A.N. Well now, over 9000 hits! Thank you muchly! Loving the feedback too! Here's another dose for ye addicts out there in the verse!
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just entertainment!
Chapter 28
The air was still and the world was silent. The water on the damp ground was evaporating in the warm night air casting a thick mist over the area. In the far off distance the sounds of sirens could be heard; fire brigades, ambulances, police squad cars; they were all rushing to the scene but for everyone else, it felt like slow motion. It had been quiet for long enough. Like animals emerging from their wooded shelter after a storm, people began to trickle out into the open. In their dream state, one by one they surveyed the damage. They walked around in a surrealistic slumber, only to be awakened from their disbelief at the thoughts of friends and love ones that may have been hurt in the madness.
In the midst of it all, two young men appeared as if from nowhere, smoke swirling around them and mixing with the fog. One was a tall silhouette, with glowing red on black eyes like the devil's own, and cards in the palm of his hand at the ready. The other creature's eyes glowed yellow in the dark. He was of average height but was shortened further by a crouched posture - his long tail swishing for balance in his urgent stance. The fog and the night made it difficult for anyone to see them as they walked purposefully to the centre of the green. They walked forward slowly and cautiously.
Before them, after a few moments of searching, the mist parted revealing the two women they had been looking for, broken down and busted, lying facing each other like gossiping friends at a slumber party. One of girl's gloved hands was trapped under the other's head, between her cheek and the ground. Both were unconscious and alive, but both were bleeding.
They quickened to their sides, Kurt Wagner to his sister's and Remy LeBeau, albeit reluctantly, to the side of Jean Grey. The sirens grew louder in the distance. Gambit tried to staunch the blood from Jean's side but there was a lot, too much. Nightcrawler tried to help Rogue with her wounds but decided that they were just wasting time trying to do anything about it here. He looked around, most people he could make out in the fog were too distracted to see them but one or two were starting to take notice. They were staring at the men with glowing eyes in the fog. Nightcrawler looked over at Gambit, who happened to be thinking along the same lines. Kurt reached out a hand to each girl and waited for Gambit's hand to descend on his shoulder.
Onlookers could barely tell, thinking that their eyes had deceived them as the strange shadows vanished in to the mist...
oOo
Carefully but swiftly they brought her on-board. There were a few gasps and questions but this was not a time for answers, this was a time for action.
Scott took his seat at the front alongside his past mentor and now colleague. He felt guilty for Rahne's state as a leader. Storm looked at him sadly. She must have been worried about Rahne too. He gave her a pathetic 'thumbs-up' - gesturing to her not to worry so much. Storm furrowed her brow but then looked over to Rahne as if noticing her for the first time. She looked back at Scott and nodded. Scott had enough time to look confused before the jet lurched up from the ground. Storm's face showed only determination as she took the first step towards bringing her team home. Scott felt like he left his stomach back on the ground. It was odd, he wasn't a nervous flyer and he only got air sickness on long haul flights without the sun. This feeling was new and foreboding. They had to get home...
oOo
He placed the headset down, his hands giving the slightest tremor. He adjusted the settings to keep track of all his students on their journeys home and turned his chair, facing down the long catwalk to the large, circular doors. He wheeled past them at an unwaveringly slow speed, not giving them a second glance and he feebly let the chair do the work - his hand on autopilot, not caring where he ended up. Forge and Alex just watched him leave.
As he moved, he couldn't help but let his thoughts plunge into all the regrets in his life. He thought about each and every person he had wronged or let down, tonight and over the years. The fresh guilt stirred and mixed with the old. He thought of Jean, first and foremost. He should have been more careful - or less careful, either way he should have handled things differently than how he did. David, his son, he was still mourning for the past years lost forever from his child and how he hated him for loving his students more than him. He thought of Moira, and how much he must have hurt her for her to never have told him that he had a son on another continent. And the pain for both of them to lose their son to powers and his more dominant alter ego. The fault was entirely his. He had no disillusions about. He thought of Rogue. He had promised to help her. Instead he hid her in the shadows, not wanting to let people see that he couldn't fix her. His perception of failure was transferred to her. He gave Kurt an image inducer - a quick fix to his problem but have nothing for her bar lies and secrets and mistrust. And now she knew it all, she knew just how far he was willing to go. He thought of Spyke and the pain of Ororo and her sister. He lost his way and it was his fault. Scott. Scott was a child that had known little love in his life. But here he had a home, and when Jean came it was like life itself was breathed into him - turning his world from shades of red to Technicolour. Was that all about to end? With his powers, he spent so much of his time trying not to feel what others have felt out of self-preservation. But after all these years, had what he used to call his discipline cut him off from any capability of empathy?
He stared at the large mahogany door for answers. Something within him, a private question, snapped him out of his reverie, telling him that doors won't hold the all the answers. They opened for him on a sensor and he went into his room. The question; how many of his students would return on their own two feet tonight? He needed to feel penance for his mistakes. His heart wrenched as he allowed himself to feel all the emotions that came with the baggage of life, parenthood, friendship, mutant, human and mentor. The doors waited a few moments but sensed his needs and closed behind him, plunging him into physical darkness, but it was there that he found solace. It was there that he cried...
oOo
The journey home was deathly quiet. The van barely made a sound as it drove heavily over all the imperfections in the road, powering its way home regardless. The oldest was driving.
The street lights flicked over the bonnet and windows in a steady rhythm. A young teen was in the back, afraid to say out loud what was on all of their minds. If he said it out loud then it would all be true and he didn't want that, he didn't want it to happen. He wanted to get back to their safe life to before Spears Sports, before Apocalypse, before they were outted as mutants, even before they were mutants. He wanted everything to go back to normal, well, as normal as things were yesterday. Maybe it wasn't true. Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding.
He looked over at the older teen sitting next to him breathing loudly through his nose. He was mourning for his friend's fate and didn't know how to feel. His blood was pumping with venom for Spears. He was fighting the need within himself to do something about it, but what could he do?
He looked diagonally over to the Beast in the front passenger seat of the van, hope invading his dark thoughts that he might know what to do. But the Beast didn't know what to do. This wasn't the first time he had completely and utterly failed someone. And Evan. Evan was just a child, a lost child. He just needed to find himself, but who had he found and at what cost to his health? Why had he waited so long to tell them; why had the Beast waited so long to research into the deadly mutant toxin? He never felt worse in himself than he did at that moment.
He frowned over to Logan in the driver's seat to gauge how he felt about all of this. Logan responded to Hank with a subtle nod in acknowledgement, a nod in acceptance before he returned his attentions to what was coming up ahead...
oOo
Her head lolled against the wall and bars as she fell in and out of sleep. The wall behind her back had warmed to her nearly her body temperature but was still drawing heat from her, making her cold. Her arm was weaved between the cool bars on her right; all in all, a wholly uncomfortable position. Her eyelids felt heavy but her heart was light as drifted to sleep.
She had been afraid to fall asleep. She didn't want to let her guard down and be taken without a fight. She didn't want to wake up and find out that she was alone. But her most basic fear was to fall asleep and never wake up again.
A frown crossed her half-asleep face. As she worried, the fingers on her right hand flexed. She smiled slightly as sleep finally came to her, her arm hanging limply through the bars, her hand relaxing into the warm hand of another as he mirrored her state of rest on the other side of the divide...
oOo
She breathed out and in again, and repeated the process. She was cold but the side of her face and one of her hands felt warm; a familiar thumb was rubbing her knuckles but the tactile was wrong. It stopped. She wanted to wake up and ask why he stopped; she really wanted to wake up.
She was truly beautiful, but that was nothing new to him. He cupped her cheek softly in his hand and examined her face. The scratches were not deep - they would heal without a trace. He brought his other hand closer to her face and brushed cold, damp cotton over the cuts.
It a slow pain burned through the fog around her senses. Someone was hurting her, it stung. She didn't understand. Unbidden tears came to the corners of her eyes but she didn't move a muscle.
A tear moved slowly down her temple and announced its presence to him by a warmth that quickly cooled along his index finger. He examined her face for any other signs of awareness but found none. He sighed. He was finished with the disinfectant and other first aid tools. He let his Russian friend put them away for him while he attended to the straps around her waist and legs that would keep her safe for the last few minutes of turbulence on their return journey then took his own seat beside hers for final descent. He took off the nitrile gloves and picked up her hand once more, resuming his vigil...
oOo
She walked through the darkness, though to her it was as bright as day. She walked forward strong, thought a slight frown crinkled her brow. She wanted to look back, but didn't. To show concern was nice, but to show weakness in troubled times was bad; and only having one functioning eye, she probably would have fallen over something. Marrow had no such issues as she followed at the same pace as Evan. She looked over at him; his face was angry but determined to forget what had just happened. The anger was a permanent feature on his face these days, a result of his constantly growing and changing mutations. He was just like her in ways, but she wasn't as willing to accept as he was that this was life now. She still had hope. He wasn't even trying to get to somewhere better.
She knew most of the Morlocks had had some trouble before she arrived with this poison - half her time was spent caring for the weaker in the bunch and the other half caring and fending for herself. Truth be told, she would never had joined them if she hadn't seen Evan. He reminded her of her when she saw him. She couldn't believe that there was someone out there in the world just like her. He was strong, powerful and confident. He didn't let his mutation hinder him in any way, in fact, he embraced it and used it to do what he thought was right. His were spikes, hers were bone, but she knew how painful it was all day every day. He had earned her respect that day and she had put him on a pedestal. But only from a height can one fall.
Her idolisation grew every day she was with the Morlocks, even when she had learned of the mutant toxin that they were all subjected to, and how they fought against their extermination. She learned of the ill effects it had on each of them, which varied for most, and how they dealt with the symptoms. She felt like she was being guided so rightly by these people, her mentors. She even started to accept her mutation, despite the pain it caused her, because that was what he did. It was all going so well, until she overheard Callisto and Spyke arguing privately.
She wanted him to stop what he was doing. He never let any of them help him, the only one allowed to help was Marrow and she didn't understand why. He told her he didn't have to explain himself to anyone. She told him he didn't, but that said she wasn't going to let him leave without knowing. Marrow could tear herself away from the heated discussion now, especially when she heard her name. Evan quietly and calmly explained that he and Marrow needed to be the ones to fight and defend the group and that it helped them with their powers, it helped them cope. Marrow couldn't fault his logic but Callisto could. Marrow wasn't the same as him. The words sounded harsh on the girl, but they were said to make him realise something. Callisto wasn't concerned for Marrow's well-being; she was worried for Evan's. Evan tried to defend himself but was shot down by Callisto. She ordered him to stop using his powers. Marrow didn't understand and didn't think Evan would stand for it. She heard his footsteps coming her way and scattered.
Since then, she has seen him at his best and at his worst. He didn't stop using his powers of course. It took her a few months to catch on that Evan didn't get sick like the others all that often, but when he did it was bad. He stopped the others at every opportunity from using their powers except for her. She knew what was happening now. Once in their system, the toxin remained dormant and manageable if the right remedies were used but mostly, it remained dormant when they didn't use their powers. For someone like Evan, it would be difficult to turn his mutation off but he was willing to max out if it meant no one else had to. He was killing himself slowly for them. The moment she realised that; that was the moment he fell...
oOo
The room was empty and dark. The monotonous dial tone was the only sound in the room as the phone hung loose on the receiver. He leaned back in his chair, an inch of twelve year old Midleton in a crystal tumbler, sitting on the arm rest lightly encased by his fingertips. The first drop hit his tongue, a delicate blend of honey and fruits and almonds beneath the immediate taste of bourbon flavoured oak. It was a rare treat. He sipped away at it; his mature features being illuminated by different lights and shades flickering from the other side of his office. The display screen was showing scenes of destruction and mayhem in two different states. Worthington soaked the information up. In front of him on his desk were plans and paper work that officially did not exist, the exact figures and expenditure for his little projects on the side. And now this happens... He propped his feet up on the desk and leaned further back into the chair. He picked up his glass and paused just before the rim met his lips. He smiled. This was going to be a good day...
oOo
The blades were only beginning to slow a fraction when everyone was up and moving fast not saying a word, the noise of the blades making it pointless to try. He was surprised that Rogue and Kurt didn't even take the time to land the chopper in the hanger but dropped straight down on the front driveway, as close to the door as their limited piloting skills would allow. From a window above he saw Forge and Alex had run out to help but quickly turned on their heels most likely to prep the medical bay. He sensed multiple wounded. They let the chopper run down and focused on carrying their wounded. He recognised Duncan Matthews immediately as Cannonball carried him into the building sensing a strange twist in his psyche. That alone was an alarming event. Next he witnessed Jubilee and Tabitha emerging from the chopper carrying Laura between them - completely out but brainwaves normal. Gambit crawled out carefully, a petite frame wrapped up in his trench coat. Xavier could only sense who it was through Gambit. He felt a weight on his heart. It was Rogue. Gambit carried her in as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Xavier was about to move but he could sense more in the chopper; Kurt hopping out of his seat to take Kitty and their last patient straight to the medical wing. Her mental state and injuries, he sensed from their panic, were severe...
End of Chapter 28
A.N. Hmm, there's something different about this chapter from all the others... (I'm starting to sound like sesame street). What do you think it is? Well, how we all doin? Still with me? Nearly at the 100,000 word count now so if you have read this far and not reviewed yet - let me know what you think, good/bad/indifferent. If you have reviewed; thank you and sure since you're here, review again! I'd like to know that I haven't lost anyone along the way - although if I did, would they be reading this?
