Fear: Chapter 4-For The Dead
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"Take it easy, it's just us!" Cannonball exclaimed quickly, holding up his hands in surrender.
"Goddess." Storm sighed, motioning for both Sam and Ray to come along with them. "Are you two alright?" she asked with concern.
Kurt stared at the pair, realizing they were all by themselves. "Where's Scott and Jean?"
"We don't know." Ray answered slowly, his head bowed. He rubbed one hand against his shoulder, knowing there would probably be a bruise there from a chunk of the wall hitting him back when it exploded. "We got seperated after being attacked."
"Are you guys okay?" Kitty asked anxiously, looking both Ray and Sam over to notice their pajamas were a little sooty and torn.
"Yeh." they both nodded, then looked to Storm for guidance. "We came down here to find the Professor or somethin'..." Ray said.
Nodding, Ororo motioned for all four of the teens to follow her. "Come now, we'll check the danger room."
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Ducking just as a knife went flying overhead, Logan went down quickly, pushing both Rogue and Bobby along through the dark as they were being attacked from behind. "Get movin'! Go! Go!" he hollered.
Rogue dove to the side in the narrow hallway, the blade on a flying by ninja-star slicing the side of her arm. "Aah!" she cried in pain, one hand gripped over the slightly bleeding wound.
"Hey, are you hit?!" Bobby asked with fearful concern, pulling Rogue aside.
"It only nicked me." she assured him, planting the broomstick she held to the floor and climbing to her feet, butcher knife clutched in her other hand.
Logan growled angrily, lunging at the attacker, again the one with the blue arm-band. He must have a penchant for using blades. 'Let's see if he likes mine.' Logan throught, unsheathing his claws and diving toward the man.
"Shit! Trigger, Stick, where the hell are you?!!" he yelled angrily when he was knocked down. Craven obviously hadn't been privy to the mutant's claws yet.
Rolling to the side with Logan, he managed to grab at a small dagger on the back of his belt and jam it into the mutant's shoulder.
Rogue heard Logan's painful roar and rushed back down that side of the hallway with Iceman. "C'mon Bobby!!"
Kicking the knife-wielder off himself, and scrambling to pull the wide bladed dagger from his left shoulder, Logan watched with pride as Rogue and Bobby went after their attacker while the man was off his guard for the moment.
Clenching his eyes shut as he swung down the knife, Bobby slashed the meat cleaver down towards the downed man's arm, nearly missing him completely in his haste. He had to let out a somewhat relieved sigh when he heard the man scream, then pulled back the knife to see blood stained on part of the blade.
Craven snarled when the knife made contact with the skin of his forearm, slicing a good bit of his flesh, atleast one third the width of his arm. It had hurt like hell.
Logan dropped the knife that had been in his shoulder. Despite being used to having a healing factor, he was no stranger to pain, in fact...he was used to it. This pain, though it wouldn't leave him right away, wasn't going to kill him, so Logan would deal with it. He saw Rogue and Bobby full-out attacking the knife-wielder, and was about to give them a hand when a weapon firing caught him off guard and made him turn toward the other end of the hall.
"Craven, stay down!!" the other black-clad man called, raising his flat-barreled gun and firing it without a second thought.
Iceman froze in his attack as a piercing feeling struck deep into his back, then again his neck. "Gaak.." he choked, dropping to his knees as blood gurgled and rose up in his throat.
"Bobby!!" Rogue screamed. 'Not again...not another death..not now, not Bobby...' she thought with tears raising in her eyes again.
Grinning sadistically and taking this as an opening, Craven swept his legs around, knocking Rogue off her feet.
"No!" Logan hollered as he helplessly watched Iceman fall.
"Don't move." the man with the gun ordered, his voice slightly accented as he began approaching them.
Craven got to his feet, one hand testily fingering the torn fabric where his arm had been cut open.
Rogue remained unmoving on the floor, just staring at Bobby's fallen body. She positioned herself slowly to move beside him and forced herself to check for a pulse. Swallowing back the lump in her throat and fighting tears, she shakily mumbled, "They killed 'im Logan...They killed Bobby.."
Yelling out in a blinding rage, Logan unsheated his claws, swinging back his arm to knock the weapon out of the attacker's hand.
Rogue stared silently when she heard a shrieking yelp and then a sickening thud as an amputated hand hit the floor, sliced cleanly with blood already pooling around it.
"Trigger!" Craven yelled, not out of concern, but anger. "You idiot!"
Staring with silent horror at the bloody stump where his hand should have been, Trigger slumped to the floor in shock. "M-m-muh..." he stuttered incoherently, face growing pale beneath his mask.
Shaking his head in disgust, Craven found himself facing the clawed mutant on his own. The girl was still alive, but she would be too easy, just sitting on the floor and staring at her dead friend. He wanted a challenge. Grinning sadistically and ignoring his own wound, he eyed the mutant's clawed hands, happily watching as blood dripped from them. Raising his gaze to Logan's shoulder, Craven found a weak spot, the wound he'd given him before. "I'm going to kill you. And enjoy it."
Logan breathed heavily through clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring in anger as he stared at this masked man. "Why don'tcha unmask yerself so I can see who my undertaker is then." he seethed.
"Fair enough." smirking, Craven peeled back his black mask and tossed it to the ground. He had a pale complexion, light green eyes and slicked back brown hair. Thin, pale lips set into a grim line, a slightly cleffed chin set in his square jaw.
Seeing Logan's somewhat disconcerning look, Craven raised a dark eyebrow. "What did you expect, a monster?"
"You are a monster." Logan growled, his nose wrinkling as pure anger marred his features.
Shrugging without care, Craven produced another wide, six inch blade in one hand, and a crooked dagger in the other. Logan leapt at him and sliced open his shoulder a little as Craven dodged to the side, jamming the crooked dagger into the mutant's wound and twisting it.
"Aaargh!!" Logan roared in agony, clenching his eyes shut as he went to ram his claws into Craven's gut, though finding his movements slow and sluggish. He'd lost enough blood already to make him a little dizzy, and without his healing factor to keep him going, Logan wouldn't be able to keep this up as long as he normally would.
Easily dodging the mutant's claws, Craven crouched low and swept his feet around, knocking Logan back into the wall.
Rogue shook her head and tried to compose herself as she looked away from Iceman's body and realized what was going on. The killer was attacking Logan, and at the moment, he definetly had the upper hand. She had to do something.
Shakily gripping the broomstick and getting to her feet, Rogue screamed with tear-filled eyes, swinging the stick upside the killer's head. "Leave..us...ALONE!!"
Craven staggered from the surprising blow, and Logan took the chance and tackled him to the floor, glancing up at Rogue sharply as he pinned the man down. "Get outta here Rogue, run! Find Storm an' the others!!"
Wide-eyed and confused, Rogue didn't know what to do. "I can't! What about you?!" she asked nervously.
"I'll be fine!" he told her urgently, through clenched teeth. "Just go!"
Rogue nodded, wiping away tears with her blood-stained pajama sleave. She began running down the dim halls, forcing her legs to move as she shoved open the door and ran down the stairs to the lower levels.
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