Family Ties:
Chapter 9
Yay! It seems that my writer's block be wearing off!
By the way, I thought I'd let you in on a little secret. This was
originally a Nightcrawler fic, but, somehow, some way, it evolved (no pun
intended!) into a Wolverine/OC fic. Don't ask me how; I don't even like
Wolverine all that much. Go figure.
***** The roar of the truck's engine drowned out every other sound as it sped down the highway. Wolfgang's thoughts were no longer on Rose, but on getting the hell out of this town. Half of his mind expected to see the entire team of X-Men behind him, stronger than ever and ready to kill.
He tried not to focus on those morose thoughts, and kept it on the road ahead of him and on the wheel in his hands. Soon enough, he'd join up with the rest of the circus, and his empire would begin!
Of course, that was when he saw Wolverine running right behind him at full speed, gaining ever closer. How that man kept up, Wolfgang could only guess, but he was drawing nearer. With a snarl, he tried to push the truck faster, but only found that the truck was going as fast as it possibly could and more. Letting out a loud curse that would have made nuns gasp, he pulled over. There was only one way to end this; to end the life of the Wolverine.
Logan stopped five feet away from the vehicle and watched Wolfgang hop out of the driver's side, as if this was nothing more than meeting up with an old friend.
"Hello, Wolverine."
"Where's Rose?" Logan snarled, extending his claws with their characteristic snikt.
Wolfgang jerked his head over to the trailer attached to the truck. "Oh, over there." His eyes glowed like an ember, but never flickering. "You will have to go through me to get to her, Wolverine."
Logan growled. He'd learned just how powerful Wolfgang's telekinesis and telepathy was, and cautious now. Even he doubted that he would be able to get more than three feet closer to the truck before being either being slammed into the ground or knocked unconscious, or both.
But Logan was as stubborn as a pig, and damned proud of it. He wasn't going to give up without a fight. Resolute pride would not let him do otherwise. Holding his right fist out in front of him, issuing a challenge to the psychic ringleader, he said, "Bring it on, bub."
Wolfgang gave him a toothy grin, the response to the challenge. This would be such fun.
*****
Inside the camper, Rose bunny-hopped her chair around to face the window on the back of the trailer. To her shock, she could see Logan facing off with Wolfgang. And losing horribly. Every time he charged the man, Wolfgang only had to wave a hand, and Logan was sent flying up, down, right, left, any direction Wolfgang wished.
Her eyes brimmed with tears of fury and she desperately wished that she were stronger somehow. Strong enough to protect the friends and family that were suffering just to get her back home.
And, as if by magic or some unknown force, Rose could feel a new power flow through her veins. It seemed to fill her, just as water fills a cup, and nourished her. The pureness of this newfound, raw power gave her purpose, a reason to live. It made Rose feel happy and sad at the same time, hungry and full at the same time. Her soul ached to embrace this feeling, harness its power, and use it for her own doing.
Rose could only wonder if she had gone mad. Looking out at the battle taking place in front of her, she knew, insane or not, that she needed to help Logan as he had her. Debts had to be paid.
*****
Logan was putting up a helluva fight, that was for sure. His suburb healing abilities helped him from being outright killed, but Wolfgang was hurting him too fast for his body to react.
For the hundredth time, Logan felt his body fly through the air and collide into a pine tree. The force of the impact shattered the teeth in his skull, which regenerated just as quickly as they'd been lost. Blood trickled in tiny crimson streams from his nose, ears, and mouth.
Wolfgang was, as he had expected, loving every single moment of this. As the demented man watched Wolverine writhe in agony. Every time the other man was flung into a tree or slammed face-first onto the highway, he laughed, harsh and loud.
"I really must thank you, dear Wolverine!" he cried as Logan once again soared up into the air only to come screaming down onto the road. "I haven't had this kind of amusement in many a year! Your recuperative powers just draw this out, and allow me to have more fun!" Here, he gave a big sigh, the kind you hear from an old withered man. "But, soon, very soon really, this game will bore me, and you will have to die.
"How shall I do it?" he pondered, freezing Logan in mid-air as he thought. He paid no heed to Logan's futile struggling. "Shall I simply stop the beating of your heart? Trick your brain into a seizure? Cease every single function in your body, one at a time, until you die a slow and painful death? Ah, well. Anyway, you'll go with a bang, wouldn't you say!"
He started to laugh so hard that he never saw the trailer door open. Out stumbled Rose, bruised from Wolfgang's foreplay and bleeding profusely on her wrists from biting her own skin off to escape from her bindings. Logan was in too much pain to notice her, and Wolfgang was having the time of his life, wrapped up in his own little fantasy world.
When he finally felt Rose's tail wrap around his throat, he couldn't react. All he could do was vainly struggle against her arms, legs, and tail lashed around his entire body. She straddled him in a way that he could never find comfortable and drew the pocketknife that he had always carried in his left boot.
"Let him go, Volfgang," she demanded, her tone the complete opposite of her usual kind and soft voice. The savage look in her face and in the movements of her body frightened him to the very core of his being. He had never seen her like this; something ancient and very powerful had been awakened deep inside of her. For once in his life, he was unashamed to let the tears stain his cheeks, and the even worse wet spot on the front of his trousers.
"Let him go!"
"Okay! Okay!"
With a snap of his fingers, Logan was gently set back down on solid ground, suffering serious vertigo from his piteous fight. Looking over at Rose, he couldn't hold back the growing smile on his face. Perhaps she hadn't needed his help after all!
Rose pressed the jagged edge of the little blade to Wolfgang's throat, and the ringmaster could tell, from both her mind and body, that she wanted nothing more or less than to slice off his head and use it as a beach ball. "Oh God, don't kill me, Rose! I don't want to die, please! PLEASE!"
To both his and Logan's surprise, she released him.
"I von't kill you," said she, tossing the knife to him. "That's something you vouldn't hesitate to do to me, and I am better than you." She leaned in close, taking his shirt front in one hand, keeping him only a few meager inches from her face. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she said in a low, almost inaudible, whisper, "But heed this; you vill live, but if you ever, EVER, come near me or my friends, all hell vill break loose. Got that?"
Wolfgang nodded meekly, shaking like a leaf. Shoving him away and into the back of the camper, Rose walked away and over to Logan. "Hello, Herr Logan."
"Hiya, darlin'."
They only looked at each other; there was no need for words now. Both were bleeding, both were bruised, but they were happy and whole once again. Just when Logan was about to ask if she was okay, even though he knew she was, she suddenly leaped forward and embraced him so tightly that he heard all the air in his lungs rush out.
"Thank you for coming, Logan."
"It was nothing."
"Oh, but it vas." She looked at him, touching her forehead to his. "It vas."
"Ready to go on home?"
"Yes."
"What about your old chum over there?"
"He and I came to.an agreement, I suppose you could say. Let's go home."
They walked down the highway together, hand in hand. It was a simple thing, but it meant the world to Logan. Everything else faded away to nothing, leaving only him and Rose. He had done as he said, he'd gotten her back. What could go wrong?
He heard the knife whistling through the air even before he knew what it was. Unbeknownst to him, Wolfgang had been the knife-thrower in the Adolph & Family Circus long before the death of his father. Years and years of practice had made him one of the best marksmen on the face of the Earth and, with telekinesis guiding it, the knife landed right where he'd wanted it to; the small of Rose's back.
*****
Frederick was just gaining consciousness, as were Adelaide and the X- Men, when Rose's shrill scream burst through the usual quiet of the forest around them, followed by a roar of rage from Wolverine.
His heart stopped, he stopped breathing, it was as if the world had abruptly halted in its tracks and left only this moment in it's wake. The echoes of Rose's cry filled the air and rang over and over in his head, like the chorus of a bad song. No! It couldn't be! Had Wolfgang killed Rose?
Before he even knew it, he was on his feet and running to the source of the screaming. Hot tears burned his eyes as he ran. He could not let Rose die! He would die!
Finally, after all those years of living with her, denying the rising feelings he had felt when in her presence, he realized that he loved her more than life, that she was so dear and precious to him that he would give up his body and soul for her.
And it seemed now that moment had come to claim him and his promise.
*****
Time seemed to be having the same effect on Logan, too. He could only stand there frozen as Rose fell to the asphalt, the knife sticking out of her back and covered in her fresh, warm blood. The sound of her scream echoed and reechoed throughout his entire body, turning his blood to ice.
Half a second later, he screamed and flung himself at Wolfgang. The stunned ringleader had no time to freeze his thoughts or body and could only fling up his arms in self-defense from this mad man. He could feel his body being literally ripped to shreds, blood spurting from his wounds, his clothes providing worse than useless for protection against this barbaric assault of ferocity and raw emotions.
Logan knew none of this; he knew only that Rose was dead! DEAD! His keen senses told him this, that it was too late for her, that the one person that had truly meant something to him had been so horribly ripped from him. Just like his past.
It had been all because of men like Wolfgang and others like him. Rose had done nothing to Wolfgang, why did she deserve to die? What had she done to anger God? If anyone deserved to die, it was this man before Logan. And yet, he still lived, still had a beating heart, still drew breath from air that should rightfully be Rose's.
Logan, the Wolverine, raised his fist, ready to slam his claw straight into Wolfgang's brain. He wanted the man who had killed his lover to feel the pain he was feeling now. Mercy and compassion had left him, replaced by a torrent of pain, despair, and sorrow. Before, in all of his other battles, he had never felt such emotions. He'd been empty, and the bloodshed had filled him. But now, he felt like the world had been ripped from beneath him, leaving him without any other purpose but to drift in the nothingness of space.
"Logan, stop!"
Storm's voice came out to him, but it was too late. Wolfgang had been doomed the second he'd thrown the knife.
Down came the claws.
Frederick hid Adelaide's head in his shirt, deafening her ears to Wolfgang's last gurgling scream. More than a few of the X-Men blanched; they'd never seen Logan kill a man. Never. Evan put a hand to his mouth and ran into the bushes, throwing up every single piece of food he'd ever eaten in his life.
Logan stood up, using his pants to wipe the blood off of his claws. Death was no stranger to him. He'd walked with it longer than he could remember, and guilt was a feeling that had long been put behind him.
But he felt it now as he walked to where Rose's body lay. He didn't even bother to hide the undeniable tears welling up in his eyes. Gingerly, like an old man, he kneeled down and scooped the lifeless body up in his arms. "Rose."
The tears came now, unstoppable, but not just for Logan; every one there, even Adelaide, was weeping. With the racking mix of a sob and a roar, he screamed. It echoed for over a mile, sending shivers down every sentient spine that was near enough to hear it.
Logan set his whiskery chin on her soft hair, crying softly. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
"Logan?"
For a second, he thought it was Kitty, Storm, or one of the other girls. He ignored it, only kneeling there with Rose's body in hand. Nothing mattered anymore, it seemed. Nothing.nothing.
"Logan? Vhy are you crying, mein herr?"
Logan startled and looked down. Sure enough, Rose was gazing up at him with those frightening and yet gorgeous eyes of hers. He could feel his body shake with happiness and relief. "Rose."
She gave him a weak smile and reached up to stroke his face lovingly. "I'm not dead, Logan. You cannot get rid of me that easily."
*****
"How is she, Hank?"
"She'll be fine, Logan. Unfortunately, she won't be able to do anything extreme for a while, and I was forced to amputate her wings. She can walk rather well, but the nerves in the wings were totally paralyzed. She asked that they be removed herself."
"But she's gonna be okay?"
Beast smiled and shook his head. "Yes, yes. As long as she gets some good rest and relaxation, she'll recover completely." He chortled to himself, sitting down in the armchair opposite Logan and Xavier. "The only problem she really faces right now is learning how to walk again."
"Eh?"
"You see, if she didn't have her wings and tail, and if Kurt didn't have his own tail, they'd fall on their faces due to their unique physique. Rose's wings helped balance her out. Heh, heh, when she tried to stand up, she collapsed right into my arms."
Logan's eyebrows shot up.
"Well, as long as she's fine, I'm fine."
"What about the Adolph & Family circus?" Storm asked. "What are they going to do without their ringmaster?"
"Oh, they have one," Xavier said. "Turns out that Rose had one more secret that even I did not know of."
"Oh?" Jean's curiosity was piqued. "What?"
Xavier frowned and leaned back into his wheelchair. "When Wolfgang was in the U.S., Rose was pregnant with his child. That child is old enough to run the show now, under her godfather's protection."
"But who." The answer hit Logan in the face like a slap. "Adelaide?"
Xavier nodded. Scott whistled in amazement. "Who knew?"
"Adelaide, guided with her guardian, Frederick, is the new ringleader. I must say, it was quite a shock even for me to learn this."
"I can only imagine how Adelaide took it," Storm commented.
"She wasn't told. Not yet." He twined his finger together, a slightly puzzled expression on his strong face. "Something about that girl, though, is bothering me. I just can't understand why."
He shook his head and replaced the frown with a smile. "Come on, now, my students. It's almost morning, and I'm positive that you all are in desperate need of sleep. Good night."
***** The roar of the truck's engine drowned out every other sound as it sped down the highway. Wolfgang's thoughts were no longer on Rose, but on getting the hell out of this town. Half of his mind expected to see the entire team of X-Men behind him, stronger than ever and ready to kill.
He tried not to focus on those morose thoughts, and kept it on the road ahead of him and on the wheel in his hands. Soon enough, he'd join up with the rest of the circus, and his empire would begin!
Of course, that was when he saw Wolverine running right behind him at full speed, gaining ever closer. How that man kept up, Wolfgang could only guess, but he was drawing nearer. With a snarl, he tried to push the truck faster, but only found that the truck was going as fast as it possibly could and more. Letting out a loud curse that would have made nuns gasp, he pulled over. There was only one way to end this; to end the life of the Wolverine.
Logan stopped five feet away from the vehicle and watched Wolfgang hop out of the driver's side, as if this was nothing more than meeting up with an old friend.
"Hello, Wolverine."
"Where's Rose?" Logan snarled, extending his claws with their characteristic snikt.
Wolfgang jerked his head over to the trailer attached to the truck. "Oh, over there." His eyes glowed like an ember, but never flickering. "You will have to go through me to get to her, Wolverine."
Logan growled. He'd learned just how powerful Wolfgang's telekinesis and telepathy was, and cautious now. Even he doubted that he would be able to get more than three feet closer to the truck before being either being slammed into the ground or knocked unconscious, or both.
But Logan was as stubborn as a pig, and damned proud of it. He wasn't going to give up without a fight. Resolute pride would not let him do otherwise. Holding his right fist out in front of him, issuing a challenge to the psychic ringleader, he said, "Bring it on, bub."
Wolfgang gave him a toothy grin, the response to the challenge. This would be such fun.
*****
Inside the camper, Rose bunny-hopped her chair around to face the window on the back of the trailer. To her shock, she could see Logan facing off with Wolfgang. And losing horribly. Every time he charged the man, Wolfgang only had to wave a hand, and Logan was sent flying up, down, right, left, any direction Wolfgang wished.
Her eyes brimmed with tears of fury and she desperately wished that she were stronger somehow. Strong enough to protect the friends and family that were suffering just to get her back home.
And, as if by magic or some unknown force, Rose could feel a new power flow through her veins. It seemed to fill her, just as water fills a cup, and nourished her. The pureness of this newfound, raw power gave her purpose, a reason to live. It made Rose feel happy and sad at the same time, hungry and full at the same time. Her soul ached to embrace this feeling, harness its power, and use it for her own doing.
Rose could only wonder if she had gone mad. Looking out at the battle taking place in front of her, she knew, insane or not, that she needed to help Logan as he had her. Debts had to be paid.
*****
Logan was putting up a helluva fight, that was for sure. His suburb healing abilities helped him from being outright killed, but Wolfgang was hurting him too fast for his body to react.
For the hundredth time, Logan felt his body fly through the air and collide into a pine tree. The force of the impact shattered the teeth in his skull, which regenerated just as quickly as they'd been lost. Blood trickled in tiny crimson streams from his nose, ears, and mouth.
Wolfgang was, as he had expected, loving every single moment of this. As the demented man watched Wolverine writhe in agony. Every time the other man was flung into a tree or slammed face-first onto the highway, he laughed, harsh and loud.
"I really must thank you, dear Wolverine!" he cried as Logan once again soared up into the air only to come screaming down onto the road. "I haven't had this kind of amusement in many a year! Your recuperative powers just draw this out, and allow me to have more fun!" Here, he gave a big sigh, the kind you hear from an old withered man. "But, soon, very soon really, this game will bore me, and you will have to die.
"How shall I do it?" he pondered, freezing Logan in mid-air as he thought. He paid no heed to Logan's futile struggling. "Shall I simply stop the beating of your heart? Trick your brain into a seizure? Cease every single function in your body, one at a time, until you die a slow and painful death? Ah, well. Anyway, you'll go with a bang, wouldn't you say!"
He started to laugh so hard that he never saw the trailer door open. Out stumbled Rose, bruised from Wolfgang's foreplay and bleeding profusely on her wrists from biting her own skin off to escape from her bindings. Logan was in too much pain to notice her, and Wolfgang was having the time of his life, wrapped up in his own little fantasy world.
When he finally felt Rose's tail wrap around his throat, he couldn't react. All he could do was vainly struggle against her arms, legs, and tail lashed around his entire body. She straddled him in a way that he could never find comfortable and drew the pocketknife that he had always carried in his left boot.
"Let him go, Volfgang," she demanded, her tone the complete opposite of her usual kind and soft voice. The savage look in her face and in the movements of her body frightened him to the very core of his being. He had never seen her like this; something ancient and very powerful had been awakened deep inside of her. For once in his life, he was unashamed to let the tears stain his cheeks, and the even worse wet spot on the front of his trousers.
"Let him go!"
"Okay! Okay!"
With a snap of his fingers, Logan was gently set back down on solid ground, suffering serious vertigo from his piteous fight. Looking over at Rose, he couldn't hold back the growing smile on his face. Perhaps she hadn't needed his help after all!
Rose pressed the jagged edge of the little blade to Wolfgang's throat, and the ringmaster could tell, from both her mind and body, that she wanted nothing more or less than to slice off his head and use it as a beach ball. "Oh God, don't kill me, Rose! I don't want to die, please! PLEASE!"
To both his and Logan's surprise, she released him.
"I von't kill you," said she, tossing the knife to him. "That's something you vouldn't hesitate to do to me, and I am better than you." She leaned in close, taking his shirt front in one hand, keeping him only a few meager inches from her face. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she said in a low, almost inaudible, whisper, "But heed this; you vill live, but if you ever, EVER, come near me or my friends, all hell vill break loose. Got that?"
Wolfgang nodded meekly, shaking like a leaf. Shoving him away and into the back of the camper, Rose walked away and over to Logan. "Hello, Herr Logan."
"Hiya, darlin'."
They only looked at each other; there was no need for words now. Both were bleeding, both were bruised, but they were happy and whole once again. Just when Logan was about to ask if she was okay, even though he knew she was, she suddenly leaped forward and embraced him so tightly that he heard all the air in his lungs rush out.
"Thank you for coming, Logan."
"It was nothing."
"Oh, but it vas." She looked at him, touching her forehead to his. "It vas."
"Ready to go on home?"
"Yes."
"What about your old chum over there?"
"He and I came to.an agreement, I suppose you could say. Let's go home."
They walked down the highway together, hand in hand. It was a simple thing, but it meant the world to Logan. Everything else faded away to nothing, leaving only him and Rose. He had done as he said, he'd gotten her back. What could go wrong?
He heard the knife whistling through the air even before he knew what it was. Unbeknownst to him, Wolfgang had been the knife-thrower in the Adolph & Family Circus long before the death of his father. Years and years of practice had made him one of the best marksmen on the face of the Earth and, with telekinesis guiding it, the knife landed right where he'd wanted it to; the small of Rose's back.
*****
Frederick was just gaining consciousness, as were Adelaide and the X- Men, when Rose's shrill scream burst through the usual quiet of the forest around them, followed by a roar of rage from Wolverine.
His heart stopped, he stopped breathing, it was as if the world had abruptly halted in its tracks and left only this moment in it's wake. The echoes of Rose's cry filled the air and rang over and over in his head, like the chorus of a bad song. No! It couldn't be! Had Wolfgang killed Rose?
Before he even knew it, he was on his feet and running to the source of the screaming. Hot tears burned his eyes as he ran. He could not let Rose die! He would die!
Finally, after all those years of living with her, denying the rising feelings he had felt when in her presence, he realized that he loved her more than life, that she was so dear and precious to him that he would give up his body and soul for her.
And it seemed now that moment had come to claim him and his promise.
*****
Time seemed to be having the same effect on Logan, too. He could only stand there frozen as Rose fell to the asphalt, the knife sticking out of her back and covered in her fresh, warm blood. The sound of her scream echoed and reechoed throughout his entire body, turning his blood to ice.
Half a second later, he screamed and flung himself at Wolfgang. The stunned ringleader had no time to freeze his thoughts or body and could only fling up his arms in self-defense from this mad man. He could feel his body being literally ripped to shreds, blood spurting from his wounds, his clothes providing worse than useless for protection against this barbaric assault of ferocity and raw emotions.
Logan knew none of this; he knew only that Rose was dead! DEAD! His keen senses told him this, that it was too late for her, that the one person that had truly meant something to him had been so horribly ripped from him. Just like his past.
It had been all because of men like Wolfgang and others like him. Rose had done nothing to Wolfgang, why did she deserve to die? What had she done to anger God? If anyone deserved to die, it was this man before Logan. And yet, he still lived, still had a beating heart, still drew breath from air that should rightfully be Rose's.
Logan, the Wolverine, raised his fist, ready to slam his claw straight into Wolfgang's brain. He wanted the man who had killed his lover to feel the pain he was feeling now. Mercy and compassion had left him, replaced by a torrent of pain, despair, and sorrow. Before, in all of his other battles, he had never felt such emotions. He'd been empty, and the bloodshed had filled him. But now, he felt like the world had been ripped from beneath him, leaving him without any other purpose but to drift in the nothingness of space.
"Logan, stop!"
Storm's voice came out to him, but it was too late. Wolfgang had been doomed the second he'd thrown the knife.
Down came the claws.
Frederick hid Adelaide's head in his shirt, deafening her ears to Wolfgang's last gurgling scream. More than a few of the X-Men blanched; they'd never seen Logan kill a man. Never. Evan put a hand to his mouth and ran into the bushes, throwing up every single piece of food he'd ever eaten in his life.
Logan stood up, using his pants to wipe the blood off of his claws. Death was no stranger to him. He'd walked with it longer than he could remember, and guilt was a feeling that had long been put behind him.
But he felt it now as he walked to where Rose's body lay. He didn't even bother to hide the undeniable tears welling up in his eyes. Gingerly, like an old man, he kneeled down and scooped the lifeless body up in his arms. "Rose."
The tears came now, unstoppable, but not just for Logan; every one there, even Adelaide, was weeping. With the racking mix of a sob and a roar, he screamed. It echoed for over a mile, sending shivers down every sentient spine that was near enough to hear it.
Logan set his whiskery chin on her soft hair, crying softly. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
"Logan?"
For a second, he thought it was Kitty, Storm, or one of the other girls. He ignored it, only kneeling there with Rose's body in hand. Nothing mattered anymore, it seemed. Nothing.nothing.
"Logan? Vhy are you crying, mein herr?"
Logan startled and looked down. Sure enough, Rose was gazing up at him with those frightening and yet gorgeous eyes of hers. He could feel his body shake with happiness and relief. "Rose."
She gave him a weak smile and reached up to stroke his face lovingly. "I'm not dead, Logan. You cannot get rid of me that easily."
*****
"How is she, Hank?"
"She'll be fine, Logan. Unfortunately, she won't be able to do anything extreme for a while, and I was forced to amputate her wings. She can walk rather well, but the nerves in the wings were totally paralyzed. She asked that they be removed herself."
"But she's gonna be okay?"
Beast smiled and shook his head. "Yes, yes. As long as she gets some good rest and relaxation, she'll recover completely." He chortled to himself, sitting down in the armchair opposite Logan and Xavier. "The only problem she really faces right now is learning how to walk again."
"Eh?"
"You see, if she didn't have her wings and tail, and if Kurt didn't have his own tail, they'd fall on their faces due to their unique physique. Rose's wings helped balance her out. Heh, heh, when she tried to stand up, she collapsed right into my arms."
Logan's eyebrows shot up.
"Well, as long as she's fine, I'm fine."
"What about the Adolph & Family circus?" Storm asked. "What are they going to do without their ringmaster?"
"Oh, they have one," Xavier said. "Turns out that Rose had one more secret that even I did not know of."
"Oh?" Jean's curiosity was piqued. "What?"
Xavier frowned and leaned back into his wheelchair. "When Wolfgang was in the U.S., Rose was pregnant with his child. That child is old enough to run the show now, under her godfather's protection."
"But who." The answer hit Logan in the face like a slap. "Adelaide?"
Xavier nodded. Scott whistled in amazement. "Who knew?"
"Adelaide, guided with her guardian, Frederick, is the new ringleader. I must say, it was quite a shock even for me to learn this."
"I can only imagine how Adelaide took it," Storm commented.
"She wasn't told. Not yet." He twined his finger together, a slightly puzzled expression on his strong face. "Something about that girl, though, is bothering me. I just can't understand why."
He shook his head and replaced the frown with a smile. "Come on, now, my students. It's almost morning, and I'm positive that you all are in desperate need of sleep. Good night."