He liked the quiet of the school hours; the Professor was holed up with Cerebro, trying to pinpoint a new mutant that had registered for a moment, and then disappeared. The kids and their seemingly endless energy for making his life crowded and noisy were at school, Ororo in her garden. The almost sweet scent of rain on a summer's day suggested she was watering her plants. Sometimes he wished he could get just a little of her inner peace. Other times, he was more than happy with the nature he possessed.
Like now, for instance. His restlessness induced jog around the house had bought familiar but unwelcome scents to him on the slow breeze. He couldn't see them, but the Brotherhood were nearby. Not near enough to be on the grounds, but a smell like Toad's carried. Swamp, and the faintest bitter aroma of cigarette smoke under it. Didn't know any of them smoked, bad for them, good for him. Just made them easier to track.
He tapped the communicator on his jacket.
"Professor? It's Logan. We got … guests."
Rather than use the communicator, Xavier chose a more direct method, speaking directly into Wolverine's consciousness. It felt like an echo inside his skull, but he was used to it.
"Who has come to pay us a visit? Should I alert Storm?"
Logan paused, then shook his head. An unconscious gesture he used to send a negative. "Just the Brotherhood punks. I'll go see what they want and chase 'em off."
"Very well, I'll monitor you in case of trouble"
He debated changing into his work clothes, but that would just be giving them too much credit. Instead he just slipped into a prowl of a stride, heading towards the scent. They were by the east wall by the looks of it, he picked up whispered words the closer he got.
"Quit shovin'"
"Who stole my twinkie?"
"No one stole your twinkie Blob, you ate it just now"
"No! My other twinkie"
The sound of hasty swallowing and then Toad's slightly food thickened voice.
"You musta lost it. Could happen to anyone."
"Will you all just shut the hell up?"
The last he recognised as Quicksilver, the voices fell silent for a moment, then came the low grumbling rumble of Blob again.
"'s not like anyone's gonna hear us"
Well, that sounded like his cue, he jumped easily up onto the wall, crouching there and looking down at the four young men sitting in a loose circle, giving a toothy snarl of a smile as they raised their eyes in his direction.
"You're right bub, not just anyone heard you."
To punctuate his words to their full effect, he bought his hands around in two arcs, snapping out the adamantium claws.
And in the shadows of the tree overhanging the grounds, scent masked quite effectively by the odour of Toad, Gambit grinned. As he watched the four would be kidnappers of his person drew together with startled expression, then stood ready to fight the hairy guy. It was nice of them, he acknowledged, to have arrived shortly after he and recapped their purpose here right under his nose. Downright friendly.
It would take the guy the folder on this job had identified as Wolverine a while to deal with them, leaving just the weather witch and the spook for him to get around. He dropped soundlessly into the garden, keeping to the wall for now, heading towards the back of the house, not quite able to keep the amused smirk from his expression.
Avalanche was the first the move, his eyes rolled back in their sockets as he forced his powers past the nauseating headache they provoked and into the ground under the section of wall Wolverine was on. The mortar began to shake out from between the stones as the earth caved in with an almost tearing sound, forcing the bastard to come down to ground where the others could pile on him.
It was a sound enough tactic, save that Wolverine was already moving when the first tremors hit, vaulting over and landing behind them. "That's coming outta your allowance boy."
A frozen tableau held for a moment as the test of the Brotherhood wavered in their attack, the plan had gone so far out of whack it was almost coming back on itself, and they hadn't even discussed what to do if they were seen.
Quicksilver broke the silence, talking fast even for him. "Hey, HEY! It's a free country. We're allowed to be here. You don't own the sidewalk you know."
As he was speaking, the other shifted to try and surround the distinctly unimpressed looking man, who nonetheless seemed willing to talk rather than fight, for now.
"Sure, and you're all gussied up in your workin' gear cause what? You forgot to do the laundry? What do you want?"
Then he paused, ignoring them and the round of lame excuses they came up with, taking deep breaths as he tried to catch something more than the stench of Toad. The smell of smoke was gone, nearly vanished. It didn't take a genius to see someone, or someones, had used the Brotherhood for cover. They were a diversion. That tore it.
He lunged forward with one hand and caught a squirming Toad by his neck, shaking him thoroughly. "Who were you with?"
The boy looked nothing but confused by his question, slowly going purple, eyes bulging at the lack of air. The Blob was coming to the rescue, but he didn't have time for this. He threw his prisoner at the walking whale and sent his thoughts to the Professor as he ran back towards the house.
"We got a problem, looks like someone snuck on in while I was playing with the kids. I'll go find 'em, get Storm out to clear of the BrotherHoods. And they broke the wall."
Xavier knew better than to reply to Logan when his mind became a feral place, the man was on the hunt now and disturbing him would not be advantageous for anyone. Instead he directed his mind towards Ororo and found it waiting for instructions. She had heard the sound of the wall collapsing and was already on her way. Quickly he gave a précis of his conversation with Wolverine, then left her to secure the perimeter.
Only then did he sit back, close his eyes on his office, and open them on the astral plane. A washed out version of the real, bathed in a soft light that seemed to have no source. Behind him he felt the strand of self that connected his roving mind to his body, a delicate golden thread that drew its strength from his mind. Once someone had tried to cut it, the resulting shock had sent his attacker into a coma for three weeks. He somewhat doubted it would be under threat today. His mind stood in his form and floated up, the intruder would be found.
They were on to him. It was the little things that made it obvious, like where the blinking green lights of security measures on the buildings outside wall began to blink red. The fact his could hear terrified screams from the location of the Brotherhood as lighting rained down upon them. Oh, and the fact he was watching Wolverine through a crack in the door of his hiding place beneath the stairs. The man was about five feet away, sniffing the air. Hopefully the detergents he had spilt around him would mask his suddenly obvious scent here and the man would follow the trail he had made coming down from the roof.
Luck smiled on her wandering boy as Logan bounded away, heading up. The office was just across the hall, but that wasn't his target. Slipping out of the closet, after carefully taking a moment to oil the hinges he had noted the squeak of on the dive in; he padded on thick carpet towards Xavier's ground floor private rooms.
The door was locked, unsurprisingly, but the pick gun made short work of it. He slipped inside and locked it behind him once more. Empty, as he'd been led to believe it would be.
Without moving, he let his gaze travel searchingly around the large room. A neatly made double bed in the corner was almost over-shadowed by the sheer amount of … junk. Overflowing bookcases on every wall, table in the centre piled with paper work and a half hidden chess set. It wasn't so much untidy as struggling to hold the amount that was within it. And, somewhere, within the chaos was the safe that held the files too important to risk putting in such an obvious place as the office.
The walls were covered by paintings, but as there were rooms both side of this one, he doubted the safe would be behind of them, to large to go in such shallow area. That left the floor. He chuckled a touch ironically and whispered under his breath.
"K, if Gambit a paranoid Professeur surrounded by enfants, where he put his files?" His eye fell on the worn but expensive, he absently noted, rug by the bed …
His scan of the building and grounds had produced nothing save for the irritated / amused mind of Storm and the savagely concentrated one of Logan. The intruder was here, there was no doubt, he simply couldn't sense him. So he had been reduced to a room by room search, as Logan was now upstairs, he began on the ground floor.
His office revealed no one, which was enough of a surprise he spent a moment to check for evidence that someone had been and gone. Finding none he thought next of the aircraft hanger, but it too was empty. With a sensation of worry growing, his own bedroom was his next target. No one save himself knew of the files in there, it was inconceivable they might be discovered, even so he took himself there in an instant rather than use the corridor in some semblance of normalcy.
Something which Gambit would have been most grateful for as he sped along it towards the kitchens, had he known there was a possibly of a ghost lying in wait for him.
Seeing Logan burst through the locked door as he appeared in the middle of his room, he returned to his body. The thief had been there indeed, and he must be stopped. Forgoing a polite mental knock, he caught Storm's thoughts.
"The intruder may be coming back towards you, it is imperative he is stopped!"
He caught the sense of his own urgency reflected as an affirmative as he went with as much speed as he could muster towards his rooms, calling out mentally and physically, trying to keep his tone pressing but not worried.
"Wolverine! They'll be in the grounds, please aid Storm in detaining who ever this is"
The other man came out of his rooms at a run a second later, following his directions, as well as his nose, passed him and towards the kitchens that opened onto the back garden.
Everything in his bedroom was as he'd left it, but that meant nothing. With speed, but not haste, he flipped back the rug over his floor safe. There were no scratches to show forced entry, but he quickly leaned down to turned the 5-pin combination and lifted the door. Empty.
Then he heard what appeared to be mortar explosions in the garden, accompanied by the more familiar lighting flashes and growl of Wolverine about to cause someone a great deal of pain.
It had all been going so well, he hadn't had to blow anything up for a start. He was nearly over the wall when the lightning struck the section he had been leaping towards, causing him to veer away with an undignified yelp of surprise.
He span in a half crouch to face his pursuers, Wolverine and, if the way she was floating on a gale wind and throwing down the wrath of a maelstrom at him was to be guessed by, the weather witch. It was unlikely he could fight off both, but maybe they could be distracted enough for a while to give him a chance to figure a way out.
"Well mes amis, gotta say I t'ought y' be quicker 'n dis."
Both still came forward, wanting to get close enough they could just reach out and touch someone. Namely him. With claws. Never good. From his pocket he pulled three cards, fanning them open and feeding a less than lethal charge into the cardboard. Then he aimed a charming smile to belle femme, who at least looked confused.
"Pick a card"
When she frowned, his grin widened and he threw, a shot across her bows, no more. He saw Wolverine abruptly alter course to catch Storm's plummet from the sky, but decided against sticking around to make sure he made it. The wall was his only target now, and the unhealthy sound of a Wolverine closing in was behind him.
To his surprise, he actually made it over the wall this time, diving into the car he had … borrowed … for the day. The engine started on the first try and he sped away, glancing at the rear view mirror, hoping that Wolverine was not as close as he appeared. Claws rented the metal of the wheel covering, but then in a screech of tires he was pushing 80 away.
Job done.
Xavier looked up at the two X-Men as they approached him, Logan's anger written over his face, Ororo looking simply thoughtful. He spoke as heartily as he could. "Well, I think the young man may have found another hole in our security. Storm? Do make a note we should have the walls wired with motion detectors."
She nodded regally as Wolverine as his claws slid in and out, in again. "It was a kid. Just a kid. What the hell did he want?"
"He's taken my files on the students here Logan"
That stilled the other man, the gravity of the situation not lost on him in the least. "Mystique?"
"No, I don't believe so. This does not fit her modus operandi, nor have I known her to contract out when she is perfectly capable of making an attempt herself."
At last Storm spoke quietly into the silence, her measured tones brooking no argument.
"I think then that we are wasting our time discussing what we do not know. Wolverine, follow that car. It will be abandoned somewhere nearby, but there may be witnesses to ask where the driver went. I will pay a visit to the school to ensure we are indeed not victim to Mystique's plans. Professor, the children will be returning soon, it will be best if you explain to them what has happened so they may help us look."
With both men watching her, she turned and walked inside. But as her eyes looked upon the stairs as she went towards her rooms, her mind saw red on black eyes and the winning smile of Jean Luc LeBeau on a young man's face.
Remy.
