Disclaimer: Guess what? This is gonna come as a complete surprise to you but…I DON'T OWN UM! Not a single one. Damn…
Um other than that. Same notes as before. I have reached the end of my twenty pages of already written stuff. Wow. That went fast. This means that while I WILL finish this story, the downloads will most likely start coming a lot slower. I will try to add a new one at least once a week, but I make no promises.
Hope you like it. Enjoy.
***
Kitty raced through the trees frantically. As always when one is worried about someone, the mind starts producing worst-case scenarios with startling imagination, all on its own. In her mind's eye she saw Evan bleeding to death out there, dying because she wasn't fast enough to get help to him. She knew she was being stupid and silly. He wasn't that badly hurt after all, and Rogue was with him, but that didn't stop apprehension from rising in a rushing wave. The only thing keeping her from panicking completely and turning hysterical with fear was the need to go to the Institute and summon help for her friend, and the very real danger that the monster might still be lurking about. Kitty tried to keep an eye cast all about her at once, ready to phase out at the first sign of attack.
She gasped with relief when the fence marking the boundary of the Xavier Mansion came into sight. The girl pushed herself into an even faster run and slipped through the bars of the fence without slowing. Indeed, she hardly noticed that they were solid at all. Within moments she'd reached the door of the mansion, only to have it swing open before she could even touch it. A very cross-looking Scott Summers was standing on the threshold, clad in a fuzzy brown bathrobe and his ever-present red sunglasses.
"Where have you been?!" he demanded. "You know the Professor told us not to go out tonight, but you three did it anyway! Do you have any idea how much trouble you're going to be in when he finds out?! He will, you know. He is a telepath."
Kitty had been standing in front of the door, gasping to get her breath back. Now she had enough to be able to talk again.
"Oh, never mind that! There's been trouble. We were attacked! By, like, the monster! We saw it. And Evan's hurt! Oh, you've got to come quickly!!" All this came out in a fast rush, the words tumbling over each other in her haste to get them out.
Scott held up a hand to quiet her. His brow was furrowed. "Whoa! Slow down. What happened? And what's this about a monster?"
The girl took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, forcing herself to untense a little. "We snuck out to go to that concert we were all talking about earlier," she said, sounding a little calmer. "And you needn't look at me like that. I KNOW it was a stupid idea already! But it seemed like a good one at the time. Anyway, on the way back we got jumped by this, like, really big, hairy monster thingy. And we had to use our powers just to keep from being totally ripped to shreds!" Her tone started to turn agitated again as she got to the point of her story. "We fought it off, but, like, not before it managed to maul Evan pretty good in the legs. He's out there right now with Rogue, as if that's not punishment enough, because he couldn't walk afterwards and we've got to go back and help them before that thing comes back and, like, eats them or something!"
Kitty stopped talking abruptly, the idea scaring her. She looked urgently up at the teen in front of her. Scott was still for a moment while he digested her story.
"Come on," he said suddenly, turning into the house. "Help me wake the others. We're gonna need their help for this."
Mutely grateful, she followed him.
***
They woke Xavier up first. It seemed easiest. The man took one look at their grave faces and read their minds, discovering the situation in a second's time. Moments later everyone was awake as well, roused out of bed by his ringing voice in their heads, urging them to get up and get dressed. They were a grumpy lot when woken up in the middle of the night, and remained that way until a hurried explanation was passed on to them. Then irritation turned to worry and the X-Men swung into motion. Storm let out a gasp when she heard her nephew was in trouble. She leveled a meaningful look at Xavier and then strode to a window, opening it to fly out in the direction of the woods. Nobody blamed her.
"And just what exactly were you doing in the woods to begin with, half pint?" Logan asked her, raising a suspicious eyebrow.
Kitty squirmed. "Well, I..."
"Oh, who cares! Can't ve just
go already?" Kurt was practically bouncing where he stood, he was so impatient
to get moving.
"Kurt is right," Professor Xavier agreed. "We can worry about the children's misbehavior later. Right now we should concentrate on getting Rogue and Evan to safety and finding this creature before it attacks someone else. I did not know for sure if it was real before, so I did not act. This was a mistake and you all have my apology." He looked down with a wry look and patted the side of his wheelchair. "I'm afraid I won't be able to travel in the woods myself, so I'll leave it up to you. Logan is in charge."
Wolverine nodded at this obvious dismissal and looked at the suited up teens all around him. "All right. Let's go."
They were in luck. The creature didn't appear again as they made their way through the slatted trees. Either their group was too large to attack, or the thing simply wasn't in the area any longer. The trip was so uneventful it seemed anticlimactic after Kitty's frantic story, but everyone remained on his or her guard nevertheless. It wouldn't do to be taken by surprise because all seemed quiet. They found Evan and Rogue where Kitty had left them, still alive and in no worse shape then they'd been the last time she'd seen them. Storm was there as well and was clucking over the boy's injuries while he fidgeted and protested.
"I'm telling you, Auntie O, I'm fine! Everyone's blowing this way out of proportion!"
"Nevertheless, Rogue was correct," Storm replied, looking at his legs. "Try not to move until we can get you to the Institute." She looked up, a wave of snowy hair falling about her face, to scan the others gathered around. Her eyes focused on two of them in particular. "I think I'll borrow Kurt and Jean for that. Do you think you can levitate and hold him steady while Nightcrawler teleports him back?" she asked the redhead.
Jean nodded soberly. "Sure."
"The rest of you split up into pairs," Logan ordered. "We're gonna search the forest for this thing. Jean, Kurt; you can be each other's partners when you get back. Now move out!"
The burly man paused as Kurt teleported himself, Evan, and a concentrating Jean away, and looked down at Rogue with an amused look. She was the only one not in uniform now. Her hair was mussed and she was sweaty from the exertion of using Spyke's powers when she'd barely touched him long enough to get them at all. Her sleeves were ripped and there were moss stains smudging them and the front of her shirt from when she'd hugged the tree.
"You look good, kid," he told her, a faint laugh in his tone. "The twiggy look works for you."
Rogue stood up, brushing pine needles off her butt. "Very funny," she muttered.
Wolverine had a very acute sense of smell. All it took were those words and he was waving a hand in front of his face. "Whoa! And you smell good too! Just what exactly were you doing at this party?"
The teenager flushed bright scarlet. "Quicksilver spiked the punch," she mumbled, looking down in embarrassment. Her white-streaked, mahogany hair fell over her face and he saw that it really did have twigs in it.
"Uh, huh. You know, I think you should travel with me...all things considered." And with those words he strode off, leaving the Rogue to stare and then to follow, more embarrassed then ever. Storm took off, using the fact that she could fly to scan the trees from above. The others spread out, searching.
But they didn't find anything. Or no sign of the beast at any rate. For hours they poked around in the underbrush and trees of a northern wood, without success. About the only thing of interest that happened at all was that Scott and Kitty found a pile of burned out cigarette stubs and an old sneaker beside a hollow stump of a rotting tree. Someone had evidently sat there and smoked for a while before moving on. There was no sign to say how long ago that had been, and, they were relieved to note, no body lying in the undergrowth.
"But if he walked out, why wouldn't he have taken his shoe with him?" Kitty wanted to know, holding up the offending article in one delicate hand. It was a very old, worn down sneaker, scuffed and faded from long usage. "I mean, what? Was he just fond of hopping, or something?"
Scott shrugged. "Maybe it wasn't his."
"Oh right. And people just, like, go around carrying other people's sneakers under their arms all the time!"
"Well, whatever he was doing out here, the beast didn't get him, so lets just move on." They did, but she took the sneaker with her.
It was five thirty in the morning and the eastern sky was beginning to lighten when they finally gave it up. The group trudged dejectedly back to the Institute to find Evan (damn him) asleep in bed and a smiling Xavier saying that the damage wasn't permanent. He'd have to stay in bed for a while, and would be wearing a loose cast for a while after that, but he'd be all right. This was good news and relieved Kitty and Rogue greatly. Trying not to wake the injured boy the others tiptoed past his room, only to flop onto their beds the minute they reached their own. Every single one of them was out like a light within minutes.
***
Kitty was awakened by the sound of a pebble hitting her window. She rolled over and ignored it, trying to go back to the warm embrace of sleep. Another pebble hit; a larger one. It made a loud clattering sound. Then another followed, and yet another in quick succession.
Oh God. Lance if that's you, I swear...
She rolled out of bed unwillingly and stood up, glancing out the window and down a story to see who was there. A rock smacked into the glass and she flinched before her eyes focused on the small figure of an alarmingly thin, white-haired person crouching to dig up another stone.
"Pietro..." Kitty said wonderingly. Another crack sounded.
"Hm," Rogue mumbled incoherently as the noise pulled her to consciousness. "Whasit?"
"Pietro Maximoff is, like, outside my window," the Kat replied, still confounded by this fact.
"Wha...?" Rogue propped herself up in bed, only to wince and hold a hand in front of her face at the cheerful mid-morning sunlight streaming in through the window. She had a touch of "morning after" sickness. "Why? Don't tell me you've got the ENTIRE Brotherhood pining for ya now."
Kitty walked over to the window and opened it. "God, I hope not. Can't you just imagine, like, the TOAD in love with me? Eew!" Another pebble arced up and struck her in the head. "Ow!"
"I heard that!" Todd Tolensky's voice floated up to her. "Don't count on it sister!" She looked down and found that Pietro was not alone, as she had previously thought. The other two members of the Brotherhood were with him as well. Wait. Two? She scanned them. Pietro, mercifully not throwing anything else; Todd standing there glaring up at her; Fred, munching on a croissant. Where was Lance? That was odd. The four were almost always together. Kitty shook herself mentally and reminded herself that she didn't care where the hunky leader of the Brotherhood was. He was a jerk and could fall off the edge of the world without her caring. The chestnut haired girl leaned on the windowsill and looked crossly down at the people on the ground below her. The expression wasn't hard to carry off, as tired as she was.
"What do you want, Pietro?" she asked him.
"We want to know where Lance is," the other replied immediately.
Now Kitty was confused. "What? Then why are you, like, talking to me?"
"Cause you were the last person to see the victim alive," Todd quipped cheekily, obviously quoting from something. He shut up as Pietro elbowed him hard. The silver haired speed demon shot him a genuinely angry look before turning back to Kitty again.
"Because he took off right after he had that stupid fight with you!" His tone of voice was almost accusatory.
"And he never came home," Fred added in a worried tone, finishing the croissant in one gulp. "Not even in the morning."
Rogue got out of bed, shrugging into her bathrobe as she did so. It was green, naturally. She walked over to stand beside her roommate, looking out the window at the boys. "What do they want?"
"They want to know where Alvers is. They seem to think I've hidden him in my pocket," she added sarcastically, glancing down at the group in scorn.
Pietro took a step forward, looking almost apologetic. "It's not that, really. It's just that we figured he might have shown up to, like, beg your forgiveness or something. It's the sort of sappy thing he'd do for you. So, how about it? Have you, uh, seen him?"
"No," the youngest X-Man said shortly. "He hasn't been around. Good-bye." She started to close the window on them firmly. Rogue stopped her with a hand on the windowpane. Her expression was unique, half headache and half fearful suspicion.
"Wait a minute. You said Lance took off just after talkin to Kitty? Just where did he take off to?"
The other three exchanged glances. They'd made a point of never talking to Rogue since she'd defected from their group to the X-Men. Then Todd shrugged narrow shoulders. "I think he went walking in the woods, yo."
Rogue and Kitty stared at each other as the horrible truth dawned on them. "The monster!" they shouted in unison.
Pietro cocked his head and spoke very rapidly. "What? What monster? Whatareyoutalkingabout?"
"Listen," Kitty said urgently, leaning even further forward until she was hanging halfway out the window. "You know those stories about some sort of...THING stalking Bayville? Well..."
"Oh those? What about those? They're just stupid rumors started up by a bunch of stupid Muggles who are still scared stiff from Mr. McCoy's wild rampage of death last month. It's nothing to worry about."
Kitty blinked, her mouth still open. Pietro was apparently stuck on fast forward. She had barely understood that. Plus, she was fairly sure he had just referred to the residents of Bayville as "Muggles." He'd obviously spent way too much time reading the Harry Potter books.
"But that's just it," she said, picking her train of thought up again. "It's not just a rumor. Rogue, Evan, and I ran into it last night in the woods. We had to fight it off just to keep it from killing us. So if Lance was in the woods too..." Her voice choked off unexpectedly as the image of the man from the news rose to her mind.
Rogue finished her sentence. "Then he could be in some serious trouble."
Dead silence greeted them from the three on the ground. They were all gaping at the women. "You lie," Todd said weakly, trying to convince himself. "That thing's not really, REAL."
"It is," Kitty nodded urgently. "And Evan's got the cut's to prove it."
"But, you said you guys chased it off first, right?" Pietro started slow, and then picked up speed again, his voice growing louder and more indignant with each word. "That means that if it attacked Lance it only did it because it couldn't get to you! So if he's lying dead in a gutter it's all your fault! Oh, if you lousy X-Freaks sicced some giant werewolf or something on my Best Friend I am so going to KILL YOU!!" He turned and darted away at quick Pietro speed. This is to say there was a giant whooshing sound and a great amount of dust was picked up in a sudden windstorm, which lasted all of a second and a half, a silver streak racing down it to disappear. Quicksilver was gone. Fred and Todd stared after him for a moment, then exchanged glances. They looked up at the two in the window again, and then without a word walked away, following in the irate speedster's footsteps.
Kitty and Rogue blinked at each other for a moment. Then Kitty shook herself and gently shut the window. "We have to tell Xavier about this," she said in an uncharacteristically serious voice. Rogue could only nod hearty agreement.
***
Lance came groggily to consciousness aware that he had a splitting headache. It was very similar to the migraines he got whenever he used his power too frequently or too much, but this pain was undeniably physical in origin. He could tell that by the fact that the back of his skull hurt just as much, and it felt sticky when he shifted his head slightly. Shifting his head turned out to be a mistake and the boy groaned aloud as the pain briefly doubled, before fading back to the sick thrumming that was so familiar. What had happened? Memory flooded his mind and he almost wished he could go back to not knowing again. Kitty had turned him down, irrevocably and, crestfallen, he'd wandered into the woods. That was where it had attacked him. It...that thing...an unknown and apparently homicidal mutant hunting its own kind. Wonderful. He was going to die. But...it hadn't killed him before, and it surely had had the opportunity.
The mutant cracked his eyes open as gently as he could, ignoring the extra strength this gave the pain, and looked around him. It was hard to see. His eyes didn't seem to want to focus straight and his vision swam before him in a lot of little dancing lights. He supposed he had a concussion. Lance was able to note that he was in a dark cave with no obvious entrances or egresses in sight. What little light there was filtered down from dusty cracks in the ceiling. He also made another important discovery. He was tied up. The teenager hadn't noticed before for two reasons. One was that he was lying as completely still as he could, the body's automatic reaction to try to soothe pain. The other was that the throbbing ache of his head was so great that it had completely overshadowed the bruising of tight cords wrapped around limbs and the pinprick tingling of appendages losing circulation. Now that Lance noticed cerebrally that all this was happening, however, his brain kicked in with the sensations and he felt them all. To say that this added to his misery would be a great understatement. Also, he seemed to have lost a shoe somewhere along the way. Who even knew where it was now. But, compared to everything else that was currently going wrong in his life, Lance was willing to write that one off as fairly minor.
Thus he found himself. The great question was, of course, what to do now. He couldn't stay here, obviously. In addition to being dark and cold and uncomfortable, the creature could come back at any time and decide that it did want to kill him after all. Lance fought down a stab of panic at that. He had to get out of here! But he couldn't think of any way to do it. Nothing came to mind that would help him out of this predicament.
It's pretty hard to leave, Alvers, when you can't even move. He wondered when his own mind had gotten so sarcastic with him, and why he'd made it use his last name like those X-Geeks did. That was just sad.
Well, there was one thing he hadn't tried yet. Lance wasn't exactly looking forward to it, the way he felt now, but he couldn't think of anything else to do. So he concentrated, trying experimentally to use his power. The ground started to shake. Then the teen stopped with an agonized cry as his head seemed to explode, pain bursting out to such an extent that it didn't even hurt anymore. It just seemed to burn him up in a raging inferno. For that long, endless second Lance couldn't imagine surviving it. Then it blissfully lessened, felt as pain again though pounding far, far greater than it had before. The boy just lay there and gasped for a while, unable even to think for the pain. After awhile, rational thought oh-so-slowly invaded once more.
Okay, note to self. Do not try to use power again when have concussion. I'll have to remember that. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure what he would have done with his ability even if it had worked. It was more suited towards mass destruction than clever escapes. And, as that summer camp "training expedition" had taught him, starting earthquakes was a bad idea when in unknown caves of questionable stability.
"Oh man," Lance groaned aloud. "What am I going to do?"
***
Todd and Fred followed the whirlwind blown path of Pietro's passing. It wasn't hard. Dirt had been cleared away in a disappearing line a pace wide, looking as it does when you blow sharply across a dusty surface. Trashcan lids had been knocked off their containers, spilling the contents inside, and not far away an alley cat yowled. It bristled to twice its size and glared at the two teenagers as they passed as if daring them to try to do anything to it. The two walked in silence. Todd didn't know Fred's reason, but he was just too shocked to speak. What those girls had talked about was a preposterous story. It couldn't be true. Could it?
Finally they came to the end of the "path" and found Pietro. He had apparently just stopped dead and was standing in the middle of the road. It was a good thing the street was a broad, deserted avenue or he might have had a problem. And Quicksilver getting run over would not have improved the day any. They walked up to him and Tolensky saw that the other was staring fixedly at the ground as if it held all the mysteries of life, or more likely, as if it was the only safe place to look. And were those tears in his eyes? Todd knew how he felt. They'd all seen the news programs, of course. At the time they'd actually found it funny, Pietro making a wiseass comment about tourists never learning not to feed the coyotes, but it had been the sort of humor that covers uneasiness. To think that Lance, their own Lance, could be laying dead in a ditch somewhere just like that guy on the news… His own eyes started to get blurry at the thought. No, he told himself sharply. He's not dead. We just have to find him, that's all. Somehow…
Fred was the first to speak, his heavy voice disturbing the blanket of silence that had engulfed the Brotherhood. "So, what do we do now?"
Todd stirred. "We look for Lance, yo. We keep looking until we find him."
"But that won't work," Fred argued. He glanced at Pietro, as if expecting backup, but the frenetic teen remained silent, still staring off at nothing. So the junior plowed on without his help. "He could be anywhere. I mean, the police and pest control have been looking for this thing for nearly a week now and they haven't been able to find it. And they have loads of people! How are we supposed to do better with just the three of us?"
"We have Pietro," Todd argued. "He can cover as much ground as ten people if he puts his back into it."
"Not thoroughly. Face it, Toad. Even with Pietro's speed, it's not gonna cut it."
"Well, what do you wanna do?" Todd snapped angrily at him, staring up a foot and a half to the other boy's face. He looked like a gnat threatening an elephant. "Just forget about him? Leave him to die?! We have to do SOMETHING!"
"I know that!" Fred said, sounding almost tearful himself under the younger boy's green-eyed glare. "But there's got to be a better way."
"We go to the X-Men."
Both their heads snapped up at Pietro's quiet words. It was the first time he'd moved or spoken since they'd arrived.
"Say what?" Todd blinked in surprise.
"I said we go to the X-Men." The sophomore straightened slightly, an unconscious shift, and turned to face them. His silver blue eyes were still unnaturally bright, but his face had a determined cast to it that he did not normally wear. He took control with that look. "Think about it. Freddy's right. Just searching won't get us anywhere. We need some way to know where to look."
"Yeah, but what's that got to do with the X-Freaks?" Todd asked, still feeling frustrated and argumentative.
"Cerebro." One word said it all. "Lance is a mutant. It'll be able to find him. And so is the monster. It must be. So the only way to find Lance before it kills him…because he's NOT dead!" His iron stare dared them to even suggest it. "…is to work with them."
Silence. The other two fidgeted uncomfortably. They couldn't deny the logic of his words, but what he was suggesting went against the grain.
"No way," Todd finally spoke up, sounding mulish even to himself. "I'm not working with those losers. Besides, just a moment ago you freaked out and threatened to kill them for setting that thing on Lance in the first place!"
"That was
anger speaking. This is practicality."
"But…" He didn't know why he
was still protesting. If it would help Lance…
Fred was nodding. "All right. I don't like it, but I can deal. So do we go back now?"
Pietro nodded once, quickly. "We do." He prepared to take off again, but Fred threw a massive hand in his way, stopping him."
"We all go together this time," he said. "I'm tired of eating your dust."
"But…" Toad said again, more weakly.
Pietro grinned slightly, regaining a little of his fire. "Well, get used to it," he quipped to Freddy. "Because da Quicksilver is dey fastest man alive!"
"Yeah, like that's a compliment."
"But…"
"Fine. Just this once you can have the honor of walking beside my greatness."
"Oh, I'm honored all right. Or something, anyway." The two turned and started walking back the way they had come, once again following the path of Pietro's destruction. Now it was Todd who was left, standing alone at the end of the dust trail.
"But…Oh, ALL RIGHT! I'm coming already!" He hopped to catch up with them. "We'll work with the lousy X-Freaks. Just keep that furry blue hamster away from me!"
Ok. What do you know? I didn't kill Lance. Oh, come on people! You didn't really think I was going to, did you? I love Lance! He rocks. (no pun intended) Please write me and REVIEW!!!
Tell me what you thought, parts you liked, didn't like. Give me suggestions of what to change. And give me suggestions of ideas of what to do. Like I said, the plot writes itself, so I don't have a master plan here. I know in a general sense how I want it to end, but anything in the middle is free game. I haven't come up with it yet. So if you give me a good suggestion there's a very good chance I might use it.
Anyway, REVIEW! PLEASE! I love reading them! I love getting them! You people are awesome! Write me!