Oh my God I am soooooo sorry! I so did not mean you leave you on a cliff hanger like that. Well okay, so yes I did. But I meant to put the next chapter up like a day or two later. Not two weeks later. I am so sorry. Please forgive me and keep reading.
I have been seriously busy and just haven't had a chance to write. As one of my mates told me, Tolkin took twenty years to finish his story. So I guess two weeks for the next update isn't too bad. But still... I'm sorry.
Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing. You've been noticing the whole, Mattie's birthday isthe 12thJuly yet they are still at school thing. What if I changed it to the 12th of May? Would that fit in better with the school term? Let me know.
I don't own the X-Men, just Mattie.
Enjoy.
Blood
Logan shook his head. "It's no good, Charles. They've gone."
Professor Xavier looked around him. Cyclops had organised two search teams, to try and find Mattie and Bobby. So far they had had very little luck.
"You can't track them?" He asked Logan, although he suspected he already knew the answer.
"Nothing to track." Logan told him. "Like I said, both Chase and Iceman went over the roadblock. They headed down the road, doubled back on themselves. Then…" Logan shrugged. "Then someone dropped the biggest sent bomb I've ever come across. I can't smell anything other than noxious chemicals."
Xavier nodded; he was having to concentrate on breathing though his mouth and not his nose. For Logan's enhanced sense of smell it must be overpowering. Wolfsbane had whined and declined to change into her wolf form. Someone knew the abilities that the X-Men had at their disposal, and they knew how to neutralise them.
"Can't you get a fix on them?" Logan asked
Xavier shook his head. "I've tried. Perhaps when we return I may have more luck with Cerebro."
"What does that mean?"
"It may simply mean that they are unconscious." Xavier told him, trying to calm his fear. "But there are ways to block my telepathy."
Logan grunted. "Yeah. And we know who knows how to do that don't we."
Xavier shook his head to cut his off. "This is not the time for ideal speculation."
"You saw what happened to the Jeep!"
Later. Charles told him as he saw Scott and the others approaching.
"Nothing, Professor." Cyclops muttered.
"Ah don't understand." Rouge said. "What could anyone want with Bobby and Mattie?"
"Who knows what those guys wanted?" Multiple sank down to the ground. He was taking the kidnap of Chase and Iceman as a personal failure.
"Well they covered their tracks." Wolfsban said, holding a hand to her nose. "We can't even find them. Let alone try and rescue them."
Nightcrawler nodded solemnly. "And here we are at not even half strength."
Xavier nodded thoughtfully; it was all too much to simply be coincidence.
X
Mattie's head was pounding as she slowly and painfully forced herself into wakefulness. She reached up to rub her temples and found that she couldn't move her hands. Her eyes snapped open. She was in a high-backed chair, her wrists and ankles clamped to the chair's arms and legs. She was in a large, brightly lit room with very little in the way of furnishings. She and the chair could be the only thing in it for all she knew. Fully awake now she tugged at the metal wrapped around her wrists, it wouldn't budge.
"Miss Drew. So nice of you to join us."
Mattie froze. The speaker was behind her, no matter how she twisted her neck she couldn't see who it was.
"Nothing to say?" The voice oozed like an oil slick.
Mattie struggled harder with her restraints.
"I was given to suppose that you always had a witty reply." The speaker continued. "So how is it that you do not consent to speak with me?"
Giving up on her wrists, Mattie tugged at the clamps on her ankles.
"Miss Drew, I do not believe that I have your full attention."
Mattie was suddenly thrown back in her chair as it tilted onto its two back legs and slid backwards across the floor. It righted itself with a thud.
"Nice trick." Mattie muttered. She was starting to get an idea as to who was behind her. Please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong.
"She speaks." The speaker cried in a mockery of rapture.
She was being toyed with. Laughed at. Well two could play at that. Mattie steeled herself and plunged in. "So are we going to keep up this Almighty Wizard of Oz thing or would you like to step out from behind the curtain?"
The speaker gave a chuckle. "Perhaps."
Mattie could hear footsteps as he approached her. She'd heard about him. Heard about what he was capable of. What he wanted to do. Heard what the others had told her and prayed that she would never have to face only one like that. She tensed. Please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong. A shadow loomed over her; she took a breath and looked up.
Shit.
"Miss Drew." He gazed down at her. "I believe you know who I am."
Mattie nodded. "Magneto."
He inclined his head. "Your father."
X
Bobby came too with a ringing slap across the face.
"Do it again. Do it again."
"No. Don't." He said angrily and lashed out at the man who had hit him. Or, that was the plan. He found himself struggling against wrist and ankle restraints that kept him pinned against the wall. The two men laughed at him, watching him struggle.
"Or you'll do what?" One of the men sneered, throwing a lazy punch into Bobby's midsection.
Bobby jerked against his restraints as his body tried to double up.
"Careful." Another man by the door cautioned. "If Magneto finds out…"
"He wont." The first man told him. "Besides, it's the girl he wanted. This one is just in the way." He sneered at Bobby again, and then spat just to his right. "Lets go. He's not dead, that's all we needed to know."
Bobby watched them go. Magneto? Magneto wanted Mattie?
X
"My… What? I'm sorry did I just walk into the set of Star Wars!"
"I told you she had a mouth on her." Pietro stood in the doorway. In a burst of speed he came to stand beside his father.
"Well done, Pietro! Gold star for biology!" Mattie snapped at him.
"Indeed." Magneto agreed.
Mattie glared at him, her anger totally overriding her survival instinct. "I already have a father thanks, and I'm not auditioning for the roll."
"It had yet to be confirmed of course." Magneto told her. "But we shall see."
"Based on what!" Mattie asked, desperately trying not to sound hysterical. "What can possibly have made you connect me to you?"
"Hello?" Pietro raced twice round the room, before coming back to smirk at her.
"But… But…" Mattie stammered. "That's not how it works. You know it's not. Look at Pietro. He doesn't have any power to magic magnets or anything."
Pietro burst out laughing at Mattie's description of his father's power, and then sobered quickly at the warning glare Magneto gave him.
"I have learnt that it pays to be too careful." Magneto told her once he had his son under control.
"But… I've been at the Institute for months now." Mattie protested. "You don't think the Professor would have noticed something? And Mr McCoy did all those tests when I first arrived. You can't fake DNA."
"I have my own team of scientists working on that." Magneto assured her. "Blood will out, Miss Drew."
Mattie's world, which was already spinning wildly out of control, suddenly took a nosedive. "And what happens if the tests prove that I'm not related to you?"
Magneto didn't answer her; he turned abruptly and strode out the room, Pietro following at his heels.
Mattie franticly pulled against her restraints; trying to force her hand through the iron loop. Both her wrists were soon rubbed raw, but she kept going.
X
Bobby iced up his arm and then tried to ice up the restraint on his wrist. Maybe it would be brittle enough for him to snap. It didn't work, the metal was too thick. With a sigh he gave up.
None of this made sense. What could Magneto possibly want with Mattie? And why did he have humans working for him? That made even less sense than anything else. Magneto, the self proclaimed Messiah of mutants. Magneto, who would happily kill any humans in his path. He wanted to wipe humans off the face of the planet, not employ them. But if the guys that had attacked them were mutants, they hadn't demonstrated any powers. So there were humans working for Magneto. They had called him Magneto. So they knew who they were working for. So why do it? If Bobby had happened to come across a human hell bent of killing every mutant in his path, members of the HOM not included, there was no way that he would go to work for him.
X
A guard glanced into the room, noted that Mattie was still securely attached to the chair and moved on. That made six. Magneto hadn't been gone longer than half an hour and already six guards had checked in on her. Six guards, but no Acolytes. She'd been half hoping for a glance at Gambit, Jubilee had told her at great length just how gorgeous he was. The rumour was that even Rouge was a little smitten, so he must be handsome. But no, just soldiers, lots of them. She was obviously high priority. Well she would be, if she was heir to the Magneto throne. The idea made her want to gag. She couldn't be related to that monster. Could she? Just because she and Pietro had similar powers, it didn't mean they were related. It just didn't work that way. Look at Paige and Sam, very different powers. Look and Kurt and Mystic. Okay so both blue, but totally different powers. And Scott and Alex… Both had the ability to blast stuff. This argument wasn't going the way she had hoped. But she couldn't be related to him, because she already had a father. She clung to that hope with all her strength.
X
Rogue dashed down the corridor towards the Professor's study.
"Professor!" She gasped shoving the door wide open. "What do Ah do? What do Ah say?"
"Rouge." Xavier looked up expectantly. "What's wrong?"
"Ah don't know what to say."
"To who?" Xavier asked.
"Mattie's dad!" Rouge practically shouted. "Ah've told him that Ah'm trying to find her. What should Ah say to him?"
Xavier thought quickly. Telling Mr Drew that they believed a mutant terrorist to currently be holding his daughter was not an option. So what should he be told? As ever in these matters, it was wisest to tell as much of the truth as possible. "Tell him that Mattie went out and you don't know where she is at the moment."
Rouge nodded and reached for the phone on the desk. "Sorry, Mr Drew. She'd gone out and Ah don't know where."
Mr Drew made a reply and Rouge nodded. "Yeah, sure. No problem, bye."
"Wants Mattie to call him when she gets back." Rouge told the Professor.
Professor Xavier nodded, try as he might he had had no luck in locating either Mattie or Bobby. Clearly he was going to have to try something else.
X
Bobby looked up as Magneto stalked into the room.
"So. You remembered that I exist. What have I done to have the pleasure of you company?"
"Hold your tongue." Magneto told him coldly, cuffing him across the head. "You are an annoyance. I had not intended to involve you."
Bobby shook his head and watched him. This might be his only chance to find out what had happened to Mattie.
"I was only interested in Miss Drew. But seeing as how the two of you refuse to ever be separated for more than a matter of minutes, I was forced to change my plans."
"What plans would those be then?" Bobby asked.
"They do not concern you."
Bobby nodded. "Right, cause me being shackled to the wall like this… no, that doesn't concern me."
He waited to be struck again but instead Magneto ignored him.
"So why are we here?" Bobby asked.
Again Magneto ignored him. Bobby was about to risk asking the question again when he spoke.
"You, Mr Drake, are here because you got in the way. Miss Drew is another matter."
"Is she okay?" Bobby tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. He couldn't bare the thought of Mattie being tortured somewhere else.
"She has not been harmed. She is far too valuable for that."
That didn't reassure Bobby as much as it should have. Valuable? What was going on here?
"Why's she so important? What's she got?"
"Jealous?" Magneto sneered at him. "You had your chance, you all did. I offered you the chance to become part of the greater good."
"Thanks. I'll pass." Bobby told him. "So why are you so interested in Mattie?"
"That is not your concern. Your only concern is your own personal well being."
Bobby eyed him wearily. Was that a threat? He was most defiantly in the right position to make one.
"You will do well, as long as you do not attempt to interfere with me. I have no wish to harm you. But I will not have people stand in my way."
"You won't harm her?" Bobby knew that he was flashing an obvious weakness, but he couldn't help it. Making sure that Mattie was unharmed was the most important thing to him.
"I wish to offer her the same chance that you all received. To willingly become one of my Acolytes and to wipe the stain of human existence of this planet."
Bobby had his own ideas about the likelihood of Mattie excepting, but he kept that to himself.
"Speaking of the Acolytes, the three stooges not joining us on this little kidnapping escapade."
"I had hoped to keep this a family matter." Magneto glared at him. "Sadly that proved not to be possible."
"So no Acolytes, but lots of humans?"
"Surprised?" Magneto allowed a small smile to cross his features. "I have found that humans will do just about anything for large amount of money."
"Even work for a man, dead set on exterminating them?"
"It appears so. I wanted a certain amount of silence about my activities, and humans are so easily bought. They will do whatever I ask of them. Proving my point that they need to be lead by their betters."
Bobby just stared at him.
"Now, I have other matters that demand my attention." With that he was gone.
Bobby watched him go, racking his brains to think through all that he'd said. What did he mean 'family matter.'?
X
Mattie sat. Not that she really had a choice, and her body was starting to have issues about that. She'd just about had enough of this. She was stuck here, wondering if she was the daughter of the next Hitler, she had no idea where Bobby was or what had happened to him, and her arse was busy being numb and uncomfortable. What had happened to Bobby? She remembered that they were trying to escape, maybe he'd got away. Please let him have got away. Please let him be alive. That tiny thought slipped in despite her trying to force it away. Please, please, please let Bobby be alive. She could cope with being Baby Magneto as long as Bobby had got away safely. If he wasn't… That wasn't even worth thinking about.