Chapter 8: The End of the Assassins
"What happened to you?!" Hank exclaimed as Gambit sauntered into the infirmary with Cat limping along beside him. He bustled about, getting both of them settled onto beds. Cat pulled off Remy's long brown duster and handed it back to him with a smile, and Hank raised a blue furry eyebrow at her state of undress, but refrained from comment. He scanned her quickly, and went about the infirmary, collecting the things he'd need.
Cat stared around the infirmary. There were a lot of things in this room she'd never seen in a hospital, and she saw something written on the edge of one console that didn't look like any writing she'd ever seen.
She leaned over from where she sat and asked Remy in a whisper, "What's all this?"
He grinned at her. "Dis is our hospital, p'tite. We can't exactly go to a regular hospital when we get hurt."
She sat back, thinking about that. No, they couldn't.
They had limped away from the scene, gone around the building to see if they could use one of the cars to get home. No cigar; the building had fallen on the cars that were parked there. So they'd gone down the street a few blocks, where Remy had gone into Crossroads and asked the bartender if he could borrow his car, as his bike had stalled on the road. The man (an old friend, apparently) had given Remy the keys to a beat up old Monte Carlo, and he had persuaded her to go back home with him. Unable to repress her curiosity about where he lived, she agreed.
"Dere it is, p'tite," he said, pointing ahead through the trees to where she could see an impressive structure just clearing the tops of the trees. As they had pulled up, she'd been nonplussed by the sight of the huge iron gates in the middle of the road. Gambit had punched a code into the keypad beside the door and driven through nonchalantly, and if Cat hadn't been so damn tired she would have gotten out of the car and run the other way right then and there, because the place was enormous. She couldn't imagine living in a place like that. A mansion, with two wings branching off the main building, a garage that looked like it held a fleet of vehicles, and more gently rolling green lawn than she'd ever seen in her life. She'd gaped as she stepped out of the car, barefoot and wearing Remy's coat over her bare shoulders. "It's huge!" she'd exclaimed.
She was even more impressed when she stepped into the foyer, with its gleaming floors and sweeping staircases, and Remy looked around, seeing it as she would see it. Yes, it was impressive.
He had brought her straight down to the infirmary. Hank was now making those disapproving noises about the condition of her back, and bandaged her hand tight to stop the bleeding. Fortunately the blade hadn't cut too deep, he told her, she would still be able to use the hand, though there would be a scar. Gambit left her twitching nervously under his hands as he went upstairs.
Logan was the first to see him, coming out of his room. "Hey, Gumbo!" he exclaimed, slapping Remy on the back. "Thought ya'd skipped out on us again! Where've ya been?"
"Rescuing a damsel in distress," Remy joked. "I wen' to Cat's apartment, lookin' for her. I was sittin' dere explaining about Rogue an' me to her when a couple o' her fellow assassins broke in and hit me on de head. Dey kidnapped bot' o' us an' took us to dere base. De leader o' de Assassins try to hurt her an' kill me, but she manage to get us free, an den I exploded de building aroun' dem when we got outta dere. I'm trying t'fin' Jean, maybe she got some clot'es she can lend Cat."
He walked a little further down the hall and knocked on Jean and Scott's room door. "Jean?" he called.
She opened the door. "Remy! We were worried! We didn't know where you were!" she said, hugging him. 'Where were you?"
"Later, Red," he said. "Look, Remy came to ask you a favor. Cat be down in de infirmary wit' Hank; she don' got not'in to wear. Can you lend her somet'in' till she get home? She abou' de same size as you."
"Sure," Jean said. She disappeared into the room, coming back moments later with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
They went down to the infirmary, and Cat accepted the clothes with thanks. Hank spoke to Remy as she disappeared into the nearby bathroom to change. "She will be fully recovered in a week's time, Remy. Her wounds were not properly cared for while she was gone, but it did not make a very big difference after all. She will have some scars, but they will not be as noticeable as the earlier ones. Her hand will be scarred, but she will have full use of it."
Remy smiled. "T'ank you, Hank."
"Don't mention it," he said.
Cat joined them moments later, wearing the clothes and looking a good deal happier. "Thanks so much," she said to Jean. "I promise I'll bring them back."
Jean waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about it," she said.
The infirmary door opened just then, and Rogue walked in. "Storm says that dinner's ahmost ready," she said to the room at large, though her eyes were fixed on Cat.
There was complete silence for a time, then Cat stepped forward and took Rogue's gloved hand. "You're a very lucky girl to have Remy," she said. "But if there ever comes a time when you don't want him, could you pass him to me?"
Rogue grinned. "Sure," she said. "Though why yah'd want sucha contrary boy is beyond me."
"Hey, you're the one who's going out with him," Cat joked. Rogue shoved her in mock playfulness, gently, as Remy looked indignant. They all laughed. Rogue said, "'Fore Gambit fergits, welcome to the mansion, and we'd love it if yah stayed fer dinner."
"Really?" Cat said. She looked around, then nodded. "Okay. Dinner before I go home."
She sat at the table, watching the X-Men bustle around, bringing various side dishes to the table. She looked up as an older man came up to the table, smiling at her. She stared, openmouthed, at his…well, she'd call it a wheelchair, but it didn't have wheels!
He smiled in gentle amusement at her dumbfounded look. "It's a gift from a friend who lives quite a bit away from here," he said dryly. "Some of our medical equipment comes from her as well. I believe you've seen it." He smiled and held out a hand to her. "My name is Charles Xavier," he said. "These are my X-Men."
"Nice to meet you," Cat stammered. Her life was just too complicated to even think about equipment from a foreign source. Xavier disguised his amusement as he slid into his place at the table. If she only knew how far…
One by one the others trickled into the dining room, and Remy introduced them to her. Cat recognized their names from the news; Logan, the short, powerfully built, feral man codenamed Wolverine; The tall, beautiful red-haired woman and the handsome brown-haired man at her side were introduced to her as Jean and Scott. "Also known as Phoenix and Cyclops," Remy said as she shook Scott's hand. "An' dis be Ororo," he indicated the statuesque, regal African woman coming out of the kitchen with a dish of vegetables. "Warren an' Betsy, an' you met Rogue, an' dis here's Bobby…" and he went about introducing her to the rest of the X-Men as they came in and sat down to dinner.
The food was delicious, but Cat was too busy staring around the table to really notice what she was eating. Betsy asked Jean to pass the mashed potatoes from the ends of the table where she sat, and Jean, never missing a beat in her conversation with Scott, telekinetically lifted the bowl in the air and sent it sailing down the table. Betsy plucked it out of the air casually and helped herself, then Jean returned it to its place on the table. It was one of the most interesting dinners she'd ever had, and she was almost sorry when it was over and she found herself outside getting into the truck with Remy.
"I had a lovely time," she said as they climbed the steps to her apartment door. "Remy, thank you. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to explain…" she fell silent as he placed a finger on her lips.
"Remy sorry he didn' t'ink 'bout t'ings 'fore he start flirtin' wit' you," he said, kissing her forehead gently. "I f'rgive you if you f'rgive me."
"Deal." And before he could pull away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips. He resisted for a moment, but she wouldn't let him go, and he relaxed his lips, letting her have her way with his mouth…
They broke the kiss finally, and she stepped back, blushing, and fumbled under her floormat. He stared as she came up with a small key taped to the underside of it. "I tend to forget my key sometimes," she said as she inserted it into the lock and opened the door. They stepped in and she flicked on the light.
A black-clad figure rose slowly from her couch where it had been lounging, and turned around, and she gave a scream of shock and horror. The Master stood before them, splattered with blood, one eye socket empty, the other eye burning redly in its place. Cat stared at the ghastly apparition in silence, then grabbed her sword from its stand by the door and drew it, placing herself between the former Master of Assassins and Remy.
"You survived," she said coldly, fear gone. She held the sword out in front of her as she advanced on him. "Not for long, though."
Remy made a sudden movement toward the two combatants, circling each other, only to feel the flat of Cat's blade slap him, firmly, back toward the door. "No, Remy," she said evenly, "he's mine."
"Don' kill him, p'tite," he warned, but Cat wasn't listening.
The Master stared at the girl in front of him, face distorted in hatred. "How could you betray me like this?" he hissed at her angrily. "I took you in when you wanted to die! I gave your life meaning, a purpose, gave you training to accomplish that purpose! I even gave you access to all the accounts so you could have everything you wanted! How could you treat me like this?"
When she spoke her voice was shaking with anger. "You turned me into a killer. That's not what I am, deep inside. I may have been good at it, but it's not who I am inside. You never understood that. All the money in the world wouldn't bring back my husband and my baby boy, and I cringe to think what they would think if they saw me today." She swung at him with her sword.
He sidestepped it neatly, and they continued to circle as Remy watched helplessly. "Did you know I'm a mutant?" he said in a deceptively mild voice, and Cat's eyes narrowed. "I can 'tune in' or synchronize with any mutant energy signature. When your lover here kinetically charged the building, my ability tuned into his, and I was almost immune to his blast when the building exploded. A falling block knocked out my eye, but I survived to get here."
He laughed, and a trickle of blood bubbled up from the corner of his mouth. "That kinetic energy ids still trapped inside me, waiting to get out," he said. "All I have to do is keep you here until it explodes."
She swung, and caught his leg with the sharp edge as he spoke. He tripped, fell back onto the thick carpet, blood spurting from a nearly severed leg. She stepped up to him, placing the point of her sword at his throat, aiming for a mortal blow.
"Don' kill him, chere," Remy said, taking a step forward. "Killin' him ain't goin' to solve not'in'."
She snarled. "Why shouldn't I? It'll get him out of my life permanently. I'll never have to worry about him again."
He stepped forward, reaching out but not quite touching, her rigid back. "Cat, killin don' solve not'in. Never did. I hated Belladonna's brot'er, you know dat? I t'ought killin' him was goin' to be so easy. An' after I did it, I didn' feel not'in but shame, and guilt. Don' kill him, Cat. He not wort' de shame an' de guilt."
She was silent for a long moment, then raised her sword and brought it down.
Remy thought, for one shocked moment, that she really had given in to her hatred and killed him, and he flinched, covering his eyes with his hand. When the man's screaming didn't stop, though, he risked a peek through his hands.
Her sword had stabbed deeply into his shoulder, leaving him screaming and wriggling on it like a worm impaled on a hook, but very much alive. He looked at her in disbelief.
"You were right," she said as he came over to stand by her, running a strong arm across her back and they looked down at the man writhing in front of them. He hugged her for a long moment, and she closed her eyes, leaning into his embrace for a long moment.
His eyes flew open as he felt a hand grab his ankle, and she screamed and grabbed him, falling to her knees on the bloodstained carpet and trying to dislodge the Master's hand. Remy tried to shake off her grip on him; he knew what the man was trying to do. If he was connected physically to the Master when the man's body exploded, and was still holding Cat, she would die. He was immune to his own kinetic energy, of course, but she wasn't.
Cat still had one hand on Remy and one hand on the Master's wrist when she abruptly knew what would happen. She closed her eyes tight and summoned the faint bit of power she had, the only thing her mutant power could do, and threw a shield around both her and Remy, scant seconds before the Master of Assassins exploded. The room filled with blinding red light.
Remy came to, lying on carpet. He blinked dazedly, clearing the cobwebs out of his head, and then sat up.
Where the Master had lain on the carpet there was now only charred fibers and a few chunks of charred bone. Cat lay crumpled beside him, and he touched her gently. "Cat?"
She moaned, eyelids fluttering, and then sat up. She stared speechless at the remains on her floor, the mess in her apartment, and gulped. "That's some power you've got there."
"So is yours," he said, remembering the flash of blue light that had covered the two of them as the Master's body had exploded.
She shook her head. "That's the only thing I've ever been able to do with the ability I have," she said. "I can generate a shield around me that's one molecule thin. I can't even feel it usually, but it covers every inch of my body and whatever I'm touching, and I don't know how it works, but nothing gets through." She let go of his hand, and the blue light faded from around her. She rubbed her eyes wearily, and suddenly gasped as she stared at him.
"What wrong, p'tite?" he asked. She looked like she was seeing a ghost as she took his hand and pulled him in front of her living room mirror.
His reflection looked normal, until he looked harder. There was a faint blue light crackling around the outlines of his body. It was faint, and you couldn't see it unless you were really looking for it, but it was definitely there. "What de…?"
Hank ran every test he could think of, every scan he had in the medlab, on both Cat and Remy. All the scans came up with the same result; Cat might still have the mutant gene in her cells, but there was nothing she could do with them. Remy, on the other hand, found that if he concentrated really hard on it, he could bring that molecular shield up and down at will.
"It's the most mystifying thing I've ever seen," he said, scratching his head as he read the results of the test to Xavier, after Jean had left to inform everyone that Remy and Cat were going to be okay. "The mutant you were fighting, the Master of the Assassins, had his synching power 'on' at the time that the explosion occurred. Remy, when your body recognized the energy coming back at you it 'opened' itself to accept that energy. However, Cat was also in contact with the Master at the same time, and your body not only absorbed your own kinetic energy charge back, but it also absorbed Cat's shielding ability and a tiny measure of the Master's 'synching' ability. You, in effect, 'stole' his and her powers. It's too soon to tell whether it will be permanent or not, now, but it appears you have her shields."
Remy shook his head in astonishment. "How do Remy give it back?"
Hank looked sadly at Cat. "You can't, Remy. It's now a part of you."
The door flew open, and Rogue came pelting in at a full run, fresh from the pool. Her wet tennis shoe skidded on the clean tiled floor of the medlab. Without thinking Remy put a hand around her bare back to keep her from falling. "Thanks, Remy," she said absently, running a finger around the back of her tennis shoe to adjust it. Then the reality of what he'd just done sank in, and she turned to face him, expecting him to be crumpled on the floor out cold.
He was staring at her with the same stunned look that everyone else was giving both of them, except Cat. "Rogue," he whispered, shocked. Almost tentatively, he reached out to touch her cheek.
Rogue had to fight the ingrained urge to back off as that hand neared her face. She held very, very still as he touched her cheek, first with two fingers, then with his whole hand. She stared in disbelief as his hand rested on her face, feeling a faint warmth against the skin.
Remy bit his lip, bringing up his other hand to touch her bare shoulder. Still nothing. The molecular shield was preventing her power from leeching the life from him! He felt an incredulous chuckle escape his lips as he began to let his hands caress her, running down her arms, wandering across her back, feeling the skin of her neck. He could feel everything, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, on her arms, but nothing was happening to him!
Rogue was suddenly laughing, feeling the happiness bubble up from deep inside her. She threw her arms around him, giggling, then pressed her lips to his. He opened his mouth, but she hung back, unwilling to press their luck. Maybe the molecular shielding didn't reach into his mouth, but he decided to try it anyway.
It did.
Cat watched them kiss with mixed feelings; she didn't understand. Xavier tore his eyes away from the happy couple, and leaned over to her. "Rogue's power prevents anyone touching her," he said gravely. "She has been cursed, as she puts it, with the ability to 'steal' someone's powers, personality, and if she touches them long enough, their memories and lifeforce. She can't touch anyone without gloves, or some kind of physical barrier."
Cat stared in awe. Rogue was a beautiful woman, and to never be able to touch anyone else…dear lord, Cat herself would go crazy. She let go of the tiny ball of resentment she had felt on finding out her power was no longer hers. If it could bring someone this much happiness, she had no problem letting go.