Disclaimer: Don't own the X-Men. Do own both Blaze and Raven.
09
Gambit grunted as the breath was knocked from his ribcage, forced to bend double by the weight of so many tiny mutants on his back kicking and screaming at him. More pinned his arms and hung onto his legs, biting and clawing at him. They were trying to bring him down through weight of numbers. He knew Logan was suffering the same, though his eyes were clenched shut against vicious poking fingers and carefully aimed spittle from the many attackers.
Clones, Rogue realised as the X-Men found themselves overrun. Splice's mutation was the ability to replicate herself exactly, and of course the replicates had the same ability. Splice didn't need help to defeat the X-Men, she had an army that thought and fought exactly as she did. Clones poured forth from the three railway arches whilst more launched themselves on the X-Men from above off the bridge itself, or charged down the gully's steep banks from the scrub to either side.
Gambit hunted in a pocket for a playing card, but even as he charged it he was pushed to his knees in the dirt. Vaguely he was aware of Rogue and Blaze fighting to stay upright amidst a swelling tide of grossly misshapen bodies. Card charged, somehow he managed to convince one of the not-so-bright clones to bite down on it and then flung himself face down on the floor. The explosion wasn't huge as he didn't want to injure himself, but it did blow enough of them away to let him roll out from under the pile of Splices and go to the woman he thought was his wife.
Whilst Gambit started heaving Splices away from Rogue-as-Blaze, Wolverine let out an almighty roar. His temper snapped and somehow Logan managed to wrench a Splice off of himself, swing her round as a weapon like a squawking mace to bash more of her fellows away. The minute his arms were free his infamous claws shot out, cutting through flesh and sinew. There were screams from the Splices as bodies flew, Logan fighting his way back to his teammates. Between them they set about creating an island in the sea of Splices.
Back to back they tried to keep their enemies at bay behind Gambit's rainbows of explosions. Wolverine's glittering claws were arching so fast through the air that they blurred. Blaze and Rogue, despite being in the wrong bodies kept their emotions well bottled as they professionally kicked, blocked and punched. But the X-Men were horrendously outnumbered and it would only be a matter of time before a single tired mistake let the horde of Splices tear them limb from limb.
"Blaze, you gotta toast us a way outta here!" Wolverine demanded between snatched breaths and powerful swipes of his claws. "There's too many of 'em!"
Bile rose in Rogue's stomach as Logan's order broke her out of her battle single-mindedness. Use Blaze's powers? Presumably she had them if she was no longer cursed with her own, though it hadn't occurred to her at all. Time had been that Blaze herself had not been able to control her mutation. Rogue was now forced to wonder how as a stranger to this flesh she had not been overwhelmed by the firepower. It could only be due to one thing, for not even Genie's tampering could have done this. Blaze was the Guardians of Fire, had undergone a mystical event along with six other X-Men the like of which Rogue had never witnessed elsewhere. Could this transfer of power have given Blaze control so that now Rogue couldn't even begin to summon the vaguest spark that dwelt in this body?
"Blaze c'mon!" Wolverine was insistent. Gambit gave up trying to blow apart a tide of bodies that had learned to move out of the way of a card like a shoal of fish evading a shark. Instead the Cajun pulled out his staff and set about trying to drive the Splices back that way.
"I can't! I'm sorry!" Rogue panted through Blaze's lips as twelve Splices grabbed hold of the opposite end of Gambit's sweeping silver staff.
"What d'you mean, you can't?" Logan bellowed over the cackling laughter as Gambit surrendered his precious staff rather than be dragged under the now thousands of gathered Splices. "You wanna leave your kid an orphan for the second time in her life?"
"Laura you know you can!" Gambit was insistent, not comprehending why Blaze was being so negative. It had been a long time since he'd heard her deny her abilities like that. "We don't got no choice Cherie!"
"You don't understand…" Rogue pleaded, turning Blaze's kitten eyes on Remy desperately. But even if she'd known how to explain it to him she didn't get the chance.
"For cryin' out loud!" Blaze-as-Rogue snapped, tearing off a glove and viciously grabbed the other woman by the jaw. Bare skin touched bare skin and suddenly Rogue was the victim of her own power, knowing what it was that made so many mutants terrified of her. She felt herself sucked dry, the capillary action of Blaze-as-Rogue's touch draining her energy, her memories and her stolen powers. All over Rogue-as-Blaze's soft skin swollen veins showed the flow of power as Laura just hung on.
For one instant the two women looked into their own eyes and the wrongness crackled like static on the air. Time seemed to stand still when one touch could mean so much more than love or trust. When one touch was the symbol of a purer emotion, combining anger, betrayal, jealousy and even hate. Neither woman could have said which one of them the emotions had reared up in, but like all the things of old that had made them friends; this raw grievance was now common to them both.
Broken and gasping for air after all hope was drawn out of her like infection from a wound, Rogue-as-Blaze crashed to her knees. Gambit cried out in French and went to her. Blaze-as-Rogue flung away the other glove vehemently. Logan's eyes widened as he watched the supposed Southern belle shimmer and become a spectre cast of fire.
Blaze didn't think twice about it. She didn't have to, her body or not her powers fitted like a piece of a jigsaw. Her power was a ribbon of warm passion, an aura of orange and red that danced behind her eyes. The fire blasts she threw made the air warp to a finely woven heat haze. With a dragon-like roar the inferno escaped her, destroying her enemies and leaving nothing standing of the hoards that had threatened to destroy them.