She coughed, the damp stale air filling her lungs, which intern only made her cough harder. She tried to clutch her chest, or even cover her mouth but found both her hands and feet bound, holding her down against a cold slab of stone. A strange light hung overhead, the glowing green symbol filling her eyes.
"Awake child."
The voice filled the chamber just at the light flooded in.
"What?" She coughed out. More out of habit than conscious thought. Rogue instantly chided herself for sounding weak, typical damsel in distress. "Where am I and who the hell are you?" She barked out, feeling slightly better with herself.
"You may call me Sinister." The man stepped from the shadows, red eyes boring out of an ashen face. "And we are in Tibet my dear."
Rogue continued to look at him. Defiantly a mutant, no human she knew would look like that. "Tibet? How in the hell."
The man, Sinister, chuckled. A dry deep chuckle that reverberated off the stone walls of the chamber. A chuckle that harbored nothing but cruel amusement. "I believe you already know one of my servants."
A young man followed him out of the entranceway, the light now showing off silver hair with brown bangs.
Rogue's eyes widened. "Gabe?"
"He was under my instructions to look after you until Mesmero could fully control your mind." Essex casually gated across the room, casting a glance at a far corner where Rogue's improving eyesight caught the shape of a cloaked individual. "It was quite difficult. It took him longer than expected to sort through all the different personalities in your head. But after he turned them against you, they took care of destroying most of your shields themselves."
"You!" She yelled once again, recognizing the tattooed pattern on the man's face. "You are the reason I lost control!"
Mesmero didn't move, just kept his eyes trained on her. "Yes child."
"I ain't no child!" Rogue hissed, once again fighting her bonds. Her seething gaze returned to Gabe, who remained obediently by the entrance. "And what the hell are you so quiet for!"
"Omen really doesn't say much beyond what is required for him to accomplish his duties." Sinister picked up the spear, admiring the intricate carvings that no mortal eyes could see. "And as long as he does that, what reason does he have to speak?"
"Hey! That's the Professors!"
"You are mistaken. It was stolen from me, and Omen simply returned it to its rightful owner." He carefully replaced the spear on the stone slab at Rogue's feet, letting his pale fingers caress it. "You have grown up so much my little Rogue." He walked around her like a vulture circling its next meal. "The last time I saw you you were merely an infant in my arms."
Rogue attacked the only way she could, spitting in Sinister's face.
Essex cut a gaze at her. "You do well to attempt to hide your fear with that mask of confidence and anger." His voice was colder now, ringing with an unnatural reverberation.
Rogue suddenly found it hard to breathe.
"Do not worry, you have the easy job." He said, almost lightheartedly compared to his last statement. "All you have to do is absorb one last being, and you may go free." Sinister chuckled in a metallic tone.
~~~:*:~~~
Despite walking through the underground complex of a mutant superhero team which was cleverly disguised as a private boarding school, the woman walking next to Eric Lenshire remained quite reserved and unimpressed.
"I don't like this." She said to the white-haired man walking next to her.
Eric looked at the woman traveling the corridor alongside him. "You had rather not use my alliance with Xavier to get her back?"
The blond narrowed her eyes. "I was referring to you."
Magnus took it all in stride. Her not liking him was nothing he cared about. "You wish to save your daughter; I wish to save the world." He spoke as he opened the door into the hangar.
Logan sniffed the air as the door at the far end opened. Jet fuel, Magneto, and something he couldn't quite put a finger on.
"Bout time you showed up, never figured you'd be one for being late." Logan's eyebrow arched up, a subconscious reaction he had when truly puzzled. Of course the hectic situation did nothing to help it. "Who's she?" Logan asked gruffly.
The woman's blond hair shifted, her light wheat-colored locks turning a brilliant red. Her creamy skin replaced with dark blue. "I only wish to help my daughter."
Logan eyed Mystique, and then cast a glance at Magneto. "Keep her on a leash."
"Are we ready to depart?" Magneto asked.
With an echoing BAMF three figures appeared in the hanger. Kurt returning with what Kitty dubbed as: The Elf Squad.
Logan shut the small panel on the Blackbird's underbelly and wiped his hands with a rag. "Are now." He looked over at the three telaporters.
Both Cyrus and Sage removed the cowls from their cloaks, looking at the large aircraft.
Logan, and Magneto who was standing directly next to her, were the only ones to hear Mystique's gasp as she looked at the two figures with her son.
"You!" Cyrus hissed and in one leap crossed the distance and grabbed Mystique. His powerful three-fingered hand clamped tightly around her throat as she was throttled against the side of the Blackbird's landing gear, feet helplessly dangling nearly a foot above the floor. "I don't know who has brought you here but remind me to thank them!"
Mystique, although an accomplished fighter, could do nothing more than grab onto Cyrus' forearms and struggle to hold on.
No one, not even Logan, said anything after Cyrus' venomous words.
"Let her go!" Magneto's voice pulsated in the metal walls of the hanger.
Cyrus's yellow eyes cut over and bored into Erik's cold green ones. "Do you know who she is?"
"Yes."
"I doubt you truly do."
Erik's stare never faulted. "I know more than you think."
Cyrus narrowed his eyes and cast them back at the woman he had pinned. "If you truly know who she is, why are you aiding her?"
"Because things change." Mystique choked.
Cyrus snarled, and reluctantly dropped the gasping woman to the ground.
Scott, who had ran to the Blackbird's hatch at the start of the commotion, finally found the strength to break the silence. "Will somebody please explain what is going on here?"
Magneto sighed. "Mystique is from the same dimension as Cyrus and Sage."
"And she is Apocalypse's first in command." Cyrus quickly added.
Skint
"Can it Wolverine." Mystique snapped, still on her hand and knees and gasping for air.
Wolverine slid his claws back in. "Mind explanin this before I help the blue guy here rip your head off?"
Eric stepped between Mystique and Logan. "She was sent here by Apocalypse 20 years ago to help prepare for his arrival."
"Okay." Skint. "That's all I need to know."
"But." Eric continued. "She has used that time to try and stop him."
Cyrus scoffed. "Why should we believe that?"
"Because I hate what he did to our home as much as you do." She glared back at him. "Once I got here I betrayed him and took Rogue."
"Took Rogue?"
"Apocalypse has had agents here for centuries." Magneto lowered a hand down to Mystique. "The man that has Rogue is one of those agents, a man named Nathaniel Essex.
"You knew all this and didn't tell us?"
"I went to great pains to make sure Rogue was just that, a Rogue, someone with no past to track." Mystique slapped away Eric's hand. "Apocalypse gave Essex immortality and endowed him with powers in the late 1800's. Since then he has become quite wealthy and powerful all across the globe. I had to hide her from him." She put a hand on the landing gear and pulled herself up. "Without her, Apocalypse cannot be physically transported into this world."
"Vhat?" Kurt asked, stepping forward from where the three had teleported in. "So you are saying I'm from Apocalypse's world?"
Mystique stood up, standing proudly and glaring at Cyrus. "No, you were bourn here on earth." She looked at Kurt, her son, who was still hiding behind the human mask of his image inducer.
"So I'm just a normal mutant?" He asked, scratching the back of his head.
"When did you get your mutation Kurt?" Sage asked, moving to stand before Kurt.
"Vell I."
"You are not a mutant Kurt. You were bourn the way you look; you are one of us because Mystique is your mother. That is why we didn't recognize you, that's why you don't have the mark of a clan, you were born here." She put her three-fingered hand on his shoulder.
"So, you are telling me that I am an Alien?" Kurt asked, his eyes wide.
"Half alien, half mutant." Magneto corrected.
"Magnito?"
Mystique sighed, switching her gaze from Eric to Kurt. "Your father and I met in Germany, both of us trying to further our advancement and locate other mutants." Mystique looked over at Eric. "We were both going through hard times, he having just left Wanda and Pietro, and myself leaving Rouge in Destiny's care."
"But two mutant terrorist were not the best parents." Magneto filled in. "Mystique confided in me one night, told me everything about her past." He glared at Mystique. "Then through an unfortunate series of events you were found by your adoptive parents."
"Ease up Eric. I think Squirrel has had enough news for one day." Logan ascended the ramp, trying to push the small audience back into the plane. "Let's get on the jet before we have anymore frigging surprises." He grumbled. "Where's Gumbo?"
"He's been on the Jet since you said we were leaving." Scott said as he walked to the front of the plane. "Hasn't said a word."
Mystique looked at her son. "Kurt."
Kurt teleported away.
Mystique sighed as his image faded.
~~~
Kurt reappeared in the gazebo. He faced the bay, watching as the small waves rolled against the rocks below. Amanda was startled when he appeared, Kurt just smiled an apology. He hadn't even though about where he was teleporting, he just wanted to get out of the hanger. Away from the others, his mother, his father.
He looked over his shoulder as she got up and walked over to him. Apparently he had instinctively teleported somewhere he felt was safe. So he had appeared next to Amanda.
"You okay?" She asked coming up next to him, looking out over the bay which was being filled from the rising sun.
"Not really." Kurt said truthfully. "Your parents will not like you showing up at 8am in a taxi."
She smiled, knowing it would probably be a good month or two before her father allowed her out of the house again. "I could just stay here?"
"I don't know when we'll get back."
She put an arm around him and laid her head against his shoulder. "Don't worry about your sister. I don't know her that well, but I wouldn't be surprised if she has already escaped and killed the people that took her."
Kurt couldn't help but smile.
"Be careful okay."
"I vill."
"Goodbye Kurt." Amanda wrapped her arms around him in a full hug.
"Vhat?" Kurt asked, returning the firm hug. "No 'This may be the last time I see you because you are going off to save the world' kiss?" He joked, hoping to lighten up the serious moment.
"No." She pulled out of the embrace and rubbed his cheek. "Not like this." She said looking at his human form. "But I will give the real you one."
Kurt removed the inducer from his wrist, his human image fading. He looked at it a moment as it rested in his three-fingered hand, before rearing back and throwing it off the cliff.
"Much better." Amanda smiled, stepping back into his arms and leaning up.
And, unbeknownst to the young couple, another one of life's mysteries was answered. Kurt's tail did wag when he was happy.
The communicator in his ear clicked on. "Elf!" Logan yelled over the Blackbird's engines. "Move your butt!"
Kurt gave Amanda one last peck before bamfing from her hug.
She sighed as the smoke was carried off by the salty breeze off the cliffs. Amanda sat back down and waited for her taxi.
~~~
Kurt reappeared in his seat and looked at Logan in the doorway. "Damn kids." Logan muttered to himself as he stepped inside and shut the Blackbird's hatch.
Under Ororo's control the blackbird exited the underground hangar and sped into the sky. Mystique cut her wyes over at the weather witch as took the co-pilot's seat. "Do not look at me like that."
Ororo absently busied herself with the various switches and duties as she sat the plane to autopilot. "How, exactly, am I supposed to look at you. Our past meetings have never been joined by a common cause."
"She is my daughter." Mystique said as she strapped herself into the co-pilot's seat.
Ororo resisted the urge to slap the woman beside her. "Some mother you have been."
"Why do you think I was Risty?"
Storm didn't hesitate. "To get in Rogue's good graces so you could gain access to Cerebro." Ororo looked over at the blue woman. "You are honestly going to tell me that had nothing to do with it?"
"No I'm not. Cerebro was an opportunity I could not ignore." Mystique sighed, looking almost, remorseful? "I became Risty because she is the one thing I wanted to be. Rogue's friend." She looked back at the Windrider. "You look surprised."
"I am, at the lengths you are willing to go to ignore the outcome of your actions."
"Try being something that you could tell no one about. Try knowing about the fate of the world. Try being something your children hate!" She glared at Ororo. "Rogue is like a daughter to me. I took her when she was still an infant and raised her. I had to give her up; there was no way I could hide from Apocalypse's people." She looked back at the controls. "But I knew she would be happy. I knew Irene would give her as normal a childhood that she could."
"And what about Kurt?" Ororo asked.
"I knew what would happen. I knew how he would look before I ever became pregnant, but I didn't care." She turned her head back to the pilot. "What would you do?"
"What?"
"If you knew your child would be a mutant. Not only a mutant, but one that looked like he did. Would you do it?"
Ororo looked at the controls. "Yes."
"You and I are not so different then."
Scott got up from his seat and paced the aisle. He needed to calm everyone down, get everyone prepared for what they needed to do like a good leader should.
"You okay Tabitha?" Scott asked as he noticed the blond intently staring out the window.
She didn't look up. "Do they know for sure?"
Scott leaned down. "Know what?"
"That Gabe took Rogue." Tabitha nervously wrung her hands together and looked away from the window. "I mean what if he was kidnapped too?"
"We haven't ruled that out." Scott stood back up, crossing his arms over his chest. "But with him showing up just last week, and the way he always kept to himself."
"Maybe if your hand wasn't glued to Jean's ass all week you might have gotten to know him!" Tabitha barked, causing several of the people around her to jump in their seats.
"Listen Sheila." John rose up and leaned over the seat in front of her. "All I know is he whacked big blue over there, and he was the last thing I saw before I passed out."
Tabitha remained quite, and just stared intently at the seatback in front of her.
"Don't worry Tabitha." Amara tried to comfort her friend. "When we find him John and I will help you beat some answers out of him."
"So." Scott turned away from Tabitha, not really feeling much like a leader anymore. "Where are we going?"
"On our world Apocalypse's temple is in the highest mountains." Cyrus crossed his arms and stared at the back of Mystique's head. "I would believe he has a safe haven here somewhere in the mountains."
"That's it?" Scott asked. "That's our only clue?"
"Wait a minute." Kitty squeezed through the crowded cabin and maneuvered in front of Piotr. She typed furiously into the navigation computer bringing up a 3D model of the globe. "Can you show me where you two were able to cross over into our world?"
Sage moved forward and peered over Kitty's shoulder, waiting patiently as the globe rotated on its axis. "This mountain range here." She replied, pressing a blue finger to the screen.
"Okay, that's in South America." Kitty highlighted the area and rotated the globe to a view of the east coast of North America. "Now, we experimented with Kurt's teleporting once. When we slowed it down long enough we found out that he was teleporting around a lot of lava, and some weird looking dinosaur creatures."
"The Dead Lands." Sage answered. "It is an expanse to the north east of where we teleported in."
"Okay." Kitty highlighted the Bayville area on the screen. "If you teleported in here, and the Dead Lands are around Bayville, where in your world would Apocalypse's temple be."
Sage scrolled the electronic globe around. "In this region."
"Tibet?" McCoy, whose head was wrapped in a band of white gauze, rubbed his chin. "Makes sense, the highest mountains in the world."
Piotr looked over Kitty's shoulder. "How did you know all this?"
"Alternate dimensions right?" She shrugged. "Figured the two worlds couldn't be that physically different."
Piotr mouthed an: 'ooo'.
"So, if we overlay the two maps we can see where Apocalypse's temple would be on Earth."
Piotr mouthed another 'ooo'.
"Try and keep up Pete." Kitty smiled and elbowed him in the side for good measure.
Meanwhile, Eric sat at the back of the plane, pinching the bridge of his nose trying to ward off the nagging headache of recent events.
Xavier wheeled down the aisle, looking at X-man, Brotherhood, and Acolyte alike.
"I am sorry Charles." Eric said without looking up and Xavier came up beside him. "This is my fault. Had I only listened to you and not destroyed the Guardian none of this would be taking place."
"Had I know then what I know now I would have helped you destroy it." Charles told his old friend. "The Guardian was made to stop Apocalypse from being resurrected, by destroying the final key."
"Rogue..." Eric finished.
Kurt just stared at him, the back of his white hair just visible over the seatback.
"He wants to talk to you." Xavier quietly said so the other occupants of the Blackbird couldn't hear.
Eric looked over at him. "I thought you forbid delving into people's minds?"
"I need no powers to see it."
Magneto sighed, leaning over in his chair and looking past Xavier. "Yes?" He asked in Kurt's direction.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Kurt asked as he approached, face devoid of emotion. "Before now?"
Xavier discreetly coughed. "I should help Ororo at the controls." Charles excused himself, wheeling past where Kurt stood in the aisle.
Eric couldn't help but see his resemblance in the young man when he attempted to act serious. "I don't recall you ever asking me."
"I could have killed you." Kurt continued, still standing in the aisle. "While you were in the Rebirth chamber."
"I recall asking you that day if you were that much like your mother. I needed to know just that, and if my life was the price I paid for the answer, I was more than willing to accept it. But you didn't." Magneto looked back at his son. "I wished to see what type of person you had grown into, and you couldn't have made ma happier that day."
Kurt scowled. "Do not talk like you are my father." He said, the words seething with anger. "I may have yours and Mystique's jeans, but my Father and Mother still live in Germany."
"I am glad you see that." Eric was unaffected by the anger in Kurt's voice. "And you proved that to me when you showed me mercy."
The master of magnetism absently elevated the metal clasp of his un-buckled seatbelt, almost like he was unsure of what to say next.
"I have not been a father to any of my children." He said after what felt like an eternity to Kurt. "To Pietro and Wanda I was worse than a father; I was a father who abandoned them. I have let my work ruin the lives of those who are the most important to me, but if I end up with a world where Mutants rule the humans it will have been worth it."
"Vhy do you not think humans and mutants can live together?"
Eric let the seatbelt fall back. He reached up and rolled the black sleeve of his uniform up, exposing the flesh of his forearm. "Do you know what these are?"
Kurt looked at the faded blue tattoo on Magneto's forearm. "Numbers?"
"A tattoo I received when I was 10, upon my arrival at Auschwitz in Poland."
"De concentration camp."
"Yes." Eric rolled his sleeve back down, covering the tattoo back up. "There I saw the dark side of humanity. People, children even younger than I, worked until death. I saw things there that not even you can comprehend." He laced his fingers together and tightly shut his eyes as it to forget. "If humans can hate one another so badly just because they have a different religion, how do you expect them to act in regards to someone who is there superior?"
Kurt spoke before thinking. "Ze Nazi's were different."
"The Nazi party was freely elected to power by the German people!" Eric barked, obviously emotionally tried upon recalling his childhood. "They wanted them; they wanted Hitler to lead them out of a downtrodden time following World War One."
"But look at Germany now. Ze Nazi's are no more, and ze Jews live in peace with the rest of Germany."
"The world is not at peace Kurt." Eric calmed down. "The conflict between Israel and Palestine, Arab nations and Christian ones is a direct result of the Jewish persecution of the war." Eric exhaled. "I would love nothing more that to see Charles' dream of Mutants and Humans living together in peace. And I agree with him that someday it will happen."
"Zen why are you opposing it?"
"This will go on for longer than anyone expects. The Nazi's were all but obliterated just 12 years after their rise to power. The Mutant 'problem' will go on for lifetimes. We mutants have no allies, no nations that will band together to come to our aid. Because we fight for ourselves, we are seen as terrorist fighting the status quo." Eric looked down at his callused hands. "I will gladly fight for the rest of my life just to save one child from being persecuted just because he is different." He closed his eyes. "To save one Jewish family from being gassed. To save another Emmett Till from being tied to a cotton gin fan and thrown into a river." He looked up at Kurt once again. "To save just one mutant child from being ostracized just because they were born different."
Kurt was moved, truly moved. This man was not the bloodthirsty monster, the red-helmeted boogieman who was out to destroy all humans because they were inferior. He was a tortured man. A man who had been created by and raised in a world of hate.
Kurt felt uncomfortable, he wanted to leave, but he had one last question for his father. "I had a dream." Kurt nervously laughed. "Actually Rogue had it. long story." Eric's expression remained cast in stone. "I vas a baby, Mystique was running with me, then I vas dropped into a river."
Eric remembered that night. "After Mystique told me who she was and what she knew, I realized that you may hold the key to stopping Apocalypse."
"Me?" Kurt asked.
"I will not get into the details of the people and genetics of Mystique's world. But by your physical appearance I knew you would be a telaporter from birth." He watched Kurt's expression. "Her world is in an alternate dimension, telaporters bend space itself to travel through our world instantly."
"I travel through worlds." He recalled the experiments with Forge. "Not a very pleasant one at zat."
Eric nodded. When you teleport you travel through Apocalypse's world and then back into ours. I wanted to learn more so I ran some tests on you." Kurt's expression grew offended. "Harmless." Eric quickly added. "But your mother saw it the same way you did."
"She ran, I pursued, you fell." Eric summed it up. "I believed you were dead until just last year when our paths converged in Bayville.
Kurt nodded. His question answered.
"Kurt." Eric spoke, stopping his son from leaving. "You love that Amanda girl do you not?"
"Vith all mien heart."
"Remember that."
~~~
Leaning back he kicked a foot out, propping it on one of the tied-down crates in the back of the Blackbird. The yellow flame of a lighter filled the dark cargo hold with light, before it was snuffed out. Remy inhaled the smoke through his Lucky Strike and fought back a cough. Amazing how a few months not inhaling the poisonous fumes made them burn like a newbie.
"I thought you promised her you would quit?"
Remy looked in the direction of the voice as a heavy footfalls echoed off the metal floor. He looked up at Piotr as the giant young man came into his limited view.
"Do not worry, I will not tell." Piotr smiled, taking a seat on the crate across from Remy.
Pausing to watch the glowing red embers swirl around the tip of his cigarette Gambit fished in the pockets of his trench coat, producing a warn flask and tossing it to his friend.
"Drinking too?" Piotr asked. "You really do need her back."
"What can I say?" Remy shrugged nonchalantly. "Chere made me want to be a better person."
Piotr removed the cap, and tilted the flask to his lips. "Careful." He said, wiping his mouth and handing the flask back to the Cajun. "If you drink too much of that I fear you will be of little assistance in her rescue."
"Just one for me." Remy exhaled, smoke escaping his open mouth before he gulped from the flask.
Piotr rose, feeling that his comrade needed the time alone. As he walked past Remy, who was replacing the flack in his pocket, Piotr placed a hand on his shoulder. "We will get her back, unharmed."
"Tanks Pete..."
~~~:*:~~~
"What's really going to happen to me?"
"You will die." Essex offered carelessly. "When Mars, Earth, and Venus align in the pattern of the three rings, the dimension we are in now and the dimension our Lord Apocalypse is trapped in will be so close that a gateway may be opened." He offered a pale hand up to the glowing markings on the ceiling. "The rune on the ceiling above you is that gateway."
"The spear was forged in Apocalypse's dimension, and will act as a beacon to guide him into this world." Sinister continued. "Just before the planets align, the spear will be imbedded in your flesh, Apocalypse will use the spear to touch your skin."
"I'll absorb him." Rogue thought aloud. "Hate to tell you, but if I die when I absorb Apocalypse then he dies too."
"Apocalypse is much too strong to be imprisoned in the body and mind of a mortal." Essex leaned in closer to the girl, his mouth inches from her ear. "The only question is, will you die before he destroys what little is left of you mind, or will you just wind us as a body without a soul?"
Star-of-Chaos: What kind of cookies?
Isahandahalf: Aww, come on, you know the tighter you squeeze him the more focused Remy gets.
Rurouni Tyriel: Sorry, no X23. Frankly I'd love to bring her in, but she deserves more than to just be included for inclusions sake. Still setting up the big finish, and I hope you are pleased when it comes around.
Sorry for the lack of responses, but I'm in a rush this morning.
Later,
eixid
