Chapter 5
Fear and Loathing at Xaviers
Xavier slept fitfully, he kept on seeing images. Always someone trying to take the Ring from him, Sometimes Frodo, other times Logan and others. He awoke in the darkness of his room. His hand automatically flew to his chest where the Ring hung by a chain. Xavier sighed in relief. He looked toward his door the knob slowly turned. "not again" he thought, he had was dreaming. He knew it because he had had this dream every night since he scanned Frodo's mind. Black-clad figures with hoods stalked into his room reaching toward the Ring "Not this time!" he thought, In the real world Charles Xavier was a cripple unable to walk. However in the realm of dreams and the mind, he could do anything he wanted. Xavier stood upon his bed and reached his hand out one of the swords flew out of the black figures hands. Xavier leapt upon the Black Figure closest to him and stabbed it in the chest. The other figures fled leaving him standing over the body of the one he had killed.
"Now," Xavier said pulling back the hood "To find out who you are."
"NO!" he recoiled. The face behind the hood was none other than "Jean what have I done!"
Xavier awoke in a cold sweat. The dream was over. Xavier clutched the Ring about his chest. It was warm to the touch.
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Jubilee woke up to the smell of bacon. She looked at the clock. It was 12:30. "Who in there right mind makes breakfast at 12:30" she said to herself as she got out of bed and went to the kitchen. Frodo was busily eating. Beast was at the stove with a chefs hat on and an apron on. He turned and saw the young mutant staring at scene.
"Greetings!" he beamed "We were beginning to think that you'd never wake up! Frodo is just finishing up his second breakfast."
"Second Breakfast?" Jubilee asked.
"Apparently where Frodo comes from they have six consecutive meals" Beast commented as Frodo finished up another side of bacon. Jubilee scanned the hobbit up and down.
"Where do you put it all?" She asked. Frodo patted his stomach in satisfaction.
"Thank you, Hank." Frodo said "I haven't had a breakfast like that since I left Rivendale."
"Yo! Beastie-boy" Jubilee said sitting down next to Frodo. "Dish me up some of them eggs!" Beast sighed as he scooped up some eggs from the pan. "You know sometimes I wonder if Logan is a good influence on you. Perhaps you could be Scott's protégé."
"Thanks but no thanks Beast" Jubilee replied "What would he teach me? How to have my panties in a wad? I don't think so!" Jubilee looked down at her eggs she had just eaten. "EWWW! GROSS! There's a long blue hair in my eggs!"
"Oh please child!" Storms voice came as she walked in "You act like it's the end of the world."
"How could you eat those!?" Jubilee continued looking at Frodo ignoring Storm.
Frodo just smiled "After what I've been eating for the past while. This cooking is fit for kings."
"I say fit for the garbage disposal! GROSS!" she said as she stood up and walked to throw the eggs away. Just then Psyloke and Angel passed through heading to the Danger room for a training session. Both were in uniform. Frodo was instantly mesmerized by them. Psyloke suddenly turned and looked at him.
"I don't think that thoughts like that are appropriate my petite friend." she said while leaving the room. Frodo sat a gasped .
"How did she..." he began.
"Aww!" Beast said "My young hobbit you have just learned a sad fact of being a resident at X-mansion. Quite often you'll find that the most attractive women who where the least amount of clothing. Are telepaths!"
"How are you Frodo?" Storm asked changing the subject. "Do you feel better than you did last night?"
"What do you mean?" Frodo asked
"I mean, your nightmares." Storm could see that Frodo had no memory of them. "You woke up screaming last night. You do not remember?"
"No," Frodo said soberly "All I remember of last night is going to sleep then I woke up early in the morning and Professor X asked to talk to me. Then I came down and had breakfast."
"I see." Storm said pondering what the hobbit had just said.
"What did you talk to the Professor about?" Beast asked.
Frodo strained "I can't recall." he tried harder to remember, but just then Rouge stormed into the kitchen followed by Gambit.
"Please Chere!" he said. "It was all a joke me and Frodo were just playing!"
"No Remy!" Rouge retorted facing him. "Aw already told you. You made that bet and Aw won' let you weasel out of it. I'm goen with Frodo tonight. It will serve you right"
"What!?" Frodo said alarmed "You mean that whole bet was real!?" he looked down at sting realizing that he had almost lost it. "Wait! Rouge!" He said hopping down from his stool and chasing after the couple "We're not even the same race!" he yelled, Jubilee followed
"I can't wait to see how this ends!" she said as she turned the corner.
Beast and Storm looked at each other. She had already told him of the night before.
"I will go and talk to Jean." Storm said "There is something dark at work here." Just then they heard a familiar "bamf" sound as Nightcrawler suddenly appeared.
"Have you seen the news!" He said as he ran over and turned on the T.V. There was a news reporter speaking while it showed footage of a young man looking at his car. There was an axe stuck in the trunk. "As we just stated" the reporter said "Officials believe that last night attack was linked to the attack in New York on a group of people with sword." the image changed to the young man whose car had been damaged.
"There were four of them." He said frantically "One of them stood in the road to get me to stop then the other three came out and attacked me. Then one attacked me from the woods throwing fire at me. I was barely able to escape!" The reporter continued.
"The Pentagon in response to these attacks have authorized the use of Sentinels to investigate and capture the mutants responsible for these attacks."
"I'll go get the Professor," Beast said.
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"You were right Gandalf," Aragorn said stooping on the ground looking at where Frodo had been. "He was definitely here." Aragorn surveyed the area calling upon his skills as a Ranger to figure out what happened. There were many strange tracks. The area stunk because of the dead orcs and cave troll that were there. "What is odd" he added "Is that Frodo did not walk away; there are no sign of hobbit tracks anywhere. It's as if he just flew away."
"Oh Mr. Frodo" Sam said "Where are you?" Sam looked at Gandalf "I'll have you know that I didn't lose sight of him!"
"Very good" Gandalf said "When we find him you just keep that up!"
Suddenly Legolas became agitated. He ran to Aragorn and Gandalf. "There's something here!" said "I can feel it."
Boromir suddenly drew his sword. "The elf is right" he said "There are orcs in the woods!" An arrow suddenly whizzed toward Aragorn, Boromir deflected it by jumping in the way with his shield up protecting both of them. Orcs suddenly stormed out of the woods. Though not many. The hobbits gathered around Gandalf who began swinging both his staff and sword around, to defend the halflings.
"I remember these!" Gimli said while swinging his axe "These are the orcs from Moria! So whoever attacked them didn't kill them all! Good! More for me!"
The battle did not last long. The Fellowship made short work of the orcs. In the end only one was left alive. Boromir had knocked its weapons out of it's hands and pinned it to the ground for questioning.
"The halfling!" He yelled "Where is he?"
"They took him." the orc said smiling "the demons, and the witch."
"The ones that did this?" Aragorn said pointing at the rotting cave-troll.
"Yes." the orc "They shot fire from their eyes and lightning from their hands! They killed our leader, but we escaped when the cave-troll came."
"Where did they take him?" Legolas demanded
"I don't know. They flew him away in a giant black bird that roared and stank." just then the orc pulled out a conceled blade and stabbed upward at Boromir, but the Gondorian warrior was prepared and stabbed the orc first with a conceled knife of his own.
"I thought that you were being to cooperative." he said. In that moment Gandalf spoke.
"Aragorn" he cried looking down at the earth "Come here and look at these tracks!"
The Ranger stepped forward and stooped to the ground "It cannot be!" he gasped.
"What?" Merry said looking down at the set of tracks that Gandalf and Aragorn were looking at . "What is it? What made those tracks "
"Not what" Aragorn said gloomily "but whom"
"Gollum," Gandalf said "Frodo's peril has just grown"
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"Does everyone have the plan clear?" Xavier said debriefing his X-men
"Yes sir," Storm said ", Gambit, Jean, Nightcrawler, and I will go and find these people before the Sentinels can."
"And Wolverine, Rouge, Beast, and I will stay here to defend the mansion" Cyclops finished.
"Very good," Xavier said. "Good luck my X-men" Everybody left except for Jean, Cyclops, and Beast. Xavier sighed guessing as to what it had to be about, he looked at Jean "I thought you promised not to tell." he said.
"That was before," Jean said with her arms folded.
"Sir," Cyclops began "We're just worried, Ever since Frodo came you've spent the majority of your time locked up in your study and with what has been happening, With You putting Frodo to sleep and then wiping his memory of it all..."
"So it has come to that." Xavier said coldly "I use my time to study something of great importance and you begin questioning my decisions about how to care for the psychological well-being of someone."
"Sir if I may be so bold" Beast interrupted "What our fearless leader was trying to say is that your not acting like yourself. What we all are wondering is: Why all the secrecy about this ring and How does it relate to Frodo?"
Xavier stared at the trio, his hands fingering the Ring in his pocket.
"You see Charles!" Jean said "even now you have that Ring in your hand. All we want is an explanation."
Just then and alarm sounded. Xavier looked at the three. "We have no time for this! Every minute we waste bickering puts those people in jeopardy! We'll talk later and I'll explain everything you want to know about the Ring"
The trio reluctantly left, As if he could not wait any longer Xavier pulled the Ring out of his pocket and began to caress it ."That was too close," his own voice in his head began "They musn't meddle! The Ring is ours!"
"I can't blame them." Xavier replied to himself "They know that this is important. They just want answers."
"Then why not give them answers!" The voice continued "Like the answers you gave Frodo this morning."
"That was an extreme case!" he countered. "Frodo is suffering from severe trauma! It's to dangerous for him to remember the Ring...just yet."
"You can't wipe his memory forever. As long as Frodo is around he is a danger to us!"
"What are you proposing?"
"The hobbit has already lost his chance to have the Ring! We need to be rid of him permanently!"
"No."
"Do you want them to take the Ring from us! We could make it look like someone else did it."
"Actually," Xavier said "We could make someone else do it!"
"Yes! Yes!" the voice cheered "Then the Ring will be ours! We will make all your dreams come true!"
Xavier looked fondly at the Ring "My Precious!" he said
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"Gollum!" Sam gasped " How'd he get here!?"
"Don't you see he must have been near the battle at Balin's Tomb!" Aragorn concluded.
Suddenly Legolas began to get nervous. "Something's not right," he said. "Did you feel that?"
The others stopped talking and began to listen. The both heard and felt loud crashing sounds. The earth beneath their feet quivered.
"What is going on?" Boromir said looking to Gandalf, The old wizard just stood with his staff in hand.
"Something is coming" he said
"Is it the Balrog?" Sam asked "Is it here too!
"No, I don't know what..." He was interuppted as some trees came crashing down near them. The company beheld and armored giant, At least as tall as the balrog.
"Two human life-forms detected" it said "Four non-human life-forms execute!" With that light erupted from its hand nearly hitting Gimli who was saved at the last moment by Boromir. Legolas shot an arrow which bounced of uselessly.
"Surrender or be terminated." the creature said Gimli attacked throwing an axe which smashed into the leg causing miniscule damage.
"What is this thing!" Merry screamed as he dogded another blast from it's hand. Suddenly Gandalf pulled out Glamdring.
"We have to strike higher!" Aragorn said as he attacked the creatures leg.
"So be it," Gandalf said he threw his sword the blade erupeted into flame and cut directly into its head. The sword returned to Gandalf's hand.
"Yes!" Gimli cried as he threw his axe at the head of the armored creature. The axe flew straight to the middle of the face. The monster toppled backwards knocking down trees as it fell. Aragorn and Boromir were on top of it in an instant and began to stab the head with their swords. A light faded in the creatures eyes. The company gathered around it.
"What manner of creature is this?" Gimli asked looking into the parts that were cut and stabbed. "The whole thing appears to be made of metal."
"I have never seen anything like it." Gandalf said, he looked up the shadows of the trees had grown large and night would soon come. In the distance there was the crashing of trees, more were coming. "We must hurry and find cover. We were lucky this time but we had better not press it." The Fellowship ran into the woods.
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"Do you have them?" Storm asked as looking to the other woman as she piloted an X-jet.
Jean concentrated "Yes," She finally said "I can feel their minds! They're in danger! Nightcrawler came running from his seat.
"Bring the ship down!" He said urgently "I've found something! I was looking out the window when I spotted it!"
Storm brought the jet down to a hover. Below them was the wreckage of a Sentinel. The X-men exited the craft. There were signs of the fight all over and tracks.
"It be times like dis dat we need Wolverine." Gambit muttered.
"But he is not here and so we will have to make do without him." Storm said let us continue the search from above. They started to enter the jet, all but Beast who stood silently in heavy thought.
"Hank?" Storm asked
"Just having a moment of quiet contemplation" Beast said "I was pondering on what Gambit had said, he's right this is just the type of caper that Wolverine would be needed for. Curious that the Professor had kept him behind." suddenly there was an exploding sound not far from them.
"Come we are needed!" Storm said as they entered the jet.
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Darkness had fallen over x-mansion. Frodo had gone to bed early all the thrill of trying modern video games with Jubilee had been quite a lot for him. He fell into his bed exhausted not even bothering to take his clothes of, He fell quickly into dream, He was back in the Shire, with Bilbo. They laughed and spoke of their adventures. Merry and Pippin came with Sam and they had wine from the wineyard everything was perfect. Suddenly the fire went out and darkness filled the room. Before Frodo's eyes his friends transformed into black hooded wraiths and Bilbo had become a small thinly creature.
"Give it to us!" It screamed "My precious gollum, gollum," he pounced and Frodo woke up screaming. His room was dark he could not see very much save for the moonlight that came in from a window. He suddenly became aware that he was not the only one in the room.
"Who's there!?" he called into the darkness he grabbed Sting, no light issued from it. He suddenly remembered his dream. "Gollum!" he heard heavy breathing, Something moved in the dark. Then entered the pale moonlight.
"Wolverine!" Frodo sighed "It's you... I thought that it was..." Frodo looked into the mutants face. There was only anger and rage in his eyes, a growl escaped his lips. Just then there was a 'snikt' sound.
"Your claws?" Frodo swollowed "What are you going to do with..."
Wolverine growled and lunged Frodo screamed and fell back. Everything went black and the last thing he felt was a Wolverine's claws thrusting at him.