Hurray! An update! I have another chapter or two waiting to be typing up, so hopefully they'll be up soon. Again, thanks to all reviewers.
Jubilee looked to Diane for some sort of guidance, alert and concerned. Snagging her wrist, Diane dragged her after Derek, who was running down the hall.
"Where's the evacuation point?" Jubilee asked as the three girls ran.
"This way. It's a tunnel," Leandra panted, speeding up.
All three yelled as they ran into a group of uniformed soldiers. "Hey!" one yelled, trying to grab Diane, but she…phased…through his hand.
"Muties!" several of the men shouted, reaching for their guns.
Jubilee flung her hand up as she shot bright, colored balls of something at the men's faces, temporarily blinding them. Flames exploded between the men and girls, courtesy of Leandra. The girls ran, putting as much distance between themselves and the men as possible before the latter recovered.
The three sprinted to the open evacuation tunnel, where Mark stood guarding it.
"Go!" he ordered, eyes darting around anxiously.
"Are we the last?" Leandra gasped, winded.
Mark nodded. "Yes. Tell Gwen Ah'm coming as soon as Ah can. Now go!"
They turned to run through the tunnel, but before they could the soldiers appeared, apparently having trailed the girls. The raised their guns to shoot. Leandra, Jubilee, and Mark (whose power involved the thing or things he focused on randomly changing) desperately lashed out with their powers, but the men were on guard for the two girls' attacks, and all Mark's power did was change the color of their guns.
Triumphantly, the men raised their guns to shoot, but someone sprinted up from behind them. Whoever it was launched into an attack with what Diane thought were several knifes. Within seconds, he and the mutants were the only ones standing.
"Who are you?" Mark demanded of the man as the latter stood in front of them panting slightly. The knifes seemed to have disappeared.
The man ignored Mark. "Are any of you hurt?" he asked, voice sounding like gravel. His voice, Diane realized, was the same one she had heard over the phone.
"Why do you care?" Mark countered. From the way those two were looking at each other, it was obvious this verbal battle could go on for a while.
"This isn't the greatest time for you two to be bickering, y'know," Jubilee interrupted. Both men shot her very flat looks but otherwise ignored her.
Jubilee was now frowning in a very bossy way, surveying the silently glowering men. "This is pathetic," she announced. "Idiot macho men. Look, none of use are hurt, and he's a friend of mine, which is why he cares," she answered, addressing each one as she replied to their questions. "Happy?" Still no response.
The sound of a gunshot rang through the house, snapping the two of them out of their staring contest. "Let's go," "Wolvie" ordered, turning to the girls. Jubilee rolled her eyes, muttering something Diane, only a foot away, couldn't hear, but Wolvie's eyebrows rose. Jubilee, upon realizing he had heard her, blushed deeply.
The five ran down the tunnel, neither men making any attempt to hide the fact that they were watching each other. They emerged at the border of the property, where the others were gathered. (The tunnel, due to the location of the school, only went to the edge of the backyard.) Gwen nearly collapsed with relief upon seeing her husband. Chaos reigned for several seconds as friends checked to make sure friends weren't hurt. It was Wolvie who regained order by yelling for everyone to "shut up and quit moving," in his words.
"Do Ah know you?" Gwen asked him, squinting suspiciously.
"No," he grunted. "I go by Wolverine. Are we going to get out of here or what?"
Gwen seemed at loss for words for a second. "Well….Ah'm sorry, but Ah don't really know anything about you, and it would be extremely irresponsible of me to allow you to come with us."
"He's a good friend of mine," Jubilee interjected.
Gwen forced a smile. "Be that as it may, dear, Ah'm afraid Ah don't know you well enough to just take your word lahke that."
Further discussion was prevented by another soldier. For half a second, Diane wondered if those crazy men had death wishes, chasing a group of potentially dangerous mutants around.
"There they are!" he yelled, running towards them.
"Go!" Gwen, Mark, and Wolverine yelled together.
They took off, climbing over fences and running through backyards. The adults followed almost immediately.
After several minutes of running, the group finally came to a small and deserted street. Diane didn't recognize it, and, judging by the way almost everyone was looking around, the lack of knowledge was nearly mutual.
"This way," Wolverine snapped, turning to follow the street left.
"To where?" Mark challenged, not moving.
Wolverine stared at him for several seconds. "Some friends of mine," he finally answered. "I –"
"Logan!" someone yelled, cutting him off. Everyone turned to stare at the man running up from the left. "What in the world is going on?" he demanded angrily. At least, his voice sounded angry and he wasn't smiling. Diane couldn't see his eyes, due to the very weird eye covering things he was wearing.
"There was as an attack on that school place," Wolverine, apparently also known as Logan, growled, obviously not thrilled with the man's presence.
The man seemed to look over the group, although Diane doubted anyone could tell through his red…things. When he saw Diane, his jaw dropped.
"Didn't you tell anyone?" Jubilee, next to Diane, asked Logan accusingly. Without giving him a chance to reply (as seemed customary for her), she began beaming at the new man and launched into a long, very fast speech. Diane caught "Kitty," "would you believe?", "amnesia,", and "can't remember".
The man attempted to interrupt her several times, with absolutely no success. After a full minute, he finally managed to stop her by yelling what Diane guessed was her full name.
"Scott, what in the name of the goddess are you shouting about?" An African woman with incredible long and silver hair walked up, wearing an odd outfit, including an actual cape. Diane, several yards away, heard the woman gasp as she saw Diane. "Kitten!" The woman ran towards her, sweeping her into a hug.
"What?" Diane asked stupidly, unable to think of anything else to say.
The woman pulled back to look Diane in the face. Smiling, eyes moist with happiness, she smoothed Diane's hair, murmuring the word "Kitten" over and over again.
"I – I'm sorry, but I don't really remember anything," Diane began. As with everyone, she didn't recognize the woman at all, but from the way she was looking at Diane, Diane didn't want to hurt her feelings. "I-including you. I'm sorry."
The woman turned towards the man she'd called Scott and Wolverine, who were quietly discussing something, probably Diane. "Scott!" she called, still holding Diane. The man walked toward them, frowning slightly. "Do you know what happened?" she asked him.
"She has amnesia," Scott answered. Diane considered reminding him that "she" was right here, but for the sake of the woman let it slide.
"Oh, Kitten," the woman murmured, turning back to Diane.
"That's my name?" Diane asked. Her voice sounded far more desperate and helpless than she'd intended.
The woman smiled sadly. "Katherine Pryde. Kitty to most people, but my Kitten. I'm Ororo."
Diane nodded slowly. "I still don't remember anything. How – I know two telepaths, and neither of them can get past my mental barriers, which I didn't even know about. Is there any other way to get my memories back?"
"Probably not, but I know a much stronger telepath. He made the barriers, and he can get past them."
"Is he here?"
"No, he's at the school. In Westchester," Ororo added.
Diane blinked. She felt that same sense of trust for this woman as with Wolverine, and Jubilee to a smaller extent, but she wasn't sure she was willing to go off to Westchester with them.
"Excuse me, but Dahane doesn't even know you," Gwen said, frowning. "She is in mah care, and Ah am not willing to allow her to go anywhere unless Ah know she is going to a safe place. So where exactly is it you want to take her?"
Ororo frowned slightly. "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you I have Kitty's best interests in mind. I'm afraid I can't demonstrate that to you, unless, of course, you want to go to Westchester also, but…"
Gwen shook her head. "Ah can't accept that. If –" Before she could finish, soldiers once again ran towards them. Each time they tried to attack, Diane became less afraid and more annoyed with them. Right now, they were really irritating her.
Wolverine, Scott, and Ororo immediately stepped between the quickly approaching soldiers and the others. "Stay back or we'll defend ourselves," Scott called to the soldiers, who had stopped running and instead were advancing slowly and cautiously. It was a waste of breath; they were too far away to hear him.
Mouth set in a grim line, Scott raised a hand to his eyewear. He pressed something on the sides of them, causing a brilliant red stream of light to shoot. The light hit the ground in front of the soldiers, creating a deep ditch. It continued to carve up the ground for several seconds, until the ditch, now to wide to jump across, spread across the street. Everyone from Gwen and Mark's school (with the possible exception of Jubilee, if she ever even counted, having stayed at the school for so little time) gaped, but the others didn't seem to find anything unusual in that at all.
The soldiers had stopped, of course, and were apparently trying to figure out how to get across the ditch. Not close enough to shoot, they just milled around it aimlessly, looking like ants that had encountered a stick.
Scott turned to the others behind him. "Go down the street, turn right, and keep going until you get to the park. There'll be a jet there. I know you don't trust us, but there's no other choice."
Gwen hesitated, looking to Mark. They both nodded. "Okay," Mark replied. "But if you're deceiving us, you'll regret it." With that rather pathetic line, he began to herd his students down the street.
Diane…Kitty…lingered, unsure if she could or should help. Wolverine, next to her, caught her eyes and shook his head. "No. We'll handle this. And you go, too, kid," he added, frowning at Jubilee, who hadn't budged. Kitty nodded reluctantly and jogged after the others, Jubilee, pouting slightly, following.