Title: Maybe
Author: Viral
Chapter Genre: Religion/Semi-Action
Author's notes: In the last chapter Ororo noted that the jet had taken off, however in this chapter Kurt will give us an interlude and overview of the events that happened right before it took off.
-=-=-=-Kurt narrates-=-=-=-
I boarded the jet two minutes after Ororo –- Storm had ordered us to be on it. By the time I arrived she was already present and sitting in the co-pilot seat. Cyclops, who entered the jet after me, took the pilot's seat as Storm made mental notes of the details the Professor had given us and more notes of how this mission was going to play out.
As I studied her soft face I wish I could just walk over and caress her cheek, but she was so serious and composed. Every time I looked at her I saw a cold-hearted lawyer... as much as I don't want to admit it, I do. All the X-Men say Ororo is the heart and soul of our team. She is the most compassionate – and we all agree. But her heart is cold. Maybe not cold by her own choosing, but it's cold and lonely. I wanted to be the one who could bring warmth to her heart, which would eventually take her face from its ever-serious discontent back to the youthfulness of the Ororo I met when we first joined the team.
"Three minutes have ended and it is time to go," Ororo said, not even turning around to see who all had boarded the jet. She pushed a button and the door to the jet closed, retracting the staircase in the process. I turned around from my seat behind Cyclops and looked at all who were present: Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Colossus, Jean, Shadowcat, Jubilee, Beast, Bishop, White Queen, and our two fearless leaders. The jet was completely packed.
The jet began to move and I lowered my head in prayer as I did every time before I traveled, asking for God's mercy as we traveled and safety from any dangers. It was at this moment I felt Ororo's cold eyes staring at me and when I lifted my head from prayer I saw her turn back towards the front of the jet. I felt, at that moment, I should have said something to encourage her, to take away her loneliness but I knew she wouldn't respond as Ororo Munroe, the lonely woman, she would reply as Storm, the vigilant and no-nonsense leader. That's not who I wanted or needed to talk to. Instead I opened my Bible and read in silence for the much of the flight.
-=-=-
As we flew through the air I took a short break away from reading my Bible. I closed my eyes with my three, unnatural fingers holding the heavy book in one hand and the other hand resting on the pages. I didn't want to open my eyes, for I already knew what the next verse had to say. As a Christian I shouldn't be unequally yoked. Yet, Ororo was a pagan. How could I even dare look at her and think this was the woman for me and she did not fit into the criteria?
"Dear God," I whispered, low enough so only I could hear. I doubt even Wolverine caught my words with his sensitive ears. Besides, even if he did, I was praying in German. "I understand vhat it is zhat your Vord is saying, but it is a hard decision. I believe zhat I love zhis woman – but because she is not a servant of you I am prohibited from attempting to date her. Is zhis the woman you have prepared for me? She is beautiful and kind... and has almost all the qualities of a woman I could love for life. I vant to make a difference in her life. But I always want to stay true to zhe faith. I need answers. Help me to find the answers. Give me, o God, an ear to hear zhese zhings, I pray."
To be perfectly honest, I was in a spiritual struggle. The one woman I loved fit my criteria but did not fit my God's criteria. I opened my eyes and continued to read my Bible, hoping the answer to my prayers would soon come.
-=-=-
"Scott, begin to drop altitude," Storm said sternly and quietly in her co-pilot seat. She began flipping switches next to her seat.
"There's a closer place where we can land, Storm," Cyclops said, almost as if he was reprimanding her, but he too spoke calmly.
"Thanks for informing me, Scott, but I want to land at the site I designated before," Storm said, never taking a glance at Cyclops and never even showing the smallest sign of a smile.
"Get your panties out of a twitch, Weather Witch," Emma said from her seat across from me. "Let the pilot do his job. You just lead us once we land."
Storm shot an angry look to the White Queen then turned back to Cyclops, "Scott, are you undermining my authority?"
"No Storm," he said and turned to look at her for a brief moment. "I just think there is a closer place to land so we won't have to travel as far to get to the National Space Watchers Headquarters." A scowl showed on Storm's face as the jet passed over her designated landing site.
"Very well, Cyclops!" she yelled and got out of her seat. The jet had already been silent because of the high tensions between the two leaders – but now everybody was silent with anticipation of what was to happen next. "You fly the jet!"
She walked to the emergency hatch and popped it open. Immediately air began to circulate in the jet and everyone's hair blew around. Storm flew out of the hatch and Rogue, whose hair was now in a mess, unbuckled herself. "Storm!" she yelled, trying to beckon the Windrider back inside, but she could tell she wasn't going to listen. Rogue flew out of the emergency hatch right before Jean pushed the button to close it again.
"She always has to show her butt, doesn't she?" Emma complained. "Always has to be the center of attention. Always has to get her way. I am so sick of that white-haired phony!"
"Enough!" Colossus yelled and unbuckled himself. His large, bulky muscles glimmered under the dim lights of the jet as he walked down the aisle and toward over the White Queen. "You will not be disrespecting my friend!"
"Sit down somewhere you illegitimate, uneducated, junky tin can!" Emma yelled, unaffected by his masculinity.
This was enough to get Wolverine out of his seat. Colossus moved aside as Wolverine walked in front of Emma with his adamantium claws extended. "We got enough problems as it is, blondie!" he growled. "Ol' one-eye and 'Ro are at it and you're only addin' to our problems."
The White Queen unbuckled her seat belt and stood up, her tall figure towering over Wolverine, as she showed no signs of fear. "You should sit down before you get hurt, little man," Emma snickered.
"Look!" Cyclops yelled from the front seat, now turned facing the rest of us. "Storm may not be on this jet, but while she's not I'm in charge. Now enough of the bickering and arguing – we can do that at home. We have a mission to take care of. Now sit down and buckle up; I have to land this thing."
Wolverine retracted his claws and growled, still standing in front of Emma who had a devious smile on her face. Colossus returned to his seat with anger in his eyes. However, Kitty took his hand and quickly soothed and calmed him.
"You better be glad we got other things to do you prissy—," Wolverine began to say with an intimidating growl before the jet rattled and made him fall to the floor. Emma fell back into her seat, as the jet seemed to be going through some odd type of turbulence, but the weather outside showed no signs of clouds.
"Cyke, what's, like, going on?" Jubilee yelled from her chair as her seat belt was ripped from her body and the metal on the plane began to creak. Suddenly air was entering the once airtight jet, causing wind to blow. Dust caused many of them to close their eyes as the jet literally began to split open and fall apart.
Force of habit caused me to teleport out of the jet as it began to fall apart and I found myself outside of the jet and falling through the clouds. Kitty, apparently out of habit as well, phased herself and Colossus out of the jet and they too were now falling towards the ground with me. While we yelled and screamed for our lives, the remaining X-Men members in the jet found themselves trapped. The jet began to crush inward like one would crush a sheet of paper.
"Jean!" Gambit yelled, his red eyes looking around in fear as the jet began to close in on them.
"I'm trying!" she yelled, her red hair frizzy with perspiration as she created a sphere-shaped force field that protected them from the jet that was going to crush them if she hadn't intervened. The jet, outside the force field, was not closed in and crushed into a messy ball of metal and glass, and the X-Men who were still inside were enshrouded in darkness. It was at this point that the jet began to fall from the air.
Meanwhile, Kitty, Piotr, and I continued to yell, oblivious to the fact that it was Magneto who had sabotaged the jet and that we were on our way to become bloody spots on the ground. "Holy Lord!" I yelled, mentally praying as I prepared myself for what was to come. The fall seemed like it had lasted forever, but now I could clearly see the ground and I knew it was about to end. If I teleported closer to the ground I would still be going at this same speed and it would only mean I would hit the ground quicker and the pain would probably be more intense. I closed my eyes, praying for an angel and it was at that moment that I felt two hands wrap around my arms and carry me upward.
I opened my eyes, heart beating intensely and saw Ororo's long, flowing, and white hair gently blowing against her face. "Zhank you!" I said continually, but she didn't even take a moment's glance down at me. Instead of talking we silently landed in a dark menagerie of trees and forest that outlined the NSWH.
"We must lay low," she said. She flew into a tree branch and sat on it. I teleported beside her, perched on the sturdy limb.
"Vhy are we here?" I asked. "Shouldn't ve be out helping our team?"
"No," Ororo said and paused to think. The pause seemed to be lasting to long, so I continued my questions.
"Vhy?"
"Things will work according to the plan," she said. "And now is not the time for either of us to be on the battlefield. If my suspicions are correct about this entire mission we must not be seen or suspected to be nearby at all. For now we must lay low." I still didn't understand why, but I concluded that she had something up her sleeve and heeded to her wishes.
-=-=-
The crumpled ball that use to be the X-Men's Blackbird had created a crater in the ground where dust and dirt were settling. Rogue, Kitty, and Colossus stood on a mountain's cliff nearby, silently looking around and assessing the landscape.
"So what are we waiting here for?" Shadowcat asked Rogue, looking down at the crater. "I could be down there helping them get out."
"Storm wants us up here and she wants us to stay until she orders us to move," Rogue shrugged. "The others'll get out. They got more than enough fire power."
"And since when do you follow orders?" Shadowcat asked, jokingly as they all looked down at the crater, which was beginning to glow.
-=-=-
"Gambit, hurry!" Jubilee whimpered, "It's getting hot!"
"I'm workin on it, petite," he noted, his hands pressed against the inside of the hollow ball. The kinetic charge that he was giving it was slowly, but surely beginning to spread around the entire circumference of the reinforced metal. Sweat began to show up in little dots around his hair and forehead as he breathed heavily, his gloved hands giving all the juice he had inside him to send a surge of potential energy outward. He stepped away from the wall, or what was considered a wall and allowed the potential energy to exert its heat and light, causing the outer coating of the metal to blow up – but when all was said and done the metal sphere was still wrapped around them.
"Darn it!" Cyclops frowned. "We're still trapped. Gambit, try it again!"
"No can do, mon ami," Gambit said, exhausted as he sat on the floor of the dark, hot sphere.
"Come on!" Emma yelled. "You can't be serious! Get me the heck outta here you bimbo!"
"If I had a dollar for every time I've wanted to smack you I'd be a millionaire by now!" Jean retaliated on everyone else's behalf. "You are the most insensitive trick I've ever met! Now if you'd just shut up every once and a while we'd be able to figure this thing out! I don't know what was on Xavier's mind when he decided to let you in our home!"
"Maybe I can blast us out of here," Bishop said before Emma could utter the profane words that were now sitting at the tip of her tongue. "Jubes and Cyke, you two can give me the juice I need and I'll convert it into enough power to blast through this thing. But Jean will need to telekinetically keep us all protected from odd changes in compression."
"Just hurry up with it!" Wolverine growled. "If not I'll start carvin' a few holes, and it won't be through any metal."
Light finally filled the dark space when Jubilee began to shoot her pyrokinetics into Bishop's chest. He easily absorbed the impact and began to power up. Everything took on a reddish glow as Cyclops fired his optic blast into Bishop's pack. He grunted and pointed his hands upward and began to yell, "Give me more!"
Jubilee let out an ear-piercing scream as her hands began to release the energy with all the force she could muster, causing her to fly backwards into the wall. She continued to give it all she had and Cyclops began to release more of his optic blast until Bishop's fists began to glow a bright yellow. By now everyone inside was covered in sweat from the high amounts of heat energy being tossed around.
Bishop yelled as he directed the energy into his fists and outward towards the 'ceiling' of the sphere. The metal began to dent outward until it finally blew open. The energy continued to travel upward, climbing through dust and dirt until light finally entered into the sphere. Jean struggled to control the change in air compression and until all was said and done. Bishop relaxed his mutant abilities; smoke rising from his hands as cool air from outside began beckoned everyone outside.
They climbed out of the ditch and took a moment to regroup. Five of their teammates were missing, their powerhouse members were out of energy, and they now had to go face Apocalypse, Mastermind, Magneto, and a slew of other enemies that hated them. They found themselves, the X-Men, worried for the first time in forever.
-=-=-=-