A/N: Just a reminder I don't own any of the characters except for the few that you've probably never heard of, those I definitely made up. I own Angela and Elijah. PS if I write about a mutant that sounds like one that already exists, but I give them another name, it's only because I don't know the other one exists and I think it would be a pretty safe bet that there could be multiple mutants with at least somewhat similar powers.

Oh and the character Angela comes from me being thoroughly confused by the movie Resident Evil, but don't watch it, I've been told the game is three million times better and I believe that.

Chapter 7: PROJECT ELIJAH

The professor had been in Cerebro for a long time. X23 had left the downstairs rooms and wandered off somewhere. Everyone else was just confused.
"Don't look at me for explanations." Logan muttered after X had left. It was easier to think of her as that, the number had made it awkward.
"I wish she would have told us more about the computer program called Angela." At this point Logan got up and left. Angela, the program, whatever, that was the girl from his dreams. It confused him. He didn't understand why she was targeting him. He pretty much knew if he wanted answers, he was going to have to find X. Now, where was she?
The mutant in question was currently wandering around near the living area. She was being closely watched by Roger whether she knew it or not, chances were that she did. It all looked so different in the daylight. She supposed it looked like what a mansion converted to a school looks like, but she wouldn't know, she'd never really been inside any kind of house before. All the kids were looking at her and for the first time in a long time she felt self-conscious. She didn't really enjoy the feeling.
"Hey, you a new recruit?" A pleasant looking kid with brown hair and glasses that made his grey eyes seem huge and innocent had come over. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she'd seen him hanging out with Roger. It wouldn't have mattered if he had or hadn't been an associate of Roger, she was suspicious by nature. She'd been created that way.
"Not exactly." She replied.
"My name's Alan." He held out a hand.
"That's nice." She ignored the extended hand.
"I could show you around the school. Show you the stuff that teacher's don't show you until much later into training." Although she didn't trust him, this tid bit intrigued her. Were these people more technologically informed than she had first believed?
"Ok Alan, play tour guide."
Rogue was dripping sweat by now. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beat the shit out of the smarmy little brat who was still laughing her head off at her. Most of all, she didn't want to die.
"This can't be happening." Rogue said out loud.
"Oh, but it is. You know, if you had stood there like a good little girl, I may not have had to do this."
Rogue was in a panicked state. She had to be, because when she looked down the mines were gone.
"What's going on?" She gasped and suddenly the mines were back. "This isn't real." She was tempted to laugh giddily. The little girl stamped her foot.
"No fair! You cheated!" The room reverted back to what it had looked like before the appearance of the girl. The girl disappeared, she wasn't real. Rogue walked over to the door and pulled.
"Figures." She muttered to herself. The door was locked.
X23 followed Alan into an elevator. So far she had yet to be impressed. Alan knew that, but she would be by the end of the tour. He hoped he lived to enjoy this. Roger and Alyssa had both been pissed when they had recounted Roger's humiliation. Golem as usual just stood there in silence. Roger wanted revenge, only he wouldn't be able to deliver it himself. So he'd sent Alan instead.
Alan was good for this kind of thing mostly because he looked harmless. Granted, Roger had come up with this plan. The elevator stopped.
"After you." He motioned like a true gentleman.
"I'd really rather not." The girl replied. Damn, she really was an ice-cold bitch.
"Suit yourself." He shrugged and exited the elevator.
"So where are we going?" She asked from behind him.
"You'll see." Alan replied and led the way. They were walking down a long white hallway. There was only one door at the end. Eventually they made their way down there and Alan opened the door.
"Here we are."
"Where is here?" This was an area of the building that X had never seen before or known about and she'd had a pretty decent map of the place. She'd walked ahead of Alan so she was further into the room than he was to get a better look of the place.
"This is where we train. We call it the Danger Room. Ready for your first session?" He was out the door and closing it faster than she could process what was going on. He logged in the hardest level he knew of. "Let's just see how indestructible you really are."
Mentally she was smashing her head into a wall repeatedly. Why on Earth hadn't she gone with her instincts? She'd made a run for the door but had only ended up smashing into it. She slammed the steel-coated door with her open palm in frustration, but only succeeded in making her hand hurt. Then the situation got worse. Things in the room began to move.
The room was circular and very bright. In the center of the circle an axis had risen and blades that extended all the way to the walls burst forth. That would have been fine except they began to rotate. She was trying to avoid them when walls began to spring up from the floor trapping her. She was working on pure instinct now. She jumped, dug her foot claws into the floor/wall thing and made it to the top. Then she jumped on top of the whirling blades and made her way to the axis. Something told her if she destroyed that, everything else in the room would stop too, or at least she hoped it would.
Logan was headed toward Cerebro when the doors opened and the professor came out.
"Where's X23?" The professor inquired.
"I thought she'd be waiting here. She's no where else I've looked." The professor closed his eyes and mentally scanned the house. Almost immediately they flew open.
"She's in the Danger Room." The professor wheeled passed him.
"The what?" Logan asked.
"Follow me." The professor went through a door that Logan had never seen before. It turned out to be an elevator and it only went one way, down.
She really hadn't thought this plan through thoroughly and getting to the center axis was proving to be harder than she thought. Now she was on one of the rotating blades, but advancing was nearly impossible since one of the blades above her was hell-bent on decapitating her. To her dismay something else had started up. Guided projectiles kept trying to knock her off. She did the only thing she could think of; she went up.
Intermittently dodging rotating blades and whatever else was flying through the air she painstakingly made her way towards the top. The walls started to shift. Blocks began to undulate in and out of the walls, trying to knock her off the blades or squish her. She was really getting tired of this. Finally she made it to the top of the axis. She was still being bombarded and she was having some trouble keeping her balance, but at least she had more time to think. She extended her claws, turned her back, timed everything perfectly (she hoped) and jumped. She tore huge gashes in the metal of the axis as she made her way down. As long as nothing new popped up, she would not end up looking like the contents of a blender.
"The door's been jammed." Logan said after trying five times to get the controls to obey their master.
"Not jammed. The door won't open until the session is over. She'll have to beat it or lose, however, this level has never been really tested before." He left the doom part unspoken.
"Can't we try to bust down the door?" Logan asked. The professor sighed.
"I suppose you could try, but they are very thick, and I'd rather you just wait until Hank tries to over ride the system." Just as Logan was about to do something, the doors slid open and X23 stood there none the worse for wear. Behind her stuff immediately fell apart with a loud clatter. She winced at the noise and fell to her knees. She was bleeding across her torso.
"Here I thought you just hid in this school all day and taught boring stuff." After a moment she stood back up, not a scratch in sight. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kick the crap out of some people." She marched past them.
"Just, don't kill them." The professor said. Logan stared at him as if he'd never seen him before in his life.
"Death's too good for them."
Rogue was stuck and she knew it. For some reason the door had felt threatening so she crouched in the farthest corner away from it. To be honest, once the little girl had gone away she'd quickly grown bored. She had run out of all her bright ideas. Disgusted with herself she got up and began pacing. She was getting out of here one way or another. She marched over to the door and began kicking it with all the force she could muster. Little by little the door began to give. Suddenly it burst forward and slammed into the wall on the other side. The sound of impact echoed like a shot and Rogue's heart jumped into her throat.
After several minutes she realized that no one was going to come investigate the noise so she tentatively made her way into the hallway. It was a pretty non-descript hallway. There were no doors and there seemed to be no end in sight. She had to choose, right or left. Since she wanted to go right she decided she should probably go left. She turned and headed down the hall. It seemed to be a one way kind of hall, when she reached a corner it only went right, so she followed it. Leave it to her to get stuck in such a maze. She truly began to despair when she came upon her kicked in door and realized she'd gone in a circle. She decided she'd just hang out in the room she'd come to in. Immediately the little girl appeared in the corner. She had her back to Rogue and seemed to be playing with something. Rogue was very tired, she thought she might lie down and take a little nap...


Twenty minutes later, X23 was back in the professor's study.
"I believe I may have found your friend." He handed her a map. "I have full confidence that you will find him and bring him back here."
"And why would I be doing that?" She asked as she scanned the map.
"Because I just let you terrorize two of my students and they are our friends at risk. We want to know what you are doing before you do it so we can prevent you from getting them killed. For assurances I'll be sending Logan and Gambit along." X23 shrugged. Everyone was a little surprised that she didn't argue back. They had to go outside to get to the garage. Logan and Gambit tried not to laugh at the sight of Alan and Roger strung up the flagpole, but ended up snickering anyway.
In the garage they found three bikes and some clothes. X23 got on the foremost bike, pulled out the helmet although she didn't really need it and gunned it. Right before she pulled the visor in place she threw a casual look over her shoulder.
"Try and keep up boys." Then she floored it out of there. The so called "boys" looked at each other and then scrambled to catch up.

- -1 Day and a Half Later- -

The town they arrived in was practically dead. X23 had decided she didn't much like Arizona, so they would get in, get what they came for, and get out. The only motel was five miles out from town. They'd left the bikes there, but with any luck they wouldn't be staying there. They had to go the rest of the way on foot. Eventually they came upon a large, abandoned building.
"We're here." X23 said. Logan and Gambit stared at the building.
"It's abandoned." Gambit supplied intelligently. X23 fought off the urge to smack him.
"This lab hasn't been used since too many of the projects started failing."
"Are the people we're looking for in there?" Logan asked.
"No, but if we want to find them, I suggest we get to work."
After two hours Logan and Gambit were beginning to wonder why they were still walking around in circles when suddenly X23 walked to an elevator and pressed the only button there. They ended up in a lower part of the building. Gambit started to move down the hall when X23 put an arm up stopping him.
"Stop." She commanded.
"Why?" Gambit asked. X23 moved closer to the wall. She seemed to be searching for something. She smashed a fist into the wall hard, even Logan and Gambit felt a shudder through the floor. On top of that, they heard something clicking and turning, almost like gears grinding together. From various points in the wall, laser beams burst forth, one was inches from where Gambit was standing.
"Old security system." X23 said before Logan could ask why an abandoned building would still need to be guarded. "Guess just because the project failed, didn't mean they didn't want some stranger to come wandering in here."
"How do you propose we get past these?" Gambit asked.
"Climb through."
"No way, even if I ever could have done something like that, I certainly wouldn't want to try now."
"Fine," said X23 "What do you propose we do instead?" Gambit was already pulling out a card. With precision aim, he threw it at a key panel that must control the lasers across the room. On impact the card exploded and so did X23. Her patience had run thin.
"You idiot!" She hissed as somewhere deep inside the bowels of the building an alarm began to sound, and other safety measures began to be set lose.
They'd run into a part of the building that looked like an open warehouse. So far they hadn't run into anyone or anything, but even they knew their luck was about to run out. They could hear something that howled coming their way and on top of that running footsteps. If the noise was any indication, they were slowly being trapped. X23 took a gigantic leap and swung herself up onto a catwalk that was above them. She didn't have time to take the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Hissed Logan.
"Well, you've already blown what little cover we had, so I'm going to get what we came here to get. In case it hasn't dawned on you, if we ever get out of this building, we are definitely not ever going to get back in." With that she took off.
In the few minutes that X23 had been gone, things had begun to go very wrong. The first wave of guards flowed into where Logan and Gambit were standing like sitting ducks. Of course the same guards were quickly disposed of, but if more than five flooded the place at once, well they would be royally fucked.
"X, if you can hear me, you'd better hurry!" Logan screamed at the rafters. He hoped X23 heard him, otherwise he just looked like an idiot.
Luckily for Logan, X23 had heard him, so he didn't have to feel or look like an idiot. Luckily for Logan, he didn't hear X23's response. She was busy trying to get a very heavy eight-year-old boy on her back while he was unconscious so that they could get out of here. However, her load was too heavy and when she tried to stand up she pitched forward headfirst into a wall.
"Both of you get up here, now!" X23'a voice came floating back down to them.
"We're just a little busy." Gambit yelled back. The guards had charged, and there had been more than five of them. After much wrestling they managed to make there way to the catwalk area above.
"Let's go." Said Logan. They took off in the direction of X23's voice. When they found her she pointed at an opening in the wall.
"Service elevator from when they must've built the place. It should take us back to ground level."

- - Back at the Mansion - -

X23 burst through the door first carrying the small boy in her arms. To everyone else the boy looked dead. She stopped the first kid she saw.
"Where's Hank?" She snapped.
"H-h-he should b-be down in the b-basement where he usually is." The poor child stammered. Something softened just a smidgen in X23 as she walked away. She turned.
"Hey kid!" The kid actually squeaked. "You've been helpful." She was smacking herself. Why couldn't she have just said thanks? She shook it off and headed towards the basement. She hoped Hank knew as much about technology as he seemed to.