Group Fic
Chapter 8 by Te (aka Wahinetoa)
The difference between a Lion and a lamb? One bite.
Logan floated on the dregs of the unconscious world, fighting the squall of what he knew awaited him.
Primal survival instincts pulled at him with equal fervor, and with a decisive push, his mind rallied. Propelled him out into awareness until the searing pain of his physical condition, kicked his eyes open. A growl of pain caught in his throat, pushed back down till he felt bile replace it.
He rolled to his side, body curling inward on the cold hard floor.
When the pain subsided, he remembered what brought him here in the first place.
flashback
Remy and Rogues engagement had cut him to the quick. Left him angry, confused and wanting. When he had the chance, he pulled the defiant southern belle to the side.
He'd demanded why she was doing this. She was supposed to break up with Lebeau, not get engaged. He should have realized that something was off, when she wouldn't meet his eyes. Should've known when she vehemently denied she ever loved anyone else but Remy, insisted that they had indulged in a panicked fling.
It was over. It was done.
Logan knew the first time he held her - that what he and Anna had was far more deeper than a fling, a casual anything. Damned if he knew what changed now.
Humiliation and hurt collided, and he had left in a fury to drown out the inner voices, the ones that told him she loved him. Something was wrong. Well, yeh. She was marrying somebody else!
His instincts hurled him into a brutal pall, and he intended to dish some punishment on whoever had the misfortune to cross his path. As it had turned out, not more than a few miles down the road, misfortune found him.
In the mood he was in, he'd have left the shelia and her broken down car at the side of the road. But a round posterior leaned over the bonnet of the car, calling to a richer hunger. What better way to take some of his pride back, than this?
By the time he slid from Scotts Harley and strode over to the woman, all his senses were picking up something off - it was too late. She put the whammy on him, somethin' good. From then on, bits and pieces of his predicament floated through the haze that surrounded him. His nostrils flared at a familiar scent. One that he knew, but didn't know. Rogue?
And another that was ranker, darker but it was the only thing he knew for sure.
MYSTIQUE!
"Your timing is impeccable, darling."
"And yours is biting," the other replied coolly. "Anna is in the car, unconscious. Awaiting her new memories of this horrid night, and a few of our good friend here getting laid with Ororo. Should help with the determination in her steel to marry the only man Weather witch ever loved... and lost."
"How terribly sad." her sympathy laughable. "You need to take his form, first. Return to the mansion and seduce Forges' cast off. Get me that Ruby of hers - it's the only thing that will amplify my powers long enough, to keep this charade going without telepathic detection. Then as soon as possible, switch it with this one."
Logan struggled to keep awake but he was sliding in and out, whatever whammy this bch had on him, she held the reins in tight. After what seemed like forever, the only thing he caught after, was Mystiques scent as she transformed.
"Agreed then. You'll have your daughter back. I'll get my man. And poor Ororo will suffer the consequences of reclaiming the ruby -- that will turn out to be an explosive device. It will be seen as a tragic suicide bombing. For love. For betrayal." she dismisses her false concern with a bitter chuckle. "Best thing about it, is that the press will see her as another Eastern malcontent, from Cairo. Her memory, eveything she ever accomplished with that holy-than-thou attitude will be ruined! How utterly delicious!"
Her demeanor suddenly sobers. "But first things first, Mystique. Where's the collar for our new doggy?"
The next thing Logan felt was a sharp continued stabbing of pain, from his spine down to his toes, filling his brain with nothing but agony. When he next found himself able to hear, it was only the sound of the humming machine that kept his new cell, fully secure.
end flashback.
He shook himself from the memory, re-acquainting himself with at least one harrowing constant.
Dawn encroached on unfamiliar surroundings for another week. A generic reinforced concrete cell, with an obvious modified security for his benefit.
The Shi'ar slave collar clamped tightly around his neck, kept him momentarily under the thumb of his prisonguards - of which there were only two. Given his reputation, it was a bawdy move. But the mistress of this charade was a strong telepath, possibly on the level that Jeanie was. She kept him just enough off keel, to assure his co-operation.
Aware of the fact, she couldn't enter his mind, for he and Rogue both were immune to that kind of mind invasion - she compensated by manipulating his environment, the scents and smells around him. An inky nothingness that was like solitary confinement for a man born to be wild and free. He finally understood something of what Ororo suffered with chlostrobia.
If not for his extensive martial arts training - he would have succumbed to the torment his captor chose to inflict. Not all was at a loss though, he garnered in secret, tiny bits of information of her that slipped under her radar. His dossier of her was building up, fleshing out the figure that refused to be revealed.
The hissing strain of the metallic door sliding back, shot through him. He wasn't alone anymore.
"Good. You're alive." The voice disturbingly familiar, but in a strange distorted way that made his senses ache. Rip. "Thought I might have to have you exhumed."
His muscles jumped at her characteristic mirth, flipping a single finger behind his back. He sensed rather than saw, her predatory smile widen.
"Mm. Such a temper, wee man. Comes from being so --" he recognizes her stellito clicking approach. Feels her hand brush his hair from his face and tries not to wince. Not a damn thing he could do to stop her. "-- hard."
Her sexual undertone left him sick to his gut. More than that, it was a testament she wasn't afraid of him. Didn't need to be, he was weak as a kitten and she bloody knew it.
"Sooner or later, babe," he strangled out, as she blithely rearranged his environment, causing a violent struggle within him for equilibrium. "You'll come ta regret it."
Even in his condition, such a threat wasn't taken likely. Her voice peels from darkness, his eyes closed against what he's seeing, hearing, touching.. and heaven help him, it sounds like rogue.
"Such a shame," she tsks, her fingers catching on the pale gold band around the dog tag chain about his neck, under the collar. "What love and marriage will do to a man."
There's a bitterness in her voice, that resounds inside - tempting recognition. He's so close --
"Your secret marriage is most fortuitous, however. For how better to control one of the strongest xmen, than to have the one she loves most of all, as a particular bargaining chip?" she continues, unabated by his growl. "How ironic, is it not? That after the confusion of the explosion, Storms exaggerated death swoon, her powers managed to combine with Kurts and place the very heart of my deadly ruby shard right in her heart!"
At the mention of Rogues name, the threat that awaited her, he finds the strength to move. As if he could defend her, and those he loved, from where he was.
Abruptly, his muscles scream in agony, body arching as the collar reminded him of his place here. It takes him a few minutes to resurrect himself from the sudden death she's inflicted, but, - oh yes - Marie gives him strength to fight. To win.
"Don't like it when I mention Anna. Or is it Marie, now?" She stands, quietly amused. "Don't like to hear that she's so frightened for you, for the xmen and for poor, poor orphan Ororo and her man-whore, LeBeau - that she'll cut out her own heart to secure their safety."
"Foolish child," a whisper of a cape touches his face, the threat increasing, before she leaves. "It is not her heart, than I am after."
The hiss of the door closes, leaving him to vomit the remains of his last meal over the floor.
He needed to be patient. Hope that someone at the mansion would discover both deceptions. An impostor in his form. And a telepath who is more than using Rogue as a puppet - but also as a time bomb.
Now as then, a loneliness crept in, his hand gingerly closing around the gold band, as if it would save him and his bride both. An even greater heaviness settled in his shoulders, his mind. heaving his body up, he filled his mind with the thought of Anna.
"hang on, darlin'. Hang on."
In another room, far from the one Logan was housed, the mistress' pretty manicured fingernails scrapped, wretchedly, down the stainless steel hallways to a smaller, darker cell. She punched a few digits on a security panel, and awaited while the doors slid open, then closed behind her.
In the far corner lay a close to death, Jean Grey Summers. The hooded figure, grabbed a handful of red hair in one hand, cruelly tugging Jean up from the ground. Nary a move was made from the Phoenix, much to her bitter disappointment. She would have so loved to have expressed her delight at having another guest to play with. Jean was such fun to play with too.
No matter.
Delight would come soon enough.
She spied the most offensive bane to her existence, clasped like a sheild on the Phoenixs' hand, and felt her anger build. Wrenching off the wedding band, she stared at it, as if it were a sniper ready to attack. Then her eyes softened.
"Jean with love, Scott."
How terminally sweet. Bile rose in her throat, clenched her belly into a knot. She'd make the Phoenix cow pay.
Mistress of all, she tapped the cool ruby between her breasts and allowed the power to smooth the wrinkles in the metal out. Replacing them with a new design. A new foreboding.
Perhaps love, and in turn marriage, has its strengths after all. Not the way she had believed it to be - still believed it to be, if her new xmen lovelorn toys were to go by.
Scott and Jean. Remy and Ororo. Logan and Anna.
Mystique and Anna. It didn't seem to matter that Mystique didn't know about Rogues unplanned heart condition, or the dire consequences should her heart stop or be stopped. Not even Anna knew of her predicament. With the two rebounding thieves on their way back.. and Anna blamed for the entire fiasco.. what was the chance that Anna lived long enough to find out?
A cruel smile graced her lips, before she licked them with a pleasuring mewl.
Placing the stolen ring on her own finger, she sauntered out, pleased despite the evenings slow progress. Let them both fight, it would only make it more enjoyable for her.
She tapped the ruby again, feeling the gratifying sensation as magik ran through her, warming her blood, adding to her telepathy with leaps and bounds. Her head falls back, relishing. She tapped it again. And again.
"How endearing." The mistress regarded her own reflection, imagining those she moved like puppets in the cold metal with her. "Love can move so willingly, the act of betrayal."
"In: like a Lion. Out: Like a lamb."
Red lips parted in a bitter maw, and tasted first blood.
