Part 2:
" Oh," Scott uttered as he weakly sat up.
" About time you decided to join the living, love," Jean said softly and
helped him sit up more comfortably.
" Jean! You alright?" Scott asked concerned and gently stroked her
cheek.
" Am I alright? I'm not the one who was shot," Jean answered, light
amusement in her voice masking the gratitude and worry.
" We need to find out where to go from here," Xavier said from his
position on the floor next to the back wall and smiled warmly at Scott, glad he
was alright.
" Are you alright, Sir?" Scott asked Xavier concerned and eyed him up
and down. He looked alright. He looked at the others. Rogue sat on Logan´s lap,
hiding her face by his shoulder but looked alright. John sat off to one side, his
left arm in a home made sling, Jean's bare stomach telling that a part of her
blouse had been used for the sling. Remy sat next to John, looking thoughtful.
Peter sat with his left hand holding Kitty's, her head on his shoulder while he
talked words of comfort, half of them in Russian. Jubilee had her right leg in
yet another attempt of a splint. Next to her sat Bobby who rolled his eyes at
Jubilee who complained loudly over just about everything. Ororo sat next to
Xavier and looked as regal and calm as ever.
" I'm fine, Scott but we need to have a plan," Xavier said mildly.
" I know," Scott agreed and pained tried to stand but had to give it up
and instead pressed Jean a little closer to him.
" I have a plan. Let's kill `em all," Logan growled as he continued to
stroke Rogue's hair.
" How are you gonna do that with them out there and us in here?" John
wanted to know.
" And we don't have our powers AND we're hopelessly outnumbered,"
Jubilee agreed.
"Quiet," Scott demanded and
silence followed. " Our first mission is to try and find a way out of this
prison. Our second is to try and remove these collars," Scott let a hand run
over his collar. " Ororo, Jean, John, the professor and me tries to figure
these collars out. The rest of you investigate the cell," he saw their looks
and added " I know we have all searched for a way out but then do so again and
again. There has to be a way out of here."
The others nodded and began to investigate the walls and the forcefield
yet again.
" Hey, Cyke. You seemed to think this field had a weak point. Where?"
Logan asked as he stood by the forcefield, Rogue to his right.
" In front of you, to your left."
Logan moved in the given direction and pointed to a point in the shield.
" There?"
" Yes," Scott answered before turning to look at Ororo. " You were a
thief before Xavier found you in Africa and after that thought a Goddess. If we
could find something for you to work with could you pick a lock?"
" I don't know but I will try," Ororo answered honestly. Scott nodded.
They needed something small, something…
" Kitty, you usually wear hairpins. Do you also do so now?"
" Yes," she answered confused and took a hand up to her hair.
" Give it to Ororo," Scott commanded and Kitty did as bid and Ororo
moved closer to Scott to work on his collar.
" No, undo your own, Jean's or the professor's. I'm weak and will not do
you the most good in a fight," Scott explained as he drew back.
" Alright," Ororo agreed, seeing his logic and turned to the Professor.
He was the world's strongest telepath. Was he first freed he could easily free
the others and the…house? Wherever they where would be theirs for the taking.
" Jean, let me see your collar," Scott asked and Jean held her red hair
back, blotting her neck for him to see and leaned against him.
" Do you know what it is?" John asked and he tore at his to no avail.
" It seems to send signals to our brain. It paralyses the area of our
brain which controls and admits our mutant powers. We have to get them off in
order to use our powers," Scott explained as he let a hand run over Jean's
collar, calculating the mathematics behind it in his brain but without his
natural mutant ability in this field to support him things which used to be so
simple for him were difficult and blurry. He also found his thoughts wondering.
Thinking of all the wonderful colours he saw, how beautiful Jean looked now as
he saw her really for the first time and the pain in his side made it hard to
concentrate.
" Maybe we could try and tear the toilet apart," Bobby wondered out loud.
" Then what? Down the drain?" Jubilee asked sarcastically as she sat by
the wall to the bathroom, looking in since her broken leg didn't allow her to
do much walking.
" At least I thought of something," Bobby gave back, a little wounded.
" Quit it you two and work together. We have enough on our minds without
fighting among ourselves," Scott said from the big room. The rooms were very
small so it was impossible to not overhear everything. Even Rogue and Logan´s
debate seemed very loud in the room even though they whispered and all
pretended they didn't hear.
" This may be our only chance. Our powers don't work. Don't you see? We
don't know what might happen next," Rogue argued as she uselessly hammered with
her fits at the force shield.
" Will you stop that?" Logan bummed annoyed and took her hands in his
for a while to stop her battling. Her hands were already blooded.
" Logan…" Rogue began, looking up at him with tears in her green eyes.
" Lov`, I don't want your... and our first time to be like this. In the
small bathroom as it can't be here. I want it to be special," Logan whispered
softly against her ear, aware that all could hear even over Bobby and Jubilee's
fighting over which things to try and take apart in the bathroom.
" You don't understand....this may be our only chance," Rogue argued,
her cheeks red from anger and the normal embarrassment any young girl feels
about discussing THAT subject especially in a room filled with people.
" I know but you deserve better than this. We…I can wait. Forever, if I
have to," Logan said and tried to take her in his arms but she avoided him and
sat by the far wall, covering her face in her hands, crying.
" Jean…?" Scott asked and nodded to Rogue. He didn't like this tension
which was building between them and neither of them needed more screams and
cries to fill the air. The muffled cries of pain from further down the hall
still hung in the air, giving them all the shivers and making them feel sick.
Over the hours which most have passed since Scott woke up he had heard the word
"No" cried out in pain so many times that he had come to hate the word with a
vengeance.
" I'll go check on her," Jean said softly and left his side to go sit
with Rogue, making him feel strangely alone and abandoned. The absence of their
usual telepathic link didn't help either.
" Ororo, how is it going?" Scott asked as he now began to look more
closely at John's collar since Jean had left. Every door had a key so this
device had to have one too. It annoyed Scott immensely that he couldn't find
that key. There was a locking mechanism on the front of the collars but Scott
couldn't figure out how to use that to his advantage.
" I think I may be on to something," Ororo answered as she moved Kitty's
hairpin back and forth in the locking mechanism of Xavier's collar who sat
still and let her work.
" Do you know what you are doing?" John asked as he eyed the white
haired woman concentrate on her work.
" No, I don't but I have to do something," Ororo snapped and began to
move her home-made lock pick more viciously up and down. Suddenly Ororo flew
back and was knocked against the back wall.
" Ororo! You alright?" Scott asked concerned and held his hand out to
her to help her up. He still sat on the floor as standing brought him pain but
Ororo had landed so close to where he sat that he could reach out to her. She
took his hand and got up.
" I'm…unhurt," Ororo uttered and went back and sat next to Xavier.
" Stormy, you alright? Gambit got concerned," Remy said as he looked at
her, seeing if she was alright.
" I'm fine, Remy. You just go back to what you were doing," Ororo said
mildly and smiled at him and Remy went back to studying the walls for any
weaknesses. He too had gotten a hairpin from Kitty and tried to dig into the
walls weak points, between the metal plates. Ororo hadn't missed the longing
looks he cast after Rogue in between his work. Ororo had found Remy as a small
boy, living on the streets, picking pockets. She had been his mother, confident
and only friend for many years. Remy was a mutant with the power to lit
anything with kinetic energy and make it explode on impact. Besides that he
also possessed what he called "charm power" which meant that he could have any
woman, or actually anybody, fall in love with him for a short period of time
should he choose to use it. Ororo admired her young friend that he had so much
control that he hadn't used it on Rogue who he had fallen head over heels in
love with as soon as he had first laid eyes on her but she was totally ignorant
of his love, seeing only Logan. Ororo was sure that if Rogue knew how passionly
Remy loved her she wouldn't be so quick to always talk about Logan with him or
in front of him.
" Aha, I see we have all awaken. How nice. Then maybe we can get down to
business," a man's voice said, sounding cold, hard and calculated and all
turned to look at him through the forcefield.
