A Force Unleashed

by darkstorm5000

The X-Men Past, Present, and Future band together, as the government-sanctioned Project: Wideawake goes online with it's ultimate weapon-The Sentinels! (Contains both classic couples, and unlikely pairings). Final Chapter Added.

8. Unfinished Business

A Force Unleashed

Written by Darkstorm5000

Disclaimer: The X-Men and related characters in their various incarnations are the property of Marvel Comics and Marvel Enterprises.

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Chapter 8- Unfinished Business

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On what had been a tranquil and beauteous evening at one home located in suburban Portland, had now been replaced by a scene that was far more hostile. The heated emotions currently emanating from the mother of one who lived there, were the result of being suddenly and involuntarily reunited with her estranged father.

Her vexation with him could most likely be traced back to one day in her youth, a day when she was finally forced to accept the kind of man that he was. It was also the very same day that she made the conscious decision to never blindly follow her father, nor his cause again. But whether she wanted to or not, this evening she would have to deal with years' worth of resentment and animosity towards him that had been building up within her.

"I'm only going to repeat myself once, before you are the recipient of one of the most powerful hex-bolts that I can manage to create. Leave my home, or I will make sure that you land so far out in the Pacific that it will be a good long while before you find your way back." Wanda Maximoff angrily warned her father.

"I did not come here seeking a quarrel with you, my daughter." Erik Lensherr replied, as he stood and faced his daughter on the front stoop of her scant, two-story home.

"You no longer have the right to refer to me as your daughter." Wanda slowly articulated, this time in a voice tinged with even more bitterness.

Erik simply looked at the curvedly built woman with long brunette hair before him, who was dressed in an amber knitted pullover sweater and dark-colored pants. He realized that his daughter, his Wanda, had grown considerably from the docile and generally passive teenager that she had been when he first discovered her and her twin brother. Now, she was undeniably a mature and confident woman, and her features now more than ever bore a striking resemblance to her mother and to his late wife, his beloved Magda. But, Erik also very much sensed her anger at him, which seemed to border on pure-hatred and that had been sparked by his very presence.

"I wish that you felt differently, Wanda." Erik said, replying to her desire to distance herself from the fact that they were father and daughter.

"I wish that you were different." Wanda replied straightforwardly.

"Be that as it may, we cannot change who we are. And more importantly, who we were meant to be." Erik stated, as he now journeyed right past her through the front door.

"I don't recall inviting you inside!" Wanda pointed out, as she turned around to face him in the front area of the house.

"I assumed that it was a mere oversight on your part." Erik smirked, as he went into her living room and briefly looked around to survey the room, "What we need to discuss is of crucial importance."

"I said everything that I had to say when I last saw you all of those years ago." Wanda told him, as she closed the front door and followed him into the living room, where Erik had removed his hat and had taken a seat at the edge of the sofa in there.

"You know, you are not an easy woman to find." Erik said, as he sat and looked up at Wanda, his clear blue eyes meeting with hers, "Maximoff. That is an interesting choice of surnames for you to use as an alias."

"I had my reasons. I wanted to start a new life for myself, with you being one of the main reasons why." Wanda replied scornfully, as she stood at a cautious distance from him and watched her father's every move like a hawk.

"As I said before, we cannot change who we are and who we were meant to be." Erik began, "The world is transforming at a rapid pace, and the time has come for you to assume the role which you were born to play in it. You are 'The Scarlet Witch', and along with your brother Quicksilver, are heir to the new world that I want to create for mutants everywhere."

Wanda had gotten so used to being known just as Wanda Maximoff, or more often than not as 'Megan's Mom' to the other neighborhood kids, that it had been some time since she had given much thought to her former moniker.

"Is that why you are here, to drag me kicking and screaming back into your Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?" Wanda inquired.

"My days of forcing others to do what is best for them are over. I am simply offering you the opportunity to be a part of something grandiose." Erik responded.

"After all of these years, you still don't get it." Wanda quickly replied, "I want nothing to do with your tyrannical desires to make yourself mutant kind's self-appointed dictator. I've learned that there's more to life than--"

Wanda abruptly stopped, when a new presence made herself known in the living room.

"Mommy, I thought I heard Unca Pietro down here." Megan said, as she had come downstairs, only to discover that the 'bestest' uncle in the whole world was nowhere in sight.

"Mother?" Erik said in a surprised tone, as he now stood up from the sofa.

"Who's that?" Megan asked as she looked at the strange man in her home, and then to her mother.

"Dear child, I am your Grandfather." Erik informed her, as he walked closer to his newly revealed granddaughter.

"Grandpa?" Megan stuttered, confused by the fact that she had been told her maternal grandfather had died before she was born.

"Megan, to your room now!" Wanda shouted, which sent Megan scurrying back up the stairs. Now, Wanda worried about what would happen, since her daughter's existence had been exposed to the one person that she did not want to have that bit of information.

"Why did you neglect to inform me that I had become a grandfather?" Erik asked his daughter, in a mildly contemptuous tone.

"Because you never seemed able to successfully grasp the father role." Wanda responded in a tone that was equally as sarcastic.

"You hoped that you could hide my own granddaughter from me." Erik said to her, as he began to piece things together, "Tell me, is she a mutant?"

"That is none of your business!" Wanda sternly replied, "If I answer yes that she is a mutant, then there's no doubt you would not rest until you had her in your clutches. But if the answer is no, if I tell you that she was born without a single mutant gene in her body, then you would simply count her among the faceless horde that you regard homo-sapiens to be. I'm sure that you would consider it no less than repulsive to have a granddaughter that was merely human."

"Think what you may of me, but never question the love that I have for my family!" Erik ardently told her, in a voice that displayed a tremendous amount of pain from the words that his daughter had aimed at him, "As a child, I watched helplessly as everyone that I held dear was destroyed by the ideology of madmen. Had there been someone then with the power and the conviction to stand up in their defense, think of the countless lives that could have been spared the horrors of the gas chambers. Everything that I have done, I have done to assure that none of you will suffer that same fate, and that you will be allowed to have your place in this world. The time is drawing near my daughter, when you will have to choose whether or not you will accept the responsibility that you owe to your brethren to help build that world."

As Erik put his black fedora hat back on and walked past Wanda to the front door, he stopped to turn around and make one last comment to his daughter.

"I assume that you will pass my message and offer along to your fleet-footed brother." Erik said with a wry smile, as he opened the front door, "You can also extend my offer to that keen husband of yours, I am quite certain that we could use a man with his unique talents as well."

"I know that I speak for the both of them, when I say that there is no way that any of us would even consider having anything to do with you." Wanda loudly proclaimed, as her father continued on and left without responding to her, using his magnetic powers to close the front door behind him. As Wanda sat in the now empty living room, her eyes were trained on the floor as she pondered the words that her father had spoken to her, and realized that there was some truth in them.

Wanda knew that she would indeed have to make a choice soon, decisions that regarded a great number of things in her life...

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The following morning in Westchester County near Salem Center, New York, three residents at Xavier's School for the Gifted were wrapping up a meeting in which they had gone over a number of recent developments, and had assessed their impact.

"I agree, Scott. As soon as Banshee contacts us with confirmation on the location of this farm belonging to the Trask family, the team should travel to join him in his investigation." Professor Xavier said, as he had left the War Room and entered the long corridor outside of it, which ran underground beneath his school.

"I'll go see what else I can gather on the Trask family, and I'll start putting together a mission roster this afternoon." Scott Summers replied, as he walked next to Professor Xavier on his right side.

"In the meantime, I will further investigate this possible connection that you have uncovered, which apparently links the Massachusetts Academy to the Brotherhood, and possibly to the gunmen that tried to kill Alison." Ororo Munroe said, as she walked on Professor Xavier's left.

"I myself am very curious as to how Erik has ingratiated himself into all of this." Professor Xavier replied to her.

"With Emma Frost involved, I suppose anything is possible." Ororo plainly said.

"I didn't realize that you knew her?" Professor Xavier responded, as his visit to the Massachusetts Academy was a somewhat spur of the moment decision and wasn't made until after he, Kitty, and Bobby were in Washington D.C.

"We met some time back, and it is an encounter that I would just as soon forget." Ororo said, as she, Scott, and the Professor had made it to the elevator that went upstairs. But while Scott and Ororo stopped and prepared to board the elevator, Professor Xavier continued wheeling down the corridor.

"Aren't you going to join us for breakfast, Professor?" Scott asked his mentor.

"I will be along later, after I have finished with Cerebro." Professor Xavier replied, as he stopped for a moment and turned back around.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Scott asked him, "Your powers have just begun to return, and trying to use Cerebro before you're ready could be dangerous."

"If I am able to successfully locate where Moira MacTaggert is, then it is well worth any potential risk to myself." Professor Xavier stated, as the elevator doors opened in front of Scott and Ororo, "Oh, if either of you happen to see Kitty, tell her that I would like to speak to her for a moment."

With that, Scott and Ororo stepped aboard the elevator and headed up to the first-floor of the school. As they departed, the doors to Cerebro opened in front of Professor Xavier after a thorough scan was done by the upgraded security system, which positively identified him before granting him access inside.

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Meanwhile, as the Professor went to Cerebro seeking aid in discerning where one of his closest friends was, another resident at the school was also seeking aid in finding Dr. MacTaggert, but from a higher power. Rahne Sinclair was on a journey of her own away from the confines of the institute's walls, heading to the one place where she could try to make sense of everything that had happened in her life recently. After looking over a map during her student orientation that diagramed the layout of the school and the surrounding estate, Rahne discovered that there was a small chapel nearby. It was a remnant left from Salem Center's rich past, harkening back to a day and time when European's had first entered the area. After a brisk, mid-morning walk through the wooded terrain that surrounded the estate, Rahne found herself outside of the weathered holy structure.

"H'llo? Is anyone in here?" Rahne called out as she entered the chapel, but heard no response.

Rahne went inside and lit a few candles at the front of the church, providing additional illumination to the sparse light beaming through the structure's dulled stained-glass windows. After she blew out the match that she had gotten from a match-book in a small table-top case near the candle stands, Rahne went back down the steps in front of the minister's podium and sat down in the front-row pew. She then bowed her head in prayer, to ask God for answers to the questions that had been bothering her ever since Dani had helped coax her out of her catatonic wolf-state.

"Lord, I know it is'na my place t'question ye, but why would ye allow someone t'take Miss Moira away from me?" Rahne devoutly appealed, "She's the only Mum I know, and I really, really miss her. I know it's wrong t'use prayer to ask for such self-servin' things, but if ye could see fit t'bring her back, I promise t'try much harder t'be a more godly woman. Or if ye would be so merciful, at least allow me t'understand why such a thing had to happen."

With her short prayer now spoken and finished, Rahne's face rose back up and the first thing that she saw was the large cross that hung on the wall at the front of the church. Rahne did feel slightly better now, as she always did after her daily prayer, but the intense heartache that she felt from being separated from her adoptive mother still remained. It was an inexplicable hurt that she concealed, almost to the point of being unbearable to the young girl.

Rahne had finally made it to the point where she could keep from spontaneously crying over her adoptive mother's disappearance, but when she was alone Rahne still felt the need to release her anguish in the form of tears, like she was quietly doing at the moment. What Rahne failed to remember, however, was that no one was ever truly alone, especially in God's house.

"They say that God sometimes sends hardships into our lives, to help us rediscover and strengthen our faith in him." A voice with a heavy German accent said from the back of the church, which he had just moments ago entered.

Rahne had been silently crying into the palms of her hands, but upon hearing the speaker from behind the young Scottish girl was startled and instantly turned around. Before her very eyes was none other than Kurt Wagner, standing there dressed a simple crimson turtleneck sweater and navy trousers.

"I din'na hear you come inside, Mr. Wagner." Rahne said, as she wiped her tear-stained face against the sleeve of the lightweight brown sweater that she was wearing.

"I seem to have an unfortunate knack for such things." Kurt smiled, as he walked up the aisle of the chapel to its front.

"I'm not in trouble for comin' out here on mah own, am I?" Rahne asked him, "I know I should've checked in with an adult, but I told Dani and Terri where I was off to."

"Of course not. I am just sorry for unintentionally sneaking up on you the way that I did." Kurt replied, "I try to come here for divine guidance at least once every day, and I did not expect to find company out here today."

"T'be honest, ye're the last person that I'd expect t'ever see here." Rahne said, as Kurt continued past her, and went up the steps in front of the pulpit.

"And why is that, Liebchen?" Kurt asked with his back turned to her, as he went to where the candle-stands were and lit a couple more of them.

"It's, just…that…" Rahne said, as she fumbled her response.

"It's just that I look like the devil himself." Kurt grinned, as he turned and walked back down to where Rahne was sitting, his large pointed-tail slowly swinging to and fro behind him.

"I'm sorry for suggestin' such a disrespectful thing." Rahne said apologetically, as Kurt sat down on the wooden bench next to her.

"There is no need to apologize. In my life, far worse things have been said and believed about me." Kurt told her, as he pulled the small crucifix out of his pocket that he always carried with him, "But in the Scripture, it says that what is in a person's heart is much more important than what is visible on the outside. That teaching has helped me to endure the tribulations that I have experienced in my life as a result of my outward appearance."

Rahne sat there marveling at Kurt's obvious knowledge of the Bible, and at how he seemed so true to his faith in God. As Kurt sat next to Rahne, he held his crucifix in his right hand and began his daily prayer recitations in his native German. Although Rahne couldn't translate the actual words of what Kurt was verbalizing, she still sat mesmerized by the invocations from this pious man. Once Kurt had finished his prayer some time later, he looked over at the youngster seated next to him.

"What do you say to us returning to the mansion now?" Kurt asked Rahne, as the two of them got up to leave the small chapel. As Kurt and Rahne walked along a path through the woods together, Rahne decided to ask him something.

"Mr. Wagner, do ye think it's wrong of me askin' God to bring Miss Moira back home?" Rahne queried him, as she looked up at him in the outdoor sunlight and noticed for the first time the intricate-looking marking that were carved into his face.

"I think that He would be the first one to go to for help in matters such as those troubling you." Kurt told her, "I know that I asked many similar questions when I was your age, and prayed that He would reunite me with the mother that had abandoned me at birth."

"Your mother abandoned ye? Ye mean, she just left ye and walked away?" Rahne asked him, as she couldn't understand why a parent would intentionally do that their child.

"Yes, most likely she was frightened at having just given life to a demon, or at least an infant that very much resembled one." Kurt confirmed, "Luckily, a circus troop that had just finished a show in the area came across me. They took me in and trained me as an acrobat to perform with them."

"Did ye enjoy growing up in a circus?" Rahne asked, as she and Kurt continued their journey back to the mansion.

"Yes, I loved it there and I came to regard everyone there as my family. But what I truly loved was taking the center tent as 'The Incredible Nightcrawler'." Kurt boastingly explained, "It was also one of the few times that I felt my appearance was somewhat accepted by those that lived outside of the circus."

"But, don't ye hate the fact that ye look so different?" Rahne continued inquiring.

"Although it has caused me great difficulties, God made me this way for a reason. So, I live each day hoping that I am fulfilling whatever purpose he has set out for me." Kurt replied.

As they neared the house, Rahne was glad to talk to someone like Mr. Wagner, as his words had done so much in helping her to dealing with her own dilemmas and apprehensions regarding her mutant powers. Spending this brief time with Kurt also reminded her of something that she had read herself, to not judge others solely based on what they looked like. The reason being that God often sends his messages through the most unlikely of messengers. As Rahne was trying to figure out what all of those things now meant to her, she and Kurt suddenly heard a voice calling out to them.

"To think, I spent all of those hours running off at the mouth and I get nothing. I'm gone for like five minutes, and you decide to come out of your shell."

Kurt and Rahne were almost at the rear kitchen entrance to the mansion, when they were met by Kitty Pryde. She was leaning up against the concrete railing that ran around the cobblestone patio deck, dressed in a sage-colored basic warm up suit and sneakers.

"H'llo, Kitty." Rahne responded to her, as she spoke to the person that had come down everyday to talk to her after they had returned from Muir Island.

"You know, a girl could take your ignoring me personally." Kitty jokingly said with a huge smile, as she stepped down from the deck and went over to where Kurt and Rahne were standing.

"No, it is'nae yuir fault. It just took some of the others using a different approach to get through to me, is all." Rahne told her.

"Well, all that counts is you're back." Kitty replied, as she gave Rahne a small hug, "I could hardly believe it when Peter finally remembered to tell me about you, before he left this morning."

Kitty then turned to speak to the other party standing with them.

"So, what've you two been talking about?" Kitty asked Kurt.

"We were just having a discussion about drawing strength from in one's faith in God." Kurt replied.

"Then, I guess you guys can give me the whole non-Jewish perspective over breakfast." Kitty told them, as she turned and started back up the small steps of the deck and went to the kitchen door. Kitty walked inside with her arm around Rahne and with Kurt trailing right behind them, as the trio continued on through the kitchen and headed for the large dining hall inside of the school.

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On the main highway that ran between Salem Center and Plain Hills in Westchester County, Peter Rasputin and Bobby Drake were on their way back home, after having returned the SUV that Professor Xavier had rented while in Massachusetts.

"That did not take as long as I had anticipated." Peter said to Bobby, as he drove the two of them in Ororo's sleek, White Ford Cobra, "We should be home in no time."

"Since Kitty stayed behind so she could talk to Rahne, I'm sure she's all you can think about right now." Bobby replied from the passenger's seat.

"Really? I did not realize mind-reading was a newly manifested power for you." Peter smirked, as he kept his eyes forward and watched the road.

"I don't have to read your mind, I've been there myself. That, and the way Kitty spent most of the time while we were in D.C. wishing that you were there with us, I figured things must be getting pretty heavy between you two." Bobby told him.

"Yes, it would seem so. Which is something of a surprise to me." Peter responded.

"I don't see why it should be." Bobby told Peter, "I mean Kitty is pretty cute, and a brain on top of that. Plus, she's totally crazy about you."

"And I about her. But, I never imagined that these feelings could be so…intense." Peter revealed.

"That's how love works, Big Man." Bobby laughingly remarked.

"It is easy for you to say, you have had much greater experience in such things." Peter said.

"I don't have that much experience, and I obviously still have a lot to learn." Bobby responded, "Besides, I'm sure you had girlfriends before back home in Russia."

"I dated a few girls, but they were nothing as serious as me and Katya have become." Peter imparted, "The only comparable feelings which I have to refer to would either be the emotions that I feel when working with the canvas, or working on my family's farm in Siberia." Peter replied.

"Okay, I understand the painting analogy, but where'd you get the farming comparison from?" Bobby inquired, as they continued traveling in the car.

"I suppose you could say that I thought of myself as an artist even then, using the soil to mold the landscape with my own hands." Peter explained, "It was not until I came to Professor Xavier's school and was exposed to the joys of sketching and painting by Ms. Munroe, that I found a way to truly communicate that exhilaration, that passion which I felt inside."

"And you sure picked things up quick too." Bobby commented, "When it was just you, me, and John at the school, the two of us used to say we were going to save one of your portraits until you made it big-time as an artist, and then sell it to make our first million."

"It sounds like something only the two of you would come up with. Although, I have a feeling that it will be quite some time before anyone receives much of a payoff from my works." Peter slightly grinned, as he glanced over at Bobby.

Reminiscing about when he had first arrived at the school, reminded Peter of the surprising news that Kitty had revealed to him the night before. It was when it was just the two of them left in the main room talking and cuddling, long after everyone else had gone to bed.

"I still cannot believe that you and Katya were so close to John yesterday, without even realizing it." Peter said to Bobby.

"The only reason we did was because the Professor's powers suddenly kicked in, right when we were leaving the Massachusetts Academy." Bobby added, "But what I want to know is what's the real story at that school, and why is John hiding out there?"

"I am certain that we will learn the answers to your questions soon enough." Peter said in response, as the white sports car continued roaring down the highway back to Salem Center.

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Back at the school, the headmaster at the institute of learning Professor Charles Xavier, a man who had successfully learned to deal with the physical limitations he faced on a daily basis, was having a much more difficult time accepting the limitations now placed on his mutant abilities. Although Forge and Hank had helped in finishing the repairs needed to fix the damage done to the Cerebro machine by Colonel William Stryker and his men, Professor Xavier was finding that his telepathic capabilities were not as quickly, nor as easily restored.

Professor Xavier was for the most part a private person, and liked to keep his personal struggles that way as well. He had shared his frustrations at recently losing his mutant abilities only once with anyone else. It was with one of his first students, Ororo Munroe, after they had survived the Sentinel's brutal attack on Muir Island.

Ever since losing the ability to walk, Professor Xavier had made a conscious decision not to dwell on what he couldn't do, and chose rather to focus on what he could do. Right now he just wanted to help in finding Dr. Moira MacTaggert, the woman that at one time he had been engaged to marry. But after attempting to establish a global psi-link through Cerebro, he had been hit with the cold, hard truth after he was only able to sustain the link for a few seconds. Professor Xavier now knew that his efforts to locate Moira with the device would still have to wait.

It was also a realization that wasn't sitting very well with him at the moment, as Cerebro's security system detected a presence outside in the corridor.

"Come in!" Professor Xavier called out in an irritated tone, as he sat in his wheelchair on the narrow platform dock inside of the room, still holding the psionic helmet that was connected to Cerebro in his hands.

"Um, the light outside said Cerebro wasn't in use. But if this is a bad time, I can come back later." Kitty apprehensively replied, after the steel doors to the room had slid open in front of her.

"No, of course not child. I'm sorry for giving you such a harsh response, especially since I did request that you come down here." Professor Xavier apologetically said to Kitty, as he placed the helmet back onto the control panel and wheeled around to face her, "I shouldn't take out my frustrations at being unable to use Cerebro on you."

"Is there something I can do to help?" Kitty asked, as she wondered if that was the reason he had requested her presence.

"I'm afraid there's little that you can do to assist in that area, but that is not why I sent for you." Professor Xavier continued, "It occurred to me after our return home that I have Emma Frost to thank for regaining access to my telepathic abilities, but that I never properly thanked you for saving my life on Muir Island."

"It was no big deal. I just did what any of the X-Men would've done, what you taught us to do." Kitty sincerely replied, as she recalled the CPR training that she had to put into use, after she found her mentor buried beneath the rubble of the research facility.

"It is a big deal." Professor Xavier ardently stated, "I know that it has not always been easy for you, being younger than your teammates, but older than most of the younger students."

"Just call me the proverbial middle child." Kitty jokingly replied.

"In spite of that, you have handled yourself quite well. One only need take into account that you have verbally gone toe-to-toe with Logan, which is no mean feat." Professor Xavier said to her, in a witty manner all his own.

"Oh Logan's just a great big teddy bear deep down. A teddy bear that'll rip your intestines out at the drop of a hat, but still a teddy bear nonetheless." Kitty quipped.

"You know, when you first asked me to allow you to join the X-Men's student squad, I was apprehensive to say the least. I was very much prepared to take you off of the team the instant that you showed that you were not ready. But, you proved that my fears were without merit, and that despite your age you were more than ready to handle that level of responsibility. You've done an outstanding job as an X-Man, and I am very proud of you." Professor Xavier finished.

Although Professor Xavier was lavishing his praise onto her, Kitty felt as though she didn't deserve any of it. She kept thinking about her recurring nightmares and fears regarding the Sentinels. She wanted to tell Professor Xavier that he was mistaken to think so highly of her, and that she felt like a fraud for him putting so much faith in her. More than anything, she wanted to tell him how scared she was about facing them again.

"Um, Professor…" Kitty stumbled out.

"What is it Kitty?" Professor Xavier replied, as he leaned back in his wheelchair slightly.

Kitty started to tell him everything, but then she stopped herself. She thought about what he had just said about taking her off of the Senior-Squad, if she couldn't handle it. Kitty definitely didn't want to get bumped back down to running the 'kiddie course'. It was the nickname that many of the students had given to the obstacle course programs, which the Professor had the younger kids run through in the Danger Room to start developing their various mutant abilities. She also thought about how hard she and the rest of the student team had worked to get promoted to full X-Men status, and how she really, really wanted to be a part of it.

"Nothing. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you said." Kitty told him instead, as she took a few steps backwards.

"You are quite welcome." Professor Xavier replied, as Kitty quickly turned around and left the Cerebro room. Had Professor Xavier's empathic abilities been up to par and had those weakened abilities not already been taxed attempting to use Cerebro, he would've instantly sensed something was amiss. But, all he could do was watch as Kitty headed down the corridor and quickly veered around the corner.

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Later that evening, following a day that had seen Ororo Munroe in and out of team meetings in the mansion's War Room for most of the afternoon, she now found herself in the hangar area of the school's sub-level. She had just gotten off of a small passenger cart that she had driven from Hangar A underneath the school's basketball court, traveling down an underground tunnel towards Hangar B. Hangar B was really the first underground plane hangar that had been built at the school, and was located at the outer edge of the estate. It sat underneath a large lake on the property, approximately forty feet below it, and the underground aircraft runway led to an opening that was hidden on the face of a nearby cliff-side.

Once inside of Hangar B, Ororo saw that both of the team's Blackbird jets were docked in there and that some of the exterior paneling from one of the planes was laying on the concrete floor within, along with a small section of its fuselage. Both crafts had been undergoing a retrofitting process, all at the hands of the mutant machine-smith named Forge.

"Hello?" Ororo called out, as she walked towards the plane that appeared to still be under work, "Are you in there, Forge?"

"Yeah, come on up." Ororo heard a voice eagerly reply.

She proceeded up the ramp, dressed in a simple short-sleeved white top and black pants. Once she was inside of the plane, Ororo saw that Forge was busily laboring within. It was a scene that hadn't really changed for the past few days, as Forge almost seemed entranced by the task at hand. Ororo had even given Forge a hand in helping him with the upgrades to the planes, following his initial invitation for her to come and observe him.

"Until I heard your voice, I thought it was Kitty coming back down here again." Forge said as he conversed with Ororo, while he continued making adjustments to the cockpit's control panel from underneath it.

"She hasn't been bothering you, has she?" Ororo asked him.

"Of course not. She was curious as to the specifics of what I was doing, and she was just asking me some questions. Kitty is a very bright young lady, and it surprised me the way that she was able to easily grasp the complex concepts that I was throwing out at her, all in the couple of hours that she was here with me earlier." Forge replied, as he lay on the floor of the plane's interior beneath the panel, reaching for a screwdriver close by so that he could securely tighten a few bolts underneath, "I've never seen that level of technical know-how in someone her age and at the rate she's going, pretty soon you won't have a need for my services."

"I highly doubt that." Ororo responded, "But you are correct about Kitty, she most assuredly lives up to the fact that this is a school for the gifted and her thirst for knowledge is genuine. Speaking of thirst, that reminds me of the primary reason that I came down here, I've brought you something to eat."

"You didn't have to go through the trouble of that." Forge told her, as he now slid from underneath the instrument console.

"It was no trouble. Besides, you've been working down here the entire day, and I'm sure that you must be famished. Your mutant power allows to create virtually anything that you set your mind to, but I don't believe that it makes you immune to starvation or exhaustion. I had intended to come down here earlier, but we lost track of time during our meetings this afternoon." Ororo stated, as Forge could see that she had brought a large cloth shoulder bag that had a number of items in it, including some food that had been wrapped up in foil paper. She began to place all of it out on a fold out metal cot in the rear of the plane, which a tablecloth that she had brought made into a makeshift table.

Forge then looked at his watch and understood what Ororo was talking about, as he hadn't realized how late it was.

"I've been working so hard down here to try and get everything finished before you guys have to go out on another mission, that I hadn't noticed how late it had gotten." Forge said, as he stood up and walked to the back of the plane where Ororo had taken a seat on one of the benches. As he approached, Ororo saw that Forge was wearing a pair of dark gray work pants with a thick black belt looping through it, and had a red cloth headband tied around his forehead. But unlike the other days that she had come down to observe and help him, this day Forge had taken his shirt off while he was working. It was something that Ororo immediately took notice of, as she paid his very sculpted physique a bit of subtle admiration.

"It appears that the Blackbird is not the only thing that you have been hard at work on." Ororo wryly said to Forge, as she unwrapped the small meal that she had brought for him.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you were flirting with me." Forge laughed, as he sat down on the opposite side of the small table.

"Perhaps you could take it that way, or as the compliment that I had honestly intended it to be." Ororo replied.

"When you get to be my age, you'll take whatever kudos that you can get from a beautiful woman." Forge remarked, as he picked up a spoon from the table and began eating soup from a small bowl, which Ororo had poured from a thermos that she had brought for him.

"You speak as though you are an old man. You're only a few years older than myself, and I have quite a while before I am ready for retirement." Ororo said to him, as their age difference was less than ten years.

"I know. I just think I've more or less felt like that because when I first came here everyone, except for the Professor, was younger than me." Forge revealed, as he sat the bowl down, "When Charles first found me and asked me for my help, I was fresh out of the army and had just gotten home from fighting in the first Gulf War. He had just brought you, Scott, Warren, Hank and Jean here to this school, and all of you were still in your teens. I guess that made me feel a little too old to relate to any of you at the time, and I suppose I've never moved past that mindset."

"Well, as you can see, I've grown considerably from those days." Ororo sarcastically pointed out.

"Yeah, I can definitely see that." Forge said as he looked at her with an enormous grin, and then quickly looked down and picked up the sandwich that Ororo had made for him.

"Now who is flirting with who?" Ororo playfully asked him.

"Just paying you a compliment, is all." Forge smiled, reminding her of her own comment earlier.

"On my way down here, I was thinking about the fact that we have two supersonic jets at our disposal, but when the Professor gathered his first X-Men, we were sent on missions in just an ordinary helicopter." Ororo said, as she sat there conversing while Forge continued to partake of the meal she had brought him.

"You mean the infamous helicopter that I used to hear stories about, the one that either crashed or was destroyed on a fairly consistent basis?" Forge responded.

"The very same. Although in all fairness, those mishaps more often than not were assisted by Magneto." Ororo said, laughing a little.

After a few more minutes of light-hearted banter between the two of them, something suddenly occurred to Forge.

"I just remembered. I wanted to show you something when you came back down here." Forge said as he stood up, and motioned for Ororo to follow him to the front of the plane.

Once they were up there, Forge pointed to one section of the control console in the cockpit.

"I've finally finished the fuel delivery upgrades on both planes, the ones that we started working on the other day. This new display panel that I installed will give a much more accurate readout on the Blackbird's fuel consumption ratio. But, I wanted you to be the first one to see the upgraded radar and shielding control options that I've completed, before I show them to everyone else." Forge told her, as Ororo went and stood in front of him to look at the new console for herself.

As Forge continued explaining to Ororo all of the other new modifications that he had made to controls of the Blackbird, he did so with such an exuberance that showed how proud he was of his work and how dedicated he was to his vocation. Ororo was so captivated by the sense of pride emanating from Forge at that moment, that she at first didn't notice how close he was standing to her. Forge stood just a few inches directly behind her, as he described in great detail each new control and how it worked.

It was a physical closeness that Ororo didn't mind though, as she felt very comfortable being around Forge and was very much at ease with the intimate amount of space currently between the two of them. It had been quite some time since she had allowed herself to enjoy these kinds of feelings, and it was a luxury in which Ororo believed that she had denied herself for far too long.

-------------------------------------

Later that night as Forge and Ororo continued going over the new changes made to the Blackbird, all the while as things were perhaps starting to change between the two of them as well, a group of students one level above were making their return home from an evening spent out.

"That new diner in town that we went to after the movie was over, is definitely going to give Harry's Hideaway some competition." Jubilee stated, as she was the first to enter the student's recreation room in the mansion.

"I don't think Harry's has too much to be worried about, that place is almost like an institution in Salem Center." The young man named Doug Ramsey replied to his girlfriend, as the blonde teenager entered the room right beside her.

"No kiddin'. When Remy and me stopped there the other night, the guy at the counter asked if we were from around the local area. When Ah said we were from here at Xavier's, he started goin' on and on about how he had known the Professor for years, and about how students from this school had been goin' there almost as long." Rogue said, as she was the next to come into the room.

Following behind Rogue were Remy, Peter, and Kitty, as they were the last ones to enter the room. Even if the lone occupant already in the rec-room hadn't heard them talking about coming in from a night out on the town, it would still have been obvious to him as he sat on the sofa and observed that the entire group was dressed in casual, but very fashionable attire.

"So what'cha doing back here by yourself, Bobby?" Kitty asked him, as the whole group went in and took seats, either on the sofa or in various chairs around the room.

"The other kids in the main room were watching a cartoon channel marathon on TV. After a while, I decided to come back here to see what else was on." Bobby replied from the sofa, as Jubilee and Doug sat down on it next to him.

"You should have come to the movies with us. Perhaps you could have interpreted for the rest of us exactly what Doug and Katya were talking about, after we left the movie theatre." Peter teasingly commented, as he took a lone seat and sat down close to the sofa.

"It's alright, I think I would've been one guy too many." Bobby said, as he briefly glanced over at Rogue and Remy, who had both taken seats over at a circular wooden study table in the recreation room. But, they were too busy paying attention to each other right at that moment to notice Bobby's subtle comment.

"Don't feel bad Petey, sometimes I have a problem keeping up with Doug too. Guess that comes with the territory, when we're dating those super genius-types." Jubilee said with a laugh.

"Geez, all we were talking about were computers. Doug was just telling me about the non-Windows based operating system that he's been trying to design on his own. I was only asking him how he managed to circumvent the inevitable compatibility issues that other programmers run into, when they try to utilize an alternative operating environment." Kitty replied, as she now took another seat and sat down right next to Peter.

"Dat may be what you said Petite, but sometimes de rest of us need a dictionary t'know exactly what y'all be talkin' 'bout." Remy ribbed her, from the table where he was sitting over on the other side of the small room.

"In dat case, we could say de same t'ing 'bout you, Mon Ami." Kitty playfully replied in a voice that mimicked the bilingual Louisiana-native, who had recently relocated to the northern part of the United States.

"Point well taken, Mon Petite." Remy ceded, with a smile seemingly as wide as the distance between his current residence and his hometown of New Orleans.

"But, writing your own software is still pretty difficult stuff. Where'd you learn how to do it?" Rogue now asked Doug.

"I've always liked computers and things like that, ever since I was a little kid. I joke around with some of my friends at school that sometimes it feels like I can actually talk to my computer, but all they tell me is that I need to get out more." Doug gladly replied.

"They? That's what I keep tellin' you too." Jubilee happily added, "Sometimes when we're talking, I have to remind Doug that I don't have a keyboard or a mouse attached to me. Fact is, I'm having a good day if I'm able to download songs onto my MP3 player, without accidentally erasing something."

"I guess that makes me a pretty valuable guy for you to have around then?" Doug humorously inquired, as he took a look over at Jubilee sitting on the sofa to his left.

"That's one way of putting it, 'Smart Guy'." Jubilee answered him, as she leaned over and gave Doug a passionate kiss on the side of his face, instantly putting a smile on it.

"Speakin' of talkin', I heard you been talkin' 'bout how great a card player you are, Jubilee. Since we just sittin' here, you care t'put those skills up against me?" Remy said as he tossed out the unexpected challenge to Jubilee.

"Sure! Pick your poison, Five card-stud or Texas Hold 'Em?" Jubilee eagerly accepted.

"I didn't know you dabbled in anythin' dat potent, but I can go for some of dat Lone Star luck of de draw." Remy said, as he began to clear the schoolbooks off of the study table that he and Rogue were seated at. The books had most likely been left by one of the students, who had been utilizing the room either to do their homework or during a study session. As he proceeded to rearrange the chairs at the table, Remy looked over at Rogue and spoke, "You wanna us t'deal you in Chere?"

"No thanks, Ah'm not really much of a card player. But, Ah'll definitely watch, so Ah can see if you're as good as you keep claimin' to be." Rogue told him with a grin, her tone displaying to him that he still had some convincing to do on her part.

"In dat case, you gonna find out I'm better than you ever imagined. At cards, and at whole lotta other t'ings too." Remy confidently replied, as he turned his attention to the others in the room, "Who else's in?"

"I know how, but I'm not really that good at it." Kitty admitted, as she sat in her chair over by Peter.

"I have played before, but you will have to familiarize me with this Texas version of the game." Peter said, as he stood up to walk over to the table.

"Hey, Bobby's a pretty good player too." Jubilee revealed, as she had just gotten up and was walking over to the table.

"I'm not really up to it right now." Bobby politely declined, as he continued sitting on the sofa.

"Aw, come on. I used to beat the pants off of you and John all the time when I first got here. Only reason I stopped was because you got tired of losing, so here's your chance to win back some of that spare change I collected off of you." Jubilee boasted, as she turned back to look at Bobby.

"Okay." Bobby finally agreed, as he got up from the sofa to join the others at the table. Once over there, he sat down and began to quickly explain the rule variations with this version of poker to Peter.

"Do you think Professor Xavier is going to like the idea of you guys playing poker in here?" Doug asked Jubilee, as he went and stood behind her after she had sat down at the table.

"It's not that big of a deal. All we ever play for is nickels, dimes and the occasional quarter bet. Besides, he and the rest of the adults are probably still busy downstairs." Jubilee replied to Doug.

In spite of the fact that Jubilee had finally gotten comfortable with the idea of Doug openly knowing and accepting that she and the other students at Xavier's were mutants, she momentarily forgot that he didn't know the complete details of everything that they did at the school.

"What're they all doing downstairs?" Doug curiously asked since he wasn't a resident of the school, and this was the first that he had heard of anything being located underneath it. His query immediately drew the attention of absolutely everyone else in the recreation room, as the room fell completely silent.

"Um, Professor Xavier has this really nice, private study down in the basement. He and the other teachers like to go down there to relax, and they also use it for their faculty meetings so the rest of us students don't disturb them." Jubilee said, as she was able to think quickly on her feet and come up with a rather plausible explanation.

But, Jubilee didn't like the fact that she had to make up a cover story in the first place, and she really hated the idea of not telling Doug the truth. Deep down, she thought that she was doing the right thing, both to keep Doug out of any unnecessary danger and also in keeping the confidentiality of her fellow X-Men.

"It sounds like it must be pretty fabulous." Doug commented, as he put his hands on Jubilee's shoulders and gently massaged them.

"Yeah, it's unbelievable." Jubilee sighed, as she thought about what was really located about thirty-to-forty feet below them.

After the players were all seated at the table Remy, who always had a fresh deck of cards on his person, began to deal out two cards each to the other players.

"Alright, who's gonna be first t'ante up?" Remy asked, as he called for the first round of wagering.

"This girl'll start things off with a cool ten cents." Jubilee replied, as she laid out two nickels on the table.

Bobby, Remy and Peter matched Jubilee's bet, as they each put an equal amount out on the table. Then, Remy dealt three more community cards out on the table face up. Jubilee passed on the chance to make another wager and didn't lay down a bet in this round, as did the rest of the players. Remy then dealt a fourth card out on the table face up, and everyone looked at the cards on the table and at their hands, trying to determine what their chances of winning would be.

"Alright, I'll double your pleasure and raise you." Jubilee said to the group, as she now laid twenty cents on the table with a huge smile.

The other players were left to wonder if Jubilee was indeed building a winning hand, or was merely trying to bluff them by increasing her bet. But, Remy was not without the ability to convincingly posture on his own.

"Alright my 'Double-mint Dream', I'll see your raise. But, I wonder if a man can do anyt'ing wit' just a couple of cowboys?" Remy slyly replied, as he started playing mind-games of his own by referring to King cards by their slang name.

"If he knows what he's doing, he can." Bobby, who hadn't said much of anything to Remy since his arrival at the mansion more than a week ago, coolly remarked.

"Sounds like I'm dealin' wit' a real professional here. Sorry 'bout not recognizin' you from your many appearances playin' cards on de TV tournament circuit, so I guess I'd better get my poker face on then." Remy sarcastically replied.

"I thought you always had it on." Bobby smiled, as he looked down at his cards and made his response in an equally sarcastic tone.

Everyone in the room could instantly sense the tension that was starting to grow between Bobby and Remy as they, plus Peter, matched Jubilee's wager. Then Jubilee turned in her seat and looked back up at Doug, who was still standing right behind her. She showed Doug the hand that she currently had, and then they both started smiling.

"C'mon, don't t'ink you gonna shake Remy none by usin' your boyfriend t'try and bluff me, Jubilation." Remy said to Jubilee, pronouncing her first name with a heavy French accent. The only reason he did that was because he had recently learned how much it seemed to irk her.

"I don't need to use tricks. It's like you always say, it's all in the cards." Jubilee happily replied.

Since Rogue was seated next to Remy, she decided to get in on the act by leaning over to look at the hand that Remy was currently holding. After doing so, she raised one eyebrow and then sat back in her chair. Lastly, Kitty curiously got up from her chair and went over to where Peter was seated, so she could look at his cards. After viewing them, Kitty didn't say or do anything to give a hint as to whether Peter had a winning hand or not.

"I'm going to the kitchen to get a soda, anybody want anything?" Kitty asked Peter and the rest of the group.

"If you runnin' off before we finished dis set, it must mean de Big Man's hand be pretty bad then?" Remy remarked to her, after everyone had indicated that they didn't want anything from the kitchen at the moment.

"Yeah, of course that's what it must mean." Kitty played along, as she showed that she could be just as convincing of an actress as everyone else in there.

As she left the room to head for the nearby kitchen, Kitty could hear the fifth card being dealt out on the table. She could also hear the disappointed sighs from the other players, when Remy announced that he had beaten them all with three-of-a-kind.

------------------------------------

As Kitty stood in front of the refrigerator and debated on which beverage to choose, she heard the kitchen door that led to the area in the back of the school open up behind her.

"Hi, Logan." Kitty said, as she turned around to greet him and then turned back towards the refrigerator.

"Evenin', Short-stuff." Logan replied, as he came in and closed the door behind him.

"It's kinda funny seein' you here in the kitchen, and at such an early hour." Kitty jokingly remarked, as she referred to their last conversation. It was on the night before she left with Bobby and Professor Xavier for Washington D.C.

"Yeah, it's a flamin' riot." Logan said, as he walked over to the refrigerator where Kitty was and got out a beer.

Despite the fact that he was living at a school and with a house full of kids, Logan didn't worry about any of the kids touching his beer. He had made it well known to all of them that his super-sensitive sense of smell could detect the scent of alcohol on someone, even days after they had been drinking. While some of the kids had serious doubts as to the validity of his claim, none of them were insane enough to bother trying to test out his assertion just to see whether or not it was true. But, Logan's hyper-senses were also able to detect something else that was currently going on in the house.

"The Professor ain't gonna look too kindly on you kids gamblin' in there." Logan told Kitty, as he could hear the others through the wall playing in the adjacent room.

"We're just playing for fun. Besides, if Remy keeps winning and beating everyone for their nickels and dimes, games gonna be over soon anyways." Kitty replied.

"Because Gambit's a god-damn card cheat, for starters. But, maybe he'll teach you kids a lesson about betting." Logan said, as he took a sip from the bottle in his hand.

Logan continued to hold onto the belief that Remy had somehow used chicanery in order to beat him during their previous card game. This was all in spite the fact that he didn't really have any evidence to support such an allegation.

"But, you play cards and stuff with us." Kitty pointed out, as she finally decided on a soda and took a Sprite out of the refrigerator.

"Difference is I'm an adult, and when I play for money it's only with other adults." Logan replied, "More importantly, I'm prepared to lose. Unlike your boyfriend, and everyone else I hear in there whinin' because they're gettin' hustled. Anyways Short-stuff, let me ask you about somethin' before I forget."

"What's up?" Kitty asked him, as she opened the can in her hand.

"When you programmed this phone before you left, you set it up to go off when the hour changed. I wanted to see if you could turn that off." Logan revealed.

"Sure, that's simple. All you have to do is go under your general settings, and then go under the profile I created for you." Kitty explained, as Logan took the phone out of the front pocket of his jeans and followed her instructions.

"You named my profile, 'Wildman'?" Logan commented, as he looked up at her briefly and then back down at the phone in his hand.

"It must've been something I picked up from the card-cheat." Kitty playfully smiled, as she continued showing Logan how to make the changes to his phone. After a couple of minutes, they were done.

"There, you're all finished and ready to go." Kitty said, as she went over to look at the profile settings on the phone and verify that it was now correct.

"Thanks." Logan said to her.

"You know, you didn't have to wait for me to come back home to fix your phone. I'm sure Dr. McCoy would've been more than happy to help you." Kitty told him.

"Yeah, I know Kitty." Logan replied with a smile, as he looked at her for a brief moment and then left the kitchen.

-----------------------------

Meanwhile as Kitty and Logan were conversing in the kitchen, Remy was on a tear in the rec-room after he had won two straight hands, and was currently going for number three.

"Okay, let's see if anyone gonna put an end to dis lucky streak I'm on." Remy said, as he dealt two cards face down to Bobby, Jubilee, and Peter.

"I'm startin' to wonder if it's luck, or if Logan was on to somethin' about you running a con on us?" Jubilee playfully replied, as she looked down at her cards.

"Makes me wonder too." Bobby added, although his tone was far more serious.

"Now dat hurts." Remy responded, his smile brighter than ever, "Why would I cheat you when I'm havin' lots more fun beatin' you fair 'n square? 'Sides, y'all can't say dat I doctored these cards none, you watched me unwrap the pack right in front of you."

"Remy does have a point." Peter said in support, as he looked down at his cards.

"If we through wit' de allegations bein' tossed my way, then I'll start off dis round of bettin'." Remy stated, as he put fifty cents out on the table and then everyone matched his wager. Next, Remy dealt out three community-cards face up on the table and upped the ante by putting down a dollar as his wager this time.

"Looks like y'all 'bout t'help me pay for a round trip ticket, so I can go back home and visit de Bayou." Remy quipped.

"I fold for this hand. I believe that I have given my fair share in helping with your travel expenses." Peter said, as he didn't think that his hand was good enough to win, and he decided to cut his losses until the next hand was dealt.

"I think I'm going to join Peter and wait for the next hand too." Jubilee said, as she had an okay hand, but also doubted that it would be enough to guarantee a victory for her.

"Dat just leaves me and you. What do you say, M'sieur, call or fold?" Remy asked, as he smiled and looked Bobby directly in the eye, convinced that he now held a psychological edge in his favor over his opponents.

"Oh, you can believe I'm still in." Bobby replied, as he matched Remy's dollar bet.

"Well, let's see how good of a decision dat's gonna be for you." Remy said as he dealt out the fourth 'turn' card, face up on the table.

Both men studied the cards in their hands and on the table, then looked at one another dead in each other's eye.

"I tell ya, ain't nothin' like a sure t'ing." Remy said, as he doubled his wager once again and laid down a two-dollar bet.

"You can say that again." Bobby equally responded. He was determined to not back down this time, and once again matched Remy's ante. Then Remy dealt the fifth-card, also known as the 'river' card, face up on the table.

"De moment of truth is here, Mon Ami. Time t'see who de real men are." Remy declared, as he laid a five-dollar bet on the table, "Looks like I might be ridin' a boat home on dat river I just laid out.

Bobby knew that a 'boat' was slang for a full house, the third highest hand a person could hope to draw. He then looked at his cards and at the cards on the table, and realized that the best hand he would be able to put together would be three-of-a-kind, as he had two eights in his hand and there was a third one on the table. He figured only a crazy person would continue raising the stakes, unless they really did have a good hand.

"I fold." Bobby very reluctantly said, as he knew three-of-a-kind wouldn't beat a full house and decided to not match Remy's wager.

After Bobby had put his hand out on the table in plain view, Remy proceeded to do the same. Remy's opponents around the table were all shocked when they finally got to see the hand that he had been holding.

"I don't believe this, you bluffed us!" Jubilee loudly remarked, as she couldn't believe that she had allowed herself to be suckered in by Remy.

"Sorry Jubilation, but it looks like you be correct. Bobby hung in there so long dat I thought for a minute he had figured t'ings out, but he gave up instead. Me, I ain't got dat problem." Remy victoriously boasted.

"But, what if he had called your bluff?" Peter asked Remy.

"That's what makes the game interestin'." Remy cheerfully replied, "Now de only t'ing I want is Rogue's special congratulations for yours truly."

"What special congratulations?" Rogue asked him in a puzzled tone, as she was seated to his side.

"I distinctly remember you doubtin' my skills before we started playin'. I want to hear from your beautiful lips, who's de king?" Remy gladly reminded her, as he placed one finger against his chin and looked slightly upwards, in a sort of victory pose.

"Oh all right. You're the king, 'Sugah'." Rogue acquiesced, as she gently ran a gloved finger down the side of Remy's face.

Sugah.

There was that word again. The sight of Rogue saying it to Remy, as she affectionately stroked the side of his face, immediately sparked something in Bobby. Something that bothered him, but more than that, something that ached inside of him. Ever since Rogue had told him that she was fine with the way things were between them now, Bobby had himself pretty much convinced that he too felt the same way.

But, the truth now imparting itself onto Bobby was that a love that had run as long and as deep as it had for him and Rogue, doesn't just die out at a moments notice. It continues to linger and smolder under the surface for some time afterwards, like a fire that has just been put out.

"Go ahead and just deal me out." Bobby abruptly said, as he quickly stood up and turned to go towards the room's entrance, surprising everyone else in the room.

"What's going on?" Kitty asked, as she was just coming back into the room with her soda, when Bobby hurriedly went right past her into the hallway.

-------------------------------

After he had made his way through the kitchen and to the concrete patio deck at the rear of the school, Bobby felt like a complete idiot for reacting in the way that he did. If Rogue wanted to be with Remy now, then fine, he'd just have to find a way to deal with that. The only problem Bobby was having with that decision was it meant finally accepting the end of his and Rogue's relationship.

"Y'know, I didn't take you t'be de sore-loser type."

Bobby turned around from the railing he was leaning forward against, only to see Remy now standing out there on the deck with him.

"What?" Bobby asked, in a perturbed tone.

"De card game, I didn't t'ink you'd take losin' so hard." Remy clarified himself.

"It's got nothing to do with winning or losing at some card game." Bobby told him, as he turned back around and stared out at the huge estate lawn, enveloped in the nighttime darkness.

"Then does it have t'do wit' you losin' somethin', or someone, else?" Remy poignantly replied, as he took out a pack of cigarettes from his front pants pocket and proceeded to light one of them.

"This isn't the time for you and me to have this conversation." Bobby responded, hoping Remy would take the hint to drop the subject.

"Me t'inks dis is de perfect time for de two of us t'talk." Remy asserted, as he walked towards Bobby with his cigarette in hand.

"There's not much for us to say to each other." Bobby replied, still looking forward towards the lawn.

"I beg t'differ, my friend. We have some t'ings we need t'straighten out here and now." Remy said, as he was now standing next to Bobby on the patio deck, "I been gettin' de cold shoulder from you ever since I got here, no pun intended, and I'm pretty sure I know why. I heard from de others dat you and Rogue used to be a serious item together."

"Whether we were or not doesn't really matter anymore, now does it?" Bobby responded.

"If you really cared anything about her, it should." Remy stated, which managed to finally strike a nerve in Bobby.

"Look, you don't know a damn thing about me or about what went on between us, so you can keep your expert advice to yourself!" Bobby said somewhat loudly, as he finally turned to face Remy next to him.

"It's more like friendly advice. I could see how much it bothered Rogue de way you left outta there, and I ain't gonna let t'ings keep on like dat. One way or another, we gonna settle dis here tonight." Remy assertively replied.

"Then, let's settle it." A fairly riled-up Bobby told him, as he and Remy faced one another and now stood less than a foot apart from each other.

As they stood there antagonistically, it was all Bobby could do to keep his emotions in check.

"Bobby, just what the hell has gotten into you tonight!" Rogue yelled at him as she came through the kitchen door, announcing her presence to both of the individuals on the deck. The first thing she saw was what looked like Bobby and Remy about to fight, and that had her upset more than anything.

"I could ask you the same thing." Bobby fervently replied, as he took a few steps back from Remy.

"Ah'm not the one who just stormed outside like some two-year old, because he lost a card game." Rogue, who was still upset, told him.

"You really think that's what this is all about?" Bobby asked her.

"If it isn't, then please tell me what it is about." Rogue responded.

"If I have to tell you, then there's no point in me even bothering." Bobby sighed, as he quickly started a small ice-bridge underneath himself with his mutant powers. He then used it to slide up and over the railing of the deck and made his departure into the night, leaving Rogue and Remy behind on the patio.

-------------------------

"Jubilee, are you in here?"

This was the question being posed, as Rogue opened the door to the school's car garage. Minutes before, Rogue had come back inside to the student rec-room with Remy, following the discord outside on the patio. They were informed by Kitty and Peter, who had curled up together on the sofa and were now watching the TV, and each other, that Doug had decided to call it a night. They told her and Remy that Jubilee had gone to walk Doug to his car, which he had parked out in the garage earlier before they had all left to go into town in one of the school's Suburban vehicles together.

"Just us hopeful and aspiring actress's in here." Jubilee replied to Rogue's question.

"Is Doug gone already?" Rogue inquired, as she went in and saw Jubilee standing by the large garage door at the front of the building, which was still opened.

"Yeah, he wanted to get home before it got too late. So, we did our good-night smoochies and then he took off." Jubilee answered, as she turned around to face Rogue. She had been looking out of the garage door, and had watched as Doug drove down the road that led away from the school.

"We should do this triple-date thing again, Ah thought it was pretty fun. Hopefully next time, Bobby won't start actin' like such a butt and ruin it." Rogue said, as she sat down on a very familiar blue motorcycle in there.

"You can't really blame the guy. I mean, havin' to watch his ex and her new hunky beau fawn over each other." Jubilee told her, as she came over to where Rogue was and sat up on the hood of another nearby car.

"So? Why would he care what me and Remy do?" Rogue queried.

"Well, I think there's something you should know." Jubilee began.

"And that would be?" Rogue wanted to know.

"Bobby's still in love with you." Jubilee revealed.

"What're you talkin' about?" Rogue asked, totally confused by her roommate's revelation.

"I had promised I wouldn't say anything, but I figured you should know the reason why Bobby's actin' like such a butt." Jubilee responded.

"If he's still in love with me, then why'd he go and break up with me?' Rogue inquired.

"He was tryin' to deal with all of his family stuff on his own. As lame as I thought what he did to you was, in his own way, he thought he was protectin' you by not stressin' you out with any of it. In the end, he wound up goin' to see a professional therapist about it." Jubilee finally told her.

"Really." Rogue said in a voice that was very monotone, displaying little in the way of emotion. Then she got up from the motorcycle that she had been seated on, and started back towards the small side-door of the garage.

"Where're you off to?" Jubilee asked Rogue.

"There's somethin' Ah need to do. Ah'll see you a little later." Rogue replied, as she continued on out of the garage.

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Rogue navigated her way through the path trails that wound through the wooded areas around the estate, heading towards the boathouse out by the lake. The boathouse was Rogue's destination because she was fairly sure that Bobby would be out there. It was the place where he most liked to go when he wanted to be alone, and she knew that the time had come for them to have a serious talk. But halfway there, Rogue heard someone call out her name from out of the darkness near the pathway, which she was traveling along.

"I figured you'd be comin' out here sooner or later, Rogue darlin'." Logan said, as she could see him standing and leaning up against one of the large trees, with a half-smoked cigar in his hand, "And I'd say it's long past due."

"What's long past due?" Rogue inquired.

"You and Drake. I heard the three of you out on the patio from inside of the house. Not that I was eavesdroppin' or anything." Logan said, as he put his cigar back into his mouth and took a few puffs.

"Yeah, Ah know. Super-hearing and all of that." Rogue responded.

"I originally came out here to catch myself a smoke in peace, when I caught your scent approachin'. Before that I had been standin' out here, seriously debatin' on whether or not to go and have a few word with 'cold hands' myself. But, I figured it wasn't my place to say anything." Logan told her, as he looked over at the boathouse a short distance away.

"That never stopped you before." Rogue said with a laugh.

"Well, that was before." Logan responded, as he looked at her and held the lit cigar in his hand, "I meant what I said to you in Japan, you've earned the right to be treated like an adult and like an X-Man. You're a big girl, and you're more than capable of dealin' with the big-girl issues you got with the men in your life. Plus, I shouldn't be meddlin' in your business like that anyways."

"But, it's nice to know that you care enough to still think about doin' it." Rogue sincerely told him.

"At any rate, I'm gonna head back to the house so you know you'll have some privacy from my super-hearin'. 'Night, darlin'." Logan told her, as he turned and then started back through the woods towards the mansion.

Rogue then continued on along the trail towards the boathouse, and made it there in just a couple of minutes. With the way that the illumination from the half-moon was reflecting off of the lake's surface, Rogue could understand why Bobby liked to come out there, especially at night.

"Bobby?" Rogue said, as she walked along the outside of the boathouse and saw him standing in the railed-in section of the small wooden pier.

"So, did you come out here to yell at me some more?" Bobby asked her, as he stood with one foot up on the barricade railing and gazed out at the moonlit lake.

"Ah'm here to finally get the truth about what's goin' on with you, and with us." Rogue said, as she walked over to him, "Jubilee told me everything."

"She did, did she?" Bobby replied, as he turned to face her.

"Yeah, but Ah shouldn't have had to hear it from her in the first place." Rogue told him, "What, didn't you trust me enough to tell me about it?"

"You have enough stuff to deal with on your own, without having to hear your boyfriend complain about Mommy and Daddy not being able to handle he's a mutant." Bobby replied.

"C'mon Bobby, Ah was there with you in Boston after all. Ah saw they're reaction, it was almost the exact same way my parents acted when they found out Ah was a mutant." Rogue told him, "You seemed fine for a long while after everything that happened with them, but then Ah could start to tell somethin' was botherin' you. Ah didn't know what it was, and when Ah tried to force the issue and make you talk about it, that's when you said you wanted to break up. Do you think so little of me that you thought Ah couldn't handle bein' there to help support you through whatever you were goin' through? Ah'm a lot stronger than you give me credit for, and you thinkin' otherwise hurts me more than anything in the world."

"I know, and that's the last thing I ever wanted to do to you. All I wanted…" Bobby started, but then paused.

"All you wanted, is what?" Rogue queried him.

"All I wanted to do was the right thing, for you and for me. By the time I finally figured out what that was, I had already screwed things up between us by pushing you away and you had left with Logan." Bobby answered.

Then the two of them stood there together in complete and utter silence, as they both knew where their much-needed conversation was inevitably heading.

"So, where does that leave us now?" Bobby asked Rogue, as he ended the muted moment between them.

It was the question that he had been dreading learning the answer to ever since Rogue had returned home with Remy, and a truth that he had been somewhat reluctant to face. Rogue didn't answer him immediately though, almost as if she were afraid to say the actual words because she knew full well what it would do to them.

"Ah mean, Ah still really care about you. The reason Ah went to Japan with Logan was to try and forget about how much Ah was hurtin'. The last thing Ah ever expected was to meet someone over there. Ah didn't want things to change with us, Ah really didn't. But, Ah guess that's what ended up happenin' anyways." Rogue said, her response signaling the writing on the wall, as Bobby could see Rogue begin to cry.

"Are you saying that you don't feel the same way about me anymore?" Bobby continued questioning her, feeling that the time had come to get everything out into the open between them.

"You were the first guy Ah could ever really call my boyfriend and could honestly say Ah was truly in love with. Ah'll never forget that and Ah'll always be your teammate, and more importantly, your friend." Rogue told him, as her tears continued to roll down. Although she knew that she had felt this way for some time, hearing the words out loud had emotionally affected Rogue in a way that she hadn't been ready for.

"So, is that all we are now, just friends? Bobby managed to get out, as he started to shed partially-frozen tears down the front of his face as well.

Rogue kept trying to say the words to respond, but it was a struggle for her to force them out.

"Yeah…" Rogue said, as she finally managed to vocalize the lone word in a low whisper. She looked down and away from Bobby as she said it, wrapping her arms around herself in a sort of self-embrace.

When Rogue was at last able to look back up at Bobby, she could see that he had turned away from her and was staring back out at the lake. If the sight of him standing over the railing and crying wasn't bad enough, the sound of his frozen teardrops as they made small splashing sounds in the water below was almost unbearable for her. Rogue wanted more than anything to go to his side and comfort him, but she knew the best thing she could do right then was leave him be.

Despite her vision being blurred from crying the entire way, Rogue made it back to the mansion in what seemed like record time to her. Once there, she saw Remy sitting on the back patio in one of the chairs, occupying himself by playing a round of solitaire at one of the outdoor tables.

"There you are. You was gone so long dat I came lookin' for you. When I didn't see anyone out in de garage, I decide to come back here and wait. Not too long after dat, Logan came by and said you was takin' care of some unfinished business out at de boathouse." Remy told her, as Logan had told him to give Rogue some time alone out there, but didn't say much else about it.

"It's finished now." Rogue told him conclusively as she wiped her eyes again with her gloved hand, which were now red and puffy from crying.

"You been cryin'? Just tell me what Remy can do to help." Remy said, as he quickly hopped out of his chair and went over to comfort her, and had a good idea as to why she was so upset.

"Ah really appreciate the thought. But all Ah want to do right now is go upstairs and be alone for awhile." Rogue said, as she displayed a faint smile and ran her hand gently down the side of his face once again.

"Alright then. Bonsoir, Chere." Remy told her, as he hugged her tightly.

"Goodnight, Sugah." Rogue replied, as she looked up at him for a moment, and then turned away to head inside.

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Prologue-

At the secret underground installation where Project: Wideawake was based, the last twenty-four hours had seen a shocking turn of events for the project's director, Dr. Stephen Lang and for his staff.

"I demand to know where you are taking us!" Dr. Lang shouted, as two Sentinel robots were escorting him and his staff down a corridor in the immense underground research complex.

"You are being taken to Unit designate: Prime Sentinel." One of the Sentinels replied in an automated voice, as they continued on to the large room where the Mastermold unit was located.

Once inside of the enormous Sentinel assembly chamber, which measured about twenty thousand square feet and ten stories high just on its own, Lang and the others stood before the gargantuan, purple and yellow-hued Mastermold unit seated in there.

"I order you to cease and desist at once! What you are doing is in counteraction to your programming." Lang said to Mastermold.

"Negative. Unit is attempting to fulfill it's programming. Unit designate: Prime Directive One: The elimination of any and all mutant lifeforms. Prime Directive Two: The protection of humanity." Mastermold told him.

"You are also programmed to obey me, and I demand that you stop this insanity now! Lang shouted at it.

"Sentinel units can no longer take orders from designate: Stephen Lang, until all Prime Directives have been achieved." Mastermold replied, "Unit designate has determined the most effective means of achieving Prime Directives. Unit designate has now ordered subordinate Sentinel units to undertake the tasks necessary to attain Prime Directives."

"What do you intend on doing?" Lang asked, as he now realized how much the situation was spiraling out of his control.

"Unit designate has determined that complete order must be established for Sentinel units to accomplish their Prime Directives. Unit designate has ordered all Sentinel units to begin the process of bringing about global order." Mastermold revealed.

With that, Mastermold then ordered his Sentinels to take Lang and the other staff members to the holding cells on the floor level below them. If the Sentinels, which Lang and his staff had helped to create were now taking them prisoner, they could only hazard a guess as to what shocking course of action that the Sentinels were planning on taking next…

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Next Chapter: A Force is Unleashed!

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Bonus Story- Like A Nightmare Come To Life

Kitty felt like she had been waiting in there for days, although logically she knew it couldn't have been that long. Sitting in the control booth above the Danger Room in the school's sub-level had given her a lot of time to think, but she could barely even do that as she listened to the devastation taking place above her.

The Sentinels' attack on the school in the middle of the night had hit like a tornado, without any warning and without any mercy at all. She awoke to the sound of a loud explosion, and saw bright lights flashing outside of her window. When she got up and ran to the see what it was, that's when she saw them.

There must've been two or three-dozen Sentinels standing out there, all completely surrounding the school as they fired continuous energy-blasts at the mansion from the beam cannons in the palms of their hands. All Kitty had time to do was react when she saw an energy blast headed straight for the section of the school where her bedroom was.

Instinctively, Kitty phased through the floor of her room to the small study that stood below, and then phased again through almost thirty-feet of solid dirt until she made it to the sub-levels of the school. She had been constantly practicing her phasing abilities throughout various parts of the mansion. Kitty did it both so that she could build up her stamina in maintaining her intangible state for longer periods, and so she could make mental notes of where she wound up when going in such a direct manner from one place to another at the school. When she finally made it to the sub-levels of the school, she instantly recognized that she was in the corridor right outside of the Danger Room. She decided to go inside and wait for the others to make contact with her on her handheld communicator, which all of the X-Men were supposed to keep with them at all times.

Kitty sat and waited to hear orders from Cyclops or Storm on where to regroup so that they could mount a counter-offensive against the Sentinels, but those orders never came. Still, she held out hope that maybe the others were in another part of the mansion coming up with a strategy. After an excruciating amount of time had passed, and no one had made contact through the emergency communicators, Kitty speculated that maybe the others had simply gone on without her to fight those monsters.

Kitty then figured that she didn't have anything to be worried about. The mansion had all of those new defensive weapons that Forge had installed following Stryker's invasion, and besides that, these were the X-Men she was talking about. They trained for this kind of thing all of the time, doing so in the very Danger Room that stood right before her. All of the loud explosions and noises that she was hearing upstairs were probably the other X-Men taking those Sentinels' apart, and she was kicking herself for missing out on it. She knew that they could handle this, and so could she. Kitty then decided to go up top and see what aid she could lend to her friends and to her teammates.

The electricity in the mansion had been knocked out, but the emergency generators installed below the school were running properly. They guaranteed that the elevator still worked and could take her upstairs. Kitty stepped onto it and in less than a minute, she was back on the first floor of the mansion. Once the elevator door opened, she could see that the hallway in front of her looked like a complete wreck. There was debris blocking her exit into the interior of the school, but she simply phased through it and continued on. Kitty had just taken a few steps into the corridor, when she saw a sight that nearly broke her heart.

It looked like Rogue had tried to get Artie, Jones, Jaime, and Dani to the safety of the lower levels before she went out to fight with the other X-Men, but that the Sentinels had caved parts of the ceiling in on them before they could make it to the elevator, or to one of the hidden escape passages in the walls.

Kitty just stared as she saw all of them lying there in their night attire, completely motionless.

Kitty then went up to each of her friends to check and see if maybe they had just been knocked unconscious, but she quickly learned that the situation was far worse than that. But there wasn't time for her to dwell on it, as she picked Rogue's sword up from the floor close by, the one that Rogue had said was a gift to her from Gambit, and she continued on. Kitty thought to herself that she could mourn her friends' loss later, after she had went to go help the others.

After continuing on down the corridor, Kitty eventually made it to the foyer area at the front of the school. But where the front door used to be, there was now just a wide gaping hole in the edifice. Looking out Kitty saw that a thick fog had formed outside, which was most likely Storm's doing. She couldn't hear any sounds or movements outside, but something inside of her kept drawing her out there to investigate. Kitty felt a chill in the nighttime-air; as she was reminded that she only had on her usual cotton t-shirt and boxer shorts that she normally slept in. Once she had made out onto the front lawn, Kitty was immediately confronted with a scene that was far, far worse than what she had seen inside.

The X-Men, and even some of the younger students, had come outside to face off against the Sentinels that were attacking the school. Kitty could see quite a few Sentinels had been destroyed, maybe even half of their number, by the mansion's defenses and by its residents' combined efforts. But, she also saw that even though her friends had put up a good fight, it apparently still wasn't enough.

Kitty saw Cyclops and Wolverine on the ground first. Then she saw Nightcrawler, Iceman, Magma, Cannonball, and Storm laying close to each other, all of them scarred and burned from the Sentinels energy weapons. Next she saw Siryn, Jubilee, Sunspot, Warpath, Gambit and Beast lying at various places on the front lawn as well. It felt almost surreal to have to bear witness to such devastation and loss of life.

Then there was the unimaginable, as what she saw next sent a chill straight down Kitty's spine.

"OhmyGod, Peter!" Kitty frantically screamed, as she now saw Colossus counted among the fallen. She immediately ran over to him to and prayed that what she knew had happened to the young man that she loved, wasn't true.

But it was.

She knew that he still must've put up one hell of a fight, and all she could do was fall to her knees beside him with her eyes closed, wondering why any of this was happening. Then she heard a booming voice behind her, and she nervously turned around. Kitty couldn't see anyone through the thick fog that still lingered, but it was unmistakable as to who, or what was talking to her.

"Halt mutant…"

Kitty could then see the faint outline of a Sentinel approaching. She stood up and picked Rogue's sword up from the ground and held it in her hand, as she prepared to face the twenty-foot tall monstrosity walking towards her.

"Scanning target: target possesses mutagenic anamoly. Scanning database. Identification confirmed: target is Katherine Pryde, cross-referencing: target also identified as Shadowcat. Unit initiating termination sequence." The Sentinel said to her, as a half-dozen more of its number appeared right behind it.

Vastly outnumbered Kitty wanted to run, but at this point she wondered what good it would do? There was nowhere safe for her to go, not anymore. Even if she managed to escape, there was nowhere that she could go where the Sentinels wouldn't eventually find her. If this was the end, then she would face it by the side of the one person that had completely held her heart, Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin. As the blinding light of the energy blast from the Sentinels began to flow over her, Kitty now felt another sensation.

That of being in her bed, as she woke up from the horrible nightmare that she was having.

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Kitty had been having nightmares about the Sentinels just about every night, following her return home from Muir Island. All she could manage to do right at that moment was just lie there in her bed, now completely wide-awake. Since she knew she wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, Kitty got up and went out into the hallway. She then stopped in one specific spot and phased straight down to the first floor, ending up in the kitchen right in front of the refrigerator.

"Nothing like Rocky Road to make a bad night just a little bit better." Kitty thought to herself, as she phased her hand into the top of the refrigerator to retrieve the ice-cream container.

Then, she went and did the same thing again as she got a bowl and a spoon out of the kitchen cabinet and out of the drawer, without opening either of them. Kitty usually didn't use her powers in such a fashion, because she wanted to avoid hearing the Professor's lectures about 'unnecessary displays of her mutant abilities'. But, the other reason was because of the reactions that she sometimes received from some of her classmates. They knew how her powers worked, but it still seemed kind of weird to them to see her passing in and out of closets, doors, and cupboards like a ghost. So, she generally refrained from doing it unless there was no one else around, which was the case at the moment. Kitty then sat down at the kitchen table alone, with her middle of the night dessert. But her solitude was interrupted a short time later, when the kitchen door opened and another presence entered.

"Workin' the late-shift, 'Short-stuff'." Logan said to her, as he walked through the kitchen door dressed in blue jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt, turning to go over to the refrigerator.

"Just waiting for you to clock in and take over for me." Kitty whimsically replied from the kitchen table, as she sat her spoon back down into the half-eaten bowl of ice cream in front of her.

"I know I'm gonna regret askin' this question, because I regret it every time I find one of you kids down here and ask it, but you havin' trouble sleepin'?" Logan asked her, as he got a beer out of the refrigerator and twisted the cap off.

"What, was Logan some kind of mind-reader, or just a really good guesser?" Kitty thought to herself.

"In that case, I'll spare you the witty comeback about what's keeping me awake at night, and just say yes." Kitty said to him as she looked at Logan, who by now had come over and sat down at the table with her. She hoped her fairly direct response would be enough to get him to drop the subject.

"I ain't a licensed shrink or anything, but you wanna talk about it?" Logan asked her.

"Only if you want to talk about what seems to keep you up, roaming the mansion every single night. We can even play the insomniac version of 'Show me yours, and I'll show you mine'." Kitty sarcastically remarked.

Kitty knew that Logan didn't want to talk about whatever it was that kept him up at night, and she felt kind of bad about bringing it up since he did seem genuinely concerned about her. She had heard rumors that his sleeplessness most likely had something to do with what Stryker did to him, when he was experimented on and given his adamantium skeleton and claws. But, the absolute last thing that Kitty wanted to do right then was talk about her nightmare.

"Well, is there any other subject that you'd like to discuss?" Logan offered, as he continued drinking his beer.

"You sure are talkative tonight. What's up with the 'Chatty-Cathy' routine?" Kitty inquired of him with a big, curious grin.

"Passin' fancy, I suppose." Logan replied, as he took another sip from the bottle in his hand.

With his fancy now passed, Logan and Kitty sat there in silence for a few minutes, which was only disrupted by occasional sounds from the television in the rec-room, most likely Jones in there watching it during his nightly vigil. After most of Logan's beer was gone and her ice cream finished, Kitty noticed something in Logan's hand.

"What'cha got there?" Kitty asked, as Logan had pulled an object out of his front shirt-pocket.

"It's one of those new videophones, but I haven't quite figured out how to use it yet." Logan replied, as he held the open phone in his hand and the small screen lit up in front of him.

"Want me to take a look?" Kitty offered, as she stood up dressed in her gray cotton t-shirt and dark blue boxer shorts.

"Be my guest," Logan consented, as he had become more than a little frustrated by the device over the last few days, "Maybe that big brain of yours'll figure out where I'm goin' wrong."

"I doubt it's anything major." Kitty smiled, as she took hold of the phone and began to quickly punch the small buttons on it while she stood next to him. After a few minutes, Kitty had finished entering commands into the phone.

"All done. You're ready now." Kitty said, as she handed the phone back to Logan and proceeded to give him a crash course in how to use it.

"First, you have to flip the top half of the phone around like this." Kitty began, as she stood behind Logan, leaning against his shoulder as she pointed to the phone in his hand, "Then, you have to select the record message option here from the main menu. This little marker up at the top of the screen will tell you how much recording time you have left. I set it for a max of seven minutes, that way you have the best balance between message length and picture quality. When you're ready, make sure that the little camera on the part of the phone that's flipped around is centered on you. You can make sure that it is, by doing a quick preview with this option. Now, all you have to do is press this other little button to start recording, and then press it again to stop."

"I think I got it now." Logan said to her, as he now had a better grasp on how to use the device.

"Oh yeah, once you get ready to upload and send your video message, you'll probably get better reception downstairs in the War Room. There's a special multi-purpose antenna that we have hooked up, just for all of the multi-media equipment that we keep down there. I figured out that for some reason it boosts the signal strength of anything being used down there, including cell phones." Kitty divulged, as she remembered the discovery that she had come across by happenchance.

"I'll keep that in mind." Logan responded, as he looked up at her.

"Anyways, I'm going back to bed, to at least try to get some sleep before I have to get up in the morning. Professor Xavier, Bobby and me are supposed to be heading off to Washington D.C. pretty early." Kitty said, as she took her bowl over to the sink and then prepared to leave the kitchen.

"I got a busy day tomorrow myself. But, thanks for helpin' me with this, Kitty." Logan said, as he expressed his appreciation for her assistance. As she was about to depart, Kitty took notice of something.

"I'm amazed, you actually remembered my name! What will I ever do?" Kitty playfully said to him, referring to Logan's habit of always calling her by his nickname for her.

"Goodnight, Short-stuff." Logan said to her, as he continued looking down at the phone in his hand.

"G' night." Kitty giggled, as she used her mutant ability to levitate herself and phased through the ceiling of the kitchen. She then emerged in the hallway on the second floor of the mansion.

Kitty made her way back to her bedroom and immediately sat down on the edge of her bed. She looked around the room, at the bags on the floor that she had packed for her trip and at her eyeglasses on her dresser, which Dr. McCoy had recently recommended that she get and which she unequivocally hated. Then, Kitty finally got back into her bed and laid there staring up at the ceiling.

"Maybe Jones has the right idea about this whole sleep thing?" Kitty thought to herself, as it took a while before she was able to force herself back to sleep and grab just a few hours of uninterrupted slumber…

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A/N: Special thanks to everyone that reviewed the last chapter.

The Toaster- I definitely don't envy your family gatherings in that case. I'm also glad you like the cameo appearances, because there are definitely going to be some more coming up, which I think you'll like.

Episodic- Now if you knew what was going to happen, that would ruin the surprises that I had in store. Hope you enjoyed Wanda's appearance, because it's definitely not her last. And, you can be sure that Hellfire Club is absolutely up to something too.

MoonlightPhoenix3- Glad you liked everything! As far as Kurt, I think his early writers wrote him as a swashbuckling sort of character modeled after Errol Flynn, and he even professed to being an avid fan of his films.

(star)B- Glad you liked the ending, and I'm really happy that you caught onto the vague Spiderman and His Amazing Friends connection. They were supposed to be dating, although I think it was portrayed as a casual relationship. But, here who knows. Maybe things will heat up quite a bit between them, and melt a little ice before all is said and done.

ishandahalf- Glad you liked another look at the Massachusetts Academy, and with everything they have going on behind the scenes. All though this chapter counts as sort of a date between Remy and Rogue, I actually have another solo one planned for them down the road that I think you'll really like, so keep a look out.

TheDreamerLady- Glad everyone loved the chapter, and that we got the whole e-mail thing straightened out. Even though Emma/Bobby doesn't seem very likely to ever happen here, I hope you enjoy the other romantic links that I have in store for both of them.

Independent Fire- Glad you liked the last chapter with Lance. Who knows what kind of complications, if any, he might cause for Kitty and Peter. As far as Rahne, as you can see I think she might've found a new mentor-type individual to help her to begin to re-evaluate her outlook on life, which she was taught to her by Reverend Craig.

Moon Comix- Glad you liked the incorporation of some canon stuff in regards to the characters. And yeah, some stuff is taken from X-Men Evolution, with Lance, Multiple Kid and the X-Van as my main nods. That's also where Lance and Kitty knew each other, but Rahne and Tabitha were original characters, going all the way back to the old New Mutants and X-Factor comics.

randommarvelfan- Glad you like this story and the way everything is sort of mixed together. I'm also really impressed and grateful that you read AFTBRW all in one day, and I hope this keeps you just as interested.

Lucas'sgirl- Glad you liked Pyro having some depth and complexity brought out about him, and yeah, I miss him too. As far as Bobby, things between him and Rogue are going through a transition at the moment, but like you said, I'm sure he's going to be able to work out something new with a certain red head. With Kitty, next chapter you're going to see her finally forced to confront the problems that she's been keeping inside.

Digital Tempest- I was having some of the same problems logging on during the holidays too. Glad you liked what you read, and just the fact that you took the time to say you enjoyed it is very much appreciated.

Laura the strange- Glad you liked it, and I hope you continue to enjoy.