Chapter 26
No one ever said it would be this hard.
The Scientist, Coldplay
The world tilted sideways, then fell on its ass.
Scott picked himself up. Gasping, he wiped blood splatter from his visor. His head whirled about, searching the area for signs of life. A bullet pinged off his Kevlar. Did nothing phase these bastards?
He saw the onslaught for what it was—a terrified horde who had just lost their demigod. That being said, they were still wielding automatic weapons, not to mention shooting them at him.
His fingertips gripped the dial at his temple and he let his optic beam fire in short, hot bursts, disarming his attackers and leaving them a little worse for wear, but not dead. He grimaced, spat the taste of blood from his mouth. There had been too many deaths today. And if he wanted to prevent anymore, he had to get his team back to the Bird.
Cuffing them, he scanned the stage; it was empty save for what was left of Creed.
Remy and Rogue were no where to be seen. For a sickening second, he was almost sure Remy had disintegrated the two of them.
He slapped the communicator on his chest. "Wolverine?"
Static, and then, "Thought you'd be vapor."
He grinned; it was hard, unamused. "Sorry to disappoint. Status?"
"Damn Cajun blew me into a tree. I'm coming up on you now."
Scott turned and saw the Wolverine emerge into the clearing. He walked with the air of a beast of prey, his senses ever-alert, never taking the world at face value, eyes always on the shadows. His walk was stealthy, yet the fear that gripped Creed's merry band of miscreants was not present. And why should it be? The man could take whatever was dished his way and come out all but unscathed.
He measured Scott within his shadowed gaze, flicked a piece of—Scott didn't want to know—from his shoulder. "Why didn't you fly?"
Scott shook his head. "I know Remy. I knew what had to be done."
He looked around, his eyes searching a world bathed in red. Not that he could tell, everything was red within the confines of his visor. "Status?"
Wolverine blew out air. "Don't know. Ain't seen any of the team. Still some snipers hiding throughout the forest, but I think most of the Friends bolted along with Creed's spleen." He sniffed the air. "Don't smell Gambit. Or Rogue for that matter."
Scott saw his jaw flex; Logan viewed Rogue as a personal responsibility. Probably similar to the way he viewed Remy. He started to speak, to offer some half-assed sympathetic jargon, but decided against it; it was bullshit after all and he hadn't time for it. Besides, his communicator beeped.
"What the hell was that!" Kitty's voice swam to their ears through an ocean of static.
Scott slipped back into his training, becoming the commander once more, not the friend. "Never mind that," he barked, "I need statuses and locations on all X-Men in the field. Wolverine's sniffed out a few of Creed's stragglers; we need them contained and cuffed before we can pull out of here. I also need eyes above. Locate any surviving mutants. And, Kitty," he hesitated, the last part of his orders tasting sour on his tongue, "We may be collecting bodies...of some of our own."
X
She opened her eyes and felt them roll back into her head against the light. The explosion's power had caught her off-guard and she'd been pushed back into the woods. She'd managed to miss a tree and had landed in a thorny bramble. Her skin burned with fresh cuts and scratches. At her feet, also within the plant's thorny grips, he laid.
She freed her hair, hissed as another thorn sliced through her palm, and slithered out from her prison. He was so still, she felt a lump form within her throat and swallowed at it as she stretched a shaking hand to his neck. He had a pulse, it flittered against her touch and she felt her relief collapse against her chest.
He stirred, his skin pale, blue-tinged, and she wondered at his breathing. He opened his eyes, squinting against a stream of sunshine that spilled through the forest's canopy. He sat up, rubbing his head, smearing blood down his shirt.
"Some ride," he half-chuckled, half-groaned.
A sob escaped her lips and she hugged his neck. He raised a hand to her shoulder, rubbing circles and whispering worthless words of comfort. He knew she didn't believe any of them, yet she allowed him to say them, needed him to voice some sort of sanity.
Finally, he asked her the question she was too afraid to ask herself. "Have we heard anything?"
What he was really asking was "Do we know if anyone else is still alive?"
She shook her head, her hair taking flight with the sheer force of her fear. "Nothing."
He licked his lips, wiped a tear from her cheek. "Emma, you gotta check. We gotta call in. We gotta help who needs it."
She nodded, closed her eyes and sent out a telepathic cry: Emma and Bobby reporting...please tell me we're not the only ones!
X
His skin was warm against hers.
She pressed a kiss against his clavicle before nestling into the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. She ran a gloveless hand down the hardness of his stomach, fingers playing lazily with the trail of hair there. He kissed her curls, his free hand stilling her tantalizing path.
Her eyes, heavy with sleep, began to close of their own accord, but not before her lips whispered against his skin, sending goosebumps skittering across his body. "Remy."
X
"Shit!" Lorna hissed through her teeth, her hands trembling above her brother's leg. "Oh, Joe!"
Broken bone pierced through Joe's pants. Lorna ripped the material away and bit her lip; she wasn't sure how her brother was still conscious. Tearing the excess into strips, she knotted the denim as tightly as she could high up on her brother's thigh.
He jerked away from her, a curse thundering on a whisper. He stilled himself, looked at her with hard, blue eyes and caught her hands. "Stop, stop. I'll be fine." His teeth were clenched and she knew that the pain was more than fine. He continued, glancing over her like one did a child who had fallen on the playground, "Are you okay? Any bullets-" His eyes rolled back and he grimaced, his hands releasing her own and gripping just above the break. He sucked in air, blew it out, and repeated until he felt he could open his eyes once more. "Any bullets hit you?" His voice was different—controlled pain and she shook her head quickly.
"No, Joe, I'm fine." She turned from him, covering the trail of blood flowing down her arm. It was nothing, a flesh wound, but she knew he would take the bullet graze as a personal affront on his duties as big brother.
She scanned the area with frightened, green eyes and gathered her powers. Her magnetic sphere surrounded her and she raised into the air, hoping to find survivors from their little band of interlopers and praying not to find the opposite. She reached the tops of the trees, her eyes still alert. She cursed at the sun and the sky each of which had stood silent sentry over the atrocities of the day. Both seemed aloof, untouched by the violence and she wondered at how the sky could be so blue and the sun so bright.
She lowered, stealing a glance at her brother's pale face. She hated to move him by herself, feared that such a jarring could create more of a problem than not, but she hated to wait for help, and the off-chance that a Friend was lurking within the shadows waiting to kill them both, seemed more a great possibility. So she knelt beside her brother, pressed the X on her chest, and announced her intent.
"This is Lorna and Joe. We're coming in. We need medical attention immediately." She bent her power around them and lifted them into the sky.
X
Betsy blinked her eyes. "Piotr?"
He stooped down to her place on the ground. "Betsy? Are you well?"
She rubbed a manicured hand through her rumpled hair and winced when her fingers touched a lump. "Yes, thanks to you."
Piotr nodded. "I had to get you away from the fighting. You could do no more fighting with a concussion." He paused, then added, "I did not know that it would end as it did."
"Yes," she licked her lips, violet eyes searching their wooded refuge. "Yes, well, lucky thing for me. I don't know that I would have survived that." She tipped her chin at a fallen tree. Its middle was snapped in half. "I believe your power came in very handy."
His fingertips skidded across the ragged break. "It is a shame that such a thing of beauty was a victim of such violent hatred."
She swallowed; her head felt light. Piotr was right, perhaps she did have a concussion. She leaned back against a tree trunk and breathed. She watched him as he watched the area, steel-gray eyes to match his invulnerable form. His power was on, holding him within the cocoon of its metallic shield. He had used that power to block the explosion from her, had dropped to his knees, covering her body with his own. That was how the tree had broken, snapped in half on impact with his colossal form.
Suddenly, she sat up, her head turning every which way. Frantic, she called out to him, "Emma and Bobby? Where are they?"
He knelt beside her. Sadness and the fear of not-knowing broke through the gray steel of his eyes. "I do not know. We were separated during the first blast. I did not see what became of them after that." He hung his head and swallowed. "I did not see what became of anyone."
"Have you called in?" She wanted to know.
He shook his head. "I have no communicator. I must rely on telepathic connection." He gingerly touched her head. "How is your head?"
Like a bad hangover, she thought, but squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated. She'd send out a telepathic cry like a five-alarm fire. She directed it toward mutant brain waves and prayed that there were still teammates that could receive it.
Psylocke and Colossus...we're alive! Anyone else out there?
X
Hank tapped the X on his uniform. He'd managed to get several of the humans out of the stage's vicinity before the explosion. Now that the world had tipped right way up once more, he found himself standing in a circle of Friends, each angrier than the first that this mutant had dared to invoke his will upon them, whether it had saved their lives or not.
"Flea-ridden piece of shit."
He sighed, saddened that appearances and fear still ruled their hearts. But, he wasn't surprised. He had surmised during the evacuation that there was only a very slim chance that this circumstance would have any effect on their overall judgment toward mutants.
0.0005% to be more precise.
Glad to see that though his common sense was failing, his calculations remained accurate.
He looked over the group, his eyes searching for wounds; he was, after all, a doctor of sorts, not that geneticists logged many surgical hours. Yet still he felt that it was his duty as a human being...even if they were in direct opposition to that statement. "Anyone hurt?"
The Friends tensed at his words, a collective breath inhaling at once.
"None of your business!" Came the spat out reply.
Hank shook his head. "Well, technically speaking in a way it is my business. I am a doctor. So, if any of you are hurt, it is my duty, no matter how large a pain in my posterior you are, to offer you aid and assistance. So, I reiterate, 'anyone hurt'?"
Suddenly a woman of nearly 50 cried out. "My arm! I think I broke my arm!"
A nearby man slapped her, sending her into the dirt. "I'd rather you died than let a mutant touch you!"
A younger man jumped up, restraining him. A young woman helped the woman to her feet. She was in fact cradling her right arm, clasping it closely to her body. The young woman turned an expectant gaze at Hank, fear in her eyes, but lack of choices at her fingertips.
"Can you help her?"
He nodded, moved slowly toward them, his voice low and soothing. "I can. It will only be a rudimentary fix. You will have to take her to the hospital to have it set and x-rayed. But I can help it." He looked at the younger woman's frayed dress. "I will need some material; the hem of your dress should do nicely." Then, turning to the crowd, he spoke in an urgent voice. "I need a stick, thick and strong. It will help to stabilize her arm."
A few disappeared into the forest. They returned with a stick just as the young woman handed over the piece of her dress. Hank took them and carefully set the woman's quivering arm upon the stick.
"This will hurt, but I will attempt to keep it as pain-free as possible." He wrapped the material tightly around her arm and the stick. Finishing, he tied the strip in a knot and instructed, "Keep it tight to your body. Get to a hospital now."
He could feel eyes upon him, each glare red-hot on his back. If his calculations were correct, the men who had looked for the stick had probably had an ulterior search at the back of their minds. And, his calculations were almost always correct.
He turned and saw a pistol leveled at him.
The woman behind him called out to the owner of the pistol. "Stop! He helped us!"
The man chuckled. "And for that, we are grateful. Aren't we, boys? But, see, t'was his kind what started the whole reason for your broken arm. 'Sides, I didn't bag me a mutie yet. And I gotta nice space above my fireplace for that ugly mug of yours."
"I do not think, my friend, that you will be putting anyone's head above your fireplace."
The man looked up and gasped. A straight wind rushed from the sky, collecting him in its grip and sending him mercilessly into a tree. The gun dropped to the ground and was plucked up by some invisible hand and sent hurtling through the air. Next came a whirlwind. The Friends scattered before it, racing into the woods, voices ringing in fear.
"Salutations, Storm."
She alighted beside him, eyes full of concern. "Strange bedfellows." She gripped his arm, then quickly hugged him. His arms folded around her.
"It's okay. I'm okay."
She pulled away from him, shaking her head. "We must go. Before I lose control of my emotions, we must go back to the Blackbird."
X
That was the funny thing about disaster, Kitty decided, as she hauled ass out of the Blackbird and met the flatbed truck as it cleared the trees. It kicked people into survival mode, burning up their emotions and steeling them for the battle of life all at once. She hated the empty feeling in her stomach, hated the way it ate away her insides and left nothing but a husk intent on following orders and doing what needed to be done. She wished she could cry, to choke up the fear and anger and torment and just let it flow freely through every pore of her body.
But that would be a waste of time.
And time was the one thing they were losing.
Kurt slammed the truck to a stop, pulling the brake and grabbing JP in one movement. He teleported to the grass beside Kitty.
Opening the door would've been a waste of time.
She sucked down a gulp of air and quickly ticked over JP's injuries. "Okay, on the gurney." She helped Kurt transfer JP's pale form onto the stretcher and they ran back up the platform into the Bird.
She screamed down the corridor as they ran toward the MedLab. "IV and blood now!"
They tore into the room and carefully put him on a bed. The Professor inserted the IV, started the drip and then began the blood transfusion. He ran hands down his face, looking even older than he was.
"Two broken arms and beat to hell," Kurt muttered before grabbing Kitty by the arm and directing her back into the corridor. "We have to check the cylinders. They may have more mutants."
Kitty followed him, wide-eyed and sick to her stomach. "They were keeping them in trashcans?"
Kurt glanced back at her, his teeth baring in a way that made her skin crawl. "After all we've learned, that surprises you?"
She stopped, ran to the kitchen where Justin was sitting, eating another orange. "We need your help. Are you up to it?"
He nodded, tossing the peel on the table. "What do you need?"
"We may have more mutants to rescue. Do you know anything about metal cylinders?"
He froze, shuddered. "That was where they kept us. Like garbage. Did you find them?"
Kitty nodded, grabbed his hand, and pulled him down the corridor. "Yes, and we've gotta get them out of there now! The sooner we do, the sooner we find all of our people, the sooner we can get the hell outta here!"
X
Emma squinted against the sunlight as she and Bobby emerged into the amphitheater. She touched her temple and sent a golden curl of telepathy toward the stage. Scott and Logan were standing on the stage, their backs toward them. She gripped Bobby's wrist and they trudged down the incline to where their fellow teammates stood gazing at a blood-black smudge on the wood.
Bobby lifted himself on the stage, careful to miss the splintered, charred wood from Scott's attack. Then, he stooped, and offered his hand to Emma.
"So that's all that remains of the big, bad bastard, huh?"
Logan nodded, then kicked at an undecipherable chunk.
"Good riddance."
Scott was more reticent, his head parallel to the horizon he was scanning. "No visual on Remy or Rogue yet. Didn't want to leave the stage in case someone showed up."
Logan made a face and scuffed the bottom of his boot against the stage. A red line followed his foot. "Just cleaned these damn things," he muttered to himself and then, "Feels like I'm babysitting a hunk of wood."
Scott shook his head. "You are free to leave the stage."
"Wasn't talking about the stage."
Scott's visor flashed. "Listen, asshole, you've had a problem with me since we met. What say we curb it for a little longer and find our friends. Then, when we get back to the mansion, I'll keep beating the shit out of you while you keep on healing. Deal?"
Logan's smile was so feral, it gave Emma the creeps. "Right on."
"Have you had contact with anyone else? Any psi-messages?"
Emma nodded, her eyes darting between Scott and Logan. "Yes," she said, clearing her throat. "Right after making contact with you, I picked up on Betsy. She and Piotr are safe; they should be heading this way."
"Good. Then the Bird can come right to us. We need to find Remy and Rogue."
"If he blew her to kingdom come, Four Eyes, he's going to have to deal with me."
"Take a number."
Logan growled beside him.
Ignoring him, Scott dropped to the ground, his hand smudging a thin line of blood. He looked at his palm.
"Rogue." Logan answered the unspoken question.
Emma cleared her throat. "I've got something." Squeezing her eyes closed, her fingertips flew to her temple. "It's not much, but..." she trailed off. "That way."
X
She lay across his chest, her eyebrows arched suspiciously as his fingertips fluttered down her bareback. He just grinned at her, his dimples deepening the smile and preventing her from keeping the look of skepticism fixed on her face.
Despite herself, his smile was contagious and she felt the familiar tug of her lips pulling into an amused grin. "Oh, you think you're so cute." She clicked, her tongue finding a secure location under her teeth to keep her from laughing right out loud.
He shrugged, pulled her completely onto his chest and kissed her. "'S long as you t'ink I'm cute..."
She scrunched up her nose, raising her chin in mock defiance. "Maybe I don't."
At that he laughed, his smooth lopsided smile hitching up a bit further on that one side, making it even more crooked than before. It was easy and smooth. And despite herself, she leaned down and kissed it.
His fingers twisted in her auburn curls, before grazing the backs of his fingers against her cheeks.
She stopped and leaned her forehead against his. Her eyes searching his. He let out an amused breath and ran the pads of his thumbs and forefingers on her earlobes. "Y'know," he began, his voice honey-lilted and heavy with sensuality, "when you look at me like this," he paused, his lips twisting into that half-hitched grin, "you kinda look like a bug."
She let out an exasperated breath and smacked him lightly on the chest. He laughed pulled her back down, capturing her lips with his own. Then, after several beats, he pulled away, leaned his forehead against her own, and grinned, "A cute bug, anyways."
X
The Blackbird reminded her of a scene in an old war movie. Make-shift emergency rooms had spilled beyond the medical bay. If they were not mutants, the nearest hospital was minutes away. But it was too risky to attend a flat-scan hospital...what if the doctors...who had sworn the Hippocratic Oath...were not tolerant of mutants? Kitty swore. So, instead, they were going to fly the Blackbird at some ridiculous speed—back to Westchester, back to the mansion, and the medlab. Xavier had already contacted a friend of his...some lady by the name of Moira.
Not that it mattered.
Kitty was relatively sure that one more doctor still only made two and with the upwards of twenty mutants they had pulled from those shiny canisters, not to mention the X-Men themselves, two doctors were not going to be nearly enough.
But the professor was certain that no one would perish on his shift.
As Kitty watched him now, she realized how old and tired he seemed. His eyes wavered for a moment, like he was trying to see through water, and she felt her breath catch. The movement was minute, hardly noticeable, but she had seen it many times before and knew what it meant.
"What did they say, Professor?" Her voice reminded her of her five-year-old self. Like she sounded when opening the first Hanukah present of the season...invested, but not sure whether she should get her hopes up. Swallowing, she saw the look on his face.
He licked his lips, clasped his hand on her forearm, and patted it awkwardly. "I-i-it's going to be all right. Kitty. I am certain." If he believed himself, he was giving an academy-award winning performance to the contrary.
Kitty was rapidly losing faith.
X
"Dear God!" Hank pulled a breath of air in and choked on it. There wasn't anything else he could say. Rendered speechless didn't happen to him very often.
Gambit's body was black and sooty. Hank wiped at his friend's hand; the black smeared off and he felt a fraction of the heaviness lift. But that was all. He was unconscious—not good—CT scan needed to show damage; Hank was unclear if it was from the impact from the explosion or if it was from pure exertion. If he had to guess, he'd probably say it was a deadly combination of the two.
Too bad he was still speechless.
Gambit's shoulder was covered by grimy bandages and what remained of a ripped sleeve. The wound had long ago overcome the confinements of the dressings. Dried blood skittered down his arm, bloody filigree that wound in and out in spidery patterns. His face was thin, gray. His breathing was shallow.
The good doctor lifted what was left of Remy's filthy shirt and examined his stomach. He winced—check for internal injuries. Purple-blue bruises pooled across his abs. No blood. No bullet-wound. And he was thankful that Remy had dealt Creed his hand before the monster had shot him. He grimaced remembering the way Creed had shoved the barrel of his gun into Remy's gut—how his madness swelled within that moment, an explosion in its own right.
He swallowed, check the IV in Remy's arm. Check his blood pressure, his pulse, his breathing, his heartbeat, his shoulder... Cut the shirt off. He had to operate on his friend's shoulder...again. Complete scans, blood work...have to save him...make sure that he doesn't die...not after all he's saved...after...what he's been through.
There was so much...why did it feel as if he was moving in slow motion?
X
Normally, she would have been right in the middle of it. Right beside Hank, helping him in any way she could. But this, this was too much. Her brothers, both of them, lay in pain. JP's wounds...not life-threatening, but painful nonetheless. And Remy? Oh goddess! Her baby brother looked as if he had shot himself and then lit himself on fire. Hank assured her that the black soot would wash off, but his lack of wit and confidence—so uncharacteristic—put her in even deeper anguish. So she moved from bed to bed, checking on her brothers, on the other X-Men until finally, the anguish began to cave in around her. Then, she sat on a chair and cried.
X
She giggled, raked her fingernails across his stubbled chin, and then tugged, pulling his face down to meet hers. His lips were warm, tender, and he kissed her gently, brushing against her mouth like a feather, like if he released his hunger, lost control, she'd break under the ferocity of his kiss.
She smiled against his lips, pushed the strands of red-brown behind his ear, her fingers massaging the lobe. She shivered as his gaze darkened, his eyelids half-closing as he looked down at her. The intensity of his eyes unnerved her and excited her both at once. He smoothed a crooked finger down her cheek; she trembled. His eyes raised, and he fixed her with a look she hadn't seen. Not in several months. Not since her bedroom in Westchester. Not since he told her...
"M'ecouter, petit l'un. Je suis dans l'amour avec vous. (Listen to me, little one. I am in love with you.)"
"Re-my?" She questioned, her voice wavering, weak.
She blinked blearily as the slant of his smile straightened. As the crimson of his eyes...purpled...blued.
Remy dissipated before her, filtering into the air, shimmering, changing, rearranging until it was Joseph leaning over her, a worried look marring his features. Her breath caught. Her body shook. Glancing around, her eyes widened in fear. She was in a bed. In the Blackbird?
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, her chin crinkling with an unspent sob. "Joe?" She broke.
His fingers slipped through her hair. He dipped his head in, his thumb wiping a tear from her cheek.
"Oh, Anna," he whispered, kissing her hair. " You're okay."
Her lips trembled, frowned. More tears spilled down her face. She sniffed, sobbed. "Joe?"
He nodded. "Yes, it's me."
She shook her head, her eyes flickered around the room. Tears flowed freely. "No," her words were whispered, frightened. "No," she said again, clawing at the gurney, trying to pull herself up to a sitting position. "No!"
He pushed at her shoulders. "Anna, stay down."
"NO!" She was screaming, struggling. "Where is...? No. You're...not... REMY!"
Whew!
So, I'm incredibly sorry that it took me so long to update and I'm sorry that this chapter is so short. However I do want to thank everyone who read and reviewed my story or made it a favorite over the past several years. I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and I want you to know that I do plan to finish this story.
Let's move on the the questions!
How are the X-Men going to deal with the emotional repercussions of this mission? How is Rogue even remotely lucid? Will Remy survive? The future is not looking all that bright for our favorite mutants!