Hi! I've just been reading a lot of hyper drama fan fiction so now I'm all filled with dramatic stuff and sorry if my writing's suddenly changed... thanks Darlin and storms-rose for the review! Look another chapter… if you were thinking it wasn't doing a very good job of going anywhere well haha I'm sorry… I've finally got on with the story :)

6th

Jean looked towards Ororo. She felt something different about her. A good different.

Jean reached out a hand towards the wall next to her, gently running her fingers over the moss laden bricks that lined the corridor leading to Rogue's villa from the wine cellars. She absent-mindedly traced the windings of the vines that like subterfuge pathways, etched themselves into the wall. Ororo and Sage walked along side her, all as dispassionate as the other.

Ororo was back to having simple, normal lightning, which she was quite relived about because she did not want to have to accidentally kill somebody. It was interesting for a while to have such heightened powers though, she had to admit. A pervading sense of peace had waded its way into her mind and set up camp, and though she worried about her team-mates, there was something yellow and sunny bounding around at the back of her mind.

Sage looked through her red shades, and everything turned red. A big red map hung in front of her head, showing where they had to go. She held her glasses with one hand, gently fingering its side as she thought about how tedious and lame this all got eventually. We get captured, we save the day! We get killed, we save the world! But Monotony and Mundane still bring their share of pain.

The three of them walked down the lonely corridor, rustling the sporadic leaves that scattered the floor. Neal, Heather, Davis and Bishop were in danger, from a far too highly formidable threat that came striding into their lives with sword and all in the form of Vargas. It was a painful walk down a musty corridor to be taking on a day such as this, with the memory of Psylocke still hanging stubbornly to their minds, and with foreshadowing instinct ringing clearly through their thoughts. The pain still stayed unrelentingly, reminding them that life isn't easier if you have superpowers or a gun. If you have a gun, its bullets have to get shot. Too young to die, but a bit too weathered to care.

They slowly turned a corner at the end of the corridor, and several turns and climbs later came to the back entrance to the hall of the house. This probably was a trap, but who cares, if traps are meant to elude you and have you walk into them then you might as well follow suit. At least it would mean that maybe Vargas hadn't killed their team mates yet.

Ororo blew down the door with her winds, to make a suitably significant entrance. That was the X men's way anyhow.

What they saw behind the door seemed all too placid, with Vargas sitting alone atop the fireplace in the hall and Neal, Bishop, Davis and Heather slumped over some distance away on the parquet, sort of peacefully, as if Vargas was watching them sleep. Jean quickly directed her gaze to the fallen four, and ensured they were still alive. He hadn't killed them, so all the better for them, but maybe just proved it was a trap and proved it wasn't all the better for them after all, because Vargas had only not killed them because he hadn't wanted to.

When Vargas saw the door fly pass his panorama of view, his eyes perked and he jumped off the fireplace, grabbing his sword that had been impatiently edging its way closer to him, pining in its bloodlust.

"Well hello," Vargas said, coming towards them, upright and regal, dignified, seeming as if he was trying to taunt them with the sight of himself. He knew the only word going through their heads now was a hissing malicious Psylocke! That refused to be subdued after all this while. He practically felt their hate emanating from their gaze, and it invigorated him, like the flame to the flammable that he harboured, spark to his fire, harbinger of his wrath.

"Ah! Storm. My debt is not yet due to you. Rogue isn't here; I was hoping to make her come. I was looking forward to that. She owes me a battle. I do not like being left out on the lam," he said, eyeing them curiously. He wondered if they'd prove game as worthy. Only to his delight; the purpose of bloodthirsty men, only to his satisfaction and deeming; the futility of villains.

"We're fighting in her stead."

"Then die in her stead."

Thais and Thaiis, his companion twins, came to either side of him and they stared down their respective opponents, and wryly smiled.

Ororo, on the right, found the gleaming evil in Thais eyes staring back at her. Yet another day, yet another trial. Will she pass this one?

He came running toward her, and as she tried to reach out her hand to direct lightning at him, he leaped over her and kicked her in the small of her back. She fell forward and was annoyed that she had had underestimated him. Standing up and whipping around, now suitably aggressed and involved in battle, she quickly bent down and swiped his feet off the ground. Unfortunately he gracefully flipped himself and righted, smiling at her with still that evil glint in his eye. But while he was turning to face her, Dark Clouds rolled by and Dark Clouds rolled off, while lightning screamed from her fingertips toward his chest, faster than any normal person would have been able to avoid it, but was he normal? No. He had caught with the corner of his eye her hands gesturing towards him, and he now pulled his sword from its scabbard behind him and used it to shield his chest. The lightning drew itself to the sword, and he remained completely unfazed, holding the sword up high, as if triumphantly announcing the means to her death, laughing sadistically.

Rubber gloves! They insulated against the lightning! thought Ororo. This was going to be some tough day. And so early in the morning too, she hated to miss sunrise. Quickly she lashed out her left arm at him, sending a wind that had him careening over to the other side of the room, where his back slammed against the wall and he slid down, breathing heavily and looking down. She walked over toward him, and as she did his eyes raised up again to meet hers, yelling at her with them, If you think that was it you've got a lot more coming. He gathered himself up to full height and picked up his sword.

Ororo was slightly at a loss as to what to do. This man was infallible! She had just slammed him into a concrete wall at about 250km/h and there he was, standing up and continuing his game of who would blink first.

Jean herself was not all that well off. She found herself facing Vargas, who seemed to have upped his level of manic aggression, maybe after losing that fight with Rogue, full of vindictive vengefulness. He came swinging his sword around, haphazardly plunging it into the ground from which a part of her had barely left. She tried to telekinetically hold him off but he was that strong indeed, her forceful shoves with her mind becoming mere nudges at the ankle of a giant, that only served to further anger him. She was already not at the peak of her strength, having only recently got rid of Cassandra, and she had been greatly weakened by that traumatic experience. The revelation about Scott and Emma's affair was also eating at the back of her mind, forcing her to lose concentration. But she doubted that even at the peak of her strength her efforts would have at all mattered. She tried to mentally reach out into his mind, but his psi-shields were incredible for a non-mutant. She guessed this was why he had a reputation in the mutant assassination business. No wonder even Psylocke had been crushed and crumbled to fond ashes in his hands.

Suddenly when she began to think about Psylocke, her mind became distracted, and the last miss that had barely escaped her now redeemed itself and struck into her shoulder. It pinned her to the ground, and her eyes shot up towards the sweating, smiling Vargas who jeered back with his own gaze and walked off, and she screamed in pain.

Hearing Jean's scream, Ororo frantically swivelled around to see Jean with Vargas' sword sticking out of her shoulder like a flag of conquer, but she cursed herself at the back of her mind as she did for she knew for sure that Thais' breath would soon fall on her neck. And so it did, as Thais lunged for her and pulled her to him, locking her hands and tightly embracing her, with his strong grip around her chest. There was no way she was going to defeat him by brutal physical means alone, she had to call on her powers to save her. Tough luck with his sword, but she tried to call lightning down on him again. But all he did was stick his sword up in the air, drawing any stray bolt to it and harmlessly letting the lightning swivel uselessly around his blade. He bent forward and laughed a sickly inhuman laugh into her ear. Then he brought the sword down and held its point at Ororo's side, and she quickly withdrew her lightning, to save the supercharged sword from electrocuting her. He dug the point in a little at her side, and her eyes misted over as she winced from the pain. At this moment Ororo was faced towards her fallen comrades, and she saw Neal on the floor, heavily breathing and helpless. Vargas happily stood in the middle of the room, observing the carnage wrought by himself. No. She wouldn't let Neal die.

As Thais pulled away the sword to make its final plunge into her, she took a sharp breath and garnered up all her strength, and hitching her left foot onto Thais' knee, kicked her lower body upward so that she flipped over Thais as his handhold on her lost itself. His sword plunged into nothing, and he lost his balance as Ororo escaped from his grip. Keeping her mind about herself, she hastily kicked the sword out of Thais' hand, sending it flying off to settle in the middle of the room. Now that he had nothing to avert her assault, she called down lightning again, and this time it dutifully struck Thais and his body arched with the flow of charge, and then collapsed lifelessly onto the floor as his eyes rolled up into his head.

In the middle of the room, Vargas saw a sword sliding across the floor, only to stop at his feet. He picked it up, inspected it, then turned his smile towards Ororo, meeting her gaze, as he menacingly rotated its hilt in his hand and walked towards Neal who lay panting on the floor, looking up at his oncoming helplessly.

"No," Ororo whispered through her own unsteady breathing, still bent over to her side and holding her hand there to stop the blood. Her eyes widened, gazing at the tip of the sword as it lumbered ever closer to Neal. It was as if Vargas had been patiently waiting at the middle of the room for her own actions to bring him the sword that would kill her love, and spite her with the irony. It was working.