Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth and is used with permission. Blaze, Shockwave and Iona belong to Lamby and should not be used without my permission.
Scene 11Meanwhile, in a typically hot and steamy club, surrounded by typically hot and steamy clubbers, entranced by the throbbing music and the sparkling lights, Blaze fought her way back to where her drink was being guarded by Gambit. He sprawled unruffled and chilled on a leather sofa, feet on the low table, and watching everything with those unique eyes. Blaze smiled as she sat down daintily besides her old friend, swinging her tired feet round and planting them on the table too. Gambit dove hastily for his beer bottle before she knocked it over, more to wind her up than through any real danger of spillage. Blaze didn't let it bother her, taking her lemonade and saluting him with it.
"Cheers." She gasped, parched from dancing, but eyes enchanted and smile relaxed. She downed the lemonade in a few short gulps, leaving lipstick on the glass. Gambit returned the salute with his beer, before slurping from the bottle, equally relaxed as she was. Sighing and leaning back into the folds of the chair in this quieter corner of the club, Blaze watched the dancers as she spoke, humour in her voice. "Can you believe Shockwave? Did she actually think we'd take a fifteen-year-old out with us?"
"An' how old were you when I met you? Weren't we in the same bar all night?" Gambit pointed out, smiling.
"I was sixteen." Blaze answered mock-defensively. "And besides, that was totally different, and it's the legal drinking age in France…"
"I'se not even remember what it like to be that young no more, Petite." Gambit stretched as he spoke, extending his arms along the back of the sofa casually. The fingers of his left hand brushed Blaze's curls noncommittally, his eyes too watching the comings and goings of the dance floor.
"What, that bad you blocked it out?" Blaze only half-teased, knowing his earlier years, before he'd met her at eighteen, were one of very few tetchy subjects with the Cajun. But Gambit didn't take offence.
"Maybe, if I could remember I'd do better at tellin' you…" He grinned, and then unsurprisingly changed the subject, glancing over at his friend as he did. "So how the music?"
"Danceable." Blaze shrugged, not sure if she'd invented that word or not. "You interested?"
"No way I'se drunk enough yet," Remy smiled as Blaze glanced at him, their eyes locking. "But maybe later Cherie."
"Sounds like you've got tonight sussed, Rem." Blaze replied, leaning forward and away from his hand by her neck. Her feet back on the floor, she propped her chin in her palm, elbow on her knee. "Just no throwing up on the ride home, or I will leave you behind." Her chestnut eyes drifted back to the dance floor, and Gambit knew he was keeping her from her favourite pastime…
"Jus' go dance already little one." He more-or-less ordered, putting the empty beer bottle with its friends on the table. He didn't mask his disappointment as she did exactly that, getting up and leaving without so much as a backwards glance in his direction. Still, he definitely approved of the skirt…
He was still watching Blaze when the guy cut across her path, stopping dead in front of her. Gambit folded his arms, eyes narrowing; the usual touch of annoyance a familiar feeling when a guy hit on Blaze. But when the man didn't say anything, and Blaze tried to step round him, Gambit was not so much relieved as suddenly worried. Still silent, the man strode again into Blaze's path. Gambit could easily imagine Blaze's irritation as she tried to push past the dark, curly-haired and steely-eyed young man. She nearly made it, before a snap reaction from the guy grabbed her trailing arm.
Gambit was on his feet in an instant, striding over the table to back his friend up. Blaze turned to face the man, eyes fiery and hard, expression angry as she threw his hand off her skin. The man smiled, a cold, unpleasant smile as his fingers closed around Blaze's throat, pulling the small woman towards him, whispering heavily in her face. For a second Gambit thought that she'd just fry the loser. And it seemed so did Blaze. But whatever the guy said to her, it made the colour drain from her face, her muscles go limp, her eyes glazing over with worry. She gasped as he squeezed her throat harder, before forcefully lifting her from the floor and launching her at the wall.
Blaze hit the plaster hard, slumping to the floor, and Gambit was torn between chasing after the guy who'd hurt his friend and going to Blaze's side. The man had already started moving away through the crowds, a fistfight breaking out behind him almost as if he'd started it to block Gambit's path. But Remy had gone to Blaze, was dropping to one knee by her side and brushing a stray curl back from her face.
"You okay Petite?" He asked, depth of his worry clear in his voice.
"You don't know who that was, do you?" She asked, pushing his concern and his hand away, trying to get up. Gambit stood and offered her a hand, which she accepted to be pulled to her feet. But then she proceeded to ignore her friend, fighting her way through the crowd to try and spot her attacker again.
"Who was it? What he say to you? Blaze?" Gambit put a hand to her shoulder, making her stop and swing back around to face him.
"You know who he is, you just didn't recognise him. He knew who I was, knew I was an X-Man. I guess he just hadn't spotted you…"
"I don't get it, Laura…"
"He's one of Apocalypse's bodyguard, the Four Horsemen. He told me that Apocalypse was watching us, the X-Men. He told me to warn Xavier that it is nearly time, and the X-Men will soon fall…"
Gambit just looked at Blaze, watched the frantic intensity behind her beautiful eyes and realised how close Blaze had come to unleashing her powers. In this crowded room, the Horseman had known she couldn't fight back or she would kill innocent people. And he'd known that Blaze would take the message seriously, took her job with the X-Men seriously. The perfect little messenger, with ties to Apocalypse's Horsemen beyond just fighting them occasionally… And so Remy's thoughts came back to a question he did not know the answer to. Did Blaze still have feelings for Apocalypse's former slave Archangel? And would her need for vengeance on Apocalypse, for the man who'd lost his mind under Apocalypse's command, put her or the X-Men in danger if and when Apocalypse finally made his move?
"What are you looking at me like that for?" Blaze sounded a little more like her old self now, and Gambit was forced to shake free his dark thoughts to answer her evenly.
"I jus' don't like the sound of dis much, Chere. Lets go, we need to tell the Professor…"
