Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I making any money from, the X-Men
characters. Thank you to Corrinth for the loan of Ilehana Xavier. Blaze is,
always has been, and forever will be mine, so there!
A/N: Don't forget to review!
Scene 18
Blaze woke to feel salty air on her parched skin, a tough sea breeze tugging at her hair and her mouth as dry as the Sahara. Jacques held bottled water to her lips, most of it slopping down her front as she sought both to drink and to understand where she was. The noise was as intolerable as the desiccation of her throat, the throbbing rotary blades of a helicopter speeding across the Gulf of Mexico.
**Here, take the bottle. ** Her captor communicated with her telepathically over the noise of the machine. **I'se don't want you dead before we get to Jacobi. **
**Why? Jacobi's never wanted me alive before, why start now? **
**It not about you, Chere. It about le Beau. Jacobi don't take no for an answer, le Beau watch you die before he die himself; Jacobi gets his revenge. **
**Remy's with Jacobi? Then what's all this nonsense about Belladonna? ** Blaze's mind voice was cold, calculating. Jacques knew he'd have to watch this one.
**Belladonna my...shall we say associate? No doubt she the reason we got dis gig, make le Beau suffer as much as possible... Don't matter one bit to me, the money good. ** He shrugged apologetically at her before staring out the open doorway, one foot dangling into space. Blaze closed her eyes, knowing the telepath was listening to her every thought. She didn't think he was as powerful as the Professor, it seemed he could only read the uttermost thoughts and emotions in a person's mind, and he used common sense to translate that into predicting what they would do next. A handy trait for an assassin.
**You got no idea... ** Jacques enthused, enjoying the view as much as the workings of a stranger's mind. Blaze shut her eyes, intent on setting her barriers as she had done every day for so many years to keep her powers in total check. Meditation came quickly despite the setting, the circumstances. Jacques was intrigued, did she think she could keep him out of her head with this stuff? He had never seen anything so complex in another's mind before as Blaze set her safety points and reaffirmed her mental, emotional and mutant power barriers. He saw how low her power reserve had burnt, barely a spark now remained...
So captivated was he that he didn't notice that Blaze had opened her eyes again before he had opened his. Blaze, cold, hard like she had never been before in her life watched him open his eyes reluctantly, wanting more, more knowledge of her, more power over her. He only knew the trick she had played when her voice shouted out above the roar of the 'copter's blades.
"Predict this!" And she kicked him two-footed square in the chest. He grabbed at her in terror as he began to fall, felt the complete lack of emotion from the fire elemental as she evaded his frantic grasps. Then he was falling, tumbling head over tail from the helicopter as it flew too high above the water. Hitting the Gulf of Mexico at speed, all his breath was knocked from him. He was sucked underneath, and knew nothing more.
Climbing out of her seat, Blaze went forward to watch the pilot and co- pilot silently. It was long enough before they realised she was standing over them, observing, memorising. They exclaimed to see her just as a very large, very expensive yacht came into view on the purple horizon. Blaze smiled.
"You gonna take me in? Your boss Jacobi and I have an appointment." She yelled over the noise, grabbing hold of the back of the pilot's seat as he nodded and began his descent.
She didn't wait until the helicopter landed by its mate on the yacht's helipad, instead taking a forward roll out of the machine as it hovered low, approaching the deck. She landed quickly, rolling to prevent injury, before standing and looking around her, scowl embedded on her face.
The first thing she saw was Remy on his knees, hands behind his back, pain deeper than Hell across his handsome face. Her heart would have gone out to him, but she had begun denying what her heart felt in recent times. Behind him her nemesis, the man who had made her life a misery, made her live in fear, held a gun to Gambit's head. Jacobi.
But it was not Jacobi who spoke to Blaze, but a stranger. A blonde woman with hair tied in many tight plaits, revealing outfit windswept and blue eyes as soulless as the blue sea around them. She also held a black revolver, and had it trained on Blaze's chest.
"Belladonna I presume?" Blaze asked in a mocking voice. "You know, since I found out about you, after all these years of Remy not talking about you at all, I'd imagined somebody, well, attractive. Looks like I was wrong, maybe Rem didn't talk about you because he was embarrassed or something?"
"You should know," Belladonna sniped back, readying her gun. "That lovin' Remy won't ever give you anythin' but pain." The blonde smiled cruelly. "An' n your case, won't get you nothin' but dead..."
"L'amour pas par degré." Blaze said almost shyly, noting how her words threw not only Belladonna but Gambit as well. She took her opportunity, fire spinning like golden threads around her she punched Belladonna straight in the stomach, then knocked her gun out of her hand and overboard as it went off. The bullet ricochet harmlessly as Blaze dodged Belladonna's best effort to fight back, a low kick to the stomach. Blaze charged in then, too close for fists to make effective contact, shoulder barging the other woman into the wall of the yacht's rooms. Belladonna let out a gasp as she felt the full force of Blaze's pent up emotions, then slumped to the floor as Blaze thwacked her head against the wall in a seamless motion.
"Nicely done, Blaze my dear." Jacobi's voice was hardly complementary. He pressed the revolver hard against Remy's skull, but something had changed with the Cajun as his ex-fiancée fell unconscious. The ring that throbbed on his finger went dull, relieving the pain. And Blaze knew what Jacobi had obviously never bothered to find out, that wire wrapped around the mutant man's wrists could easily be exploded, if he could only get a single finger to the bind.
"Thank you." Blaze acknowledged, not glancing at Gambit in case she blew what he was trying to do. "But you know you have to die now?"
"What you forget, wench, is that you are on board my boat. My boat policed by my people, the same force that have you mutants back in America so afraid of the FoH." Jacobi's voice was as smooth as ever, his eyes listless.
"Where are they then, Alessandro? Are they invisible? Or did you want mine and Remy's deaths to be a private, sentimental affair?"
Jacobi didn't get the chance to reply as Gambit blew up the wire that bound him. In a moment Remy was on his feet, slamming the gun out of Jacobi's hand and letting a bullet loose. It shattered into Jacobi's skull, and his body fell lifeless to the floor.
"I'm outta ammo." Gambit was instantly aware that despite the victory over Jacobi himself, the guards that even now came running at the sound of a gunshot would not be easily defeated. The gun was empty, but more than that Belladonna had removed everything he could possibly charge with his mutant ability from his person. And she'd been very thorough.
"Anything you can throw, right?" Blaze began by removing the ruby Amentha ring from her thumb, and then her four earrings, and the belly button stud piercing Mercury had given her. She'd only have to take it out in the end anyway. She placed the whole lot in Gambit's hand, noting the wedding band that had been on his finger already removed. She shook her mane of red curls and refused to meet his eyes as she accepted her own usefulness. "I'm no help, nothing left to burn..."
"Then stay behind me." He forcefully pushed her to safety as the first guards saw Jacobi's crumpled body and began to fire at the two mutants. The gun he launched first, glowing yellow and orange its explosion took out the first three men, sending them crashing overboard as more appeared. Blaze ran to find more ammunition for her friend, pulling up chunks of Jacobi's precious boat and tossing them to her partner. Somehow they remained uninjured, somehow the rain of bullets missed and after a long while, no more men came.
Gambit slumped to the floor, exhausted, haggard by the hell Jacobi and Belladonna had put him through the last few hours before Blaze came... Blaze wrapped her arms around him tightly, pulling his body's warmth to her in dire need and anguish. She finally let a single tear fall as she crouched there with him, knowing it would be the last time she felt his strong arms around her, smelt his sweet masculine smell, heard his breath moving in and out of him...
"The Professor says the Blackbird is on its way to pick you up." He looked at her quickly as she spoke, knowing that there was some hidden meaning in those words but not quite able to place it. "I'm leaving Remy..."
"No, Chere, Laura..." He tried to hold onto her, but she placed her lips on his too briefly then pulled away.
"I can't do this anymore. I can't live this life. I need to find a quiet place, be myself, where nobody wants to kill me..." There were sobs in her voice, tears flowing freely over her cheeks.
"But Jacobi dead..." Remy pulled her to him again, burying his face in her soft red hair. "You don't need to be afraid anymore..."
Blaze choked up, should she tell him anymore? Had he perhaps already guessed? The day he'd come back from assignment, she'd fooled everybody else that she was in a bad mood because she had too cook for so many. But Gambit knew that she loved cooking, especially for large numbers, as much as she loved food itself... Could he have guessed what she had found out that day? But no, the look in his eye said he still had no clue. It was better this way, she was sure...
"I have to go. The darkest hearts bare their secrets alone." She stood, unravelling herself from his strong grip, not even daring to look back as she walked away, for if she did she would never have the strength to do this. A short while later a helicopter buzzed overhead, and Blaze was gone.
A/N: Don't forget to review!
Scene 18
Blaze woke to feel salty air on her parched skin, a tough sea breeze tugging at her hair and her mouth as dry as the Sahara. Jacques held bottled water to her lips, most of it slopping down her front as she sought both to drink and to understand where she was. The noise was as intolerable as the desiccation of her throat, the throbbing rotary blades of a helicopter speeding across the Gulf of Mexico.
**Here, take the bottle. ** Her captor communicated with her telepathically over the noise of the machine. **I'se don't want you dead before we get to Jacobi. **
**Why? Jacobi's never wanted me alive before, why start now? **
**It not about you, Chere. It about le Beau. Jacobi don't take no for an answer, le Beau watch you die before he die himself; Jacobi gets his revenge. **
**Remy's with Jacobi? Then what's all this nonsense about Belladonna? ** Blaze's mind voice was cold, calculating. Jacques knew he'd have to watch this one.
**Belladonna my...shall we say associate? No doubt she the reason we got dis gig, make le Beau suffer as much as possible... Don't matter one bit to me, the money good. ** He shrugged apologetically at her before staring out the open doorway, one foot dangling into space. Blaze closed her eyes, knowing the telepath was listening to her every thought. She didn't think he was as powerful as the Professor, it seemed he could only read the uttermost thoughts and emotions in a person's mind, and he used common sense to translate that into predicting what they would do next. A handy trait for an assassin.
**You got no idea... ** Jacques enthused, enjoying the view as much as the workings of a stranger's mind. Blaze shut her eyes, intent on setting her barriers as she had done every day for so many years to keep her powers in total check. Meditation came quickly despite the setting, the circumstances. Jacques was intrigued, did she think she could keep him out of her head with this stuff? He had never seen anything so complex in another's mind before as Blaze set her safety points and reaffirmed her mental, emotional and mutant power barriers. He saw how low her power reserve had burnt, barely a spark now remained...
So captivated was he that he didn't notice that Blaze had opened her eyes again before he had opened his. Blaze, cold, hard like she had never been before in her life watched him open his eyes reluctantly, wanting more, more knowledge of her, more power over her. He only knew the trick she had played when her voice shouted out above the roar of the 'copter's blades.
"Predict this!" And she kicked him two-footed square in the chest. He grabbed at her in terror as he began to fall, felt the complete lack of emotion from the fire elemental as she evaded his frantic grasps. Then he was falling, tumbling head over tail from the helicopter as it flew too high above the water. Hitting the Gulf of Mexico at speed, all his breath was knocked from him. He was sucked underneath, and knew nothing more.
Climbing out of her seat, Blaze went forward to watch the pilot and co- pilot silently. It was long enough before they realised she was standing over them, observing, memorising. They exclaimed to see her just as a very large, very expensive yacht came into view on the purple horizon. Blaze smiled.
"You gonna take me in? Your boss Jacobi and I have an appointment." She yelled over the noise, grabbing hold of the back of the pilot's seat as he nodded and began his descent.
She didn't wait until the helicopter landed by its mate on the yacht's helipad, instead taking a forward roll out of the machine as it hovered low, approaching the deck. She landed quickly, rolling to prevent injury, before standing and looking around her, scowl embedded on her face.
The first thing she saw was Remy on his knees, hands behind his back, pain deeper than Hell across his handsome face. Her heart would have gone out to him, but she had begun denying what her heart felt in recent times. Behind him her nemesis, the man who had made her life a misery, made her live in fear, held a gun to Gambit's head. Jacobi.
But it was not Jacobi who spoke to Blaze, but a stranger. A blonde woman with hair tied in many tight plaits, revealing outfit windswept and blue eyes as soulless as the blue sea around them. She also held a black revolver, and had it trained on Blaze's chest.
"Belladonna I presume?" Blaze asked in a mocking voice. "You know, since I found out about you, after all these years of Remy not talking about you at all, I'd imagined somebody, well, attractive. Looks like I was wrong, maybe Rem didn't talk about you because he was embarrassed or something?"
"You should know," Belladonna sniped back, readying her gun. "That lovin' Remy won't ever give you anythin' but pain." The blonde smiled cruelly. "An' n your case, won't get you nothin' but dead..."
"L'amour pas par degré." Blaze said almost shyly, noting how her words threw not only Belladonna but Gambit as well. She took her opportunity, fire spinning like golden threads around her she punched Belladonna straight in the stomach, then knocked her gun out of her hand and overboard as it went off. The bullet ricochet harmlessly as Blaze dodged Belladonna's best effort to fight back, a low kick to the stomach. Blaze charged in then, too close for fists to make effective contact, shoulder barging the other woman into the wall of the yacht's rooms. Belladonna let out a gasp as she felt the full force of Blaze's pent up emotions, then slumped to the floor as Blaze thwacked her head against the wall in a seamless motion.
"Nicely done, Blaze my dear." Jacobi's voice was hardly complementary. He pressed the revolver hard against Remy's skull, but something had changed with the Cajun as his ex-fiancée fell unconscious. The ring that throbbed on his finger went dull, relieving the pain. And Blaze knew what Jacobi had obviously never bothered to find out, that wire wrapped around the mutant man's wrists could easily be exploded, if he could only get a single finger to the bind.
"Thank you." Blaze acknowledged, not glancing at Gambit in case she blew what he was trying to do. "But you know you have to die now?"
"What you forget, wench, is that you are on board my boat. My boat policed by my people, the same force that have you mutants back in America so afraid of the FoH." Jacobi's voice was as smooth as ever, his eyes listless.
"Where are they then, Alessandro? Are they invisible? Or did you want mine and Remy's deaths to be a private, sentimental affair?"
Jacobi didn't get the chance to reply as Gambit blew up the wire that bound him. In a moment Remy was on his feet, slamming the gun out of Jacobi's hand and letting a bullet loose. It shattered into Jacobi's skull, and his body fell lifeless to the floor.
"I'm outta ammo." Gambit was instantly aware that despite the victory over Jacobi himself, the guards that even now came running at the sound of a gunshot would not be easily defeated. The gun was empty, but more than that Belladonna had removed everything he could possibly charge with his mutant ability from his person. And she'd been very thorough.
"Anything you can throw, right?" Blaze began by removing the ruby Amentha ring from her thumb, and then her four earrings, and the belly button stud piercing Mercury had given her. She'd only have to take it out in the end anyway. She placed the whole lot in Gambit's hand, noting the wedding band that had been on his finger already removed. She shook her mane of red curls and refused to meet his eyes as she accepted her own usefulness. "I'm no help, nothing left to burn..."
"Then stay behind me." He forcefully pushed her to safety as the first guards saw Jacobi's crumpled body and began to fire at the two mutants. The gun he launched first, glowing yellow and orange its explosion took out the first three men, sending them crashing overboard as more appeared. Blaze ran to find more ammunition for her friend, pulling up chunks of Jacobi's precious boat and tossing them to her partner. Somehow they remained uninjured, somehow the rain of bullets missed and after a long while, no more men came.
Gambit slumped to the floor, exhausted, haggard by the hell Jacobi and Belladonna had put him through the last few hours before Blaze came... Blaze wrapped her arms around him tightly, pulling his body's warmth to her in dire need and anguish. She finally let a single tear fall as she crouched there with him, knowing it would be the last time she felt his strong arms around her, smelt his sweet masculine smell, heard his breath moving in and out of him...
"The Professor says the Blackbird is on its way to pick you up." He looked at her quickly as she spoke, knowing that there was some hidden meaning in those words but not quite able to place it. "I'm leaving Remy..."
"No, Chere, Laura..." He tried to hold onto her, but she placed her lips on his too briefly then pulled away.
"I can't do this anymore. I can't live this life. I need to find a quiet place, be myself, where nobody wants to kill me..." There were sobs in her voice, tears flowing freely over her cheeks.
"But Jacobi dead..." Remy pulled her to him again, burying his face in her soft red hair. "You don't need to be afraid anymore..."
Blaze choked up, should she tell him anymore? Had he perhaps already guessed? The day he'd come back from assignment, she'd fooled everybody else that she was in a bad mood because she had too cook for so many. But Gambit knew that she loved cooking, especially for large numbers, as much as she loved food itself... Could he have guessed what she had found out that day? But no, the look in his eye said he still had no clue. It was better this way, she was sure...
"I have to go. The darkest hearts bare their secrets alone." She stood, unravelling herself from his strong grip, not even daring to look back as she walked away, for if she did she would never have the strength to do this. A short while later a helicopter buzzed overhead, and Blaze was gone.