Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Same as before, no surprises here. AKA I'm still dead broke. Also, I don't remember if I've set an age for Claire so I'm going to do so now, she is 22 years old. That may not coincide with how long Logan has been missing his memories, but for all purposes lets pretend it is ok?

Chapter 2

This was not cool. In fact she didn't think there was a word, in any language to accurately describe how disgruntled and perturbed she was at this moment. Not only did she not know where she was, or how she got there, she had been dragging her amazingly heavy companion for two days.

Jubilee dropped the sleeves of her coat in which she had been dragging Claire with onto the ground and slumped down beside her. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked around her. Yup it was still the same barren rocky terrain that it had been an hour ago, and the hour before that, and the hour before that. If she didn't know better she would be convinced that they were going in circles.

She looked down at Claire who was unconscious within the remnants of her coat. She didn't know what was wrong with her, but it couldn't be good. She had inherited Wolvie's healing factor, which should make her pretty much indestructible. Unfortunately it seemed someone had found a hole in that theory and it couldn't have happened at a worse possible time.

Jubilee sighed and rested her chin on her hand. She wished she had her shades, but they had gotten lost somewhere between the mansion and where ever the hell she was right now. Her and Gateway were gonna have a long talk one of these days.

She got up with a groan and grabbed the arms of her jacket and continued dragging Claire. The ground was rough, she could feel it through the soles of her shoes, she just hoped it wasn't ripping Claire up too bad. If she wasn't so angry she might almost be concerned.

"Good god! You're only a little taller than me, so how can you be so damned heavy?" She grumbled as she felt Claire go over a large rock behind her. "It has to be your fat head, that's the only possible explanation."

It was totally dark, as if she were floating, she knew that there was something she should be doing but she couldn't focus on what. Suddenly there was a blinding pain and the darkness turned to red as she suddenly flooded back into her body.

Thump. She felt her head bounce off of a rock, what in the hell was going on? She was now awake, but didn't open her eyes. She heard someone talking softly, and tried to focus on them through the pain. It was Sparky who was talking, no correction. It was Sparky who was bitching.

"Maybe you're just a big sissy," she rasped, her throat dry from lack of water.

"Wha?" Jubilee whirled around at the sound of her voice, dropping her in the process making her head bounce of the ground.

"Son of a . . ."

"Opps, sorry 'bout that." Jubilee knelt next to her reaching for her head.

"You're gonna be." Jubilee drew back out of arms reach. "What in the hell is going on?"

"I was waiting for you to wake up so I could ask you the same question. The last thing I remember is you fighting with Sabertooth and then I woke up here. I've been dragging you, looking for help."

"Well it seems you've been doing a bang up job, I amazed by how many people there are tripping over themselves to give me a damned glass of water. I think I would have been better off staying with Creed than letting you take care of me." Claire rubbed her hand against her forehead wishing the incessant pounding would leave her head.

"Hey! I've been dragging your heavy ass through this desert for two days now. If it wasn't for you we wouldn't even be in this mess!"

"Me? What in the hell did I do besides making the obvious mistake of saving your sorry ass from Creed?" Claire snarled as she tried to sit up.

"Your are such a joke you know that? You act all big and tough, but your taken out in one fight, by Toad none the less, and I have to carry you around because you too sick to do anything for yourself. Oh, yeah, I can see you why everyone is afraid of you." Jubilee crossed her arms and glared at the wounded girl in front of her. She was being childish and she knew it, but she had just spent the last two days taken care of her and hadn't even received so much as a thank you. She didn't like Claire, not really, and this wasn't winning her any brownie points.

Claire studied Jubilee for a few seconds after her out burst, trying to read her before she sat up and replied.

"You're right."

"Don't even start . . what?"

"I said your right, I am tougher than this. I've endured worse than this before, so lets go." She was on her feet, locking her knees so Sparky couldn't see how much of an effort it was. "Come on, if we want to find a way out of here we had best get a move on."

Jubilee just nodded.

Claire was beginning to think that she had been wrong, when she said she had endured worse that is. She was pretty sure it was true, just no situation came to mind. All she could focus on was how sluggish her body felt, and how it seemed that all her muscles were on fire. She had been carrying Sparky for awhile, the poor kid put up one hell of a fight, but after dragging her for two days she had finally succumbed to exhaustion. So Claire continued to travel the god forsaken terrain in silence.

She stopped and looked around her. It was dawn now as the craggy rocky that stretched out as far as the eye could see were illuminated by the suns dim light. With a sigh she set Jubilee down and knelt down and rested on her heels, suppressing a groan at the protest her muscles put fourth at the action.

"Well we really screwed the pooch on this one kid. As far as I can tell we are the only life here, there is no food and no water, and I'm beginning to think there is no way out." She muttered to the unconscious girl, running her fingers through her long dark hair. She didn't say it but she new something else was terribly wrong, only it had nothing to do with their environment it had to do with her. Something had happened during the fight with Creed because now her senses were dulled, her enhanced sense of smell, hearing, and sight dulled she felt as if she was moving through this world blind.

With a sigh she stood up and moved to haul Sparky back onto her back when the ground started to shake and she lost her footing.

"What in the hell?" She exclaimed as she fell on her but in the dirt. She rolled onto her stomach to get a better view of her surroundings and saw two large machines rolling towards them.

"Great, this is just wonderful. I can't wait to get my hands on that little midget's neck." She grabbed Sparky and hauled her over her shoulder fireman's style and started to run. She felt as if she was going in slow motion, but she knew that she was running faster than the average human so it gave them a small chance.

Claire soon learned that it was too small when the occupants opened fire on the pair and she was forced to roll out of the way, throwing Jubilee who was rudely awakened to the sight of the ground moving at a nauseating pace under Claire's feet, to the ground.

"Ow! Watch it! You break it you buy it, got it?" She rolled to a stop about 100 feet from Claire, "I really got to stop waking up like this, it can't be good for my health," she muttered rubbing her bruised bottom.

"Quite yer bitchin, I can see two more things that aren't too good for your health coming this way." Claire pointed towards the tanks.

"Hmm, I see your point. So what do you think we should do?"

"Well judging by their previous gunfire I think we have two options. We can fight or we can die. I guess the choice is up to you."

"Well, duh. That's a hard one. You go high I'll go low?"

Claire nodded, "Just try not to get yourself captured, I have enough problems right now."

Jubilee glared at Claire as the tanks drew closer. She took a deep breath and jumped up releasing a series of paffs at the first tank, forcing it to veer to the right to avoid tipping. However while she was busy she wasn't watching the gunman in the second tank and he hit her squarely in the chest with an energy blast sending her flying into a heap on the ground.

"Bad move." Claire leapt out from behind a rock and dragged the gunman from his seat as the tank passed her and took him out with one punch. "You ok Sparky?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll feel a lot better once I take care of these goons though." She paffed at a couple of men running towards them from the tank, hitting one but missing the other. She ducked behind a rock to avoid his return fire, suddenly very thankful for the rocky terrain she had been cursing for the last three days. She looked on the other side of the rock and saw Claire fighting the guy's from the other tank. She seemed to be holding her own for right now, but Jubilee could tell that something wasn't right. She rolled out from behind the rock and paffed the other soldier before she crawled on her belly towards Claire to help her.

"Three down, six to go." Claire muttered through clenched teeth as she gritted her teeth against the pain of the knife that had slipped through her defenses. The wielder didn't get much time to relish the victory however as his thrust was rewarded with a neck breaking backhand.

"Four down, five to go." She knew she was slowing down and her timing was off, it was only a matter of time before she faltered. She had to get Sparky out of here. She jumped up and delivered a roundhouse kick and flipped away from her attackers and searched for Jubes. She spotted her on the ground about 300 yards away.

"Go on and get out of here, I'll finish them off!" She yelled to her before turning to defend her self.

Jubilee paused unsure if she should abandon her companion, but deciding that Claire was more than capable of defending her self she turned to leave.

And she saw a barrel of a gun aimed right between her eyes. She looked up and saw the barrel was attached to a very unpleasant man who she was willing to bet had a penchant for violence. She smiled at him sweetly as she shifted her body to get her hand out from under her. The man raised an eyebrow, shook his head and cocked the gun.

"Shit."

Claire grunted as the butt of the gun hit her in the sternum and she fell to the ground only to receive a kick to the gut. She tried to get up, but she was knocked back down. Suddenly the men around her stopped hitting her and turned as some one yelled. Claire also turned toward the voice and saw that one of the men had captured Sparky. Claire swore under her breath, couldn't that girl follow one simple order? One of the men yelled something she didn't understand back and pointed to Claire, the one holding Sparky simply shook his head and the group left Claire where she lay.

They were going to leave her and take Sparky. "Not as long as I'm still standing," she ground between her teeth hauling herself from the ground, forcing the darkness that threatened to overtake her to the back of her mind.

"Hey, where in the hell do you think your going? I'm not done playing with you!" She grabbed the man at the back of the group and spun him around. His eyes were wide with surprise, she saw that he was only a kid, but she didn't have room for mercy. They wouldn't show her any. She punched him hard, collapsing his chest, stepping over him as he fell to the ground moving towards the next one. She was close to Sparky, only a few more steps.

She was stopped dead in her tracks as a shot rang through the air.

"Claire!" Jubilee screamed as she saw Claire sink to her knees in the sand, blood pouring from the wound in her chest. She closed her eyes against the tears and didn't fight as the men hauled her in to the tank. What did it matter? She had done it again, she had caused the death of someone who was trying to help her. She craned her neck to look behind her as the men pulled her into the tank to see Claire lying on the sand staring up at the sky.