Hey everybody! R&R or else! Warning! This is a pretty long chapter! Oh
yeah, and I don't own any X-men characters. *weep* Besides Ling, of course.
*smile* Enjoy!
* * *
The next morning-
Ling woke up newly refreshed and with Rogue hovering over her.
"Oh, good. You're awake. I was just about to wake you up. We have to get ready." Rogue looked at Ling thoughtfully. "And get you a uniform, come to think of it."
"Wait. Hold on. Uniform? What uniform? Oh no, please don't say spandex. I hate spandex!" Ling yelled.
"Don't yell so loud. You know, you can really sleep for a long time, you know! You slept all of last night, and most of this day! It's 4:00 PM. The mission's starting at nine. You have to get a uniform or you don't go!" Rouge explained.
"Why?"
"Because the Professor says we're going on the mission! You, me, and Bobby, since it's more likely it'll be in a small space, and we're the smallest of the X-Men. Hurry up and get dressed!" Rogue explained, throwing Ling some random clothes.
* * *
Before Ling knew it, she was being measured for her size for black, leather X-Men uniforms.
"Never thought I'd be wearing this kind of stuff again." Ling muttered.
"Lucky you, we have one in your size in stock." Storm told her.
"Yeah. Lucky me."
"Come on, it isn't that bad. Like Scott said, at least it's not yellow spandex." Bobby said.
Storm came back holding her uniform. Ling went in a private area to change her clothes, and came out wearing the uniform.
"It looks good on you, Ling." Rogue commented.
"Black's definably your color." Bobby agreed.
"You're a guy, Bobby, what would you know?" Rogue teased.
"Are you kidding me? I know everything!" Bobby said in a fake, pouting way.
Rogue moved closer to Bobby, but then drew away as if she reconsidered.
Ling felt sorry for the couple. They couldn't really kiss that much, unless you counted that time when she "walked" in on them kissing for two seconds. Of course, at that time she was a puddle of water.
"We'd better get going, you guys. Guys?" Ling was talking to the couple with no response back to her. "Hello?" They were gazing at each other. "For crying out loud!" Ling went over next to Rogue's ear and yelled, "WAKE UP!" Rogue jumped about a foot in the air.
"What was that for?" Rogue complained, rubbing her ear tenderly.
"Sorry about that, but we have to go soon, and we have to get all the equipment and junk ready!" Ling explained desperately.
"Ah'll get you for this, you know ah will!" Rogue vowed. (A/N A little bit of Rogue's accent. Should I keep it, or does it look really stupid? Such tough questions. ^_^)
"Right." Ling answered, distracted.
They went into the storage room and picked out a number of things including ropes, a number of robber's things, (like the one where you can draw a hole in glass and pop it out) and some meat in case they run into any nasty dogs. ("Believe me, I know." Bobby said with a shudder.)
"One more thing before you leave," the Professor said, "do not call each other by your real names because the authorities may go looking for you afterwards. So refer to each other by your nicknames. Do you know theirs, Ling?" The Professor asked.
Ling shrugged.
"I'm Rogue, you already call me that."
"I'm Iceman."
"Very original." Ling thought with a smile.
"I'm Aqua." Ling concluded.
"All right, you three will actually be going in, but Storm, Wolverine and I will be in the Blackbird, waiting."
Logan looked sharply up at the Professor. "Are you sure you want to go? We can't afford you getting caught."
"I will be fine, Logan. I'm just there just in case someone with my powers is needed." Professor Xavier told him.
"Hmm. Well I don't like it. But I'm guessing you're not going to listen to me, are you Prof.?" Wolverine replied.
"Well, we'd better get going."
* * *
Ling had flown in airplanes a lot in her lifetime, but none topped the Blackbird. This plane was so smooth it was almost flawless. It even looked futuristic, at least to Ling's eyes. Just because she did all of Stryker's dirty work didn't mean that she exactly flew in first class. To tell the truth, Ling was a bit nervous about this. This would be her first mission since the breaking of the dam in Canada.
Ling shook herself mentally. It would be fine. It was simple enough anyway: Just break in, get passed all the doughnut eating night guards, get the weapon, and then get out of there!
They landed the Blackbird in a semi-covered patch of trees.
"Won't they see the jet Professor?" Aqua asked, confused.
Professor X smiled. "No, we have invisibility shields. Quite a modern development actually, I believe the military has not yet figured the physics of it out yet. Now go on, we mustn't tarry."
"Wait, what about radar?" Aqua was making sure there were no loopholes for this mission to go wrong. She really didn't want to be captured.
"If any radar can see this jet, then we deserve to get caught." Logan said in what Ling thought was a mimic of Cyclops's voice.
Rogue, Iceman, and Aqua stepped off the invisible jet and approached the fence.
"Do you see anyone?" Rogue hissed.
"No-wait! Bob-I mean, Iceman, can you freeze that camera over there?" Aqua asked.
Iceman looked around him with a puzzled look, apparently not seeing any camera. "What camera?"
"That one, hidden in that tree. Hurry before it turns our way!" Aqua urged.
Iceman spotted it and froze the "stem" of the camera, so that all the guard would see is in one direction. If they froze the entire camera, they would for sure notice a frozen plate of ice on the camera, especially since this was a warm night.
"How the heck did you spot that?" Rogue asked, impressed.
"Experience." Aqua answered.
Iceman froze part of the fence in a circle big enough for them to pass through. Then he kicked the ice to make a nice round entranceway into the museum grounds. Once they let Aqua scan the pathway for cameras, they ran as fast as she ordered them so they would avoid all the camera's gazes.
Once inside, they spotted a guard with his back to the teenage intruders. With one swift bare touch to his neck, Rogue was able to knock him out cold. They tied him up far away from the silent alarm button, in the woman's bathroom. (Aqua and Rogue had to team up to prevent Iceman from going into the ladies room with them. So he waited outside while Aqua and Rogue locked the bathroom door and pulled the guard into a stall.)
After that, they pulled out a metal detector and searched all the exhibits. All the stuff they found were mostly junk: pipes, exhibit props, etc. But then, when they entered the Egyptian Exhibit, they found something square looking under a sarcophagus. It turns out that this sarcophagus, to their surprise, was partly made out of real gold, so it was extremely heavy to move. So Iceman, Rogue, and Aqua toiled at moving the sarcophagus alone for what seemed like 15 minutes. Finally they were able to move it aside. But there was no entranceway whatsoever.
It was Rogue who found it. She fingered what felt like added-on plastic of the floor and ripped it off. There was a hidden hatch. Aqua pulled on the lid and it came off easily due to its old age. There was about a three foot distance from the top to the bottom of the hatch. It was pitch black, so they couldn't see what exactly was down there.
"Rogue, you want to go?" Iceman asked.
"No, there could be rats or spiders down there!" Rogue squealed, shuddering.
Iceman rolled his eyes. "Aqua? Wait-forget it. I'll do it."
He stepped into the hatch, barely fitting in. He held on to Rogue's hands tightly just in case the bottom caved in. He set both feet on the floor and tested it. It seemed sturdy enough. His feet groped around the bottom floor and felt something.
"I think I've got it!" Iceman announced.
"Good, pick it up and give it to me!" Aqua ordered. There was no telling how long the guard would stay unconscious, so she'd like to finish the job quickly.
Iceman gave an army salute and picked the item up. To his surprise, it was sort of light. His hands emerged from the darkness and gave the item to Aqua. Rogue's eyes widened with shock at what they found.
"A TV remote? All this for a TV remote?" she asked furiously. Iceman jumped out of the hatch and snatched it from Aqua's hands.
"No, TV remotes are usually plastic. This is pure metal. But I thought it was a little light for a weapon." Iceman concluded.
Aqua took a good look at it. It was a square hunk of metal. It had a small screen, like the screens on calculators. It also had a bunch of labeled buttons; they were abbreviated letters, so Aqua couldn't make much sense of it. "Maybe it IS the weapon. The thing to control the weapon! No one would be stupid enough to hide the whole dangerous weapon in one place! So they left this remote, which should tell us where the actual weapon is hidden- wait! I see something on the little screen!"
Some words popped up on the screen:
Tcejorp Tnatum Lortnoc si detacol ta Adirolf Ecneics Retnec
"What is this gibberish?" Rogue asked.
"A mix of Russian and Spanish?" Iceman offered feebly.
"No."
"What was that, Aqua?" Rogue asked.
"Stryker always used this kind of code. It's stupid, because it's surprisingly simple. But then, nobody ever thinks of it because it'd be too easy." Aqua said in an emotionless monotone. The less emotion she had when dealing with Stryker, the better focus she has.
"What is it?" Rogue asked again in a gentler voice.
"Backwards. He writes the words backwards. So what it really says is, 'Project Mutant Control is located at Florida Science Center.'"
"Project Mutant Control?" Iceman asked in a disgusted tone.
"Project Mutant Control." Rogue confirmed. She looked no more pleased at it than her boyfriend was.
"Well, at least he has style, picking one of the more tropical states." Aqua joked, trying to break the silence.
"We'd better get this back to the Professor." Iceman said.
Aqua nodded. The trio started heading back toward the gate when Rogue was tackled from the side. Iceman leapt in to help, and Aqua found that they were surrounded! Someone had notified their presence! She shot out streams of water at the other ranks of guards, delaying them for a while. When she turned around, she found that some guards were frozen, and some lay unconscious.
"Are you guys okay?" Aqua asked.
"Fine." The couple answered.
Then they noticed some guards coming in from behind. They ran until they reached a split in the hallway.
"You two go that way, and I'll go this way. We meet back at the bird! Don't worry, I can hold my own." Aqua ordered.
Rogue gave Aqua a worried look, but followed her boyfriend. Aqua took off in the other direction. Hopefully, that would split up the guards.
Aqua took another sharp turn and found herself in an enclosed area. A dead end! The only chance was to go through a little slit of an entrance to get passed them. But in her panic, she failed to see someone coming in from the opposite direction, and she crashed into it.
She fell down hard, and she wouldn't have time to run. Her leg roared with pain. She was about to whack the person she had bumped into, whom she though was a guard, but then the shadow said, "Hmm. I thought you'd be the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead in that X-Men leather uniform!" It was a very familiar male voice-
"Pyro?" Aqua asked in an astonished voice, "What are you doing here?"
Pyro's face came into the light and he frowned. "I should be asking you the same thing. But we're both after the same thing right? Stryker's machine."
Aqua nodded. But then she heard loud footsteps and loud voices saying, "I heard them come this way!"
And with Aqua's leg hurting like this, how was she going to get herself out of this one?
* * *
That was Chapter Nine! Please R&R! Flames are fine, too! ^_^
* * *
The next morning-
Ling woke up newly refreshed and with Rogue hovering over her.
"Oh, good. You're awake. I was just about to wake you up. We have to get ready." Rogue looked at Ling thoughtfully. "And get you a uniform, come to think of it."
"Wait. Hold on. Uniform? What uniform? Oh no, please don't say spandex. I hate spandex!" Ling yelled.
"Don't yell so loud. You know, you can really sleep for a long time, you know! You slept all of last night, and most of this day! It's 4:00 PM. The mission's starting at nine. You have to get a uniform or you don't go!" Rouge explained.
"Why?"
"Because the Professor says we're going on the mission! You, me, and Bobby, since it's more likely it'll be in a small space, and we're the smallest of the X-Men. Hurry up and get dressed!" Rogue explained, throwing Ling some random clothes.
* * *
Before Ling knew it, she was being measured for her size for black, leather X-Men uniforms.
"Never thought I'd be wearing this kind of stuff again." Ling muttered.
"Lucky you, we have one in your size in stock." Storm told her.
"Yeah. Lucky me."
"Come on, it isn't that bad. Like Scott said, at least it's not yellow spandex." Bobby said.
Storm came back holding her uniform. Ling went in a private area to change her clothes, and came out wearing the uniform.
"It looks good on you, Ling." Rogue commented.
"Black's definably your color." Bobby agreed.
"You're a guy, Bobby, what would you know?" Rogue teased.
"Are you kidding me? I know everything!" Bobby said in a fake, pouting way.
Rogue moved closer to Bobby, but then drew away as if she reconsidered.
Ling felt sorry for the couple. They couldn't really kiss that much, unless you counted that time when she "walked" in on them kissing for two seconds. Of course, at that time she was a puddle of water.
"We'd better get going, you guys. Guys?" Ling was talking to the couple with no response back to her. "Hello?" They were gazing at each other. "For crying out loud!" Ling went over next to Rogue's ear and yelled, "WAKE UP!" Rogue jumped about a foot in the air.
"What was that for?" Rogue complained, rubbing her ear tenderly.
"Sorry about that, but we have to go soon, and we have to get all the equipment and junk ready!" Ling explained desperately.
"Ah'll get you for this, you know ah will!" Rogue vowed. (A/N A little bit of Rogue's accent. Should I keep it, or does it look really stupid? Such tough questions. ^_^)
"Right." Ling answered, distracted.
They went into the storage room and picked out a number of things including ropes, a number of robber's things, (like the one where you can draw a hole in glass and pop it out) and some meat in case they run into any nasty dogs. ("Believe me, I know." Bobby said with a shudder.)
"One more thing before you leave," the Professor said, "do not call each other by your real names because the authorities may go looking for you afterwards. So refer to each other by your nicknames. Do you know theirs, Ling?" The Professor asked.
Ling shrugged.
"I'm Rogue, you already call me that."
"I'm Iceman."
"Very original." Ling thought with a smile.
"I'm Aqua." Ling concluded.
"All right, you three will actually be going in, but Storm, Wolverine and I will be in the Blackbird, waiting."
Logan looked sharply up at the Professor. "Are you sure you want to go? We can't afford you getting caught."
"I will be fine, Logan. I'm just there just in case someone with my powers is needed." Professor Xavier told him.
"Hmm. Well I don't like it. But I'm guessing you're not going to listen to me, are you Prof.?" Wolverine replied.
"Well, we'd better get going."
* * *
Ling had flown in airplanes a lot in her lifetime, but none topped the Blackbird. This plane was so smooth it was almost flawless. It even looked futuristic, at least to Ling's eyes. Just because she did all of Stryker's dirty work didn't mean that she exactly flew in first class. To tell the truth, Ling was a bit nervous about this. This would be her first mission since the breaking of the dam in Canada.
Ling shook herself mentally. It would be fine. It was simple enough anyway: Just break in, get passed all the doughnut eating night guards, get the weapon, and then get out of there!
They landed the Blackbird in a semi-covered patch of trees.
"Won't they see the jet Professor?" Aqua asked, confused.
Professor X smiled. "No, we have invisibility shields. Quite a modern development actually, I believe the military has not yet figured the physics of it out yet. Now go on, we mustn't tarry."
"Wait, what about radar?" Aqua was making sure there were no loopholes for this mission to go wrong. She really didn't want to be captured.
"If any radar can see this jet, then we deserve to get caught." Logan said in what Ling thought was a mimic of Cyclops's voice.
Rogue, Iceman, and Aqua stepped off the invisible jet and approached the fence.
"Do you see anyone?" Rogue hissed.
"No-wait! Bob-I mean, Iceman, can you freeze that camera over there?" Aqua asked.
Iceman looked around him with a puzzled look, apparently not seeing any camera. "What camera?"
"That one, hidden in that tree. Hurry before it turns our way!" Aqua urged.
Iceman spotted it and froze the "stem" of the camera, so that all the guard would see is in one direction. If they froze the entire camera, they would for sure notice a frozen plate of ice on the camera, especially since this was a warm night.
"How the heck did you spot that?" Rogue asked, impressed.
"Experience." Aqua answered.
Iceman froze part of the fence in a circle big enough for them to pass through. Then he kicked the ice to make a nice round entranceway into the museum grounds. Once they let Aqua scan the pathway for cameras, they ran as fast as she ordered them so they would avoid all the camera's gazes.
Once inside, they spotted a guard with his back to the teenage intruders. With one swift bare touch to his neck, Rogue was able to knock him out cold. They tied him up far away from the silent alarm button, in the woman's bathroom. (Aqua and Rogue had to team up to prevent Iceman from going into the ladies room with them. So he waited outside while Aqua and Rogue locked the bathroom door and pulled the guard into a stall.)
After that, they pulled out a metal detector and searched all the exhibits. All the stuff they found were mostly junk: pipes, exhibit props, etc. But then, when they entered the Egyptian Exhibit, they found something square looking under a sarcophagus. It turns out that this sarcophagus, to their surprise, was partly made out of real gold, so it was extremely heavy to move. So Iceman, Rogue, and Aqua toiled at moving the sarcophagus alone for what seemed like 15 minutes. Finally they were able to move it aside. But there was no entranceway whatsoever.
It was Rogue who found it. She fingered what felt like added-on plastic of the floor and ripped it off. There was a hidden hatch. Aqua pulled on the lid and it came off easily due to its old age. There was about a three foot distance from the top to the bottom of the hatch. It was pitch black, so they couldn't see what exactly was down there.
"Rogue, you want to go?" Iceman asked.
"No, there could be rats or spiders down there!" Rogue squealed, shuddering.
Iceman rolled his eyes. "Aqua? Wait-forget it. I'll do it."
He stepped into the hatch, barely fitting in. He held on to Rogue's hands tightly just in case the bottom caved in. He set both feet on the floor and tested it. It seemed sturdy enough. His feet groped around the bottom floor and felt something.
"I think I've got it!" Iceman announced.
"Good, pick it up and give it to me!" Aqua ordered. There was no telling how long the guard would stay unconscious, so she'd like to finish the job quickly.
Iceman gave an army salute and picked the item up. To his surprise, it was sort of light. His hands emerged from the darkness and gave the item to Aqua. Rogue's eyes widened with shock at what they found.
"A TV remote? All this for a TV remote?" she asked furiously. Iceman jumped out of the hatch and snatched it from Aqua's hands.
"No, TV remotes are usually plastic. This is pure metal. But I thought it was a little light for a weapon." Iceman concluded.
Aqua took a good look at it. It was a square hunk of metal. It had a small screen, like the screens on calculators. It also had a bunch of labeled buttons; they were abbreviated letters, so Aqua couldn't make much sense of it. "Maybe it IS the weapon. The thing to control the weapon! No one would be stupid enough to hide the whole dangerous weapon in one place! So they left this remote, which should tell us where the actual weapon is hidden- wait! I see something on the little screen!"
Some words popped up on the screen:
Tcejorp Tnatum Lortnoc si detacol ta Adirolf Ecneics Retnec
"What is this gibberish?" Rogue asked.
"A mix of Russian and Spanish?" Iceman offered feebly.
"No."
"What was that, Aqua?" Rogue asked.
"Stryker always used this kind of code. It's stupid, because it's surprisingly simple. But then, nobody ever thinks of it because it'd be too easy." Aqua said in an emotionless monotone. The less emotion she had when dealing with Stryker, the better focus she has.
"What is it?" Rogue asked again in a gentler voice.
"Backwards. He writes the words backwards. So what it really says is, 'Project Mutant Control is located at Florida Science Center.'"
"Project Mutant Control?" Iceman asked in a disgusted tone.
"Project Mutant Control." Rogue confirmed. She looked no more pleased at it than her boyfriend was.
"Well, at least he has style, picking one of the more tropical states." Aqua joked, trying to break the silence.
"We'd better get this back to the Professor." Iceman said.
Aqua nodded. The trio started heading back toward the gate when Rogue was tackled from the side. Iceman leapt in to help, and Aqua found that they were surrounded! Someone had notified their presence! She shot out streams of water at the other ranks of guards, delaying them for a while. When she turned around, she found that some guards were frozen, and some lay unconscious.
"Are you guys okay?" Aqua asked.
"Fine." The couple answered.
Then they noticed some guards coming in from behind. They ran until they reached a split in the hallway.
"You two go that way, and I'll go this way. We meet back at the bird! Don't worry, I can hold my own." Aqua ordered.
Rogue gave Aqua a worried look, but followed her boyfriend. Aqua took off in the other direction. Hopefully, that would split up the guards.
Aqua took another sharp turn and found herself in an enclosed area. A dead end! The only chance was to go through a little slit of an entrance to get passed them. But in her panic, she failed to see someone coming in from the opposite direction, and she crashed into it.
She fell down hard, and she wouldn't have time to run. Her leg roared with pain. She was about to whack the person she had bumped into, whom she though was a guard, but then the shadow said, "Hmm. I thought you'd be the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead in that X-Men leather uniform!" It was a very familiar male voice-
"Pyro?" Aqua asked in an astonished voice, "What are you doing here?"
Pyro's face came into the light and he frowned. "I should be asking you the same thing. But we're both after the same thing right? Stryker's machine."
Aqua nodded. But then she heard loud footsteps and loud voices saying, "I heard them come this way!"
And with Aqua's leg hurting like this, how was she going to get herself out of this one?
* * *
That was Chapter Nine! Please R&R! Flames are fine, too! ^_^