Late update AGAIN, ellesmer?
All of you have my sincerest apologies. Everything's been hell lately, and I've grown desperate to win this championship; all the while, trying to keep my grades up there. So yeah, an update just completely slipped my mind and now I feel guilty huhuhu
Anywho, how have ya'll been? I'd love to hear everything you have to say, so make sure to leave a review! ^^
I DO NOT OWN X-MEN OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS; I only own Arya and other OC's who may make an appearance some time in the future.
Chapter 9
Arya slid off the table and landed on her feet with a dull thud. But before she could even pull her gloves off, a gun—one that had previously been sitting idly on the table beside Raven's head—flew into Erik's ready hand. He moved quickly, too quick for Arya to be able to figure out where he was going to point the barrel, and then he pulled the trigger.
A single gunshot rang through the air. Fiery pain shot up Arya's left shoulder, travelling down her arm and up her neck. She fell to the ground, screaming. Instinctively, her hand shot out to hold the wound, perhaps to keep too much blood from flowing out, but her finger had only grazed it when dark circles appeared in her vision. She sobbed.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she yelled at Erik, gaining enough sense back to crawl further away from the man.
Erik barely glanced at her. In one hand, he had his fingers encircled around a tiny, silver thing. Horror filled Arya when she realized that it was the bullet he had shot into her. In the other hand, he held his gun. He was now pointing it at Charles, but behind the telepath was Raven. She looked like a cornered animal, hiding behind the professor; Arya wanted to tell her to just run, but some part of her knew that it would just make Erik pull the trigger earlier than he meant.
"Erik," shouted Charles, holding his hand up in a palliative gesture. "What are you doing?"
"Securing our future," Erik replied coldly. His eyes never left Raven, and Arya took the opportunity to pull her gloves off—whimpering when she had to move her left arm. "Forgive me, Mystique. As long as you're out there, we'll never be safe."
Behind him, Hank stood completely still. "Erik."
"Use your power, Charles," Raven implored, her voice shaking. "Stop him."
Erik's eyes were stony. "He can't," he said.
Arya's hearing had already gone dull, but she still heard that. Through the agony, she struggled to raise her arm. That was when Raven jumped to her feet and started running. From the ground, Arya watched as Erik's hand followed the blue mutant's movements.
Hank finally snapped out of his trance and rammed into Erik. His hand gripped onto Erik's wrist tightly, making the gun fall out of his hand. But Erik was relentless. He held his palm out. A second gunshot rang through the air and a bullet whizzed past Charles', barely missing his face. To Arya's right, the sound of glass breaking reached her ears. She didn't turn to see what Mystique had done. Erik's bullet continued on.
"NO!" Arya gripped Erik's mutation tight, but his mental defenses fought her. She didn't know it was possible for him to become stronger in prison, but he did. His walls were so much thicker than in Cuba. And Arya was weak. Her attempts in pushing through meant nothing. Her head snapped to the side quick enough for her to see a small, circular-headed thing falter in mid-air before flying out the window.
A hard grunt came from her left but she didn't make an effort to look there anymore. Arya lay down on the ground and curled herself around the bullet wound, gritting her teeth and trying to keep from blacking out. Beside her, she heard panting, knuckles striking bone and loud exclamations coming from familiar voices. Blood continued seeping out of her wound and onto her hand. She strained to keep her eyes open through the pain.
Beneath the table and across from her, Erik walked. There was a soft click and something grey shot into his hand. He caught it.
"You bastard," Arya hissed through her teeth, glaring up at him.
He stopped for a moment and turned to her, his face unaffected and his voice detached as he said, "Then we agree on something." His footfalls continued until he reached the ceiling-to-floor window. Then, he levitated off the ground and to the world outside.
Arya heard shouts of alarm afterwards, but she couldn't bring herself to worry about it. Her eyes were slowly drifting closed when she felt a hand grip her leg.
"Arya," came Charles' familiar voice. Her eyes shot open.
"Charles." Her voice broke. "It hurts."
"We'll get you stitched up," he said, grabbing her hand—the one she could still feel, at least—and placed it on the bullet wound. He pressed gently, and she cried out. "You have to keep pressure on it," he said, though his voice was strained.
Through the grey haze, Arya watched from over Charles' shoulder as Logan stood up off the floor. "Where am I?" he said, his face contorted in a scowl.
The professor gave him a sideways glance. "Huh?"
"How the hell did I get here?" Logan growled, advancing on the professor in uneven steps. Subconsciously, Arya opened her hand, the one she could barely feel because of the gunshot hole in her shoulder.
"What?" Charles turned to Logan, possibly just as confused as he was. "You came to us."
Logan looked completely hostile now. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Charles," the telepath answered simply, already having turned his attention back to Arya when Logan grabbed the collar of his jacket. He pulled so that he faced him. "I'm Charles Xavier!" Charles exclaimed, holding his hands up.
Meanwhile, Arya was feeling absolutely miserable. "We have to help Raven—" She stopped when another stream of blood gushed out of the wound. A sob tore through her throat. If shock wasn't going to kill her, then the loss of blood would.
Logan turned his questioning gaze to her. "Raven?" he asked. They had enough problems as it was; now they had a disillusioned and slightly homicidal mutant ally asking them questions like a damn cop. Arya banged her head against the floor in frustration. At least the pain's lessened, now, she thought to herself. Yes, the pain had faded slightly. It had turned into a consistent throbbing on her shoulder that hurt maybe 30% less than before
Beside Charles, Hank stood up. Arya didn't feel the slightest bit reassured when she found that he was in his blue-ape body now. He'd learned to control himself better over the years, but that wasn't going to help them.
Logan let go of Charles and stepped back. "What the hell is that?" he yelled, his eyes going wide. Hank made a move towards him but Charles stepped between the two, keeping them from attacking each other with only his hands.
"I can deal with this," he said calmly. He glanced over his shoulder to Hank for a brief moment. He told him, "Just go. Stop Erik!"
Hank didn't question him. He ran across the room and jumped out the window. The floor shook as he was running, and Arya whined in discomfort as the tremors made her body shake as well. She was trying to keep as still as possible, but her palm was still open in case Logan suddenly turned more aggressive than he already was. (His claws were still unsheathed.)
"You're Logan," Charles was saying to him. He gestured out the window, "That's Hank McCoy," then to himself, "I'm Charles Xavier."
Logan nodded to Arya wildly. "And her?" he demanded.
"That's Arya Jacobs," Charles replied steadily. "She's a friend." (A friend who just got shot, she wanted to add, but kept her peace.) "You spent the last couple of days with us." He didn't say anything else for a beat, and Logan looked to calm down the slightest bit, but Charles wasn't done.
"You're on acid," he said, and it wasn't a question. "Somebody gave you really bad acid, yeah?"
Arya would have guffawed if she didn't know that doing so would hurt her, so she didn't. However, a small smile slipped up her lips and she mustered up enough strength to shift into a sitting position. Fiery pain once again shot up her head, and her vision blurred.
"Just hold on tight, we'll get through this together," Charles was saying. Arya blinked a few times, already having accomplished her first mission; the next was to lean against the leg table.
Steeling herself, she hopped her butt off the floor and moved to the right. To her relief, it didn't hurt much worse than sitting up. Arya was propping herself up on the leg table when a sliver of movement caught her eye. Her eyes flicked to the right, just behind Logan and by the door.
The soldier from before—the one who had attacked Raven and therefore was given the same bother in return—had pulled the cords off his neck and regained his footing. He ran to the door, but for some reason turned around to give the mutants one last glare. His wide eyes flickered down to Logan's unsheathed claws. The mutant turned his head to look at him as well, and they met each other's eyes, right before the soldier started his escape down the hall.
When Logan once again turned to the professor, his eyes glazed over. The slightly menacing look on his face disappeared, replaced by utter confusion. "Professor?" he said. His claws disappeared back into his knuckles.
Charles' lip twitched as he sighed in relief. "What happened to you?"
Logan's reply was too low for Arya to hear. She didn't mind.
"Where's Raven?" he asked afterwards, to which the professor shook his head.
"Gone."
"What?" Then Logan finally noticed Arya sitting on the floor, her hand and shoulder drenched in blood. His eyes widened. "What the hell happened to her?"
"Erik shot her," replied Charles. He sauntered over to where Arya sat and put his hand on her shoulder. "Can you walk?" he asked softly.
"I think so…" Arya frowned in concentration, using her uninjured arm to clench the telepath's arm and using it for leverage. "God!" She gritted her teeth and whimpered, "Shit…" The throbbing intensified, but she was able to get her feet beneath her.
"Sh..." Charles picked her gloves off the floor and gently slipped them back into place. He wrapped his arm around Arya's midsection, and she used her right arm to keep pressure on the bullet wound. The blood had stopped seeping through, but she had lost feeling in that arm enough for her to start worrying. "We'll get you to a hospital," Charles was saying.
She shook her head. "I don't want to go to a hospital. We'll stitch it up on the flight back to the Institute."
"Arya, if this bleeds out—"
"It will if we don't hurry," Arya interjected. She couldn't even snap at him; that was how tired she was. "Which is why we have to get Hank, get to the bloody plane, and get in the air before it bleeds out."
Thankfully, Charles didn't question her for much longer. Together with Logan, they started on their brisk walk down the corridors and out the building. Once outside, they were immediately greeted with camera flashes and crowds of people. They grouped together around the fountain, desperately trying to get past the rest and to their cars. Charles quickly took his jacket off and placed it around Arya's shoulders. She took it gratefully, wincing when the hard fabric rubbed against her wound. She and the other two men made their way through the crowd, Charles paving the way for her because she only had feeling in one arm at the moment. When people wouldn't move aside, Logan would bark at them and they parted like the Red Sea.
Hank was waiting for them in the car. He was still in his ape form too, but he looked no worse for wear; how he slipped past security without being shot down, Arya couldn't tell. As soon as he spotted them walking towards the car, he unlocked the doors. But when Arya shed Charles' jacket, revealing the gunshot wound, he got out of the car.
"What happened?" he asked, examining the hole closely.
He was larger in this form, and Arya stepped back instinctively, the sight of his sharp front teeth startling her. "Erik," she answered simply, blinking as he stared at the wound from a few inches away.
"There's no exit wound," he observed. "It must've got lodged in your shoulder blade—"
Arya rolled her eyes. "Yeah, or Erik just pulled it out."
Hank stared at her seriously. "You're lucky the impact didn't break into the bone, otherwise—"
"That's great," Arya cut in yet again, sliding past him and opening the door to the driver's seat. She gestured inside. "Now can we please just get to the plane so you can stitch the damn hole in my shoulder?"
The drive back to the airport was agony; not because her shoulder felt like it was being branded, but because the traffic was unbelievable.
On the highway leading from the Hotel Royale, dozens of cars were lined up and down the avenue, honking. Arya peeked from beneath the windshield, and the jam stretched as far as she could see. It took them an hour to get past that, and another two headed to the airport. It would have taken longer, but Hank was past ignoring the speed limit by then; he seemed to be trying to see how fast their car could go.
Once they were at the airport, Charles handed Arya his jacket again and they walked through the crowds of foreigners with grim faces. Arya tried to keep calm as the police dogs sniffed at her feet suspiciously. Eventually, the guards brushed them off and gave Arya the clear. She shakily trailed after the others, beginning to feel the effects of the blood loss. She felt light-headed and ready to keel over at any moment.
They boarded the plane, and Arya set herself down on the sideways couch and let her shoulder go limp. She sighed in relief. Hank rushed down the corridor and to the cockpit, where he quickly put his flight gear on. Logan seated himself across from Arya, while Charles took his seat beside her; both of them watched her with worried expressions on their faces. And though Arya knew they were just concerned, the throbbing had made her irritable. She did her best not to push Charles away.
As soon as they were in the air and turbulence had gone down to its most minimum, Hank put the plane on autopilot. He left his spot in the cockpit and strolled down the hallway. Arya expected him to stop in front of her, but he continued on until he was at the very back of the plane. There, he reached up into very last overhead locker and pulled out a med-kit. Arya stared at it wearily.
Hank must have noticed the looks she was giving him, because when he sat himself down beside her and opposite Charles, the first things he took out of the box were two small bottles. "I have morphine and antibiotics."
Arya's lip twitched up in a smile. She pulled the neckline of her blouse down, only enough to reveal the bloody wound. "Just, stick the injections in the right places, alright?"
While Hank worked on stitching the gaping hole in her shoulder closed, Arya tried to keep her mind off the sharp tugging sensation and kept her eyes away from the scientist. Charles stroked her knuckles gently from her right, and she took comfort in his warm touch.
The thought of Raven entered her mind, and it was enough to keep her distracted.
Had Erik caught her? Had he somehow successfully buried a bullet in her head? Their mission was to keep her blood out of the wrong hands, and yet where would Erik take her corpse? By then, surely the government had found out about what happened. Trask's sentinel project would continue, and he would demand for Raven's dead body. How was Erik going to keep her out of their hands then?
She felt disgusted with herself for even trusting a word that came out of his mouth. Their conversation on the plane,—where he had so honestly stated that he cared for Raven, for everyone else—it wasn't true. Arya knew that now. Those memories he had shared with Arya, he probably just made those up. Friends didn't try to kill other friends.
Redemption for Arya's forgiveness had been possible before, but he'd tried to kill two important people in her life now, including a try for her own life. His redemption was long gone, out the window.
Slight turbulence shook the plane, and Arya winced as Hank's needle dug farther into her skin than necessary. He immediately exclaimed his apologies, and Arya waved him off nonchalantly.
"I'm almost done…" He trailed off, his free hand flying out to grab the scissors from the med-kit. He snipped at the dark thread he had used to stitch her shoulder up before taking out a gauze pad from the kit. Arya watched as he poured some clear liquid onto the pad before taping it against her wound.
A strong stinging sensation erupted from there, and Arya hissed. Her hand shot away from Charles' and she buried her mouth into the crook of her arm. Tears erupted from her eyes but they didn't spill. The morphine didn't help with the pain the antibiotic inflicted, and the throbbing soon returned.
Hank apologized for one last time before straightening up. "That should keep it from getting infected," he said, stowing his tools back into the med-kit.
"Thanks, Hank," Arya said earnestly. "Don't know what we'd do without you." Hank scoffed, but she couldn't tell whether he was flattered, or just didn't believe it. He went back to the cockpit and looked outside. There was more turbulence, and he had to call Charles over. Arya gave her telepath's hand a squeeze, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead before heading to the cockpit with Hank.
"You know," Logan spoke up from his seat in one of the booths. "You remind me of someone I used know." He paused. "From the future."
Arya raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? What's her name?" She had no idea what he was going on about, nor why he was talking about the future in the first place. She still hadn't forgotten about their conversation the previous night, and she was sure that he hadn't either.
"We called her Rogue," replied Logan. "But her real name was Anna Marie."
Neat name, Arya mused to herself, but then she frowned, noticing a tiny detail. "'Was'?"
"She doesn't make it." His eyes bore into hers and it was all Arya could do not to glare back.
"I'm sorry," she said half-heartedly. "Why do I remind you of her?"
"She had the same powers as you—touched somebody and suddenly it's like their mind is hers. She feels their pain, sees their memories, has the skills they possess. She was an entirely different person when she touched somebody—"
"I can only use and stop the mutations," Arya cut him off, glaring slightly. "But I'm flattered."
Logan had the smart sense to stop talking afterwards.
Shortly after that Charles walked back down the aisle from the cockpit, and Arya raised her hand to meet his. Over his shoulder, she spotted Logan looking at her with a guarded expression. She glowered at him for a brief moment, shaking her head subtly, before giving Charles' cheek a quick peck.
Her death was inevitable. It would happen before the Sentinel Apocalypse. Stopping Trask wouldn't stop her from dying. And inside, she was torn on whether she should tell Charles or not.
