It had tough for the two of them to try and get the fastest plane to Germany before anyone at the institute knew of their disappearance. Surely once they were both discovered to be gone there would be a wide search for the two of them, especially from the professor and Cerebro.
Finally arriving at the airport, they were left stranded for the moment by the small miscalculation that the only flight to Munich was alright booked solid. No seats available at all. "So now what are we going to do? There isn't even another flight to London where we could catch a connecting flight," Rogue stormed around JFK airport. Things were blowing up in their faces long before they even got started. "What are you looking at fuzz boy?" She demanded, seeing Kurt staring out the large glass windows at the plane that was booked. "Can't you actually put that brain to use for once and try to come up with an idea?"
Kurt just kept looking out the window with his normal sly grin creeping across his face. "Oh, I've got an idea but it's not going to be too perfect I'm afraid."
"Whatever, just get us on that plane!"
Kurt looked around the crowded airport, people everywhere. He took Rogue's hand and lead her around a corner to a waiting area. No people, the coast was clear. "Hang on tight," Kurt warned and in a flash of purple smoke the two were gone.
When they finally reappeared, they fall a few inches after coming out of the teleport in the air. Kurt landed finally like a cat, Rogue on the other hand wasn't expecting that and fall hard to the ground. "Ouch!" She cursed, "what'd you do that for Kurt?"
"Sorry, I must have misjudged the distance."
"What distance? From where? Where are we?" Rogue's fowl mood hadn't changed at all, especially now that it was pitch black and she couldn't see anything, especially where she was. Kurt took out a tiny flash light he had in a pocket and flicked it on, showing his face. He then panned the light around the small room they were in, travel bags filled up the entire place. It was nothing but travel bags everywhere! Travel bags? It hit Rogue. They were inside the luggage compartment of the plane to Munich.
"I told you zhat it vasn't going to be perfect," Kurt reiterated himself. "I'm afraid this is zhe only light that I've got, but we'll make it to Germany in a couple of hours. It's the best zhat I could do."
Rogue eased up a little bit, but she didn't show it, "Well you could have mentioned that before rather than scare me half to my grave!" They could feel movement all around them as the place raced down the runway and took flight into the skies. They were finally on their way to that hated castle that has been haunting Rogue for months.
*****
Once the plane had finally landed on German soil, Kurt was able to teleport both of them from the baggage hold of plane without anyone noticing their presence. Kurt had known the Munich airport, it's where he took off from when he first came to Xavier's institute months ago. He knew the best places in the airport, especially the places where no one would notice them when the teleported into the airport.
They continued on, finding a map and judging about the right location of where this castle would be. Rogue guessed that it would be somewhere in the southern hills of Germany judging from the numbers that they were able to take from the blackbird.
Over the next day they took everything from buses, to taxis, to trains in their best hopes to find the castle. Kurt's German helped in translating and finding information that Rogue could have never possibly done on her own.
The two of them had entered a small village in the hills, the landscaping looking very familiar to Rogue as it matched the type in her dream. They had to be getting close. Kurt broke off a conversation he was having with one of the locals and returned back to where Rogue was sitting on the side of the street. "What'd he have to say?" she inquired.
"Ve are certainly in zhe right direction," Kurt said, his German accent getting heavier and heavier just returning to his old country. "Zhe vere reports of a haunted castle zhat no one vould go near. Lots of yelled and screaming alvays vould come out though. Up until recently when zhe place blew sky high."
"That's got to be the place then!" Rogue's excitement grew. They were so close to getting to the end of this. "How do we get there?"
"It's not very far avay," Kurt pointed a little to the east. "One of the men here has offered to guide us, but he says he'll only take us to zhe castle, then he's leaving as quickly as he can."
"Fine by me, as long as we can get there."
*****
Within a few hours Kurt and Rogue stood at the edge of a rickety old wooden bridge that crossed a deep carved narrow canyon. The river's rushing waters below gushing as fast as ever. Across the bridge stood the castle, as dark and gloomy as ever, beckoning for their arrival. The castle still stood strong, however the top of it was in a shambles, blast marks still scaring the walls from the previous explosion. Kurt looked behind him to make sure that the guide had cleared out and was away from view. "I don't trust the looks of zhis bridge," Kurt warned offering his hand. "Grab on, I can take us to zhe other side no problem."
Rogue looked at the bridge in a daze. Almost as if they were ghosts, she could see the blue skinned mother racing across it's wooden panels in a rush. She could see the brown bundle of cloth she was clutching too. She could see the mother's tears and hear her screams when the bundle fell from her hands and into the river below. She had never truly told Kurt what had happened. She and the professor gave him a lighter version of the events so that he at least knew the truth of his mother. Poor Kurt. He'll never understand the significance of this bridge.
"Yoo Hoo," Kurt waved his hand in front of Rogue's face grabbing her attention, extending his hand out to her again. "Are you coming or not? You're the one who vanted to go all this vay."
"Yeah... sorry," Rogue came back to reality, taking a hold of Kurt's hand. It a flash they were both on the other side of the river and closer to the castle. They decided it would be best to walk their way up to the castle just to investigate everything around it. A wolf howled in the distance only adding to the eerie effect the castle all ready possessed.
The finally made it to the castle itself, feeling it's ghostly cold stones the walls were made of. It was exactly how Rogue pictured it would be and would feel from her dreams. There was a door that seemed to be only opening to the whole place with the exception of a few holes that were blasted open from the explosion. The two X-men entered the castle slowly, the view almost all that was expected. The outside world shown down on the them due to the fact that the roof and all other upper floors had collapsed in the explosion. All of the ground floor on which Kurt and Rogue stood was covered in rubble from the floors that once stood above them. A maze of rock and stone only kept together by the walls that still stood. Kurt noticed some glass that was also in the carnage, it reflecting the light from above into his eyes. "Vhat a mess," Kurt stated the obvious.
"You pretty much said it," Rogue sighed, now starting to believe that coming here was an entire mistake. There was nothing here for them, everything was gone. "This was stupid, we aren't going to find anything that we are looking for."
A strangers voice came in from behind them, "Just what was it that you were looking for?"
*****