A/N: Hi all, I'm SOOOO sorry about the lack of updates before this. I've been battling major writers block all week and have written then scrapped like fifteen versions of this chapter before coming up with this. This chapter shows the emotional preparations by the X-Men for their mission against Apocalypse. It contains cryptic references to assignments and such that will be revealed in the next chapter or two. My major block in writing this week had been trying to include all the mission assignments and details in chapters before the actual mission, so I decided not to weigh everything down with those details and just start getting into it.
In that spirit, here's the next chapter.
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Goodbyes?
"I don't like it, luv," Brian said to Betsy with a frown as the two watched the others file out of the conference room. "They shouldn't have split us up."
"You're just upset that you won't be going in yourself. I'll be fine, luv, and you know it," his twin replied calmly.
"Don't worry, Bri, I'll watch her back," Nate said as he slid an arm around her waist, which she pulled away from to glare at him for the chauvinistic male statement.
"It's more than that, Betts," Brian frowned and moved over to the conference table to look over the materials spread out on the surface. "Do you honestly believe that telepathy can bring down a force as powerful as Apocalypse appears to be?"
"Yes, I do. It works well enough to bring you to your knees," Psylocke stepped forward to place a reassuring hand on her twin's shoulder. "We will win this and we will do it as the X-Men have chosen. Caliban, Charles, Jean, Nate and myself all together … we can do this."
"Jean, the Professor, a team of the best Acolytes and X-Men tried once before and were thwarted by a clap of the hands. He just clapped his hands, luv, and knocked them all down like bowling pins."
"This time will be different, luv," Betsy said.
"If you feel that strongly, Britain, perhaps you should bow out," Nate stated at the same time. "We all have to be focused and in this 100 percent. If you can't put these doubts aside, don't come with us."
~*~*~
"Amanda, I zhink ve should talk," Kurt said quietly as he approached the girl and her mother.
Margali gave her daughter a gentle smile, glared warningly at Kurt then walked away to give them privacy.
"I know what you're going to say," Amanda pushed her long brown hair back over her shoulders. "You and Wanda weren't exactly subtle in the meeting."
"Sorry about zhat. I did not mean to do anyzhing zhat vould hurt you," he stared guiltily at the floor.
She sighed, crossed her arms over her chest and moved away from him a little.
"You did and you didn't. It still hurts that you've moved on to her, but I knew yesterday that this was how it would go. I hope she treats you right."
"Vait, zhere's more I vanted to say," Kurt put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from leaving.
"I can't hear it right now, Kurt. Mother and I must prepare for tonight. I can't afford to be distracted by your guilt or regret. I understand why you can't be with me anymore. I forgive you. If you insist, we'll talk about when all this is over, but right now I can't hear it."
~*~*~
"Yo, Wanda, what's with you and the blue rodent?" Toad demanded as most of the Brotherhood mutants formed a small huddle after the conference to discuss their assignments.
"Done of your business," Wanda snarled.
"Maybe not his, but as your brother I think I have a right to know," Pietro said with a frown at the memory of her and the Nightcrawler all cuddly wuddly in the briefing.
"We have more important matters to discuss, brother. Like getting our revenge on what that mutant did to our father. Apocalypse, remember him? The reason we're at this place to begin with?"
"What's to discuss? We go in, we kick his ass, end of story. Now you and the Nightcrawler, that's a hot topic," Quicksilver persisted.
With a glare Wanda snarled at Fred, Todd and her brother then stalked away knowing they'd found the only topic they wanted to discuss.
"Not go vell?" Kurt asked as he suddenly appeared in front of her.
Startled, Wanda knocked him away with a hex bolt before she could even think to suppress the instinct.
"I'll take zhat as a yes," he groaned as he peeled away from the wall he'd been flung against.
"I'm so sorry," she rushed to make sure he was ok. "You've just gotta stop popping in front of me like that."
"I zhink I've finally learned zhat lesson, frauline," he smiled weakily at her concern.
"So it didn't go well with Amanda?"
"I cannot say. She seems to accept zhat I vish to be vith you now, but I sensed some bitterness in her zhat I do not like."
"You," Wanda looked at the floor then into his yellow eyes, "you really do want to be with me and not her?"
"Ja, I do," he smiled and stroked her cheek. "If you vreally dig zhis fuzzy dude."
The Scarlet Witch was stunned when an actual giggle escaped her lips at that comment and to keep another sound such as that from getting out she leaned forward and placed her mouth against his.
"I really dig the fuzzy dude," she whispered against his ear as they ended the kiss and simply hugged one another.
~*~*~
"Auntie O, relax," Evan was saying to his worried relative. "Logan and Professor X chose me for a reason. You have to trust their decision."
"I know that, Evan," Storm sighed and placed a hand on her nephews shoulder, being careful to avoid the spikes there that he could not retract. "It's just that you've only been back here for two days and now you're going into a situation that no one may come out of. It would destroy your mother and myself to lose you now."
"You're not going to, O," he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and smiled away her worry. "I've grown up a lot since you last saw me. The Morlocks have been good to and for me. I'm going to make you proud, auntie. You and mom both."
Still not comfortable with the fact that she would not be there to protect her sister's son in the upcoming battle, Ororo could only smile weakly in return while hoping all her fears would prove irrational.
~*~*~
"Can we really succeed at this?" Callisto demanded of Caliban.
Cybelle, Healer, Lucid, Plague, Scaleface – in her human form - and Stall all waited quietly for his answer.
"Yes, we can," the man drawled slowly with a nod of his bald head. "Once the telepaths have weakened his defenses enough I will be able to infect Apocalypse and finish the job."
"And if they cannot weaken him or you are unable to get close enough to touch him?" Scaleface mentioned their possible downfalls.
Caliban turned slowly to face the young woman and looked at her warningly.
"This is not the time for such doubts. We are going on this mission tonight. None of us can allow ourselves any thoughts of failure."
~*~*~
"I don't get it, mate, if they wanted fire why'd they chose you over me?" St. John played with his Zippo lighter as he asked the question.
Remy watched the younger man flick the lighter open, light it up then conjure up an inferno with the small flame.
"Could be because I have a bit more reserve with my powers," the Cajun suggested as the flames scorched the wallpaper where they stood before Pyro put them out.
"I have reserve with my powers, yet I was not chosen for the teams," Piotr said as he and Kitty entered the conversation.
"Logan, like, totally explained the reason for that, big guy," Kitty reminded while sliding her arm around her new boyfriend's waist. "You're too big and intimidating. Apocalypse would see you and instantly go squashing us all like bugs and goodbye all hopes of a successful mission. We, like, have to go in with the weakest looking bunch so that he hopefully won't see us as a threat."
"Ahh. Well now, mate," John smiled and nudged Remy in the ribs, "that explains why you got in if they want the weak looking blokes."
Gambit rolled his red eyes at that, pulled a deck of playing cards from his trenchcoat and walked away from the gathering shuffling the cards.
"Seriously, though, I should be going in with you," Piotr gave all his attention to Kitty. "We are a good team and I do not like the idea of you not having someone who will watch your back as I would."
Pyro rolled his eyes, pocketed his lighter and walked off after Remy as the couple started getting mushy with Kitty saying how sweet Colossus was to worry about her.
~*~*~
"I can't believe we're not in this," Bobby was complaining to the other new recruits.
"Chill, Icy, you're just sulking because you're not in with the in crowd this time," Ray said. "At least the rest of us are getting close to the action for a change."
"Yeah, a definite sign the world's gonna come to an end now," Tabitha joked.
"If that is what happens, I'm glad we're all going to be together," Jamie sighed.
Bobby, Ray, Roberto, Sam and Tabitha all gave him questioning looks.
"I'd just hate for this to be like Magneto. Something we know nothing about until we see it on the news. We're all part of this team and if they're going to go into a battle and not come back from it I wanna be able to say I did all I could to stop it. And if Apocalypse is going to destroy the world then I'd prefer to die with you guys. My friends."
The youngest X-Man's words were surprising and his friends' questioning looks turned to slight smiles.
Those smiles faded as they looked beyond the team sentiment of the statement to the reminder that this could be among the last moments they had with all their friends together, in one place, alive and well.
~*~*~
"I just can't do it," Amara sighed and looked out her bedroom window.
"We have to, Magma," Lance came up behind her and placed his hands gently on her slightly slumped shoulders.
"But they're my friends, Lance," tears formed in her brown eyes. "I can't … bury them."
"My friends are going in there too, Amara, and having to follow this order of Logan's is the last thing I ever wanna do, but if things go bad we have got to do it."
She turned in his arms, placed her head against his strong chest and hugged him tight.
"Don't give it too much thought, though. They're not going to fail and we won't have to do it," he bent to kiss the top of her head.
"I hope you're right," her head tipped back so their eyes met.
He gave her a tenderly reassuring smile and tapped the tip of her cute little nose with his index finger.
"Trust me, on this I will be."
~*~*~
"What's the verdict, Charles?" Logan asked as the Professor settled back behind his desk seemingly satisfied by what he'd learned.
"They're ready," the telepath said simply, having completed his scan of thoughts and emotions in the mansion. "Even more prepared for this than I would have thought."
Wolverine nodded at the assurance then stalked from the office to go help Hank prepare the Blackbird and Velocity for flight.
Left alone Charles looked slowly around his office, his gaze lingering over a series of photographs hanging on the wall.
The X-Men.
His dream.
A team of gifted youngsters who were willing to use their powers for good to find peace on this earth with humans and fellow mutants alike.
There was an early photo of Jean, Logan, Ororo, Scott and himself taken shortly after this strange almost family had begun growing.
Next was a picture of the senior team members – Evan, Jean, Kitty, Kurt, Rogue and Scott – fresh from a challenging Danger Room session.
The new recruits – Amara, Bobby, Jamie, Jubilee, Ray, Rhane, Roberto, Sam and Tabitha – were all piled playfully upon Hank in their group photo.
Finally there was the most recent and complete photograph. The whole team, minus Jubilee and Rhane, in uniform standing grouped together before the rebuilt mansion after the 'mutant menace' period had eased off.
Already, thanks to Apocalypse, hatred of all things mutant was on the rise again.
Charles understood their fears. He even shared their concerns that En Sabah Nuhr would unleash a great horror upon this world given the chance.
Still, it was discouraging to see and know that a majority of the world he and his team were willing to sacrifice their lives for tonight would continue to see them all as monsters tomorrow.
But he would gladly face their animosity just as long as his team had a tomorrow after tonight.
~*~*~
Jean curled closer to Scott's side as they laid wrapped in each other's arms on her bed.
It had been two hours since the mission briefing and they had spent every second of that time together like this.
Fully dressed in their uniforms, just holding on to each other.
Now the time was approaching when they would have to board the Velocity and fly to Mexico to carry out their rescue of Rogue and hopefully the defeat of Apocalypse.
Reading the digits on the alarm clock next to her bed, Scott sighed and pulled Jean tighter to him while kissing the top of her head.
"I love you, you know," she whispered quietly against his shoulder before shifting to look through his visor into his eyes. "I know I wasted a lot of time admitting it, but I've always loved you."
"This isn't the time for it, Jeannie. We're not saying our goodbyes. We will get through this as we have everything else," he pressed a tender kiss firmly against her lips. "Tomorrow we'll say all our I love yous and back the words up with actions."
Her green eyes misted with emotion and she quickly closed her lashes to hide the forming tears.
"I just wish - "
He laid a silencing finger across her lips halting the wish she would have spoken.
"No wishes tonight. We are going to go on this mission and complete it. Tomorrow you can tell me all your dreams and wishes and I'll spend the rest of our lives making them come true."
"Promise?" her eyes fluttered open and looked into his once more through the protection of his ruby red visor.
"I promise. We're X-Men, Jean, and we're ready for this. Apocalypse may have knocked us down once, but we all got back up again and this time we take him down."
Just as he finished the last of his statement the Professor began to call them all to the hangars to prepare for takeoff.
With one last tight hug and passionate kiss, the couple left the bed with their minds and bodies focusing only on the battle they would walk into.
Scott's last words echoed in both their heads, making their backs straighter with conviction and determination as they made their way to the lower levels.
"This time we take him down."