A.N. Loving the response! Thanks to all! Enjoy! R&R, RR!
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just entertainment!
Chapter 44
She was on the hunt.
She ran through the darkened corridors and found the scent she was looking for. She picked up her speed and she chased after it.
She followed it as far as sliced and crumpled doorway with bodies strewn in front of it. From their scent alone, she knew that none of them were Richards.
She crawled through the sizable gap and picked up Logan's scent immediately. Richards had been here before Logan, but no one remained barring the remains.
She ran back out and up the stairs and joined a corridor that was full of people rushing in the opposite direction to her; it was, she had determined, a real hospital and was being evacuated due to the black out. It was just the lower floors that were suspect. The light from dancing torches all around her obscured her vision but not the scent. Everyone was running towards the front exit to waiting ambulances; Laura went to the back.
She burst through the back doors to find a strong scent of the man she was looking for coupled with a dank metallic stench. The light of dawn was just barely beginning to illuminate the sky, but it was enough for Laura to make out someone lying in the back ambulance bay. The scent was unmistakeable. Laura ran closer to the body to confirm.
She stood over Richards' body and felt angry that someone had gotten to him before her.
"No!" She screamed in fury, but suddenly sensed someone approaching her from behind. On instinct, she popped two claws on her right hand.
Snikt!
She turned to swipe at her potential attacker but he was as quick as her if not faster.
Snikt!
Two claws of Adamantium clashed with three of equal force, casting sparks in to the darkness between them. Laura growled and pushed against the claws, even when she had realised it was Wolverine. He held their position until she relented. Her anger was still present but she had the sense to realise it would be pointless to take it out on Logan. With a grunt she pushed back from him and Logan retracted his claws.
Un-snikt!
Laura looked around and saw the other mutants and humans huddled in the shadows looking like they were waiting for her.
"Coulda used a hand back there, kid." Logan chided her sternly.
"I was taking care of a loose end." She felt like she was being studied by him, possibly even judged, but whatever gaze it was, it suddenly turned to acceptance and he nodded.
"C'mon, kid. Let's go." He ended their discussion and pulled out a small electronic device from his pocket and fiddled with it but it wasn't behaving. Laura looked at the body at her feet and Logan signalled to the others to head onwards. Laura gave one last look back to the building they had exited and heard a faint gasp.
A young girl, a nurse, had stepped out of the back exit and immediately saw the body strewn at Laura's feet. She saw the girl and the girl saw her. Wolverine had spun at the girl's gasp, sharing the same level of hearing as X-23. For a moment, the two feral mutants stared at the girl. She looked from the body to the girl with metal claws on her knuckles and drew false conclusions; true, Laura was responsible for some of the body count this early morning but you can't make black and white from grey.
Laura looked at the girl and held her clawed hand in front of her face, using her claws like an index finger to create a 'shush' gesture.
Un-snikt!
Laura retracted and turned to follow Logan and the others into the pale morning shadows, leaving the nurse behind. Laura looked briefly at the few handfuls of mutants and humans Logan had freed and cursed that their lack of stealth was going to get them all killed.
oOo
"Forge?" She wandered through the corridors and reached the entrance to the Danger Room, and looked for their gifted time travelling friend. There was no sign of him in their nearly restored facility. She turned and kept looking. She rounded a corner and walked straight through Gambit, who was just emerging from Cerebro.
"Whoa, petite!" He exclaimed in surprise, not having experienced being phased through before; it was a really strange feeling.
"Forge is not upstairs and I've already looked in the Danger Room. Have you found him yet? Was he in there?" Kitty talked at him rapidly, ending by indicating to Cerebro.
"Non, petite; Ders bin no sign o' him." Gambit's answer sounded somewhat rehearsed. Kitty played along however.
"Ok, well, I'll, like, keep looking then." She said as she backed away from him and entered the long walk of the Cerebro platform, hearing the fading of footsteps behind her of Gambit leaving. She released a breath that she didn't know she was holding in. He was bad news, there was something about him that bothered her but she didn't know what just yet. But now, she needed to find Forge; who needed to help them find Rogue and the Professor. Kitty sighed; she had only woken up a little while ago and already this was feeling like a long day.
Her steps echoed around the large empty room and she couldn't see anything that would suggest Forge had been in here – except that Cerebro finished. She walked past three puncture marks at the edge of the platform and wondered when they had gotten there. She looked at the console and pressed the start-up sequence to see if the job had indeed been completed.
The entire room made a soft whirr and lit up as the machine was brought to life. Everything sounded normal and Kitty reached out to shut the whole thing down again but paused when she heard a faint rattling. She frowned and looked around the console for where it could be coming from. She listened and thought it was coming from under the interface.
She knelt in front of the console and then lifted the nearest panel away to reveal the source of the noise. A small plastic bag of cable ties were rustling in the air flow from the cooling fan underneath. They looked like they had been kicked under there in a hurry as the individual ties were scattered in a fanned out pattern. Kitty thought it was strange because looking around there wasn't one single tie on any of the cables under the console.
Forge was a bit of slob when he was in the middle of a project – or more like a tunnel-visioned, self-involved, egotistical, one man hurricane who created insane messes when he was absorbed in his work; but when it was done, presentation was everything to him. Cerebro was finished and everything else was clean. Forge wouldn't have just kicked the ties underneath, or swept dirt under the carpet. Gut instinct told her that this was significant somehow.
The sound of Cerebro masked movements behind her and from the shadowed doorway, red on black eyes glowed and watched her as she picked up the cable ties and counted them back into their bag, checking to see if any were missing. His eyes narrowed as he wondered how much she thought she knew...
oOo
Wolverine quickly led them back to the main street just as they heard the faint sounds of sirens approaching. Logan and Laura's ears pricked up at the sound of the sirens. Laura looked at Logan in question.
"They're probably comin' to help evacuate the rest of the hospital." He told her, but Ryan differed.
"She reported us to the police, Logan." He choked out, struggling to control his amplified abilities while Jan helped to support him, wondering how he knew the feral man's name.
Logan looked at him for a second before connecting; this was the guy that he and Rogue met on their way back to the Institute from Alberta, although he looked a lot worse for wear; something Kane he tried to remember. Meanwhile, 'Something Kane' continued talking.
"The nurse, she called 911 on us from an old pay phone." Noting that Kane wasn't lying or being paranoid, Logan nodded, trusting this guy's powers... whatever they were. The Toad hopped over to Wolverine, shivering all the while, and looked for their plan of escape.
"Yo, if they're after us then shouldn't we be leavin'?" He asked the Wolverine.
"Yeah, where's your jet thingy?!" Freddie asked from a few feet away, looking the same as ever. Logan struggled with the little device in his hand. Finally growling at it, he threw it on the ground to look up high in the sky.
"Any of you know how to fly?" Logan asked the group as the sirens grew gradually louder. Not getting any response he looked around and saw them all straining to find what he was looking at. "Hmph, yeah, 'cause that would make this too easy..." Logan answered himself as the Laura squinted at where the jet should be. "What're you thinkin', kid?"
"I'm thinking if it were just me, there'd be no problem." She told him indicating in the direction of the sirens with a hint of something resembling sarcasm.
"You're on a team now, kid." Logan grinned at their hopeless situation.
"Yeah," She looked around at their barely functioning group, "A team of two." She grumbled to herself dismissing the others around her, but Logan heard and smiled at a distant memory.
"Am, this might be a stupid question but why can't whoever's flying your... 'jet thingy' land it?" Looking up high into the sky, Zara had spoken up to the burly man.
"No one can land it because there is no one flying it." Laura answered for Logan.
"So how were you controlling it?" Logan responded looking at the useless piece of electronic equipment that he had thrown on the ground in frustration.
"I might be able to help." Ryan whispered, still struggling to control the power within him that had been unleashed.
"That your power? Talkin' to machines?" Logan asked, putting together what he had said before about the 911 call. Ryan nodded, while Jan looked on uncertain, which got him to answer verbally.
"Am, well, sorta..." He coughed out. "Mostly I fix servers and keep a good working relationship with my alarm system." He feebly joked and shrugged noncommittal as no one laughed. The Toad felt a need to add to that.
"And take out half a city's power." Toad offered, not encouragingly. Ryan shrugged again as sparks continued to emanate from him all the while.
"Yeah, guess my powers have been amped up a bit..." He looked at Jan, who was still supporting him despite the sparks. He was pondering her power boost from human to mutant and she could see it in his face. Smallest shake of her head told him she didn't want to talk about that now – they needed to stay focussed.
Logan looked at Laura. As Laura had said earlier, they could handle anything that came along here, but they both knew they wouldn't be able to do anything for all these people without the jet. Essentially, they had nothing to lose; 'cept Chuck's jet and some recently evacuated infrastructure if it didn't go so well.
"Do what you can." Logan told him. Ryan had the look of a man who had just realised that he had bitten off more than he could chew. While he picked up the discarded device and started to concentrate on the jet, Zara quietly addressed the man in charge.
"Did that device ever work?" Zara asked indicating to the Wolverine's discarded technology now in Ryan's hand. She looked at the man when he didn't answer. He shook his head.
"Haven't used it yet." Logan replied gruffly. Zara thought the information through and came up with another question for the man.
"So, if you haven't used it, then you didn't use it to get the jet to take off..." She thought out loud. "How did you land?" Zara asked as her shyness faded and was replaced completely with confusion.
"With difficulty..." Logan finished as he rotated his still clicking shoulder that was damaged during the 'awkward landing' he and Laura were forced to do earlier. Zara was about to ask another question when she realised that she was taking to a mutant and figured he had some sort of power that allowed him to survive the fall, which wasn't flying as they had already established. Before her 'adventure' here, she didn't think that she had had many interactions with mutants; she even had believed most of the stories were too farfetched to be true but now she was more open minded.
"More things on heaven and Earth..." She whispered to herself before returning most of her attention back to Ryan; however, she caught a slight flinch of amusement in Logan. "What?" She enquired as to what part of the whole situation struck him as amusing. Logan responded gruffly.
"You just reminded me of someone." He told her, not including the details that she reminded him of a giant, furry, blue scientist; for some reason he reckoned it just wouldn't be taken the right way...
From a few feet away, Kane made a pained noise as the sparks shot out from him again. Logan walked forward to help Jan support the man as he attempted to communicate with the jet to land it on a street. When he got too close however a spark shot out and hit his arm sending a few volts straight through his metallic support structure. It was not a pleasant feeling.
Logan stepped back, looking at the girl who was helping Kane who wasn't getting shocked at all. Whatever her power was, he left her to it. It wasn't long before he could hear the sounds of the jet fast approaching – albeit a little too fast.
The long wide street was echoing the thunderous sound of the incoming jet, easily drowning out the sound of the sirens that were only around the corner. The jet was coming in hot; Logan and Laura squinted into the early morning sky and were able to make out the Blackbird. Kane roared out as the power came back to the city. The street lights flickered like runway lights as the Jet's nose tilted up to land and descended at the far end of the avenue. Logan was impressed at what this kid could do with so little training and control.
The wheels of the jet almost didn't descend in time to hit the ground, but after a few bumps and skids, it was clear that the jet had made solid contact. However, as it landed on the other end of the emergency runway it was clear to them that it was still coming in too fast to stop before it ran out of runway.
"Kane! Cut the power and brake!" Logan shouted at the kid but he looked like he was too caught up in it all to hear. Logan grunted and ran as fast as he could down the street to intercept the jet just as the police cars rounded the corner at the end of the street where the mutants were standing and the jet was aiming to end. He didn't have to wait long before the jet was upon him. He jumped just as it was passing over his head.
Snikt! Snikt!
He stabbed the back underside of the jet for grip with one hand and slashed strategically at one spot of the jet's armoured body. Almost instantaneously, a parachute ejected from the back end of the jet, inflating quickly to exponentially increase the jet's drag causing a sudden loss of momentum. The police cars wheels were spinning violently in reverse once the fast approaching jet was spotted. The jet was slowing arresting but it was still at risk of hitting a public library building at the end of the street where most of the police cars had left skid marks outside. Everyone cleared out and Logan braced himself for the impact.
The jet hit something, something that caused it to bounce instead of crumple. Logan felt the jet stop moving. He couldn't see what was hit, so he jumped down from the underside of the jet as he retracted his claws. He looked up at the scratches he'd caused and flashed back to his destroyed motor bike.
"Too soon..." He said to himself, hating to see any fine piece of craftsmanship damaged; well anything at his disposal anyway.
He walked under the jet to the front and almost had to look twice due to disbelief. Immediately in front of the jet's front wheel was the Blob. He had stepped in front of the jet to stop it. Why he did it, Logan couldn't say; but it was a little hard to believe that a member of the Brotherhood would risk their skins just like that. Logan didn't really care why at that moment though, they had other problems; like getting the jet outta here again as the cop cars tentatively pulled back in towards them.
Ryan fell to his knees, despite Jan's help and put a hand to his head. The police officers behind them started shouting as their vehicles took on a life of their own to drive away. As they were distracted, the hatch-door to the jet clicked open and descended for people to get on board. Most of them ran forward up the ramp as Ryan finally went limp and the lights around them stopped flickering. His hand dropped and he fell onto his side.
"Ryan!" She was there at his side and cupped his face in her hands to get him to look at her, but his eyes were closed. He was very handsome; but now wasn't the time to focus on that. "Ryan!" Jan screamed with a sob. "Wake up!" Please wake up, she prayed and shook him a little. His eyes slowly flickered but opened with tremendous effort and found her.
"You're pretty." He whispered out to her, clearly not thinking straight. She smiled, relieved to hear his voice as the sparks flew between them. Just as it was ascertained that he was going to be okay, Laura came back from the jet and quickly slipped something to Jan. He barely felt it as she dosed him with a sedative so they could get him on the plane safely. Jan nodded to Laura as the sparks died down; between both of them they were able to quickly carry him on board.
Logan pressed a button to dislodge the chute from the back and waited until everyone was on board and strapped in before throwing the Jet in reverse. Just as he gained enough runway to start the take-off sequence, Zara, who had been looking at all the strange technology around her, piped up to Logan and Laura once more.
"Who are you people?" She asked in disbelieving awe rather than in disgust. Logan looked to Laura, who looked back. She rolled her eyes and reluctantly answered the girl while still facing forward at the front.
"We're the X-men." She gritted out the cheesy line as if it went against every fibre of her being – resulting in Logan allowing a tiny smirk to form across his face as the plane left the ground and flew off into the brightening sky.
End of Chapter 44
A.N. So the darkness was well recieved last chapter? That's good. Hopefully the darkness to come will go over well too, but we'll just hafta see... There could be some dark clouds on the horizon... Oh, wait - that's ash from Eyjafjallajökull... Crazy stuff!
