jean?" he asked, holding his lover who delicately touched the now forming bruise on her face. "Fine, fine, I just gotta……………look out!" she cried as she pulled Logan to the ground along with her, just barely dodging another mini-explosive that was hurled at her by a glowing red, smirking mutant.
Logan growled. "You'll pay for that."
………….
Meanwhile, as Logan and Jean endured their own fighting, Storm and Scott were holding their own as well, Storm lifting herself in the air and striking as many mutants possibly with a few lightning bolts she conjured up and Scott going in combat with a few choice mutants of his own.
A few of the henchmen had spotted the trainees however and they smirked realizing, they were sitting ducks and the easiest to attack.
Noticing the approaching mutants, Kitty's heart began pounding with fear and she sat up from her watching spot, preparing to begin to head in the other direction. Although they have had many training sessions in the Danger room with plenty of artificial stimulations, she didn't think anything could prepare them for the real thing. The real bad guys.
"This doesn't look good you guys" she said clearing her mind to prepare to go into faze mode if need be.
"Bring it on" John said excitedly, smirking to himself while flicking open his lighter. "I haven't seen any action all day"
"John don't" Bobby cautioned. The henchmen were gradually making their advancement closer towards the poor trainees, and with each step forward, they took one step back. "They told us to stay here"
"Uh, if you haven't noticed, that really isn't an option right now Bobby" Jubilee snapped, also juggling a few firecrackers between her fingers.
"I'm warning you guys, Scott's gonna' be really pissed." He said, backing up with the others as well.
"Either he's pissed, or we die" Peter said, shielding himself in his metal guard. "Now John!" he cried.
The pyromaniac didn't need to be told twice and without any further stalling he flickered a small flame in the lighter, that grew rapidly into a huge ball of fire, which he used in his flamethrower technique to litter the ground in front of the ascending mutants with fire.
Assuring they wouldn't cross the fiery line, Jubilee fired off a few firecrackers in the mix giving the blaze a couple of explosions and Bobby followed suit with a thick wall of ice in front of them, set in between two trees to halt any mutants that were brave enough to cross.
"C'mon!" he said, leading the others around their booby trap. "Let's help the other's out!" he said.
John rolled his eyes. "Oh now he chooses to go against orders" he thought while running along side them.
Once they reached the team, they realized that they pretty much had things wrapped up, with one or two more mutants to ward off, but upon seeing the younger bunch, the X-men were to say the least, unhappy.
"What are you doing here?!" Storm asked, touching base on the ground and punching some insect looking guy away from Jean, sending him to the floor.
Scott did the same, only with a blast to a scaly looking guy and joined the others. "I thought we told you to stay put!" he said, clearly upset they put themselves in the line of danger.
"We were!" Kitty defended. "But they were going to attack us and so we had to make a break for it" she said.
"So you came here?" he asked. "Why didn't you find another safe spot?" he asked. "God, what have you guys been doing during training, sleeping?!" he explained.
"Hold it twinkle toes" Logan interrupted, before Cyclops could begin his ranting and raving.
"What Logan this is no time for………."
"Where's the kid?"
There was a pause among them, as everyone seemed to look behind their shoulders for Rogue. Events were unfolding so quickly and she had been so quiet, they hadn't even noticed she was missing.
"Oh God, she was right behind me, I swear" Bobby cried.
It was at that exact moment, that Scott swore his heart skipped a beat. Maybe two.
Everything was happing so fast and he barely had time to react to them being attacked more or less Rogue going missing.
"You lost a teammate!" Ororo wailed. She could feel herself, along side Scott, panicking as well. In all her years of being an X-men, they have never lost a teammate on a group mission and it only took one time, one mission with the youngsters for them to loose someone. Such a thing was simply inexcusable; they were trained to always stick together. Even if they were to split up, they were always to have at least one buddy with them and one link of communication to the others.
Storm could feel her lungs closing in and the others as well.
"Oh shit, the professor is going to kill us" Jean said, refraining from panicking as well. She knew she had been a little mean to the girl before but that didn't mean that she wanted her to be taken by Magneto or one of his henchmen; that was just mean.
"Guys we swear, she was right behind us two seconds ago!" Bobby defended. "Maybe she's still back there or she's………………"
"Scott! Scott!" came the cry of the girl in question as she began running toward them, her uniform torn at the shoulders and tears pouring down her eyes.
There was a breath of relief as they say her approaching them, feeling ten times better that, this little frantic dilemma didn't last over 5 minutes.
"Rogue!" Scott cried, pausing from his panic and worry and running toward her. He'd lecture them later, right now he needed to make sure she was ok.
"Scott!" she cried back. "Scott I—"
Worse case scenario reared it's ugly head again and before she finish another syllable a huge purple and black looking mutant with wings ejecting from his back and claws for feet, swooped down and snatched Rogue from off the ground, flying away with his prize in hand.
"Ah!" Rogue cried and Scott ran after her, clearly shocked he hadn't seen the mutant coming.
"No!" he cried chasing after it. "Rogue!!"
"Scott!" she called after him flailing her arms and legs while in captivity of the giant bird. "Scott!"
"Rogue no!" he yelled. Now his panic had returned and he was becoming worried beyond all belief. First she had went missing now she's been snatched right off the ground like a mouse by an eagle. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, this is not happening, this is not happening" his mind raced.
"Guys we have to do something, we have to do something now!" he yelled to the team still running after her and they followed in tow.
By now poor Cyclops was doing more than panicking. He was damn near hyperventilating on the fact alone that they had been attacked so suddenly and his new found happiness had been swept away by some creepy looking henchman for Magneto.
This was all happening way to quickly. Not more than 15 minutes ago Rogue was safe and within his line of protection and now here she was being carried away by this overgrown bird.
Well Scott would be dammed if he was going to let her get away. Not now, not like this, no way!
He was happy with her and he was nowhere close to loosing that happiness; especially with someone as special as Rogue.
"Rogue!" he cried again, running as fast as his legs could take him to keep up with the oversized crow. He held a finger to his visor, trying to get a shot off at the bird but his better judgment told him he should wait because with how sloppily the bird was flying, he had a good chance of missing and hitting Rogue instead.
"Storm, could you fly up and catch her?" Logan asked and the whether witch nodded, lifting her arms out and summoning the air.
"I can try" she said as she hoisted herself up in the air and followed the winged creature.
"Scott!" Rogue cried again still struggling against the might of the claws that raked into her skin. "Lemme' go you big bird!"
Following the bird's path of flight, Bobby spotted a huge crater within their trail and a light bulb dinged in his head, a brilliant idea coming to mind.
"John" he called out to his best friend, seeing if he came to the same idea and when Pyro gave him a nod of approval, the two boys ran ahead of the group, making sure they reached the crater well ahead of time.
"Where are you going?" Jean asked, keeping an eye on them and an eye on Storm as well who was trying to figure out a way to release Rogue without having her plunge to the ground.
Once they reached the crater Bobby looked up at Rogue and the mutant to make a good time judgment before giving John another look of approval. "You ready?" he asked.
"Let's do it"
Throwing his arms in the air, Bobby laid enormously thick layers of ice, over the crater making sure to cover it fully, while John busted huge amounts of flames from the tiny flicker of his lighter and sprayed it over the ice, melting it faster than one could say "Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore".
Seeing that their newly acquired lake was deep enough, or rather hoping that their newly acquired lake was deep enough, Bobby turned to the mutated big bird to see that they were right on schedule and he whistled loudly enough to catch his attention, forming a ball of ice in his hands.
"Hey!" he cried. "Over here big bird!" Tossing the ball of ice as hard he could, John accompanied it with a swirl of fire around it and luckily for Bobby (as his aim wasn't the best in the world) it hit the bird square in the head.
The oversized crow squawked in pain and immediately released Rogue to tend to it's wound causing the girl to scream bloody murder as she dropped from a dangerous height in the air, into a freezing cold lake, crashing in with an audible smack. The kind of smack you hear when an over weight person does a belly flop into the pool from a diving board stationed a good yard or two in the air.
Bobby and John cringed from their spots at the shore. "That didn't sound good man" John said.
"No Rogue!" Scott cried as he reached the shore along side the others, searching helplessly among the ripples of water.
"Are you two insane!" Logan screamed as he reached the shore as well briefly wondering if Bobby and John had lost their marbles. What they did was quick thinking he'd admit, but a drop that high into water they weren't even sure was fully defrosted could kill a person.
"Bobby, John, what were you thinking!" Storm yelled as well as she landed next to them.
"Rogue!" Scott screamed out to the shores, trudging into the water knee deep for any signs of her.
A few minutes passed and the water settled showing absolutely no movement coming from beneath it and he was almost positive she was killed.
Who knew how deep that crator was, or how much force it took for her body to slice through the water molecules. She could have broken every bone in her body.
"Jean?" Scott asked helplessly, hoping the telepath picked up any signs of her.
Jean focused in as hard she could, for any faint signs of Rogue's thinking, but with everyone's panic bombarding her thoughts, it was hard to pick up the slightest trace of poor little Marie. Had she been struggling to get free from the water, sure she would have heard her loud and clear, but most likely had she survived a fall like that she was unconscious and she really needed a clear mind from her and everyone else to catch that.
Trying a little harder to pick up any traces, Jean sighed as she looked up at Scott, shaking her head solemnly as she felt the tears sting her eyes. She knew she was jealous of Rogue and hadn't done the nicest of things to her, but she would have never, ever wished for this sort of thing to happen. Ever,
Scoot tried to contain his panic and contain his anger and his frustration and his everything as he tried to react to what was unfolding in front of him. Everything had happened so fast. Just as fast as when Logan had used Rogue for his sick mind games and in a scenario like this, probably a lot faster.
Scott couldn't loose Rogue, not now, not here, and not like this. They had just barely gotten together and had just found happiness in each other, he couldn't loose her now.
He could feel the tears burning his eyes and he prayed for anything, any sort of movement that proved she was alive.
"Rogue!" he cried helplessly, looking out over the lake to find any sort of movement.
"Oh God" Jubilee said with a hand to her mouth as she and the others, like Scott, looked out over the lake for any signs of life. They couldn't believe they had lost their friend so quickly.
One lone tear rolled down his cheek as the realization of the very big possibility of Rogue actually being dead suddenly hit him. He couldn't believe it; he couldn't believe he had lost her.
She was right there, right there nearly five feet in front of him and he'd allowed her to slip out of his grasp. He'd allowed her to be captured and killed.
Just this morning she was with him and now she was gone.
She hadn't chosen to save anyone from life threatening damage like Jean did, and no one could have seen her death coming. She was taken so quickly and so violently, and it broke Scott down to pieces.
He loved her.
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Cliffhanger folks! Hehehehe. Is Rogue dead? Is she alive? Review and tell me what you think!!